Eagle People Read Free

asked, return quickly to your People. I'll wait for you there.”
    “Sally, this is not good if they have guns. Where would guns come from? How would they make the powder? I have many questions but no answers.”
    “Go and see what you can find. It may be only one gun was used. Once you have visited the village we'll know much more. Now, round up your men and leave.”
    Amon nodded, walked to his horse and mounted, all the while scared of what he might find at the village.

    Miles from the village, Amon knew a massacre had occurred by the dense black smoke rising to the sky and the vultures circling overhead. Occasionally, one of the birds would hang by a wing and slowly descend in a circle to a meal below. Seeing the birds angered him, because he knew they were eating his People, but he knew they had a place in the circle of life. He'd been taught that all things that were born one day died, and that included all humans, even those you love.
    Using sign, he said, “Thomas, drop back and cover our rear. I'll take the point and you three hang in the middle. Once near the village, I will enter alone. Understood?”
    All nodded, and Thomas turned and rode behind the group down their back trail.
    Amon looked to the sky and thought, God, protect me from what I am about to see. I love my People; to see so many dead will disturb me greatly. I ask for your help in the days to come as I try to understand why this has happened. Give me strength, Lord. This I ask in the name of Jesus, amen.
    None of the others thought his behavior was strange or weak, because it was the way of a real warrior. One walked the path given by God, and at times a man needed His help to continue. They'd all prayed in the past, and they'd do it again in the future. Most of them prayed twice a day, first at sunrise and then at dusk, because it was way of a true man or woman.
    He moved toward the village slowly and unlike villages of the Sioux, the lodges were made of dirt or scrap pieces of lumber from a city or town. Most looked like sod houses made in the 1800's by settlers on the open plains. They only required wooden logs overhead, to allow the sod a place to rest after the roof was in place. They weren't pretty, but they kept a person warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
    About fifty yards from the village, he spotted the first body. It was a young girl, close to fifteen or so was Amon's guess, and she'd been raped and then her throat cut. Her unseeing eyes were huge and reflected her fear. He dismounted, walked to her clothing, and picking it up, he covered her naked body. I know our men do the same, but it seems so wrong when it is my People who are the victims. I need to look for more, he thought. There will, I'm afraid, be many more.
    As he neared the perimeter of the village, he began to see more and more bodies, until he dismounted and tied his horse to a spear. All the victims he'd seen so far had been killed with arrows, spears, or knives. There had been a large number of attackers, from what he could tell, and they'd simply overwhelmed the small village. The women were all used, the men mutilated, and there were no dead children that he'd seen. Usually, kids were taken back to the a village and raised as their own, if they were young enough. Most of the time the children were too young to remember ever being with another People. The Eagle People children would be raised as members of the Wolf clan.
    When he neared the center of the village, he found the chief, shaman, preacher and their women hanging up-side-down over a large smoking fire. They'd been opened with a knife and long lines of purplish intestines were hanging down, covering their faces, but it didn't matter. The skin on their faces had burned to the point their flesh had melted before it turned black. All were alive when tied and the fire had been lighted. Amon had seen it before and his own People did it at times to their enemies, but usually only to captives who were brave.