On the third day, while roasting their freshly caught meat, they heard horses. Spirit Wind ran to the edge of the grove and saw five riders. At the head of the small party was a Cheyenne warrior, followed by three women and two boys astride a travois. Spirit Wind recognized two of the women as members of the Black Bear band. He showed himself and signaled. The five joined their camp. The warrior was Little Horse whose wife was an Arapaho woman, Red Dove. They had been traveling with their seven summers-old son, Hunting Fox, to the Black Bear camp to visit Red Star’s relatives.

Little Wolf told an alarming story. On their way to Black Bear’s camp along the Tongue River, Red Dove had gotten off her horse to tighten a loose pack and rearrange the travois on which their young son was riding, when, looking up far behind them across a ridge, she saw a long file of mounted men.

“Look!” she warned her husband.

Little Horse shielded his eyes from the morning sun.

“Soldiers!” he said. “Come, let us move quickly!”

Past the rise of the next hill they had abandoned their travois, taken the child on his father’s saddle, and left the trail to ride at a gallop straight across the land directly to Black Bear’s camp, causing sudden agitation in the two hundred and fifty lodges of the peaceful village. They tried to have the crier warn the people, but were not believed.

After all, "This was Indian territory, theirs by treaty!"

"Certainly Little Horse had made a mistake."

"The riders were Indians traveling to their late summer grounds."

"Nothing to worry about."

Even some of their relatives did not believe them. Red Dove’s brother laughed at his Cheyenne-brother-in-law for always getting too excited about things.

That same evening Little Horse and his family moved on, followed by Strong Woman, the grandmother, and Talking Bird, Red Dove’s sister with her child Sparrow Hawk, only five summers old. They were on their way to warn the other villages in Paha-Sapa.

“We go back at dawn,” Spirit Wind spoke.

“It is too late,” said Little Horse. “We heard the big guns talk the next morning after we left. We went back at sunset. The soldiers killed many. “

“My father, my brother!” cried Morning Star.

“They, too.”

There was a deep hollow cry from the young woman. Spirit Wind put his hand on her shoulder as tears filled her eyes. She got up and ran among the trees. Spirit Wind stood and watched her, his jaw set tight.

Little Horse related all that he had seen and what he had learned from the many who had escaped. How they had fought back, scattered the horses, chased the soldiers, but how they could not get back to the camp because of the Howitzers. Women and children were shot down. In impotent anger survivors watched from the hills while the lodges were torn down. Poles and skins were heaped along with their winter food, buffalo robes, pemmican -- all the tribe’s possessions -- and a great fire was set, burning everything while the wounded, moaning on the ground, lay dying. The Wasichus wanted the winter to kill all those who had escaped their guns and rode after those warriors who had managed to get on a pony. When the soldiers' horses got tired, Black Bear and his warriors turned and chased the Wasichus, stinging them with their arrows, until Black Bear fell not far from where his son lay dead.

No greater pain can strike the human heart than to live after the defeat and death of loved ones at the hand evil men. The Wasichus wanted all Indian land. They were treacherous men without mercy. For them, there would be no peace until the last Indian and the last buffalo were dead. Spirit Wind felt a rage that expanded his chest with anguished pain.

---

A REFLECTION

Once upon a time, long ago, there were sixty million buffalo on the Great Plains of North America. To the east and west of these flowered grass plains virgin forests stood so thick that it is said that a squirrel could have traveled from the Atlantic seashore to the Great Lakes without ever touching the ground. Eagles soared all across this fabled land. Rivers flowed wild and free, teaming with life. On the Pacific shores the air was evergreen and ocean-scented. The imposing giant forests of redwoods and evergreens faced the sea, sheltering an abundance of wildlife. That was a time when life was true to itself. Ever-present evil was restrained by awareness of the sacred, and a sense of proportions imposed itself upon the abundance of the wilderness and its immaculate splendor.

But evil must have the fullness of its cycle, as do all things under the sun. There came explorers, missionaries, soldiers, merchants, and immigrants with their guns and greed. Wildlife that had thrived for millennia began to die, killed by evil versions of progress, arrogant visions of manifest destiny, and a utilitarian materialism hiding under Christianoid hypocrisy. In just 500 years almost all the giant trees have been clear-cut. Chemicals now poison the rivers. As a result of human greed and a lack of respect for life, nature and living creatures are suffering all around us.

Those who feel a love and longing for the wilderness and wildness that once was -- the millions now crowded in cities, poor, oppressed, and unable to find a target for their rage because technocracy is virtually everywhere and omnipotent -- those who can still feel a delirious, exhilarating independence, a rebirth into primeval liberty, into utter freedom -- these brave people are joining together with countless others from around the world to preserve and restore the Earth to its former majesty for the survival of the Human Family.