Preview: Tears of the Plains

[GingaDensetsuAleu]

This is part of a story I had originally written to be posted here, but then I decided to try and get it published since it works pretty well as a stand-alone. It's still being edited; this is a sixth or seventh draft, and I have to get my illustrator working on some cover art and a few illustrations of key scenes. I won't be posting the whole story here, but I think a preview so I can get some feedback would be nice. Enjoy!

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Chapter 1: The Messenger

Not a very long time ago, in the land now known as the North American Great Plains, specifically on the eastern edge of the land now known as Wyoming, not long after a man named Lincoln had a very bad day at the theater, there once lived a tribe of coyotes. They were a fairly peaceful tribe; they kept to themselves, they made war only when they absolutely had to, they welcomed visitors with food and water and stories to share, and though they did hunt, they tried not to take more than they could eat, and used every bit of their prey for food, or for tools, or for shelter.
One of these coyotes was named Firebrand. He was slightly reddish, a hunter and warrior for the tribe, and had a sister, named Windfeather, whom he loved as much as life itself. On this day, Firebrand was a little distracted because he had a cut.
He squatted in the mud, crushing medicinal plants to release the juices they contained and squeezing the whole mix onto the cut on his arm. It had been an accident; Windfeather had been practicing her archery and hadn’t seen Firebrand’s reddish fur as he walked through the prairie, beyond her target. The hit had only been a light graze, leaving a shallow cut on Firebrand’s arm; he doubted it would even leave a scar once it healed over.
“Sorry.” Windfeather said again, staring at the cut. She hadn’t completed her first hunt yet, and was still a little squeamish when it came to blood.
“It was my fault, I shouldn’t have walked in front of someone wielding a bow.” Firebrand mumbled quietly, dabbing at the cut with his juice-covered fingers until it stopped bleeding. “Go and fetch your arrow. It would be a waste to do otherwise.” He gave the smaller female a smile.
His sister nodded and stood up, running off to find the wooden shaft. He smiled after her and stood up from the mud, turning his face into the wind as it ruffled his fur. There was a strange scent on the wind today, something not quite unlike a human, but also different somehow. He could see the camp in the distance, right where he had left it; some of the family groups were still setting up. They would stay for a season and then move on. That was their way, after all.
He ran his hands in the prairie grass as he walked, keeping an eye out for minute variations in the density of the stalks that indicated rocks, bald spots, or nesting areas; he didn’t want to accidentally step on a nest of snakes or cut his paw open on a rock. Leisure time was rare, and Firebrand wanted to enjoy it to its maximum. As he grew close, he saw a messenger running toward the camp, a visitor from the wolf tribe to the east, and picked up the pace. He wanted to hear whatever news from beyond the tribe’s lands the messenger was bringing.
He arrived just on time to see the wolf drinking from a water bag and panting from his journey as people gathered around to hear the news. Firebrand was struck by how much bigger the wolves were than the coyotes; coyotes were by no means small, but this wolf towered over even the tallest of them by several handspans.
He waited patiently as the wolf caught his breath and the shaman, an elder named Milk-eye, approached. “Hail, brother from the wolf tribe! How can we coyotes help you today?” Milk-eye spoke cheerily in the language of the wolves. He wasn’t facing quite the right way, but that was to be expected. In his old age, he didn’t really see very well; his eyes were clouded and had lost their luster, though he maintained good humor about it.
The wolf stood tall, pausing to adjust the feathers and beads he wore braided into his fur, repositioning them to their proper spots. “I bring news from the east. The pale humans have begun to move their way west. They lay tracks for their iron machines to follow. A scout heads this way this very day to plan tracks through this area.”
Firebrand blinked. He’d heard of the pale humans; it was said they looked very much like the red-skinned humans that lived alongside the tribes of the plains, but were pale.
It was also said that pale humans brought nothing but destruction in their wake, destroying whole forests to build buildings of stone and wood, and walls that surrounded them to keep those they pushed out from returning to their land. He’d never seen one in person, though. He’d thought that part was just a legend that was told to children to scare them.
He’d heard about caravans of them passing through the plains frequently on their way to the far west, where the big sea-water met the lands on the other side of the mountains, and had seen evidence of them having passed through in the form of tracks of packed earth and abandoned campsites, though.
“Beware!” The wolf spoke loudly. “If you see the white man, leave at once and don’t come back! They carry weapons of great power, and show no mercy!”
Milk-eye gave a jolly old man’s laugh. “We don’t fear any white man! All are welcome at our camps! We will share what meat and food that we have, and they will see there is no reason to fear or harm us!”
There was a general murmur of assent from the rest of the tribe. Firebrand could see the other adults nodding at each other in agreement.
“You will not have a chance! They will fight anyway! With no warning, they will use their weapons to force you away, out of your lands and into the inhospitable lands to the far north!” The wolf raised his hands in warning, gesturing broadly. Firebrand shuddered to see the look in his eye. Haunted, like he had seen many horrible things.
“You have delivered your warning, wolf. Rest. Eat! Stay as long as you need to before you are on your way.” Milk-eye smiled warmly and reached out to touch him. Running Smoke, Milk-eye’s adult son and future shaman, grabbed him by the shoulders and gently rotated him on the spot until his hand found the wolf, and he patted him as close to his shoulder as he could reach.
“Thank you for the offer, elder, but no. I have to be off, warn as many tribes as I can. They draw near.” He took another swig from the water bag and passed it back to whoever had given it to him.
As the wolf ran off, Firebrand couldn’t help but watch him. Whatever the wolf tribe had seen, it had their messenger running scared. He shook his head. The wolf tribe could be aggressive; perhaps they had done something to anger the pale men, and that’s why they had attacked.
He turned and headed toward his tent, where his mate was busily fletching arrows. “Naomi. We’ve had a visitor from the wolf tribe, to the east.”
She paused and looked up. “I heard. I didn’t have time to go and hear his words. What news did he bring?”
“Pale humans are coming. They’re building tracks for their iron beasts.” He shrugged uncertainly. He’d never heard of any iron beasts, but then their tribe rarely had much contact with other tribes, and had never had direct contact with the pale humans from the far east.
She looked down and resumed splitting feathers to be fitted to the arrows. “Pale humans have come through here before. They circle their wagons, have their fires, rest, and then move on. It’s hardly worth sending a messenger about.”
Firebrand frowned down at his mate as she continued splitting her feathers. He picked one up and twisted it in his fingers. “I don’t know. Something about his eyes… like he had seen horrors he couldn’t begin to describe.”
She shook her head. “Wolves are just like that. I wouldn’t worry.”
He sighed and sat down to help her, starting to affix the feathers to the partially completed arrows she had stacked next to her. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You’re hurt!” She gasped suddenly, noticing his arm. He looked down, surprised. He’d forgotten about the cut.
“Oh… right. Windfeather nicked me with an arrow. She didn’t see me walking across her range.” He grinned, twisting his arm to get a look. “It’s all right, I already put medicine on it.”
She frowned and shook her head. “You’re too soft on that girl. If anybody else except Windfeather had cut you, you would have demanded a fight. She could have seriously hurt you!”
“What can I say? She’s my sister, and I’m proud of her. She’s so excited to lead the hunt next week. She’s been practicing for moons.”


Chapter 2: The Hunt

Firebrand crouched, putting his ears back and watching Windfeather carefully for her signals. Naomi paused a few feet away, glancing over at Firebrand, then back up at Windfeather.
Firebrand scented the air. There, not too far away, was a buffalo. He smelled like a big one, too; Firebrand’s mouth watered at the thought of a nice shoulder roast, slathered with herbs and roasted on a spit over a fire.
Windfeather silently gave a hand signal, telling Naomi to circle around the buffalo to the left, then turned and gave a similar hand signal to Firebrand to circle to the right. The rest of the hunting party hung back; two other young coyotes, about Windfeather’s age, who were there to observe in preparation for their own first hunts in a few more weeks’ time, and to help transport Windfeather’s kill back to the camp, but not to participate in the actual hunt.
Firebrand nodded and slipped sideways through the grass, moving slowly so as not to make noise. He took up his position, upwind and to one side of the bison. If the wind shifted, even a little, their scents would carry to it, and it would bolt, so Windfeather had to be swift. If Firebrand squinted, he could see her, still crouched where he’d left her, slowly drawing her bow. He unslung his own bow from his back and followed suit, nocking an arrow and aiming directly between the buffalo’s shoulders, at its heart. He probably wouldn’t penetrate that deep, even at this range, but it would certainly slow him down.
There was a faint twang, then a gentle whistle, and the buffalo called out in surprise, stumbling as it tried to run and falling to the ground. Firebrand loosed his arrow, then waited for Windfeather’s signal again. It was her hunt; she was the lead, and would make the calls. He trusted her to do so wisely. When the buffalo didn’t try to get up, she crept closer, signalling for Firebrand to come close as well.
Firebrand could smell blood on the wind as he approached, and he gave a satisfied nod. It was a good hit; there was his arrow, lodged in the bison’s shoulder, with one feather dipped in red to indicate his shot, and the shaft painted in the tribe’s purple and green stripes. There was Windfeather’s shot, near the bison’s left flank. Her aim was a little off, but she had incapacitated it, piercing the muscle so the bison couldn’t support his weight. Her twin purple feathers proudly stuck up in the air.
Windfeather approached the bison. He was still breathing, Firebrand noticed. He stood back and listened as Windfeather approached, placing her hand on his cheek. She looked him in the eye. “We have hunted you for your flesh and for your fur. Thank you, brother, for giving your life, that our tribe might survive a bit longer and thrive under our father the sun.”
The bison stared up at her, breathing heavily. He must have been in some pain, with three arrows stuck in his hide. After a long moment, he gave a nod. “It was a fair hunt.” He tilted his head to offer his neck. “Make it quick, young one. It’s impolite to let your prey suffer.”
Windfeather pulled her knife out of its holder, on the strap of her leather quiver, and hesitated as she brought it to the bison’s throat. She shuddered a little, quivering nervously.
Firebrand had expected this, but he said nothing. Everybody struggled with taking their first life; she had to do it on her own. He could see Naomi leaning on her bow a little as she watched from her position in the tall prairie grasses.
The buffalo looked up at Windfeather. “I am your first, am I not?” He stared at her a bit longer, then tilted his head further, baring his neck. “The best spot is just under my jaw, where my head meets my neck. Insert your knife there. I will not suffer long.”
Windfeather repositioned her knife and paused again. Firebrand’s ears perked, and he slowly reached for his own knife. Perhaps his sister was not ready, he thought. He would help her, this time. Perhaps, next season, she could try again.
The knife jabbed forward, and the buffalo let out a loud, pained bellow before falling still. After a moment, he let out one last heavy breath and stopped breathing. Windfeather put her ears back and began whispering the buffalo’s rites. Her cheeks were damp.
Once she was done, Firebrand stepped forward and put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “A good hunt.” He turned and pulled his arrow out of the buffalo’s shoulder, returning it to his quiver before walking around, checking that the hide was intact and searching for more arrows. He found another arrow, sporting one red and one orange feather, in the buffalo’s chest. This, he passed to Naomi, then retrieved Windfeather’s arrow for her.
When he tried to give it to her, she shook her head. He sighed and placed it into her quiver, pulling her into a hug. “There, there. It’s okay. The first is hard, I know. We’re never quite prepared for it.” He motioned to the other two younglings, and they ran off to fetch the bullboat. Naomi stepped forward and started preparing the bison for transport, tying his legs together and starting to drain the blood.
Windfeather’s ears were held back as she finally looked up and stared at the knife still in her hand. She dropped it on the ground and stepped back. Firebrand sighed and picked it up, sliding it into the holder with his own knife. He would clean it for her and give it back later, when she was feeling better.
The others came back with the bullboat, a bison hide stretched over a sturdy wooden frame, and Firebrand gently shook Windfeather by the shoulder. “Sister. I need you to hold the bullboat so we can roll your kill-… I mean, our supper into it.”
Windfeather stared at the boat blankly for a few moments, then nodded, grabbing the boat and going around behind the bison. Naomi and the other two, twin boys named Windsprint and Cloudgazer, lined up along the buffalo. Firebrand took his position.
“On my mark… push!” He leaned with all his weight into the buffalo. For a few moments, nothing happened, even as they all leaned into it, then, slowly, it started to roll. Firebrand looked over and lifted the head out of the way with his spare arm, grunting with effort, as they rolled it into the boat. Windfeather walked the boat down, careful not to get stuck under it, as they did, and with just a little effort, their kill was in the boat.
Naomi nodded. “The twins and I can get the boat in the water. Go give your sister the talk.”
Firebrand nodded and walked around the boat, watching Windfeather moving a few feet away before he walked over to her. “Hey. How you doing? You okay?”
She nodded quietly, kneeling in the dirt and drawing lines with her finger. “Yeah, I just… he was so nice about it. I didn’t expect him to be nice. I expected… I don’t know. Anger, maybe? Maybe putting up a fight?”
“Well… sometimes they do.” He put his arm around her, watching Naomi and the twins roll the boat toward the river, tilting it onto its rounded edge with effort, carefully doing so without tipping the buffalo back out onto the ground. “My first hunt, the one we got was so MAD. I’d hit it in the eye, see, and it was a survivable wound, but Dad’s arrow took out its flank, and Mom’s hit it right in the belly. It gave me a good yelling at, and kept squirming around while I was trying to finish it off. He kept smacking me with my arrow.”
Windfeather snickered. “That sounds… painful, but also… kinda funny?”
He nudged her. “The buffalo tribe KNOW they’re going to be hunted if they go off alone. It’s been this way for generations. It’ll probably be this way for generations to come. This one was at peace with his passing. You didn’t do anything WRONG. It’s sad, yes, but we’ll honor him. His fur will become warm clothes for someone to pass the winter, or maybe a boat for the pilgrimage north. His bones will be tools, knives and arrows and hammers. And his meat will be our supper.”
Windfeather looked up at him. “Thank you. That makes me feel a little better.” There was a splash as the twins and Naomi got the bullboat in the water, and Naomi boarded with her pole to guide the boat downstream toward the camp.
Firebrand started to follow, then paused, sniffing the wind. There was that odd smell again, like a human that had been rolled in chalk and animal fat. In the distance, there was a loud bang, like a sudden, short clap of thunder. He turned to look into the distance. “What was THAT?!”


Chapter 3: The Scouts

Firebrand clutched his bow and crouched in the grass, peering from behind a rock at the strange pale-faced humans. They were arguing with each other in a language he didn’t speak, one of them waving a strange shiny tube around. There was a faint acrid smell in the air, like tainted smoke.
The humans had a fire going: much too large for the paltry amount of meat they were trying to cook over it. He had come across their kill, a hare, while approaching the smoke; they’d just cut off what they wanted to eat and left the rest to rot, without any respect for the spirit they’d killed. The wound was strange; it looked like it had been slightly burned, and there had been a smooth shiny stone inside.
Their clothes were unusual and foreign, made out of some kind of woven fabric, with leather vests and broad-brimmed leather hats. As Firebrand watched, one of them pulled out a piece of paper from a big leather bag and unfolded it, tapping on it angrily as he shouted at the other. The other one looked over his shoulder and tapped at another spot insistently, shouting back.
Firebrand had seen paper before; some of the human tribes had traded with pale humans that were traveling through before. Some had acquired pale human goods in other, less friendly, ways. He wondered what was ON that particular very large piece of paper. It must have been important for the pale humans to be arguing about it so much.
Movement on the other side of the camp caught Firebrand’s eye- horses! He’d seen horses before, for the same reason he’d seen paper before- some of the human tribes had them. They were useful for carrying heavy loads or moving swiftly. He knew they could speak.
He crouched lower and kept out of the firelight– it wasn’t quite dark out yet, but he suspected that the pale humans couldn’t see well in the twilight– and made his way around to the other side of the camp, approaching the horses. He cleared his throat and whispered, trying a language of one of the tribes to the far east, closer to pale human territory. “Do you speak this language?”
One of the horses, a dappled gray, looked down, then nudged the other. The second horse, a chestnut, looked down, then glanced up at the humans, alarmed. “Oh… you really shouldn’t be here, little coyote. This is a dangerous place for you.”
“I heard a loud noise while I was on a hunt. I came to investigate. Like thunder, except there was no lightning.” He whispered, crouching down to keep out of sight. “I’ve never seen pale humans before.”
The chestnut shook his head. “You REALLY shouldn’t be here, especially not while Jedediah has his gun out. You could get hurt.”
“Gun?” He tilted his head. “That shiny rod?” He pointed.
The horse nodded enthusiastically, champing at his bit. “It’s a weapon. That’s what you heard. They were hunting.”
“I saw.” He screwed up his face, scowling. “They didn’t respect their kill. They took what they wanted and left the rest. So wasteful.”
“Listen, there’s about a hundred men a few days behind us, with lots of guns. They’re building a railroad, a kind of pathway that their giant iron machines follow. If your tribe is camped around here, you should make yourselves scarce. It’s not safe.” The horse stomped his hoof insistently.
“I’m not scared of any pale human.” He looked up. “What are they arguing about?”
The horse glanced up, then looked down at him again. “They’re disagreeing on where they are. They have a map.” He looked back down at Firebrand nervously.
The gray said something in the human’s language, and the chestnut responded, then looked back down at Firebrand. “My companion says to tell you that these humans aren’t like the ones that live around here. They have no respect for the land, and they WILL attack if they see you.”
Firebrand stared up at them for a moment, then at the long leather cords holding them tied to a fallen tree. He slung his bow on his shoulder and climbed up onto the tree, starting to untie the knots. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“No, don’t do that.” The horse shook his head, glancing over at the humans again. They seemed to have stopped arguing for a moment and were sitting on the ground around their fire, eating. “They have my colt, back home. I can’t leave.”
Firebrand scoffed. “Cowards. Picking on those who can’t even defend themselves.”
“We’ll be okay. Just go.” The horse urged. “Warn your tribe. Move. North. South. Anywhere. You don’t want these people to find you. You’ll all be killed.”
Firebrand huffed and reached into his quiver, pulling out one of his arrows. Red feather, one green and two purple stripes. The mark of his tribe. He raised his hand, then embedded the arrow deep into the log the horses were tied to. “This is their warning. They’re in my tribe’s territory, and they are welcome as long as they respect the land. If they do any more wasteful killing, though, they will no longer be welcome.”
One of the humans shouted something, and Firebrand looked over. Both humans were getting up, looking in the direction of the horses. They must have heard him embedding the arrow. He jumped down behind the log and started skirting the camp again, easily getting to the other side undetected. He glanced back.
The humans were both standing in the firelight, one of them holding Firebrand’s arrow and speaking urgently to the other, who was fidgeting with his shiny rod, putting something inside of it.
After a moment, the man pointed his rod to the sky, and loud thunder rang through the air. Firebrand covered his ears with a grimace, watching as a small burst of flame shot out the end of the rod. It was loud, for sure.
Both humans stood still and scanned the edges of the camp for a few moments. Firebrand stepped back, just to be sure he was fully in shadow, and watched them. After a few moments, they seemed to relax. One of them said something, and they settled back down for their meals.
Firebrand turned and crept away, wrinkling his nose. The strange acrid smell had gotten much stronger right after the thunder from the shiny rod, and though it was fading quickly, it burned his nostrils with its stench.
Once Firebrand was clear of the camp and out of earshot, he stood up and started running back toward his tribe’s camp. If he hurried, he could get there on time for supper. The moonlight illuminated his path as he ran.
It only took him a few minutes to get from the humans’ camp to his tribe’s, a lot less than he was really comfortable with.
Naomi met him at the camp’s border and hugged him, looking him over. “I heard the thunder again. Were you hurt? Did you see what kind of creature made that sound?”
Firebrand nodded. “It was pale humans. Two of them, with horses. I need to speak to Milk-eye.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

I think that this is a very promising story and definitely something that is intriguing and a lot of people will like! Once it gets published I can see a great deal of the book being bought by many curious customers!