Prologue:
Fire. Screams. Burning heat. Pounding feet.
I see flaming masses that were once hogans. People are running aimlessly in a wild, screaming mob. Among the flames, people on horses thundered around the camp, setting more hogans on fire.
I scramble back into my hogan. I feel a hand on my shoulder. I see a woman behind me, but I can’t make out any featured except long, cascading raven hair.
“Mom,” I whimper. Then, the top of the hogan bursts into flames.
“Hashke, run!” my mother yells. She takes my hand, and we run out of the hogan and into the night. I look back – and the hogan collapses into a pile of dirt.
We run, dodging the flames and hiding behind hogans. I see the crowd of fleeing people run into a dark forest. We run forward – then someone grabs my arm and pulls me up.
A man holds me on his horse and rides off. “Hashke!” my mother screams. I thrash around, but the soldier grips me harder. I struggle and scream as the darkness overcomes me…
I woke up, shivering. I looked around. It was night. The only light was a small beam of moonlight coming from above, but I could make out the silhouette of a brush lodge – the four branches that held up the lodge, the branches and rushes that were the walls. I was lying on a thick hide mat.
“Hashke?” a voice said. I turned around and saw my foster father – shizhé’é , in our language – staring at me.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
"I’m fine,” I said. “Just a nightmare.”
Shizhé’é came closer. “It was…when you were captured, wasn’t it?”
I looked away and touched the scar on my face – the one I got from the fire. He was right – I’d had that dream ever since I came here. Shizhé’é knelt next to me.
“The bilagaana have done many evil things,” Shizhé’é said grimly. “But here, they cannot hurt you anymore. Here, you are safe.” He smiled. “Please don’t worry, shiyáázh.”
I smiled. “Shiyáázh” was my father’s nickname for me. I meant “my little one,” even though I was fifteen years old. “Thank you, shizhé’é.”
My father smiled. I lay back down. But it took me a long time to fall asleep.
Chapter 1:
Arizona Territory, 1864
Shizhé’é had gone out to talk to some men. I sat in my wickiup, alone.
The morning was silent. People rarely left their wickiups. When they did – to gather some firewood or get water from the stream – they ran, looking around like hunted deer. People rarely even talked – only in hushed whispers, like someone was listening. Everyone I saw had wide, bloodshot eyes. They’d look at me once, and then they’d run.
That was life in the refugee camp.
My name is Hashke. In my language, dine bizaad, my name means “warrior.” I come from the Diné, but the bilagaana – the White Men – call us the Navajo.
My home, the refugee camp, was near Tsékooh Hatsoh – what the bilagaana call the Grand Canyon – by a big forest. All of the people here had fled from the bilagaana, who destroyed their villages, like they destroyed mine.
It seemed like that was all the bilagaana did – destroy.
I was only ten winters old when bilagaana soldiers attacked my village. They burned my home, and they took me away from shimá, my mother.
They took me to a strange machine – my people called it the iron horse. I remember the soldiers dragging me in and locking the door behind me. I saw other children there. Some were crying. Others were looking around with wide eyes. Others were chanting slow, ominous songs that sounded like death songs, chanted when a warrior dies.
Then, the iron horse started to move. I yelled and pounded on the doors, but they wouldn’t open. We were trapped. Where were they taking us? I asked what was happening, but no one knew.
All of a sudden, the iron horse lurched to a stop. I heard shouts and a gunshot. I looked out and saw a group of warriors – Diné warriors. They broke into the iron horse and led us out.
I recognized one of the warriors – Diyool, which means “Bullsnake”. He was a friend of my mother’s. He took me back to my village – but when we got there …
The village was destroyed. Hogans has been turned into piles of smoking ash, some still burning. Soot fell from the sky. Everything was silent.
I remember running into the remains of my village, calling out names, digging through the ashes. And then, I tripped on a rock and landed face down on some hot embers. Diyool ran over and pulled me out. He took me to a stream and put my face in the water.
But it left me my scar – a red patch of skin reaching from my left eye down to my cheek.
Then, Diyool took me to the refugee camp. I’d been there ever since.
“Hashke?” a voice said. I turned and saw Shizhé’é standing there.
“Hello, shizhé’é,” I said. Diyool was not my real father – he died when I was only three – but he did take me in. He was like a father to me.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked.
I stood up. “I’m ready,” I said. We were about to hunting in the forest together. I grabbed my bow and arrow and stepped out.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go, shiyáázh.”
He walked away towards the forest. I followed him in – but as soon as the shadow of the trees covered me, I stopped.
I gazed out into the forest. Trees loomed over me on all sides. The inside of the forest was almost black, the leaves blocking almost all of the light. I heard strange rustling noises. I felt a cold breeze against me.
I felt like I was being watched.
“Hashke?” Shizhé’é called, snapping me out of my daze.
“Coming,” I said.
I raced forward, trying not to look around.
