Chapter 2: In the Forest
I shifted the quiver on my back and clutched my bow and tried to muffle my footsteps as I walked.
I didn’t like the looks of this place. We had been here for more than an hour, and there were no animals except for a few birds.
“Strange,” I heard Shizhé’é murmur. He turned to me. “Maybe we should go back.”
I was about to move, then I saw something glint on the ground. I stared at it for a second, and as I was going to turn away, Shizhé’é appeared next to me. He crouched and picked up the object and peered at it.
Then, he gasped and dropped it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Bilagaana,” he said. My blood turned to ice. As soon as he said that word, I heard shouts. There was gunshot – a deafening boom like thunder, only much louder.
Shizhé’é whipped towards me. “Run!”
We ran deeper into the forest and I heard more shouts and gunshots behind us. We kept on running, the forest turning into a blur of green.
Then, the shouts stopped. I slowly stopped and looked around. Whoever was chasing us had decided to give up –
Shizhé’é wasn’t there.
I didn’t dare call out. I looked around at the tall trees, the bushes, and the scarce sunlight that touched the earth. A bird shrieked in the distance. I didn’t know this part of the woods. I was lost.
I started walking back the way I came. I looked around silently, but there was nothing there. Except for the bilagaana, I thought.
I had only seen guns once, when my village was attacked. They were large, thin sticks that shot fire and lightning, letting the person holding it kill anything or anyone. Why anyone would make or want to have such an awful weapon, I didn’t know.
I walked on, still seeing no sign of Shizhe’e when –
“Hello there.” I whipped around, and brought out my bow –
There was a small old woman standing there. Her white hair hung in braids along her back, almost shining even though there wasn’t much light. She held a staff in her left hand.
She smiled. “Yá’á’t’ééh,” she said.
That was a traditional greeting because she just said. She’s Diné, I thought. I bowed. “I’m sorry, Grandmother,” I said. Shizhe’e once told me to address all elderly women as ‘Grandmother’. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Are you lost?” she asked.
“Um, yes,” I said. ‘I’m looking for my father.”
She stared at me, like she was studying me. Her grey eyes looked ancient, like they had seen many, many things. Then, she reached into the folds of her tunic and pulled out something. It was a small, leather bag on a necklace, like a pendant. “I want you to have this, young man,” she said.
I carefully took the bundle from her hands. “What is it?” I asked.
“A sacred medicine bundle,” the old woman said. “Many years ago, I gave this to a boy like you. Now I am giving it to you. I see that you will have many things that you will have to face in the future. This bundle will guide and protect you.”
I didn’t know what to say at first. “Thank you,” I finally said. But what things would I have to face?
The old woman smiled. “You’ll know what I’m talking about soon enough,” she said, like she had just read my thoughts. “Now—” She pointed deeper into the forest. “Go that way. You’ll find what you’re searching for.”
“My father?” I asked, turning towards the direction she pointed. “Have you seen him?” When I turned back, the old woman was gone. I heard nothing – it was like she vanished. In the direction she pointed, I saw a tarantula crawling on the ground. I turned around, and for a second I thought it looked at me. Then, it vanished into the bushes.
I shook my head and walked forward.
I walked on, but the forest looked the same to me. I was about to decide that the old woman – whoever she was – was confused and that I should go back, until I heard voices.
“No me gusta este lugar.”
I scrambled behind a fallen tree. Bilagaana.
I peered out. I saw two shaggy-looking bilagaana walking through the forest. Their clothes and faces were dirty, and I could almost smell them from where I was hiding.
“I don’t like it here, Cornell,” the bilagaana said. “Indios could be hiding anywhere.”
“I know, Antonio,” the other bilagaana named Cornell said. “But are we gonna git that bounty ‘r not?”
My father had taught me some of the bilagaana language, in case I ever found myself with them.
“Los indios know this place better than any of us do,” the man named Antonio said. “They’re probably ready to ambush us, like they did with Custer.”
Custer? I thought. Who was Custer?
Cornell spat at the ground. “May th’ Lord throw all those Indians down to where they belong.” He turned back to Antonio. “Anyways, fortunat’ly we’s a whole lot smarter than them Indians. And stronger.”
I was slowly creeping away from the fallen tree. I would have left if the man named Cornell didn’t say this: “Rememb’r that Indian village by Bear’s Ears Mountain a couple years back?”
Bear’s Ears Mountain.
That…that could be my village. I crept back up and listened.
“Th’ entire volunteer army o’ Arizona must’ve come down,” Cornell said gleefully. “Burnt it t’ th’ ground.” My mind flashed back to my village. I winced.
“Did they kill all of them?” Antonio asked. I waited for Cornell to say yes, that the bilagaana had killed everyone in the village. But he didn’t.
Cornell spat. “No. They shoulda. But th’ army didn’t kill a single one of ‘em. Ever since that Indian chief Standin’ Bear tried to git back t’ Nebraska t’ bury his dead son, some people ac’shly like Indians.”
I couldn’t believe it. My people, my mother, alive after all this time? Where did they go? I almost shouted.
Luckily, Antonio answered for me: “Where did they go?”
“A rez,” Cornell said. “Some place in th’ New Mexico Territory called…can’t remember…Bosque Redondo.”
“‘Round Forest,’” Antonio translated. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My people and my mother were alive. I thought they’d all been killed.
But what was this Bosque Redondo place? If the bilagaana sent my people there, it couldn’t be a good place.
I had to go find them.
I crept back – until Cornell turned around. Our eyes met for one second – and then he shouted, “Indian! Antonio, Indian!”
He grabbed his gun and clicked it. He pointed it straight at me, and then –
An arrow flew out of nowhere. It shot just shy of Cornell’s ear and impaled itself in a tree. Two more arrows flew out. One of them hit the man named Cornell in the arm. Cornell clutched the wound and howled.
A hand grabbed me and pulled me back. Someone was dragging me away. I struggled and almost screamed, but then I heard a voice: “Hashke! Hashke, it’s me!”
I looked up and saw Shizhé’é. “Are you alright?” he asked me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Let’s get you out of here, before those men come back,” he said.
We went out of the forest and into the desert again. I saw the refugee village ahead.
“Shizhé’é,” I said. I didn’t know where to start. I told him about the old woman who gave me the bundle.
Shizhé’é stared at the bundle at my neck and squinted his eyes, like he saw it once but couldn’t remember.
“And those two men,” I said. “They said something about my village.” I told him what I heard.
Shizhé’é gasped. “Those people are alive?”
“Yes,” I said. “What is Bosque Redondo?”
Shizhé’é looked down, thinking. “I heard someone speak of it once. It was a place in the land the bilagaana call…New Mexico. It used to be part of Dinétah.”
Dinétah meant “among the People.” It was our sacred homeland. We lived there for many years, until the bilagaana came and took it over.
Shizhé’é looked toward the east. “It’s about a couple hundred miles east from here,” he said. “But it’s all desert, and in bilagaana territory.”
My heart fell. Shizhé’é put a hand on my shoulder as we walked back to camp.
I lay awake in my brush shelter that night. There had to be a way I could help my people. There had to be. But how would I get there?
I couldn’t bring Shizhé’é into this. It was too dangerous. It didn’t seem right.
Then, it struck me – the iron horse.
I’d seen the iron horse travel great distances, faster than any person could run. My mind flashed back on the station the soldiers took me. I remembered where it was. Maybe…
I got up, ran out of the brush shelter, and into the night.
Author’s note: Chief Standing Bear was a Native American chief from the Ponca tribe of Nebraska. He was well-known for trying to return to Nebraska to bury his dead son.
