Another Tribe

‘Propitious’ is the word one eyewitness used to describe the weather in his report of the distant battle. That same report went on to say the battle was being fought between the Union army of the north and the Confederate army of the south at a place called Shiloh on Saturday the sixth of April in the year of 1863. But even if Julii had known of the report’s existence, all of those words and numbers would have meant absolutely nothing because she had not yet met Captain Robert Calhoun, the man who would teach her the white man’s language.

Blissfully unaware each step was taking her closer and closer to unimaginable heartache, she hummed as one foot fell, slapped the empty deer skin water bottle then whistled as the other foot hit the ground. The continuous rhythm made no discernible tune but Julii didn’t care. She had been humming, slapping and whistling her way along this path, in a papoose on her mother’s back or on foot, almost every morning of her eighteen years.

Fetching water for her family was entirely predictable. She knew birds would sing out to protect their nests because that’s what they always did. She knew the sky would be blue or blue and white because it always was. She knew wind may shake the leaves all around her because it sometimes did that too. She knew the earlier rain would make her moccasins sticky and clumsy, but there was no danger of falling because she knew exactly where to place her feet. There were simply never any surprises... Then she stopped.

Something new and different caught her attention. It was a distant booming thunder sound, but this thunder sounded like no thunder she had ever heard before. Normal thunder came from above but this thunder seemed to roll along the ground from somewhere up ahead. Normal thunder came alone and at regular intervals with lightning. This thunder was more violent and crashed multiple times then all at once, then one at a time, then all at once again with no flashes of lightning. There was also the smoldering smell of smoke in the air but thunder had never smelled of smoke before. Looking up, Julii could see no clouds. Today the sky had chosen to be all blue and there was no wind shaking the leaves. How can there be thunder? Were the sky god’s restless?

She wanted to go back and ask her father but decided to push-on because her family was in need of water. She also knew her father would encourage her to work it out for herself because he always wanted her to think things through. She was trying really hard to imagine what could be making the noise when she stopped dead in her tracks once again.

She knew what a horse looked like because she had seen two wild ones at this very waterhole many years before. Just like them, the one now standing at the shallow bend in the river was drinking but this one seemed very different. It was brown all over, not blotchy like the brown and white ones she had seen. It was also in much better condition than the wild ones, bigger, taller and stronger, but even more different, this one had a really strange looking pink man attached to it.

His leg hung at an impossible angle from a shiny thing attached to the end of a long hide strap that went all the way to a heavy looking brown shiny thing on top of the horse. The brown shiny thing was made of hide and bowed at the top; it was attached by a hide strap that ran under the horse’s belly. Was it a natural part of the horse? No. It was a different color and separate from the horse. It must be a man-made addition.

The strange pink man must have somehow attached the bowed thing to the top of the horse. Why?

It was the shape that gave Julii the clue. Could he have been sitting on top of the horse? Was the hide thing something to sit on? Had the man fallen off of the horse? Yes!

The man had fallen from the top of the horse to the ground. Julii imagined how falling from such a great height would cause terrible damage. Was he dead? Julii moved closer to check for signs of life.

The strange man groaned as she prodded his leg. He was alive. That was a good thing, but now she was curious about the strange hide that covered his leg. It looked and felt like some kind of finely woven hide but the hide had no pattern and no stone or shell beads sewn into it. It was the same gray as the sky on a winter’s morning.

It covered all of his legs but, when it reached his waist, it ended and another separate piece of the same woven gray hide covered his upper body. Everything except his hands, feet and head were covered by the gray hide. There was also a cruel yellow colored thing wrapped tightly around his neck. It was the same pretty yellow color of the flowers that come as the cold season ends and the warming begins, but it did not make her feel happy like seeing those flowers did.

Julii instinctively lifted her hand to feel the wide open neck of her soft deer hide dress. How can someone wear something so constricting as that unforgiving yellow thing? What does the yellow thing do? It was clear the bowed hide seat thing’s strap must keep it on top of the horse. Was it also clear that the yellow thing kept his head on top of his body? No!

That made no sense. The man was alive because he had moaned. Men, even pink men, can’t live without a head. Or can they? Can pink men live without a head?

Moving her head slowly from right to left, Julii imagined the discomfort such a restricting yellow thing would cause. Maybe this man is being punished? Surely, no one would do that to themselves? Someone else must have done it to him. Did the same person hurt his leg too? What awful deed had this pink man done to deserve such a terrible punishment?

Julii took a hurried step backwards. Was he going to do to her what he had done to deserve the yellow thing? Julii took another step backwards.

She was relieved to see the pink man was asleep and could not harm her but sad to see the agony stirring inside him every time the horse moved. Oh no! It was her. Her movement was making the horse move.

She stopped moving and fixed the horse with a stare. The horse looked back at her. His big brown eyes seemed to be asking her for help. How can a wild animal expect help from me? How can the pink man sleep in all those restricting clothes while hanging from such a big horse? Nothing about this scene made any sense to Julii.

From deep within the pink man came a fretful sound which Julii found oddly comforting. Then she felt heartless and guilty, but it was not the pink man’s suffering that gave her the feeling of comfort, it was his forlorn tone. Not his tone exactly.

Now she berated herself for being cruel but she was not cruel. She had heard such hopeless sounds coming from a wolf with a broken leg, and it was that familiarity that gave her comfort. Anyway, she knew what she really meant.

Reining in her guilty thoughts, Julii centered her attention on the problem at hand. Focus on the wolf. Her father had killed the wolf with the broken leg, and even though they did not eat the wolf, killing him had been the right thing to do. Julii’s father had said: “The wolf was in pain and nothing should be made to suffer.”

Should she kill the pink man who hung from the horse?He was most definitely suffering. Even though he would provide more meat than a wolf, Julii knew her family would never eat a man - not even such a strange, different and pale one. But he was suffering, and nothing should be made to suffer. What should she do?

Fetch father?No!

This was a puzzle Julii must solve by herself. Father would know what to do in an instant, he always did, but even when she was very young, he trusted her ability to make the right decisions. She would not let him down now.

Walking closer to the pink man, Julii gave all of her attention to the long shiny thing attached to his wrist by a woven hide. The hide was bright white. How could that be? Julii had never seen bright white hide. What sort of animal provided white hide, or gray hide, or even yellow hide for that matter?

The long shiny thing looked like a longer version of her father’s old knife but her father’s knife didn’t shine like this one. Her father’s knife was made of the same stuff as this long knife; the stuff that sharpened on rocks and bent without breaking. Her father’s knife had been handed down to him from his father and his grandfather; it was the only real knife in her little tribe and he was very, very proud of it.

He would be so much prouder of this long shiny knife but it was not hers or her father’s to take.It belonged to the pink man. Only if the pink man died would she be able to give this long knife to her father. What was she thinking? She did not want the pink man to die! She was only thinking! Now she berated herself again for being cruel, but she was not cruel. Anyway, she knew what she really meant.

Looking closer, Julii noticed blood on the long shiny knife. She examined the pink man. He had no obvious cuts and the horse had no cuts, so the blood must be from someone else!

Julii took two rapid steps backwards causing the horse to move, which caused even more pain within the shiny pink man. She stopped.

Would he hurt her with the long shiny knife?Had he hurt others? Is that why he wore the yellow thing around his neck?

Estimating the length of the pink man’s arm and the length of the long shiny knife, Julii worked out how far he could reach at a stretch. She immediately took another step back. The horse moved, the man groaned and Julii stopped once again.

What now?Take the shiny knife away? Yes. Without the long shiny knife, he cannot hurt her. Julii swiftly retraced her backward steps and bent down to remove the knife, but the pink man’s hand moved with the speed of a rattle snake.

The hide thing that covered his hand then carried on over his wrist and flared out over his lower arm felt soft but the fingers inside were hard. They held on tight in the place where her light brown birthmark surrounded her wrist like a bracelet. It hurt. She was afraid. Should she hit him? His leg hung from the horse in front of her. Yes, his broken leg! As the shiny pink man screamed, he let go of Julii’s wrist.

His agonizing scream was a truly awful sound but she did not dwell on it; Julii was too preoccupied with how touching the powerful muscles in his leg made her feel.

It was shamefully exciting. It was clear he hadn’t always been so helpless; his leg felt strong, his belly was flat, and when she thought about it, his face, although a little dirty, was very good to look at. He made her feel happy. No, not happy, different. He made her tummy feel funny.

The pink man’s wonderfully blue eyes looked directly into hers and pleaded. Just like his horse, he was now appealing for her to make a decision that would improve his lot; it made Julii feel funny inside. Even though he lay helpless looking up to her for salvation, she wanted to smile. The warm feeling moved up from her tummy, past her neck and forced her lips to move upwards in a smile.

What was she doing?Now the pink man would think her cruel. She tried to force the smile from her lips and it turned into a spontaneous laugh. What was she doing?

Julii pointed at the long shiny knife. Yes, this was a good idea. If he let go of the long shiny knife, she could help him.

The pink man understood immediately. He let the hide thing, which flared at the wrist, slip from his fingers and moved his hand away, leaving the flared thing still attached to the long shiny knife.

Was this a trick? As desperate as she was to touch the pink man again, Julii was still too afraid to approach him. Could the hide thing, which flared at the wrist, still control the long shiny knife? Would it strike if she walked too close?

Julii looked closely at the arrangement of the hide and shiny knife lying on the grass. It all looked very dead.

To show he meant Julii no harm, the shiny pink man opened his empty hand to let her know he had nothing concealed within.

How wonderful.We understand each other without words. Julii could not believe she was thinking like a silly girl. What was she doing? This man represented more danger than anything she had ever seen in all of her life. Stop this! Stop it now!

Julii’s deliberate and disciplined movement was swift. Her moccasin-covered foot had the long shiny knife, the white hide rope, and the hide hand covering moving away from his hand in an instant. Now she could feel safe enough to get close to see what held his leg in that awkward position.

She looked at the long black, shiny moccasin that covered his foot. It also covered the bottom of his leg almost up to his knee. Did this man fear air touching his skin? Everything except his head was completely covered.

Looking closer at his very light blond hair, Julii could see a flattened line of matted hair all around his head. Even his head had been covered by something that must have fallen of as the horse dragged him here.

Re-focusing her girlish thoughts on the job at hand, Julii noticed another smaller, shiny thing attached to the heel of his long black moccasin. It was that smaller shiny thing that seemed to be caught within yet-another shiny thing at the end of the hide strap which hung from the bowed shiny thing on top of the horse.

Everything about this man was shiny. Julii had seen more shiny things in the last few moments than she had seen in her whole life. Where had he come from? Julii looked up to the sky for just a moment but that made no sense. The horse was of her world. The man, despite being whitish pink and funny looking, was of her world. It was just the shiny bits that connected him to the horse that made him different.

If she disconnected him from the horse, would he become normal? Julii was pleased with her deduction. Father would be proud of her.

Reaching out, Julii released the man’s long black moccasin from the shiny thing hanging from the bowed shiny thing on top of the horse. Her action freed the pink man from the horse but his leg fell to the ground with a thump.

There was that awful scream again. It seemed to hurt Julii as much as the man. How could that be? Julii felt embarrassed. She should have known to guide the leg down gently. She had not meant to make the pink man’s suffering worse but that is exactly what she had done.

Still berating herself, Julii took a little comfort in the fact that, despite his agony, the shiny pink man’s foot was free of the horse. Because of her initiative, the big animal’s movements were no longer causing him pain and, despite the obvious damage caused by the careless fall of his leg, progress had been made.

What now?Water? Yes, water. Everyone, whatever color, must need water.

Julii retrieved her water skin, filled it, and held it up right next to the pink man’s head. Gently tipping the skin, Julii tried to pour water slowly into his mouth but it gushed out all over his face.

Pulling the skin back upright, Julii apologized but he didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he appeared grateful for the cool water. She tried again. She had never seen a man drink like this pink man drank; it was the agony of desperation and pleasure and torment all-in-one anxious action. Then, laying back onto the grass, the pink man closed his eyes and stopped being hurt.

Julii prodded his hard chest with a finger because she had at least a hundred questions for him to answer. There was so much to talk about but he would not wake-up. She held her ear to his mouth and could hear his breath going faintly in and out, so she knew he was still alive. Good!

She had not drowned him or killed him with the pain of letting his leg fall. That was a good thing.

His breath smelt nice. She moved closer to smell it better. His teeth were white and straight beneath his full pink lips. She had an incredible urge to touch his lips with her own. What was she thinking?