Wiggum
S.M.R.T.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2006
- Messages
- 883
Sonny’s eyes continued their journey to the back of his skull, and my blood started its journey out of my face. When he crumpled to the ground I wasn’t able to catch him.
His words have a power that sticks with me to this day.
I go ashen when I think of them.
Black Bear used to be a dark legend in eastern Oklahoma. He was a tale told to make the little ones behave, or to scare older children around a campfire. He was a half breed, shape changer, shaman, and an eater of babies. His abilities were as varied as the people that told the stories.
Some I believe, some I don’t.
I’m one of the few that had the occasion to actually know the man. As best as one could anyway.
He arrived on Dennett’s looking for work. We gave him Black Bear as a nickname that befit his stature. He was a beast of a man, a solid six feet and a couple hundred pounds. Walked in tall and proud, covered in darkness and old leathers. He had long black hair, matted and braided, with a bronze ornament woven into the end of each braid.
In his wake were two young girls. Both lithe and dark skinned, they showed their daddy in their faces. He claimed he was good with both metal and horses. Dennett hired him to help in the smithy, and he took to the work well.
His history was never clear, but over the course of the next couple months, he told me some of it.
His life started on the side of a trail.
He told me much of this on a day when he was feeling talkative, which was a rare
occurrence. I had walked into the smithy seeing if I could get a hoof nail; he was bare chested and sweating, working on an anvil. Hands and knuckles so large that they almost seemed swollen, wielding a heavy hammer to the molten metal before him.
“Making a new shoe?”
“Yes.”, he replied.
“We’ve all been a bit curious. Where exactly do you come from?”
“I’m a product of rape, and killed my mother while she gave birth.”
The clang of metal on metal allowed me to think I hadn’t heard him right. Or my ears just didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Rape is an ugly thing. Killing your mother an even uglier one.
He swung the hammer one more time, and then let it lie to settle the noise. With eyes that seemed bronze in the fire light from the smithy he told me, quickly, “My mother was a Choctaw in what you now call Missouri. She was forced to walk a trail out of her homeland. Along that walk a man took her against her will. I am the result. I ripped her womb. She bled to death in a ditch, and I was born.”
“Well, that’s a son of a bitch”, regretting my words instantly.
“I made it out.”
He got more riled as the telling of his tale went on. I don’t think he had talked about it with anyone else. His words flew too quickly and with too much steam to be a tale he told on a regular basis. I was there for a good amount of time, always keeping track of his hands and the hammer. I had a feeling he might brain me without notice.
He told me about making it to Arkansas Indian Territory, swaddled, and in the care of
other Indians that stopped long enough to pick up the squalling infant. There he grew, an outcast of the people due to the white half of his parentage. He was never given a proper name and took South Wind as his own. He found a willing Indian wife, begat two daughters, the second killing her mother much as Bear had killed his own. Once his second daughter was walking he left the tribe and headed west with his children in tow.
It was nearly a year after their arrival at Dennet’s that trouble began. Cattle were being killed during the night at a regular clip and getting sick on the drives. Horses would get spooked in their pen when nothing was around. Irregular winds would spit up dust tornadoes, and strange tracks would show up in the middle of the ranch.
Then came a harsh winter that left all of us in foul temperament.
His daughters followed their father’s example, remaining near mute for the whole time
they were living on the ranch. Come that January though, there was a change in one of them. I think we all had noticed it a lot earlier than we decided to admit what we were seeing. The
younger, Flat Plain, was sporting a growing belly that could only be attributed to pregnancy.
While I didn’t know her age for certain, I would have been surprised if she had reached her teen years.
I’m not sure if we were correct in our assumption or not. Looking back on it we might
have been too quick to cast judgment, but a combination of foul mood, aI’m not sure if we were correct in our assumption or not. Looking back on it we might have been too quick to cast judgment, but a combination of foul mood, and a general dislike that was growing to outright hatred, cast the stone of conviction before we could take a fair eye to it.
Dennett chose John and me to accompany him out to Bear’s shack to ask him that he
leave. It should have been a cold morning as befit the season, but it was a sultry day with high winds and an overcast sky.
Bear opened the door when we knocked, his hair combed and his copper polished. A wicked smile was on his face and his eyes seemed a color similar to the adornments that wove into his dark mane.
Behind him stood too dark sentinels, quiet, watchful with their hands clasped together at their waists.
“You mean to make me leave. Try.”
That was all he said. John and I were old enough to know better, but young enough to do it anyway.
His words have a power that sticks with me to this day.
I go ashen when I think of them.
Black Bear used to be a dark legend in eastern Oklahoma. He was a tale told to make the little ones behave, or to scare older children around a campfire. He was a half breed, shape changer, shaman, and an eater of babies. His abilities were as varied as the people that told the stories.
Some I believe, some I don’t.
I’m one of the few that had the occasion to actually know the man. As best as one could anyway.
He arrived on Dennett’s looking for work. We gave him Black Bear as a nickname that befit his stature. He was a beast of a man, a solid six feet and a couple hundred pounds. Walked in tall and proud, covered in darkness and old leathers. He had long black hair, matted and braided, with a bronze ornament woven into the end of each braid.
In his wake were two young girls. Both lithe and dark skinned, they showed their daddy in their faces. He claimed he was good with both metal and horses. Dennett hired him to help in the smithy, and he took to the work well.
His history was never clear, but over the course of the next couple months, he told me some of it.
His life started on the side of a trail.
He told me much of this on a day when he was feeling talkative, which was a rare
occurrence. I had walked into the smithy seeing if I could get a hoof nail; he was bare chested and sweating, working on an anvil. Hands and knuckles so large that they almost seemed swollen, wielding a heavy hammer to the molten metal before him.
“Making a new shoe?”
“Yes.”, he replied.
“We’ve all been a bit curious. Where exactly do you come from?”
“I’m a product of rape, and killed my mother while she gave birth.”
The clang of metal on metal allowed me to think I hadn’t heard him right. Or my ears just didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Rape is an ugly thing. Killing your mother an even uglier one.
He swung the hammer one more time, and then let it lie to settle the noise. With eyes that seemed bronze in the fire light from the smithy he told me, quickly, “My mother was a Choctaw in what you now call Missouri. She was forced to walk a trail out of her homeland. Along that walk a man took her against her will. I am the result. I ripped her womb. She bled to death in a ditch, and I was born.”
“Well, that’s a son of a bitch”, regretting my words instantly.
“I made it out.”
He got more riled as the telling of his tale went on. I don’t think he had talked about it with anyone else. His words flew too quickly and with too much steam to be a tale he told on a regular basis. I was there for a good amount of time, always keeping track of his hands and the hammer. I had a feeling he might brain me without notice.
He told me about making it to Arkansas Indian Territory, swaddled, and in the care of
other Indians that stopped long enough to pick up the squalling infant. There he grew, an outcast of the people due to the white half of his parentage. He was never given a proper name and took South Wind as his own. He found a willing Indian wife, begat two daughters, the second killing her mother much as Bear had killed his own. Once his second daughter was walking he left the tribe and headed west with his children in tow.
It was nearly a year after their arrival at Dennet’s that trouble began. Cattle were being killed during the night at a regular clip and getting sick on the drives. Horses would get spooked in their pen when nothing was around. Irregular winds would spit up dust tornadoes, and strange tracks would show up in the middle of the ranch.
Then came a harsh winter that left all of us in foul temperament.
His daughters followed their father’s example, remaining near mute for the whole time
they were living on the ranch. Come that January though, there was a change in one of them. I think we all had noticed it a lot earlier than we decided to admit what we were seeing. The
younger, Flat Plain, was sporting a growing belly that could only be attributed to pregnancy.
While I didn’t know her age for certain, I would have been surprised if she had reached her teen years.
I’m not sure if we were correct in our assumption or not. Looking back on it we might
have been too quick to cast judgment, but a combination of foul mood, aI’m not sure if we were correct in our assumption or not. Looking back on it we might have been too quick to cast judgment, but a combination of foul mood, and a general dislike that was growing to outright hatred, cast the stone of conviction before we could take a fair eye to it.
Dennett chose John and me to accompany him out to Bear’s shack to ask him that he
leave. It should have been a cold morning as befit the season, but it was a sultry day with high winds and an overcast sky.
Bear opened the door when we knocked, his hair combed and his copper polished. A wicked smile was on his face and his eyes seemed a color similar to the adornments that wove into his dark mane.
Behind him stood too dark sentinels, quiet, watchful with their hands clasped together at their waists.
“You mean to make me leave. Try.”
That was all he said. John and I were old enough to know better, but young enough to do it anyway.
