The Willow and the Spanish Hunters

Maria

Many years ago in 1507 there was a family that was very important. Their names were White Hawk the father, mother Purple Flower, and the daughter Red Plum. The reason they were important is because the father was the chief of the tribe. The whole pueblo never missed a religious doing. Then one day these strange men came.

They had come to trade. They came to trade for food but the Indians refused to give up their food. The next morning Red Plum heard a gun shot while she was in the village. She ran home and found her mom crying, she saw her father on the floor. Red Plum asked what happened and her mother told her that her father got shot for not doing what he was told to do.

Red Plum and her mother decided to run away. The next morning they made a plan. Their plan was to get up early the next morning about 3:00 am to get to the mountains. They gathered food and clothes and other important things they needed. They made it up to the mountains, Red Plum knew a cave that nobody knew about.

They lived there for 6 months then 1 week later a Spanish hunter was hunting in the forest. The Spanish hunter found them and took them to his fields and made them slaves. The Spanish hunter starved them. He gave them a job to pick him some apples, corn, and squash. Red Plum and Purple Flower tried to steal 1 apple, 2 corns, and 3 squashes.

The Spanish hunter almost caught them but he didn't. When they got home they ate good and they went to bed. The next morning he took them to his house to meet his family. He has a wife and a girl. His wife name is Ursula and his daughter Amy.

Amy and Red Plum became best friends after a week. Amy and her mom started helping Red Plum and Purple Flower with picking the food. Soon Amy and her mother started feeding Red Plum and Purple Flower some of the food they picked. Amy and Ursula fried corn and squash and made apple pie for them. Ursula had a pig and she butchered it and made bacon a kind of meat Red Plum has not ate before.

Red Plum and her mom liked it very much with their squash and corn because they mixed it up together. The next morning for lunch Ursula and her daughter made corn and squash pot pie. Red Plum and her mother enjoyed the pot pie because they had never ate this kind of food before. Then one day Red Plum got very sick so she went to Ursula.

Ursula told her she had the flue, the word Red Plum never knew about. Ursula told Red Plum that the flue was a very bad cold brought from her husband because he was the first one to get the flue. Red Plum ran home to tell her mother what kind of sickness she had. Red Plum's mother went to Ursula's house to ask her if there was a kind of medicine that could help Red Plum. Ursula said " yes".

She said it was a kind of mix, Ursula told Purple Flower that the things that were needed were not where they lived. Amy went to see Red Plum, and Amy sang a Spanish song that helped a little with Red Plum's sickness. Amy ran to her house and said that Red Plum was kind of getting over her sickness. Purple Flower went home and saw Red Plum playing outside with dirt. Red Plum looked up and asked what they were going have for supper, and Purple Flower said she did not know what they are going to eat. That night they had ate pot pie.

But this time they got caught eating and the Spanish hunter whipped them and they got tired of it and went back to their village. They saw their family members getting chained up and whipped. Red Plum and Purple Flower started crying and they saw an old man come out of know where. They asked him what happened to their family he said they are being punished because they refused to obey and work for the Spaniards. Now Red Plum and Purple Flower were the only ones that were not being punished.

But they said to each other that they had to keep their religion alive in their family. So at one part of the year there was a religious doing that they went to by themselves. But then that night they heard a baby cry by the river. Red Plum and Purple Flower ran to the river and found a baby boy. Purple Flower named him White Hawk after her husband.

When White Hawk grew up he knew Red Plum as his sister. So now they were a family again. Now all three of them went to all religious doings and they were happy. Every night all they had was water, squash, corn, and beans to eat but they were happy that they had something to eat. The next night it was raining and a woman came knocking at the door. Red Plum answered it and told the woman to come in.

They asked her who she was and she said that she was the mother of White Hawk. Now that Purple Flower found out she asked the what her name was and she said that her name was Blue Flower. So Blue Flower lived with them because she was part of the same tribe so now all four of them went to all religious doings even if they were in the winter time. Now that White Hawk was grown up he hunted for deer and elk so they could have more food to eat.

Purple Flower now fried deer and elk meat to eat with squash and corn and boiled beans with a special kind of bread. Now all three kids called Purple Flower "mother" because she's the one who took care of them. Soon Purple Flower got to old and died of old age, and now it was only White Hawk, Red Plum and Blue Flower. They all cried. THE END

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