A.J.

One sunny day Red Wolf boy was herding sheep on top of a ridge when he saw the Apaches with a white object. Red Wolf boy knew a friend named Blue Fox girl who lived by the leader Black Bear, so he told Black Bear that the Apaches were coming. Soon the Apaches were by our canyon. Blue Fox girl and I were watching from my rock house.

It looked like they were trading a white boy for guns and food. The Apaches left and they gave the white boy to my family He was taught to hunt and to ride horses . His name was Jesus . Sometimes we would play by a stream or go jack rabbit hunting and sometimes we would see rattle snakes and we would kill them. My grandfather said they were bad luck.

I understood Jesus's language but later on he ran away and did not come back for a while. When he came Jesus told me that the Apaches tried to kill him he had a large gash on his leg from a spear But he was all right. When he was older he had a companion. Jesus and Blue Fox girl had children. They built a hogan and moved away from the violence because the Long Knives started a war in the village. Blue Fox girl was in labor at the time so I led them out of the war.

When I got back my parents were dead and our hogan was burnt down. All that was left of it was a sheep bell . I got very mad and walked back to Jesus's hogan. On the way I found a child alive and well. She was not hurt. I carried her to Jesus's hogan. They gave her food and she wanted to live with them so she lived with them .

After a while the little girl was not a little girl anymore. She was considered a woman from now on. Her name was Turquoise Flower. It wasn't long before a group of Long Knives came to the hogan. Jesus and I did not know what was going on for a while and then for no reason they took Turquoise Flower away. That was the last time we saw her.

I was in shock so we packed up and me and Jesus left. We traveled for two moons and we got to the Long Knife village. I told them we wanted to see Turquoise Flower. They said she was dead. Jesus started to cry. Jesus told the Long Knife that she was like a daughter to him. We left. Jesus cried all the way until we got to a stream. I told Jesus, "wash your face" He refused to, so we left. We got to the hogan. We ate . The next morning I went outside and snow was on the ground. That night all we did was tell stories and that was all we did that winter.