Little Apache by Mey Rayna (reading tree .txt) 📕

As she was 7 years old when she was sitting alone in the dark, somewhere in the mountains. Until today she can't remember why and what was happened before.

She was crying a lot when a human man found her. He looked as scary as possible in his war outfit. At the moment he teached the place an she saw him she stopped crying, but not out of fear. She just stared at him as he sat down next to her. When he began to smile warmly she took a deep look in his eyes, and she knew she could trust  him and decided it´d better to keep him for a while. And he understood.

He took her to a safe hideout. Since this day he was her best (and only) friend and carried for her like a father. He told her his name, but she just said Eagle to him.

During the time with him, he showed her how to survive, taught her different languages, told her a lot of great stories about chiefs, tribes and the pale faces. She didn't know then that these stories had been his own stories.

Once the Eagle was very sad and went to sit on a mountaintop for ten days. The 12th day he came back and told her all about the passed days. She sensed that something had changed, but she was happy to have him back.

One evening by the fire, he told her that he had a son, calling "Eagle cruising the Sky," a half-blood, and that she would meet him one day, but not on this day. She was shocked and happy but she trusted implicitly in him, always. The years passed and she grew up. She was always with caution if she met other humans or watched them. As she was older, the Eagle wasn't there every day anymore, and it was ok. He visited her as often as he could and brought little presents to make her smile.

One evening he left her, and she knew that this was the last time, that she saw him, she was sad, but he told her one fine day he would come back. During the same night she dreamed about him and his dead, but she was not sad anymore, because of his words and the promise to come back.

He came back.

The very next day, she was eating her breakfast when she sensed him behind her. Then she heard the flapping wings of an eagle, landing. She smiled, turned around and took a deep look into his eyes like she did on their first day. He stayed, waiting and finally she was sure, this was her friend, the Eagle. Since this day she talked to him like every day, before his human body died. And he answered, in her dreams.

When she was 16, sleeping next to her fire, he told her in a dream to wake up, and she did. A young man, maybe 18 years old, was sitting in front of her, trying desperately to keep the fire burning. As he recognized her awakening he smiled to her and at this moment she knew that this was the son of the Eagle. It was the very same warm smiling.

They talked a lot, all night long, and they had a lot to talk about, and to laugh. The Eagle was sitting in a tree next to them, snoozing and satisfied.

Finally in the morning, she was very tired and fell asleep in the arms of "Eagle cruising the sky".

They both knew that they didn´t have the same blood, but since this day she called him Brother and he called her Sister, like siblings do.

He couldn't stay, but he visited her a few times in every month and she enjoyed every single day with him.

One morning, she woke up and the Eagle was not sitting at his place. She felt lonely and begun to meditate. But she couldn't call the eagle anymore. He was gone. So she decided to search her brother and left the cave for the last time.

In the evening she found her brother and told him about the Eagle she couldn´t reach anymore. He nodded and explained, that it was time to search a tribe for her. She was afraid of it but she trusted him like she trusted his father. So she went to search other natives.

In the same night, she found a village, next to the eagle mountain, that the eagle told her about a lot of times. She decided to observe them first. The brother smiled about it, but he said nothing, just that he will be near, if she will ever need him.

During these 3 days she tried to be brave and sometimes she sneaked into the village and around it. At the second day she met a pale faced man in these manmade tunnels under the earth and tried to hide, but it was too late.

He was talking to her, nice and warm, and she was noisy but afraid of him. Then he left the mines and she followed him to watch what he would do. He was also observing the Apaches, who entered the fort, but he always knew, that she was there, hiding. And after a while she asked him a few things and he answered her. He was an outlaw and a friend of this apache-tribe. He told her a lot about the land and the tribe. And finally a friend of him, an apache named "Soaring Eagle" scared her as he was suddenly there. But he too was nice to her, and the outlaw told her, that she could trust in him.

The third day, she was sneaking around the village and the mountain when she saw a really big man standing there. She was awestruck as he looked directly to her. He called her to come into the village, and the voice was as strong as his look, and warm.

Carefully she climbed down and went into the village. Fearful, but trying to look brave.

First she stayed a few feet away in respect of this huge man. She was hiding in the sunflower field. But then she saw her new friend, Soaring Eagle and had the heart to come out.

He introduced this man as the chief of these apaches. His name was "Black Horse" and all that she wanted to do then, was running away. But she didn't. She was brave.

Black Horse asked her a lot and she answered truthfully because she felt safe near the chief.

She told him about the Eagle and her brother and later she called her brother to come to her. And he came to talk with the chief like old friends. He told him, the real name of his father. "Eagle Wings". and she recognized that Black Horse was the bloodbrother of her Eagle who found her 10 years ago and all the stories that he had told her were true.

She fingered her two feathers, knotted in her hair, one of the Eagle’s left wing in her left braid and one of the right wing in her right braid, and smiled as she remembered him.

Since this day she has a new home and a new family. They even gave her a new name: TwoFeathers. She liked that and her new home. In her dreams the eagle is still visiting her, sometimes as a human and sometimes as an Eagle, free like the wind. And his eyes are always smiling to her.

Text: G.C.I.Mandel
Publication Date: 10-25-2010

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Dedication:
Den Comanche gewidmet