Stands-with-demons may have stood with a demon fearlessly as a curious boy, but as a man of many journeys he now stained himself with shame as the big bear of a man before him leaped high off the rock and came down in a crouch a mere two paces, or one of those might leaps away.
Father shouted, “Pierce him with the long demon-knife—a father’s dream fulfilled!”
As the voice of Father crackled into the cold sky and the Mud Warrior now panther-walked in a crouch, stalking him for the kill, the man in the sneering place return to the forepart of his mind and the great bow sang, sang with a sickening twang as one big knee was transfixed, the cap of the joint lifting off and falling on a strand if sinew to hang before the shin bone, as the warrior wailed and tried to rise, his leg failing him.
The Mud Water Warrior lurched for him, swinging his great club so that it stuck into the hard earth where Stands-with-demons had stood before his catlike bound backward.
Father spoke, “Now, the long knife, finish him. It was a sensible thing to even the fight, he being so strong.”
The demon’s long knife hit the hard ground as the sneering warrior within, drew and knocked another arrow from the quiver and the great bow creaked as Father’s voice groaned, “No, not like this, Stands-w—”
The Mud Warrior hobbled up and forward, desperately dragging the wounded leg as he tried to close with his killer and the mighty bow twanged like a storm-bent branch and sent an arrow through the hip of the good leg and dropped the big man howling in misery.
“Coward!” howled the Mud Water as he clawed the ground with his finger tips, dragging his transfixed lower parts after him.
The man was so fierce in his rage that Stands-with-demons backed away and knocked another arrow, which elicited a rumbled threat, “Woman, I shall tear your belly open for a baby place and mount you in my agony!” with that the man crawled forward with astounding speed, closing the distance so quickly that Stands-with-demons ran to the left, away from Father, placing the enemy between he and his beloved blood chief.
He knocked an arrow from the sneering place inside and set to draw for the kill, when Father stepped over the prone warrior, sat down before him and then covered the fallen enemy’s vitals with his own body, crying into the sky, screaming at the bald menace in his distant past, “You took my son and made him your own, Demon! How I deserve this misery in me!”
He then hugged the giant warrior, who seemed now to be frightened like a child at midnight, looking wide-eyed at Stands-with-demons as Father hugged him and screamed incomprehensible things into the warrior’s chest.
Feeling the urine of fear turning cold in his moccasin Stands-with-demons was left with the one course to remove it, the finding of the demon, but first the scalping and looting of his first two warrior kills.
Off he walked, sobbing and muffled words following him into the brush and then up the hill, the sucking pop of the scalps being removed never drowning out the weeping of his crazed father, only serving to accompany his sorrowful song.
He stood straight, looking far and wide for enemies, and finding none. The music of is broken chief’s song faded like a distant storm. His eyes then caught the gray-green ridges of the Sunrise Mountains and he determined to go seek his honor in a place where this doing would resonate with pride, where the distance of the walk of time and walk of feet would render what was sorrowfully stained here, in sunny hues there.
Good bye, Father. I have found the demon-place inside and shall water it in the Red Lake of Enemy Sorrow. It is past time.
