Sacajawea Read Online Free PDF

up the buffalo robe, and spread it on some clean grass. She dragged her grandmother’s mangled body outside and dropped it on the hide, then roiled the hide around the torn fresh quickly and tightly. She wiped her hands on the grass to rid them of the foul smell.
    She looked at the round bundle and visualized her grandmother peacefully sleeping. “I was too late!” Grass Child cried. “Why didn’t I come sooner?”
    From the far side of the hill came a growling. “Why couldn’t she just have fallen asleep forever? Why did the wolf have to interfere?” Grass Child tore at her tunic in anguish.
    She thought of the circle of stones on the top of the mountain not far away. It had offered no protection. And she wondered why she had left too late to save this beloved person. Why was the sun hiding? Could it not look upon this terrible Mother Earth? Where was the Great Spirit when this happened? Deep in the forest, the child stood over the body of her grandmother and wondered. She felt only the absence of the Great Spirit, and the need for something to fill the emptiness.
    Instinct told her that the wolf would be back again this night to finish what he had started. She searched the lean-to, found her grandmother’s firestones, and rubbed them together over a few dry leaves. The sparks caught quickly; she added a few small twigs. When they caught, she added some larger ones, and finally she pushed some dry, dead windfall into the fire. Then she added all the tanned skins from the lean-to. She kicked up the dirt over the dark paths of dried blood, and pushed the food supply, including the two fresh rabbits and bag of huckleberries, into the fire. The skins made a great smoke and stench.
    She looked around for something to cut off her long black hair, but her mind began to function, telling her it was dark and she’d better not move too far from the fire. She sat with her back against a tree, facing out into the dark forest. She thought she heard coyotes call in the distance. She pushed the dry sticks further into the fire. Sparks flew up around her. Soon there was the point of fire and vague outlines moving beyond, swimming in its flicker, and close about her the wall of dark-ness. Grass Child pushed back against the tree and put her head on her arms. She heard the cracking of the fire, heard the wind high in the trees, heard an owl hoot. The earth swung with her.
    Grass Child awakened shivering with cold in the first flush of the morning. She sat up slowly. The fire was a gray ash. The breeze brought a tuft of wolf fur across it. She tasted her mouth and made a face and brought her finger to her eyes to rub the film away. She looked around. The buffalo robe was still on the ground in a large, round ball. A rotten stench enveloped her. She began breathing through her mouth so as to block off the smell. Her head ached, and her eyelids felt like crusty sand. A slow restoration of nerve and duty came. And she knew she had an obligation to honor her grandmother’s memory by following the Shoshoni custom of cutting off the first joint of a finger. This ancient custom of her people accompanied the mourning of a loved one seen in death.
    She could not find a sharp stone, so she rubbed a stick on a flat rock until it was fairly sharp across the end. She kicked the ashes at the edge of the fire, found the firestones, rubbed them together over a handful of dry leaves, and added dry brush when they caught fire. The blood seemed to drain away from her head, and she felt faint. She sucked in great gulps of air, bent with her head low, and laid her left hand on the flat rock, palm down. Cold sweat ran down her back. She pushed with all her strength on the knifelike stick against the first joint of the little finger of her left hand. The rock was smooth, cold, and hard. The flesh tore open, and blood oozed out. The rock was warm and wet. Tlie pain was great. The earth tilted and fell back and tilted again, and she bent closer over her hand