Red Hawk: The Story of My Tribe
Chapter 5

Copyright© 2015 by Red Tempest

The story is now being told by Red Hawk's son, War Hawk.

I just lay to rest my father Red Hawk, and now I am the chief of the tribe. A few years ago a sickness attacked the tribe and many died including, Wolfgard, my mother, Sparrow, and my Aunt Robin. The shaman also passed away before the sickness came. My Aunt Fawn is still alive, and helps me when I ask her.

I am now training both of my son's War Eagle, and Thunder Bird, on just how to be chief. I have four boys and five girls, from my three wives. The tribe is strong with more than 200 members now. It is a full time job just getting enough food to feed them all.

The tribe is sort of split into two segments. The original tribe my father restarted is mainly in the caves and on the North side of the river. The tribe that joined us after the raiders killed most of their men is on the South side of the river, living mainly in tents. Some of our original tribe members have joined them.

I am chief of both tribes. Sometimes I feel that since my father is gone, there is a difference that I can't just understand yet. Almost like two separate factions at work here.

At least once a year, maybe more, a different tribe comes wondering by, and my father always made them feel welcome. As per custom we took new wives. In return we lost our sisters, daughters, or female friends. This exchange is good for the tribe, as the new blood helps to produced healthier children.

As my father always said, a healthy tribe is a strong tribe and a strong tribe keeps the enemies away. I miss him and his wisdom. Now the younger tribe members, look to me for the leadership and wisdom.

There has been an increase in talking about going back to the great meeting grounds. Fifteen years ago the raiders attacked the great meeting grounds. The tribes now only meet every three years. We have not been back since we came to this beautiful valley. The last tribe came through here four moons ago; they mentioned that they were going to the great meeting grounds this year. There was great pressure put on me to go, but we all could not go.

After lots of discussion, it was decided by the tribal council, that only 90 members of the tribe would go. Then it came down to who would go, and who would be staying. It was decided that the old and the young, and any woman with children would stay. Thunder Bird would be in charge, along with a group of hunters.

We said our goodbyes, and loaded up the camels. We headed east toward the great meeting ground. The journey would take more than a full moon to get there. We did the same thing as last time. We stop a day short and loaded up with food and water.

When we got close, I had the hunters put away their bows, and just be armed with clubs and spears. We camped in about the same spot, on the South end of the meeting grounds. We did a couple of trial camp protection runs, just as Wolfgard did with me, about 15 years ago.

I left for a chieftain meeting and War Eagle is left in charge. I made my rounds to different tribes, I noticed a few had bows out, but all were a type of short bow, and very crude. Not one is as advanced as the ones we had. The arrows were also very crude compare to ours. I watched them shoot the bows at targets and they were lousy shots. Most arrows wobbled a lot in flight, because the arrow head was too large for the arrow. This caused the arrow to drop quickly when it lost speed.

At the chieftain meeting, those chiefs' who had the bows were bragging about how good they are, and that they are more advance that the rest of us. It is starting to make me gag. There is talk about games and contest with the bows to see who is the best shot.

I am so tempted to run back to our camp, and get my bow. I would show them all, who is the best. But I could hear the words of my father ringing in my ears. He would preach patience and never give up the element of surprise. He would say that surprise is something that you just might need down the road. To give away that edge just might turn the tide against you.

We had a good time at this meeting festival. I would spell War Eagle and give him a chance to meet other people. As with our custom, women were married off to different tribes. We lost some of our women and gained new family members. One of the big topics is the possibility of a very large raider tribe on the other side of the Spine of the World mountain range, way up toward the north.

The festival lasted just over a week and the tribes broke up and headed back to their territories. Again it almost took us a full new moon to get back home. Thunder Bird is there to greet us.

"It was very quiet while you were gone, but we did have one small encounter with a group of what looked like raiders. They left when the hunters and I arrived at the east end of the valley," he reported to me.

"I think that we need to start posting a couple of guards at both ends of the valley," I told him. I did not like the sound of raiders scouting our location.

"What we should do is construct six small blinds to hide our guards in, so they are out of sight. Do this at both ends of the valley, and they can rotate into different blinds, on different days." I said this to both War Eagle and Thunder Bird. They nodded in agreement.

Work started on both ends of the valley as we constructed different types of blinds for the guards to hide in. Also, I had the arrow maker's start working on more arrows to double our supply. I had more bows and spears made for each hunter. This preparation kept the tribe busy for a while.

 
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