Firebird
Copyright© 2025 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 8: Storm Gathering
The son came in late summer, when the prairie grass had turned golden and the nights carried the first whisper of autumn cold.
Firebird’s labor began at dawn, the first pains waking her from restless sleep. She lay still for a moment, one hand on her swollen belly, feeling the tightening that meant her body was preparing to bring this child into the world.
Morning Star, sleeping beside her, sensed the change immediately. Her eyes opened, and she touched Firebird’s face. “The baby?”
“Yes. It’s time.”
Red Hawk was already awake, sitting by the fire, and he turned at their voices. His face showed the fear every father feels in that moment—the knowledge that he can do nothing, that this journey belongs to the women, that he can only wait and hope.
“I’ll get Gentle Rain,” he said, rising quickly.
“Not yet.” Firebird sat up slowly, breathing through another contraction. “The pains are still far apart. We have time.”
But Morning Star was already moving, helping Firebird stand, supporting her as she walked slowly around the tipi. Movement helped, the medicine women had taught her. Walking made the baby come faster, made the pain more bearable.
By midmorning, when the contractions were coming harder and closer together, Gentle Rain arrived with Becky Sunflower and two other elder women who knew the ways of birthing. They filled the tipi with calm competence, boiling water, preparing herbs, speaking in low, soothing voices.
Red Hawk was sent outside, as was custom. The birth tipi was women’s space, sacred and separate. He went reluctantly, looking back at Firebird with eyes that said everything his mouth could not.
“Go,” she told him gently. “I’ll be fine. Morning Star is here.”
And Morning Star was there, never leaving Firebird’s side through the long afternoon. She held Firebird’s hand through the worst contractions, wiped the sweat from her face, whispered encouragement when the pain seemed unbearable.
“You’re so strong,” Morning Star murmured. “The strongest person I know. You can do this.”
The labor lasted through the afternoon and into early evening. Not difficult, Gentle Rain assured her, but thorough—the baby taking its time, making sure it was ready for the world.
When the final push came, when Firebird bore down with everything she had, feeling her body split and tear and open, the baby emerged in a rush of blood and fluid and relief so profound she nearly wept.
The cry came immediately—loud and indignant, a protest against the cold air and the bright world.
“A son!” Gentle Rain lifted the baby high, turning to the four directions as tradition demanded. “A strong son! Hear him cry—he has the voice of a warrior!”
The other women ululated, the high wavering cry of celebration echoing through the tipi and out into the village beyond. Outside, Firebird heard the men responding—Red Hawk’s voice among them, shouting with joy.
Gentle Rain cleaned the baby quickly, efficiently, then laid him on Firebird’s chest. He was still covered in birth blood, still crying, his tiny fists waving in the air.
“Hello, little one,” Firebird whispered, touching his face with one finger. “Hello, my son.”
The baby quieted at her voice, his dark eyes—impossibly alert for one so new—seeming to focus on her face. He was perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, strong lungs, and a head of thick black hair.
“Can Red Hawk come in?” Firebird asked Gentle Rain.
The old woman smiled. “Let me finish first. Then yes.”
She delivered the afterbirth, checked Firebird’s bleeding, applied herbs to the torn places, and wrapped Firebird in clean furs. Only then did she go to the tipi entrance and call out: “Red Hawk! Come meet your son!”
Red Hawk burst through the entrance like he’d been shot from a bow. He crossed to Firebird in three strides, dropped to his knees beside her, and stared at the baby in her arms with an expression of such profound wonder that Firebird felt her heart swell.
“May I?” His voice was thick with emotion.
“He’s yours,” she said, smiling. “You can hold him whenever you want.”
Red Hawk took his son with the careful reverence of a man holding something infinitely precious. The baby, still mostly asleep now, made a small sound and turned his head toward Red Hawk’s chest, seeking warmth.
“My son,” Red Hawk whispered. “My son.”
He looked at Firebird, and there were tears in his eyes—something she’d never seen before, not even in their most intimate moments. “You have given me a gift beyond measure. Thank you.”
Morning Star came to sit beside them, completing the circle. She touched the baby’s tiny hand, and his fingers closed around hers reflexively.
“He’s beautiful,” she said softly. “Perfect.”
“Our son,” Firebird said, looking at both of them. “All of ours to love and raise.”
Red Hawk nodded, understanding. Morning Star smiled, her face radiant with joy.
Outside, the village was already celebrating. Word had spread quickly—Red Hawk’s son was born, strong and healthy, and the tribe would feast tonight in his honor.
Three days later, when Firebird had recovered enough to walk without pain, the naming ceremony took place.
The entire village gathered in a circle around Chief Tall Bull’s tipi. Firebird stood with the baby in her arms, Red Hawk on one side, Morning Star on the other. The chief approached, his face solemn with the weight of ceremony.
He took the baby gently, held him up to the sky, then turned to the four directions—east, south, west, north—presenting the child to the spirits and to all of creation.
“Maheo, Great Spirit, we bring you this child,” Tall Bull intoned in Cheyenne. “Bless him with strength. Bless him with wisdom. Bless him with courage. Guide his path. Protect his spirit. Welcome him to the circle of life.”
He marked the baby’s forehead with red ochre—the sacred color of life—and handed him back to Firebird.
Red Hawk stepped forward, his voice carrying across the gathered tribe. “This is my son. Firebird and I have chosen his name. He will be called Tall Elk, for the vision his mother saw before his birth—a vision of strength and leadership, of a warrior who would stand tall among his people. May he grow to fulfill that vision. May he bring honor to the Cheyenne. May the spirits guide and protect him always.”
The tribe responded with shouts of approval and celebration. The drums began, the singers raised their voices, and the feast commenced.
For a few precious hours, there was only joy. Only celebration. Only hope for the future embodied in one small, perfect child.
But even as they danced and sang, scouts were riding in from the east with news that would darken the celebration.
Red Hawk saw them arrive—three warriors, their horses lathered with sweat, their faces grim. He excused himself from the feast and went to meet them.
Firebird, watching from across the fire, saw his posture change as they spoke. Saw his shoulders tighten, his jaw clench. When he returned to her side, his face was carefully neutral, but she knew him too well to be fooled.
“What is it?” she asked quietly.
“Later,” he said, forcing a smile. “Tonight is for celebration. The troubles can wait until morning.”
But Firebird saw the shadow in his eyes, and she knew—the darkness was closer than they’d thought.
The moons passed, and autumn turned to winter, then winter to spring.
Firebird’s body healed from the birth, and six weeks later, when the medicine women said it was safe, she and Red Hawk came together again with the hunger of mates who had been too long denied. Their lovemaking was passionate and deep, and Firebird felt the familiar spark of new life taking hold almost immediately.
She told Red Hawk a week later, when she was certain. He smiled and pulled her close, one hand spread across her still-flat belly.
“Two children,” he said softly. “We are blessed.”
“We are,” she agreed. But even in that moment of joy, she felt the weight of the world pressing in.
Because while their family grew within the safety of their tipi, the world outside was collapsing.
The Army’s presence had become impossible to ignore. What had once been occasional patrols now seemed like an occupation. Blue-coated soldiers appeared on the horizon almost daily, their rifles always ready, their eyes always watching. They rode through Cheyenne hunting grounds like they owned them—because, according to their government, they did.
The buffalo were disappearing. Not slowly, not naturally, but with terrifying speed. The great herds that had darkened the plains for as long as anyone could remember were being systematically slaughtered. White hunters killed them by the thousands—not for food, not for hides, but for sport and for profit. They shot them from trains, from horseback, from wherever they pleased, taking only the tongues or the hides and leaving the rest to rot.
The Cheyenne watched their way of life being destroyed one buffalo at a time.
Settlers poured onto the prairie in ever-increasing numbers. They staked claims to land that had never belonged to anyone, built houses where tipis had stood, plowed under grass that had fed buffalo for millennia. They brought their cows and their fences, their churches and their schools, their absolute certainty that they had the right to take whatever they wanted.
And they brought their hatred. The Cheyenne were “savages” to them—less than human, obstacles to be removed. Stories circulated in the white settlements about Indian attacks, Indian atrocities, Indian savagery. Most were lies or gross exaggerations. But they served their purpose: they made it easier for the whites to justify what they were about to do.
The reports came with sickening regularity now.
A Cheyenne hunting party attacked near Fort Lyon—five warriors killed, their bodies stripped and mutilated, left for the scavengers. The soldiers claimed self-defense. The survivors said the warriors had been unarmed, had raised their hands in peace.
A village on the Smoky Hill River burned to the ground—soldiers attacking at dawn, shooting anyone who tried to flee. Women. Children. Elders who could barely walk. Twenty-three dead, including a baby still nursing when the bullets found her mother.
Food stores destroyed. Winter supplies stolen or burned. Sacred objects desecrated—medicine bundles opened and thrown in the dirt, ceremonial pipes broken, burial scaffolds torn down.
And always, always, the same message from the Army: Go to the reservation. Give up your weapons. Give up your horses. Give up your freedom. Submit, or die.
The council meetings grew longer and more heated.
Firebird attended one such meeting in late autumn, her belly beginning to show with her second pregnancy. Morning Star stayed back with Tall Elk, but Red Hawk had asked Firebird to come—her counsel was valued, her warrior’s perspective important.
Chief Tall Bull sat at the center of the circle, looking older than Firebird had ever seen him. The burden of leadership was crushing him, she could see it in his face. How did you lead a people when every choice led to death?
Black Kettle spoke first, his voice heavy with the weight of experience. He had survived Sand Creek three years earlier—had watched his people massacred under a white flag of peace. His wife had been shot nine times and somehow survived. He knew the cost of trusting the whites. But he also knew the cost of war.
“We cannot win a fight against the Army,” he said quietly. “Their numbers are too great. Their weapons too powerful. If we make war, they will destroy us. Every man, woman, and child. We have seen what they do. Sand Creek taught us. We must find another way.”
Roman Nose stood—tall, fierce, his face painted for war even in council. He was a Dog Soldier, one of the warrior society that refused to compromise, refused to submit.
“Another way?” His voice was contemptuous. “What other way is there? They take our land. They kill our buffalo. They murder our people. And you say we should go quietly to their reservations? Live in their cages? Starve on their rations while they steal everything we have? That is not another way. That is slow death.”
“It is survival,” Black Kettle countered. “Our children need to survive. War means they die.”
“Submission means they die slower,” Roman Nose shot back. “They die of hunger. Of disease. Of despair. I have seen the reservations. The people there are already dead—they just don’t know it yet. At least if we fight, we die as warriors. We die free.”
The argument went back and forth, the same positions, the same impossibilities. The peace chiefs advocating for negotiation, for compromise, for whatever mercy might be found in the white man’s system. The war chiefs demanding resistance, dignity, the right to fight for their land and their people.
Red Hawk had been silent through most of it, listening, weighing. But finally he stood, and the council fell quiet. His reputation as a warrior and as a thoughtful leader had grown in recent years. When he spoke, people listened.
“I understand both sides,” he said carefully. “Black Kettle is right—we cannot win a full war against the Army. Their numbers, their weapons ... in an open war, we would be destroyed.”
Roman Nose started to object, but Red Hawk held up a hand.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.