Chapter 1

My name is David Whitehorse. I’m 16 and practically full-blooded Blackfoot Indian. My great grandfather was from Germany, so Gramps was half Blackfoot, meaning that Mom is only three-quarters Blackfoot, but all my other ancestors are full-blooded Blackfoot.

According to my parents, when they first started dating, Dad’s easy-going, happy-go-lucky personality and boyish charm attracted Mom; Mom’s looks attracted Dad. By the time she saw past the charm, she had to marry him anyway because I was on the way.

Shortly after they got married, Dad was likely to be found drinking or playing pool in one of the town’s bars, burning any free time he had. At least he thought it was free time. My mother was of a different opinion. Then Dad was arrested for a drunken brawl in a bar he frequented, and for assaulting and injuring one of the cops who tried to break it up. The judge gave him an option--the Marine Corps for four years or county jail for five to seven years. Dad chose the Marines.

Like most, my father returned from war a changed man. Born three months after Dad joined the Marines, I was too young to remember anything about his return. I base the earlier observation on the accounts given me by my parents. When Dad returned home, he said that the Marines were the best thing that ever happened to him--aside from meeting and marrying Mom. From that day forward, Dad never drank, and was a devoted husband and father.

The only thing my parents argued about after Dad’s return was when he started teaching me about weapons before I was five, and about how hard he pushed me to learn. The arguments stopped almost immediately, and Mom’s last letter to me explained why; she decided that either her husband was crazy, or I would need to know everything Dad taught me--and more. The comments the tribal elders made to her and their sudden insistence on helping to support our family so that both parents could help teach me finally pushed her to accept that, however unlikely, Dad’s far-fetched belief had merit.

Having grown up on the reservation, Dad had learned the old ways from his father and grandfather, those passed down from generation to generation. He took me hunting or fishing at least twice a week and taught me everything he knew. Others from the tribe helped teach me things Dad didn’t know, augmenting what Dad taught me. I learned to harvest, process, and weave fiber from various plants, making it into cording to make snares and fishing nets. I learned how to make and hunt with snares, then bows, and finally with rifles. I learned to track and to survive in the wilderness, even in the snow. Aside from hunting, fishing, and tracking, I learned mountaineering, rock climbing, snow skiing, general survival skills, desert survival, winter survival, advanced first aid, and swimming.

Each summer, Dad and I spent two weeks in the woods living off the land. When I turned ten, except for metal tools and implements, all Dad allowed me to take with me were items I made myself, including the bows I made. While I didn’t have to weave the cloth, I did have to cut out and hand-stitch the clothing I wore. Eventually, I made clothing and moccasins from the skin of a deer I killed, and quickly grew comfortable wearing buckskins.

Additionally, my father started me in a martial arts class at age five. I ate it all up; what young boy wouldn’t? My friends were all jealous of me! I was living every young boy’s fantasy life. However, my life wasn’t all work and learning. If I was at home, my parents insisted that I go outside to play for a couple hours each afternoon when the other kids got home from school. When I was younger, we played younger games like tag and hide-and-go-seek. As I got older, we played baseball, soccer, football, and basketball.

My friends were quite interested in what I was learning, so once or twice a month I showed them. Dad and I would spar, or Dad would supervise while I did a kata with my bokuto (wooden practice sword) or even my katana when I was older. They loved watching me use my bow. When I was twelve, they oohed and aahed when I hit targets more than a hundred yards away.

My martial arts skills grew rapidly since Dad drilled me and then sparred with me every evening when I became proficient enough. My instructor was amazed at my progress. By age eight, I frequently won area and regional contests in my age group. By age ten, I won my first state championship. At thirteen, I took third place in my age bracket at the national tournament and won it the next two years. By then I had quite a large collection of weapons, most fashioned by my own hand.

The only weapons I hadn’t made myself were my katana and wakizashi, a matching tanto, and a sai. Dad gave them to me for my eighth birthday. Dad never gave many details but said that he bought them from someone he met while he was on R&R in Japan. He also bought a similar, unsharpened set, and a bokuto.

For years, the daishō sat reverently on a small stand in the living room, tips of the blades always pointed to our right as we looked at it. Dad didn’t know why; it was just the way the man who forged the sword told him it was supposed to be done. He complied out of respect for the master sword maker who made and sold him the weapons. Once Dad gave it to me, the daisho rested in my bedroom atop a special cherry wood stand. I fashioned that stand under the watchful eye of, and with a great deal of assistance from, one of Dad’s friends who built furniture.

Dad gave me the wooden practice sword for my seventh birthday, and I didn’t let it out of my sight for a month; I even slept with it, much to the chagrin and amusement of my parents. I also gained a second martial arts instructor to learn iaijutsu, the art of drawing the sword with a slicing attack.

So how did I have time to do all of this and go to school? I was home schooled. Most home-schooled children learn at a much faster rate than their peers do. The kids who don’t want to be in school don’t slow down home-schooled kids with their disruptions. Studies show that an average student learns the equivalent of ten minutes for every hour they spend in public school, with lessons geared so even the worst students can learn them. And those studies were done years ago so who knows how much worse it’s gotten.

People learn much faster when they’re interested in something. Over the course of several years, every kid will be interested in virtually everything you would need to learn in school and will want to learn about it. I easily passed the high school equivalency test at age fourteen, right before my friends started high school. When the school district blustered that I needed PE credits, Mom drove her car down to their offices with the back seat filled with literally dozens of my trophies--including my National Championship trophy. I think that using my bokuto and going through the forms, and then sparring with my sensei convinced them I was definitely physically fit. I’m sure that the jumps, flips, and other aerial moves I did during our sparring demonstration helped, as did managing to make them look effortless, even after fifteen minutes of rigorous sparring.

After passing the high school equivalency test, a test showing that I had already mastered what I would be expected to learn in high school, I lived for a year with Dean and Tina, two of Mother’s friends from college. They lived and worked in a re-creation of an early colonial town where he was a blacksmith and she hand-made both tallow and beeswax candles. Everyone there was friendly and loved that I was interested in their craft. I learned the basics of glassblowing, pottery making, brickmaking, masonry, and working wood with colonial-era hand tools. I even learned barrel making from the cooper. Many days, I helped with demonstrations for the tourists, showing various skills that I had learned.