Chapter 1

The giant eagle soared high above the rolling plains of Dakota Territory, riding the air currents in a manner few creatures on earth will ever experience. Keeping an ever watchful eye on the land below for movement that could mean food for its family, the huge eagle turned south and followed the stream that had served up many meals in the past.

Movement below caught her eye, and she watched as a young Sioux Indian girl placed a bundle of fur in a willow bark basket at the stream’s edge. The Indian girl knelt in the icy cold, shallow water and wailed out to the heavens.

She cried with a sorrowful sound that carried to the giant eagle above, as the eagle looked down with keen interest, circling overhead.

Looking to the sky, seeking the favor of the Great Spirit, the young Sioux caught sight of the giant bird of prey and knew the Gods had heard her plea. They had sent the powerful guardian of the plains to watch over her son as she had hoped.

With one more quick look at the face of her sleeping son, the Indian girl gently pushed the basket, coated with beeswax, out into the fast moving waters of Eagle Creek. She turned and walked out of the shallow water and into the growth of willows lining the banks.

It was early spring and the creek was rippling and splashing wildly as it wandered south through the hills. The willows were just now budding and only a few patches of lingering snow were still clinging to the northern slopes of the rolling hills. The willow basket was bobbing and spinning in the currents as it rounded a bend and raced down the fast moving rapids toward the open valley that spread out below like a newly painted mural of nature.

Wild flowers with their multi-colored blooms peeked out into the bright sunlight, gently waving back and forth in the breeze that still had a breath of cool air, as it wafted down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains many miles to the west.

The giant eagle swooped down for a closer look at the basket as it moved swiftly through the waters, bouncing off upturned rocks, spinning through small rapids.

The basket was swirling slowly through the smooth clear waters of the open pools between the shallow rapids. As the giant eagle drifted closer and closer, a small hand reached up with fingers opening and closing as if to grasp hold of something that would save it from what would surely be danger ahead and maybe even death.

With wings folded and eyes locked onto its prey, the giant eagle plummeted toward the waters surface at a breath taking speed. Just as it neared the basket, the two small hands reached up to grasp the willow branch that was woven across the basket for a carrying handle.

Moving in from the south, meeting the basket head-on as it gained speed in the fast moving water, the giant eagle spread its wings and voiced a screech that echoed across the hills and valleys. Cupping its wings, the eagle stretched out its long, razor sharp talons and grasped the willow handle, just barely to either side of the two small hands that still held it tightly.

She jerked the basket from the swirling water with a splash, lifting it skyward with water droplets falling from it in a sweeping spray. The sunlight created a show of nature’s colors in a beautiful rainbow, as the spray faded back to earth.

The huge eagle pulled her body and her prize skyward with each stroke of her powerful wings, then she banked and hit an air current that carried her high above a small valley between the rolling hills.

Hearing the screaming and screeching of the eagle, the young Indian girl looked up as she walked out into a clearing among the willows. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the giant eagle soaring over head. She knew she had made the right decision, this was the sign she needed, this had to be the spirit of her baby boy rising above the plains. The Gods had heard her cries and her pleas for mercy. She never saw the basket from where she was, she only saw the huge eagle as it flew directly into the sun and disappeared.

She fell to the soft earth on her knees and lay her arms out in front to touch the ground as she prayed once more that the Great Spirit in the sky would accept her son as his own.

She raised her tearful eyes to the heavens once more, but the giant eagle was gone. She scanned the skies and it was nowhere to be seen.

The eagle raced through the skies back to its aerie built along an outcropping of a high cliff, where the vast prairie seemed to drop from a high plateau down to the valley below.

Waiting for food was two young eaglets, bobbing their heads as they looked to the sky for their mother to bring food to the nest. Hearing the screech of the adult eagle, the eaglets flapped their small, undeveloped wings, squawking in anticipation of food.

The large eagle swooped over the nest with the basket gripped in its talons, settling down with its wings cupped to catch the wind.

The basket dropped from the huge talons and bounced sideways with the force. The annoying cries and screaming of the small animal caught in the basket was starting again. The large eagle grabbed the basket, tearing through the fur of the animal inside. The screaming was louder than ever as the eagle looked into the eyes of the baby Sioux.

This small animal was different, this was the offspring of a man, not food for its young as she thought. She screeched her disgust and anger that she had been fooled by this screaming baby man. Her own babies were now frightened by the noise and huddled over to the side of the big nest.

The eagle snapped at the basket and the screaming baby inside, in an effort to stop this raucous wailing that was causing problems in her efforts to feed her young. Using her sharp beak she snatched the edge of the basket around, nearly turning it over. The baby was screaming louder and louder without stopping.

She leaned over the basket and stood looking down at the baby man. She grasped the fur in her beak and shook it, smelling the soiled and stinking odor of the baby. She covered its head with the loose flap of the fur and the baby stopped screaming for a time.