Chapter 7

With Rising Waters taking over as the new Chief, most tribal things got back to normal quickly. The biggest difference that people noticed and remarked on at first was that Rising Waters spent much more time at the hunter's fire than Running Wolf ever had before him. When problems and disputes now arose, the parties could quickly approach Rising Waters and seek out his counsel before bad feelings got too firmly entrenched. Running Wolf had been an excellent tribal Chief, but he hadn't made himself easily accessible, preferring that people settle their own minor squabbles and bring only the most complex ones for him to decide. As with any change from long standing tradition, there were those who were welcoming of the change, and those who were opposed.

Rising Waters seemed to be in good spirits during the spring season, and even through the very beginning of the summer. He managed to go out on several short hunts, and was able to make many good trades with the other hunters for whatever he lacked. It looked like he was going to be a happy and popular Chief.

The trouble started over a trade gone bad between two brothers, Red Fox and Dark Sky. The two brothers had both traded the same bow to two separate hunters. Red Fox had taken in the bow as part of a trade for a pack of fur pelts that he had acquired, along with his brother, for work they had done helping another tribe to dam up a stream to divert the water to their village. Red Fox insisted that his brother had received his full portion of the items that they had traded the pelts for. Dark Sky agreed that he had received his full and fair portion, except, he maintained that the bow in question had been a part of that portion. Red Sky claimed that he was mistaken. Waters listened to the two brothers as they stated their respective positions, and then he made a ruling that Dark Sky would receive half of the value that Red Fox would receive in trade for the bow, and that Dark Sky would return whatever he'd received from the hunter he'd traded the bow to.

The next day Dark Sky set off to return the trade items and to get back the bow so that Red Fox could complete his part of the trade. When he got to the village where the man he'd traded with lived, an argument broke out between the two men, and there was a fight. Dark Sky was severely injured in the fight, one of his eyes was gouged out by the thumb of his opponent. Losing an eye wasn't that uncommon, but to a hunter the consequences were severe because with one eye there is a loss of depth perception. Try hunting with a bow, or even just moving through the woods, with one eye closed.

The consequences of losing an eye were serious enough that the Chief's from several villages were called on to sit in a multi-tribal council that would try to arrive at a decision that was fair to both sides. The bow, and Rising Waters earlier ruling on the trade goods, were not at issue. Compensation from one village to the other was in order. The village would have to work harder to make up for the loss of Dark Sky's productive activities. Dark Sky had a woman and three young children that he was responsible to, so the loss, over many seasons, was going to be considerable.

Before the Chief's could sit down and hear from both sides in the dispute, someone put an arrow through the heart of the man who'd fought with Dark Sky. Even though the arrow wasn't one of Red Fox's, most people believed that it had come from his bow strings. Red Fox had always had a temper, and had often acted before thinking things through. Murder was an unusual and very unwelcome thing among people who had managed to live in peace with all of their neighbors for a long period of time.

The people of the village took the wounding of Dark Sky, and the killing of his assailant, as a bad omen of Rising Waters' stewardship of the tribe. When three men from the neighboring tribe set upon Red Fox and another hunter that he was out hunting with, firing many arrows at them as they tried to escape through the woods, members of the tribe had had enough. A delegation that included Eagle Claw, Elk's Tooth, Two Bears, Broken Stick and seven other hunters walked to the neighboring village and had a parley with some of the hunters of that village. Two of the three men, that had pursued and shot at Red Fox were identified by the other hunter who had also been attacked. Angry words were spoken and each side claimed it was all the fault of the other. Years of living side by side in peace were washed away with the words that were being spoken. In the end, each side described an imaginary line around an area that they claimed as their hunting territory. There was considerable overlap between the two circles.

"We claim these lands for our village. Our hunters will now wage war against whoever we find trespassing in our hunting area." Eagle Claw had been selected to speak for the delegation, and while he was normally a man of peace, it was not to the point where he was willing to tolerate being chased through his own woods like some animal, hunted for his fur and meat. At his instigation the parley had been arranged. When he stood up to leave, any chance at peace between the two villages came to an end. It was a somber group of hunters that walked the path back to their village. There were arrows nocked in all of their bows, and they maintained a high state of alert as they traveled through the woods.

As a young man, even before he took Storm Cloud to be his woman, Eagle Claw had known the fury of war. It wasn't something that he had wanted to see again, not after so many peaceful seasons As little as he welcomed war though, he preferred that to the prospect of having members of his village threatened or harmed as they tried to go about their normal daily living activities. Better a quick and decisive war, he believed, than countless seasons living with fear and uncertainty. He feared mostly for the women and children of his tribe, because the hunters were used to killing and to the dangers of the hunt. Right after the delegation that had attended the parley returned, Red Fox, and two other hunters, undertook a journey to go North to trade for some dogs. Without having some dogs in the village, they were too vulnerable to an attack late at night or early in the morning when the village was asleep. Dogs were kept more for the purpose of sounding alarm than for any other reason. A dog could ruin a hunt, scaring away all of the game in the process. In tribal lore, dogs were only good for being sentries, to warn a village that strangers were near.

There were several skirmishes between the two warring villages, hunter's were shot at and, in turn, returned that fire. This only took place while hunting in the disputed land. A village on a war footing is a far cry from one that is at peace with it's neighbors. One of the biggest changes is that hunter's now traveled in bigger groups, and the gatherer's were always accompanied in the woods, by at least one and usually, several hunters. None were to gather in the disputed territory. Rising Waters stopped spending so much time at the hunter's fire, and all of the hunters took steps to improve their wind and their stamina.