Thunder on the Plains by Gary Robinson

Author:Gary Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939053862
Publisher: Book Publishing Company

Chapter 8

You Can Blame John Wayne

The next morning, Robert headed the horses toward rougher terrain. The flat grassy meadows faded away behind us. Ahead were jagged hills and ridges.

It turned out to be a busy day. We learned how to mark trails, find directions, locate wild plants we could eat, and other interesting stuff. Robert let Crow and Rabbit show us some of the things they had learned last year on the trail.

Now things were starting to get cool. At the end of the day we were all in a good mood. We set up our tents for sleeping and joked with each other around the campfire that night.

“There’s one thing you guys have out here on the rez that really beats the city,” I said, looking up at the night sky.

“What’s that?” Robert asked.

“An awesome view of the stars.”

They all looked up.

“My grandma told me that we Cheyenne came from the stars,” Charlene said. “And when we die, our spirits go back there.”

“The Star People,” Robert said. “It’s good that you know this legend,” he said to Charlene. “Do you know the rest of the story?”

“No, that’s all I remember,” the girl replied. “My grandma passed away last year. I wish I had listened to her more.” She looked at me with eyes that said she knew I had lost my dad.

“The elders say that the Cheyenne people once lived up among the stars,” Robert explained. “They looked down upon the earth and thought it would be a good place to live. One night a long, long time ago, the Creator caused a great shower of stars to fall to Earth. Those stars were the Cheyenne People. The Creator had given us this part of the world to live on.”

No one spoke for a few minutes. We all thought about the story and gazed at the sky.

That made me think of a question.

“Uncle Robert, why do some white people give Indians a hard time? Sometimes it seems like they just hate having us around.”

“It’s kind of complicated, Danny,” Robert said. Some of them still believe in something called Manifest Destiny. This is an idea from the 1800s. It’s based on the belief that God gave them this America as their promised land.”

“My dad said it was John Wayne’s fault,” Ben said. “A lot of white people grew up watching his Westerns. Those movies taught them that we were savages and worshipped the devil.”

“That’s part of it, too,” Robert replied. “Other, more educated, people feel guilty about how Indians were treated, but they don’t know what to do about it. So they don’t like to think about it. That’s just the way people are. But we know the truth, don’t we.”

He looked up at the sky. “We are descendants of the Star People.”

Everyone was silent again for a while.

This time Robert broke the silence. “Okay, we’ve got a hard day tomorrow. Off to bed with you.”

Robert ignored our protests. We headed for our tents. I felt a new sense of pride about being a Cheyenne Indian.

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