Little
Fox's Secret
Chapter One
The Season to Trade
Little Fox leapt over the familiar
pile of fallen logs--two logs higher today. Arms raised high,
he plunged into the stream, scrambled up the crumbling bank,
and raced along the worn path into the clearing. The spear at
the end of the course came into view. His moccasins pounded
dust. His lungs burned. He jerked the spear from the soft prairie
soil. "Aaaaiii!" he cried, thrusting the spear above
his head. "Hiiii!"
Panting, he sank down onto the stump
of a tree. "Faster. Faster than last time." The other
young braves were still far behind.
Little Fox imagined his next victory.
Even without the machine to count time, I know this season
when we go to trade at Bent's Fort, I will run faster than Robert
Bent. My arrow will shoot farther, and it will shoot straighter.
This time, Robert will not pin me to the ground when we wrestle.
"No, my friend. I have been practicing. You beat me
in my ninth summer, and you won again last year, but you will
not beat me this time."
When his breathing returned to normal,
Little Fox loped back into the Cheyenne village. The feather
adornments on the spear fluttered at his side.
"Who won today?" Painted
Horse called out from beside his tipi, the way he did every
day.
"I did!" Little Fox answered,
the way he did every day. Knowing Painted Horse could not hear,
he stomped his foot hard and hit his chest with his fist.
"Yes! Yes! I hear you."
Painted Horse touched his finger tips to his ears. "I feel
the pounding of your feet. My young friend of eleven summers,
you are a clever Little Fox…and a fast one, too. Because
of you, we eat pheasant today."
Little Fox circled Painted Horse's
tipi, then circled his own. His sister, Morning Flower, was
adding hot stones to the stew cooking inside a buffalo paunch.
His mother was roasting the pheasant Little Fox had shot with
his bow and arrow early that morning. The pheasant was skewered
on a green willow stick that rested in the forks of two branches
stuck into the ground. The juices dripped and sizzled on the
coals and made Little Fox's mouth water.
"When we go to trade at Bent's
Fort, Robert will be surprised," Little Fox said, kneeling
beside the fire. "Morning Flower, will you watch me win?"
Morning Flower flipped her long black
braids over her shoulder. Her eyes sparkled. "I hope we
go soon."
"Gray Owl has called for a gathering
tonight." Their mother's eyebrows arched, and Little Fox
knew what her words--and that look--could mean.
He glanced around the village. Women
were finishing their work. No new hides were being scraped.
None of the dogs were carrying more firewood into camp. Nothing
new was being started.
"What will Gray Owl say? Do you
think we will leave for Bent's Fort tomorrow?" A spot in
the side of Little Fox's neck beat faster.
His mother's eyebrows lifted again,
and she smiled.
"I'll take my two buffalo robes!"
Little Fox said. "I'll trade them for a knife of silver."
"I'll trade by best woven basket
for an iron pot. An iron pot won't split like a gourd or dry
and burn like the stomach of the buffalo. I will visit Old Grandmother,
and see Yellow Woman's and William Bent's new baby." Little
Fox could tell his mother was as excited about returning to
Bent's Fort as he was.
"It's time to move," Morning
Flower said. "We have been in this place since before the
last full moon."
"We are a people who move,"
Little Fox said. "I like to follow the seasons and the
buffalo. I like for all the prairie to be my home. I don't have
to stay in one place like Robert does when he's with his father
at Bent's Fort." But now Little Fox could hardly wait to
get back to the two-story adobe trading post again.
