The Trading Post part 5

Daniel followed the men as if he had been with them always. He walked over to a horse he somehow knew was his. Mounting the horse, he looked at the men riding beside him. Some were as young as 15 years old and others looked as if they had weathered far too many winters. The silence he was experiencing scared him. He could not hear what the men were talking about nor what made them raise their rifles as if they had just won the Big game. One man talked so that Daniel could read his lips, another "gift" he didn't remember ever possessing.

"We will go to the Iroquios settlement and do what we have to do. After that, the train should have no problem getting the supplies we need to finish the bridge and tracks. You look at me as if you don't even know me, Dan. Must have something in your head right now. If you can't talk to your best friend Robert, then who can you talk to, right?"

Daniel smiled a weak smile. "Yes, Robert, I have a heavy mind right now." Daniel seem to speak well enough but then, he couldn't even hear his voice so he would simply have to just wing it. "I don't understand why we have to kill these people. Why don't we just move them?"

Robert opened his mouth wide. Daniel knew he was being laughed at. "You make me smile, Daniel. Stopped acting up so you can focus on what we are doing. I don't want an arrow in my back today, or any day for that matter. Now come on and ride."

Daniel looked out across the plains. He could see the Indian Chief waving to him. He heard his name being called. Daniel looked at the other riders , none of them taking heed to the Chief. "They can not see me, Daniel. This is not their journey. You alone must decide what is important to you."

"She re-created your people out of respect for you and youir kind. Are you too savage to understand what she did for you?"

"We were peaceful until the white men and the train came to our land. Do not speak to me of savages when you go now to slaughter my people. Be aware, Daniel. One amongst them is your woman, Nizhoni-kimama. You call her Ellie, but she was one of us long before she was with you. Will you sacrifice your own self to save her?"

"I would die a thousand deaths to save her. Tell me why all of this has happened now. I know why she lost her sight but why have we been brought here?"

"Many Suns ago, the white man came to us here. They started being kind to us and brought with them many beautiful things. We traded with them at your Post until one day, there was no more to trade. We had no beaver or mink or anything to trade. Then, they took our women and children to work on their train-tracks and bridges. They defiled our people and tossed them back to us like nothing more than Buffalo dung."

"Ellie didn't bring those things to you! She didn't do anything to hurt you. Why, why did you have to hurt her?!? She is my love and she did not deserve to have her sight taken. I don't even know how you did it!!!"

"When the white men would not go away, we called on our medicine man. He spread locust to the wind to slow their trains enough for us to attack. He caused the waters to be poisoned and take their sight. He gave us the things we needed to begin turning the tide for us, but the white man was too strong and too many and my people fell. Nizhoni kimama went to your people and spoke with their leaders. They promised to give us a place to live and food for our life-times. We did Not want to be given those things. They were already ours and not the white man's to give to us. When Nizhoni found love with a white man, she tried to help us but she could not. Our medicine man placed a curse on her in his anger. He was sad he had done it but it was already sent to her."

"A curse?? What kind of curse?"

"He said if any of her new lives tried to help us, it would bring back the spirits of our people and we would have a vengeance on the white man."

"Dear God, Ellie is a descendant of your tribe. She had know idea of this curse of yours. Now, she suffers for it and may die. I can't let that happen. You have to tell your Medicine man to take the curse away. If he does, none of this needs to happen."

"The train approaches as we speak, Daniel. Warriors ride to kill the people on it."

"I saw them when we were coming here. You have to stop them... tell them it is over, please."

From across the land, the train came in to sight. The soldiers watched as they neared the Indian camp. "Daniel, I don't know who you been talking to, but you need to be ready now. We are outside the camp. All their warriors are chasing a ghost train. No one is on it 'cept the driver and a Lot of Dynamite. When they get close enough to the train, BOOM!!!!!!!!!!! And then there will be no little Indians left."

"We can't do that, Robert!!! We have to stop this!"

"We who, Dan? Me and you gonna stop all these soldiers and them Indians that are after the train? You must have lost your senses when you lost your hearing. We can't stop anything."

"Then I will, damn you!!! I would rather die than watch this massacre happen, Again!!"

"Where are you going, Dan?!?!?!"

"To try and save two worlds from colliding and destroying one another and to save my beautiful wife!!! Or I will die trying!!!!"