Rose Eagle by Joseph Bruchac Read Free Book Online

travel and the listing of the various sorts of danger along the route took a while and included Lenard Crazy Dog’s deciphering of the various cryptic notations he had added to the map since I first looked at it. Most of those notations were sort of shorthand explanations of just what kind of dangerous creatures we might encounter near each of those ominous
X
s.
    FW
was the first one I figured out, the initials closest to the Ridge. Off to the south and west into the Badlands.
    â€œFirewolves?” I said.
    â€œAh-yup,” Uncle Lenard said. “The main body of them. More than two dozen, I’d guess. Those we ran into on the hill must’ve split off from the main pack. Territory they were in . . .” — he pointed to the letters
MB
, which I also understood — “that would be the madbears. Now gemods usually stake out their own territory unless they get pushed out of their own. So probably a young male firewolf and his buddies tried to take over the alpha spot and they got run off by Old Three Paws. I call him that on account of he lost one of his front feet after someone — not naming any names — put an arrow through that paw and pinned him for a time to a tree, till he gnawed it off.”
    â€œWow,” Phil said. “Some shot.”
    Uncle Lenard aimed a crooked smile at him and then shook his head. “Meant for his throat, son. Sometimes better to be lucky than good.”
    I ran my finger along old Route 90 west, which had been pretty much deserted as a highway for years since the ore was shipped north not by land but by the huge lev-carriers.
    A large
LO
was marked by the
X
where the road neared Rapid City.
    â€œLittle Ones,” Uncle Lenard said. “Just stay way away from them and their burrows. Way, way away. Things don’t always have to be big for them to be deadly.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
    T hankfully, that first meeting with Phil Tall Bear was a brief one.
    Uncle Lenard and Phil left together, giving me the rest of that day and the night to attempt to recover what little equanimity I had left. I was afraid that Aunt Mary was going to try to talk to me about Phil, about what a good young man he was and how it would all work out fine, our traveling together. But she didn’t. Instead she busied herself putting things together for me in what she called her emergency pack.
    Such as a pair of scissors, needles, and strong thread.
    â€œFor sewing up clothes or . . . whatever,” she said. The fact that she added bandages and a plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a container of her own special herbal salve right after that left me no doubt about what the “whatever” might be.
    I had accepted — as much as I could accept it — the fact that I would be accompanied by the one person I most wanted to be with and was terrified about being with. So that night I had time to worry about other things. Things that were marked with big
X
s on the map that Aunt Mary placed in a plastic wrapper and stuck in the top of the emergency kit.
    A shiver of fear about all those monsters waiting for me ran down my spine. Then, at that very moment, a little jumping mouse stuck its head in through our open tipi door. It looked up at me, and I couldn’t help but smile.
    â€œHau, kola,” I said. That’s “Hello, my friend” in Lakota.
    The mouse chirruped and came leaping over to me.
    I sat down and held out my hand. It hopped into my palm. I lifted it up close to my face and it began to play with my long hair with its tiny handlike paws as it kept up its little chirping chatter. It almost sounded as if it was saying “Wash-tey, wash-tey, wash-tey,” which means “good, good, good” in Lakota.
    Aunt Mary was watching, nodding with her lips pursed together. “Well,” she said, “you are not going to lack for friends out there, Rose, honey.”
    * * *
    I