Chapter 1

The war Chief of the Ute was nervous. He was in unfamiliar lands. Lands claimed by the Shoshone. He was a young Chief poor in horses and coup. This war party was meant to change that. His group of 20 warriors were loyal follower’s. childhood friends and younger family members. All were hungry for the riches and honors that their leader had promised them.

So far, this excursion had good fortune. Early on, after leaving the territory claimed by the mor-mons. The whites that had claimed the lands to the south of the poisoned waters. They had happened on a small wagon train. Five wagons of foolish whites heading towards the mining lands in the Nevada territories. They had been attacked and beaten. The war Chief himself carried three new scalps on his coup stick. There were also four horses and three women added to the spoils. Two young girls and an older woman. Also taken was a yellow-haired boychild 2 or 3 winters old.

The war party had wanted to celebrate their victory with the women captives. However, the war Chief stopped them. The young girls could be traded to the south. Either to the brown skins or the Comancheros. They could get two or even three horses for the young ones. The warriors argued, and the Chief eventually gave them the older woman. She lasted two days.

The warriors also wanted to kill the boychild. They considered him a bad omen. That he would bring evil spirits to them. The Chief, however, refused to kill the child. He planned to give the child to the medicine men when they returned to their lands. The medicine men would then sacrifice the child for the benefit of the tribe. And also, to gain the favor of the medicine men for the war Chief personally.

The war Chief demanded that they continue south and make contact with the brown ones or the Comancheros who they would trade with for the women. They would also take advantage of any opportunities that came their way.

It was one of those opportunities that caught the Chief’s attention. Early one morning, a scout returned with the tale of a lone Shoshone Chief that was camped nearby. This was something that couldn’t be ignored. The scalp of a Shoshone Chief on his coup stick was a talisman to greater honors than ever realized. The war Chief started making plans.

Red Hawk, a senior Chief of the Shoshone, was on his last war trail. Word had come that a party of Utes were trespassing on Shoshone territory. These intruders were coming from the north. With them, they had several white women captives. Red Hawk decided that as his last battle, he should win a Ute war Chief’s scalp for his coup stick.

His scouts had been tracking the party for several days when Red Hawk decided on the perfect battleground. Placing his warriors in the correct positions with the correct orders, he set a campsite to lure the Utes into the killing ground.

Red Hawk was sitting at his morning fire, smoking a pipe. He seemed to be at peace with his world. His coup stick heavy with scalp and feathers stood by his wickiup. His head was adorned with the symbolic feather headdress itself heavy with many red-dyed feathers. As the sun rose, he was facing the dawn.

To his left, a sage hen startled from its nest and started squawking and beating its wings. Red Hawk had tethered several hens on the approaches to his camp. They now served their purpose as intrusion alarms.

Red Hawk turned to his left and sent an arrow blindly into the bush. A high-pitched scream followed.

A second sage hen panicked to Red Hawks right Red Hawks young apprentice rose from the wickiup and sent an arrow into the bush. There was no scream, but the sound of the arrow piercing flesh was unmistakable.

These screams were the signal to the rest of Red Hawk’s war party. A swift and violent battle was quickly concluded.

Finally, a war scream came from Red Hawk’s front. The Ute war Chief himself burst from the brush and ran towards Red Hawk. He was brandishing a war club in his left hand and a steel knife in his right. Red Hawk, without rising, calmly reached into the dust at his side and raised a lance. A foot-long piece of sharpened obsidian pierced the Ute’s chest right at the heart. A full 3 feet from his target, he died before the scream ended. The melee was over.

Without their knowledge, the Ute warriors had been closely followed by Shoshone warriors. Their end came quickly.

At the end of the battle, as the honors were dealt out and the two scalps added to Red Hawks coup stick, he was asked about the captives. Red Hawk wanted nothing to do with the females and directed that they be taken to the Ruis Hacienda. The Ruis family were friends and would know what to do with them.

The yellow-haired boychild was a problem. The tribe’s sachem, who had been with the war party, stated that the child would bring good fortune for the tribe. That the child should be raised as a Shoshone. Red Hawk considered the situation as he held the child. The child showed no fear for the ferocious Indian. He smiled and reached for Red Hawk’s nose. That was when the child Sun Hair joined the Shoshone tribe, eventually becoming a member of the Bear clan.

Several years passed when word came to the council of a white man that had camped on the edge of their territory. A warrior was sent to see what this intruder was doing. When Waiting Lion returned, he told the council that the white man wished to speak to a leader. Red Hawk accepted this, and despite his age, he went to the white man’s camp.

Red Hawk was accompanied by 20 of the tribe’s senior warriors. All hardened veterans of battle. Consideration was made for the age of the elderly Chief. Red Hawk complained of these restrictions and made every effort to meet and exceed the youngster’s pace.

Well before sunrise, the party arrived at the camp. The white man was sleeping, and it was determined that he was either a fool or exceedingly brave for not having a guard. Red Hawk set a camp for himself opposite of the white man.

The next day, Red Hawk met and heard the peace offering from the Big Steel Colonel Joshua Anderson.

When Red Hawk returned to the tribe, he told the council of the peace offering that the white man he called ‘Big Steel’ had made. Without offering advice, Red Hawk left it to the council to decide.

While discussing Big Steel’s offer, the council debated again what to do with Sun Hair. He had just passed his manhood tests and had been given the tribal name firebird. One faction wanted firebird to remain with the tribe. He was a brave, strong, and smart warrior. It was felt that he could rise to become a war Chief if not a tribal Chief. Others felt that he was dangerous to the tribe. That his white blood would lead him to betray them. They counseled that he be returned to the whites. A third group voted that he be offered as a sacrifice. There were only two people in this group.