Trail Of Tears Part Two

Author's Note: With this second part of my story I have tried to put more dialog in here with people talking to each other.

Part Two

The trip to the rest of our lives started with a slow and depressing walk. Some of the children were still cry but noting along with some mothers. Anusha was crying on my shoulder and it was hard for me to keep from crying along with her. I knew I had to be brave for her so that I wouldn’t make the situation even worse. Plus I had a reputation I had to keep with my family and my tribe, showing fear is something I try to stay away from, to be brave for my tribe if the day comes that I will lead my people. That day will probably never happen since I am a woman and only men can go to war and be leaders. I’m lucky enough that I get to hunt but that will soon end, I’m sure of it since we will need a lot of woman when we get to the new land to organize everything up along with getting everything situated. Adahy was used to having a good amount of game on his back so having some blankets and soft stuff actually felt good on his back I bet. Sooner or later Laila or Anusha will want to have a ride on him when their feet get tired, possibly even mother. It is weird when they ask me to ride Adahy since it is partially our families horse but they know Adahy and me have a special bond that will never break. He won’t let anyone else ride him unless I give him the “okay” sign, which is either helping the person on him, which is pretty obvious, or basically just telling him it’s okay. Just as I was saying, here goes Anusha.

“Aruna can I please ride Adahy please? I really don’t want to walk next to those creepy men.”

I completely understood what she meant, those men were dressed strangely with huge long guns. I felt both safe to be protected by those guns and also unsafe and completely uncomfortable since I’m sure those guns were used against my people, possibly one of them is the killer of my father. Either way I much rather a bow since it is better in every way. It reloads faster, easier to carry, and just looks cooler. Though I do admit that I wish I had the chance to fire the gun at least once, the white men would get a taste of their own medicine, or guns. Finally we halt for a second and I push her up upon Adahy, where I know she is now safe. If anybody tries to hurt her then I can simply send Adahy to charge off until he finds one of our sister tribes.

Dawn came by the time we have gotten deep into the forest from walking on trails that cut straight through the forest which made the trip much easier.

“Okay, it’s time to stop for the night.” The leader states.

Everybody stops and prepares to unsettle for the night. I take Anusha off Adahy and look for a nice, soft place to sleep. Mother carried Laila asleep in her arms, laid her onto a tree, pulled a blanket off of Adahy and put her to sleep. Everybody started to do the same and after about a half hour everybody was comfy and ready to fall asleep. I, on the other hand, stayed up and watched as the white men gathered around a fire not too far away from us, drinking, smoking, and I have to say that I have never smelled something that almost made me throw up, except for bad meat, but the thing that really bothered me was that these were the men that fought and won against my kin. All they were doing was laughing and getting drunk enough to stumble to the ground when trying to walk. Finally, sleep caught up with me and put me into a dreamless sleep.

I felt something sniffing me, a very soft nose and at first I thought that it was a wolf, about to eat my face when I stood straight up and took out my knife that was strapped to my side. Then I see Adahy staring at me and stepped back when I jumped up and startled her, she eyes my knife and backs away, he was always a smart horse. Wondering why he woke me up I looked around and saw that all the white men were loading up their guns. Now I was very thankful for Adahy, because they might think that we are all asleep and they are just going to execute us in our sleep, as I suspected and so did he.

“Thanks boy, I owe you a tree of apples.” I whisper loud enough just for him to hear.

Instead of killing us they start going to different families, careful not to get too close incase they stab them or something, and told them to get packing. One soldier came over to us and gave us the same instructions. We began to pack everything up when another soldier comes over to talk to my mother.

“I am afraid that we are going to have to take your horse, orders from the General that if there are any valuable horses that we have to take them.”

Hearing this made my heart skip three beats and before I knew it, I was holding onto Adahy with my life and started to yell at the soldier with great fear in my heart. The soldier was startled by the yelling coming from a little girl.

“NO, you can’t just take my horse away! He belongs to me and only me! My father left me Adahy and I refuse to give him away to the very people who killed him!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“There is nothing that I can do, your horse is too strong to just ignore and leave in the hands of a peasant.” He says with a smirk.

The very second I heard him call me a “peasant”, I lost all of my anger and before I could stop myself I kicked the man's leg so he would be level to me and was shocked by my surprising strength. I slap him across the face so hard that my hand felt a painful shock go throughout my arm and fell to the ground covering his face, while I tried to get feeling back into my hand.

“Aruna stop!! You're just going to make things worse!” My mother cries while holding my sisters. They had plain shock on their face and started to cry when they thought about what the man would do back to me.

“You little...” He trails off while he slaps me back and I land face down on the ground crying from the agonizing pain.

My family just sits there, not being able to move and neither could I. Waiting for what might come next I turn and look at the soldier who now held a gun up to Adahay’s head. Somehow I find even more strength and began to get up and start charging after the man when two other men stop me by grabbing my arms and pushing me back to the ground.

“Stubborn little brat, pull her back up so I can punish her, she needs to learn who is the boss around here.”

The soldiers get me on my knees and I look into the eyes of my mother and sisters whose eyes were filled with fear. They were also being held by soldiers to make sure that they see the punishment.

“Now, everybody watch so that the next time somebody decides to give me disrespect that the punishment will be even worse, she is lucky that I am going easy on her and that I am going to end her pain fast but I will not do the same for anyone else.” The soldier says making sure each and every one of my kin were watching and listening.

Everything started to slow down, watching the man take his gun and give me the most devilish smile, I didn’t want anyone to watch so kept all of my tears behind my eyes and gave the soldier a strong, hard stare, looking deep into his eyes, looking into his soul and saw nothing but complete anger. He took his gun, flipped it so that the handle was showing and hit me hard on the head, before I could even flinch everything turns to black and the world goes quiet.

End Of Part Two