No Longer In South Dakota:
First Night: Settling In:
I knew enough to know that in order to keep wild animals away from you, you needed to make loud noise and I had plenty of lour noise. I built a fire and made a semi-circle around Lobo and me, keeping the fire burning through the night. I plugged my MP3 player into the speakers that I had had in my backpack and blasted my music. If I was going to stay in a place I knew nothing about, I was going to be well protected.
After the music was plugged in and playing and the fire was burning strong, I took out a can of fruit and opened it up. Lobo was chewing on some grass nearby. I had put the steak in the ground and tied her lead rope to the steak near me so she couldn't run off and so that nobody would steal her. Her saddle was behind my back and she soon came close enough to lie down and fall asleep next to me. My knowledge of the Badlands was what kept me alive that first night.
As soon as I felt the fire starting to get low, I would get up and add more dry wood to it to keep it from going out. The music was switching from one song to the next and nothing was coming close due to the fact that they didn't know what it was. I heard the howl of wolves close by, but because of my music, they stayed clear. I heard other animals and they also stayed clear because of the unknown sound that came from my campsite. I also heard the sound of horse hooves lurking in the distance, keeping clear even though I knew that the riders could see the fire that I had built around Lobo and me.
The First Day: Looking For Help:
When morning came, I put out the fire, put my speakers back in my backpack, put Lobo's saddle back on her, put my backpack & duffel bag back on my back, put my headphones into my MP3 Player and pocketed the player, then as I looked around, grabbed the reins and hoisted my self back into the saddle. The steak was in my boot, just in case I would need to use it. I was wearing a Kémeonáhevoestôtse, my jean Ka'eéstse'he that matched it, my shell Hoestáto that went with it, my shell Hóseestôtse that I bought to go with the outfit and my straw Tôhé'kêsaévôhkêha'e that I always wore with this outfit and the bear tooth Ho'ota that I had made and wore with almost every outfit that I put on.
[AN- the underlined words are in the glossary and will be at the end of the story. But for now, you should know what is being said. I will translate at the end of this chapter.]
Lobo, my Mo'éhno'ha Tsémomé'šêhahtase, was patient in what I was doing because she to did not know where we were and she was reluctant in wandering off too far. She, like I, could tell that someone was watching us, but she didn't know who it was. I took out a Má'xeme from the duffel bag as I rode and let Lobo take the lead. She picked her way through the prairie as we made our way north and hopefully somewhere where we could find shelter. I kept one earphone out of my ear just so that I could hear what was going on around me.
I took my camera out of my bag and started taking pictures. It was a good thing that I had emptied all of my pictures on the memory cards onto a disc back home before putting them in the camera case and placing my camera and batteries in there as well. I took pictures of all the landscape and natural landmarks so that I could look them up when I got back home, if I ever got back home. Every picture I took, every time I pushed the shutter button, I knew that there was a possibility that if I ever got back home, they wouldn't be there, that this could be just some weird dream.
I had the feeling that somehow this was something from the past, my heritage catching up with me even though I knew most of my history from my father, Matoskah, Nahimana, Tiva and Nashoba because I've lived among Cheyenne Indians my whole life. The language of the Cheyenne's, which I was taught at an early age, was a complex one, and other people not of the Cheyenne culture had trouble understanding what was being said.
At the thought of all the people I had left behind, I started getting home sick, wanting to go home sooner rather than later. But even I knew that wasn't going to happen until I was done here. And the only way to figure out why I was sent back in the first place was to come in contact with the first person I came across, whether it be Whiteman or Indian, it didn't matter. But from what I knew, from just looking around, it would probably be Whiteman because there were no tepee's around and normally in an Indian village there were tepee's and lots of them.
Lobo mingled through the prairie as she found her way by smell. Her sense of smell was greater than that of a human and she knew what she was looking for. Our first mission was to find a body of water, preferably a stream or river. Lobo could sense where it was and smell the water. Now all we had to do was get to it before noon. My watch told me that it was about 8:00am and by how Lobo was acting, we were getting close to the water.
We ended up at the stream at around 9:00am, and Lobo drank thirstily. I swung off her saddle, kicked my boots off and waded into the Mahpe and washed the blood from my hair and face. Once the blood was washed off, I went to the saddle and grabbed the two canteens that I always had hooked to the saddle. Unhooking the canteens, I waded back out into the Mahpe. I dipped the canteens into the Mahpe and filled them with fresh cool water. I turned around and waded out of the water, hooking the canteens back onto the saddle and making sure that they couldn't leak.
My father, family & friends would never believe this story when I got back home. Vé'ho'kôtse surrounded the stream and I picked some to make sure that I would have something dry to start my fire with for that night.
Kémeonáhevoestôtse: shell dress
Ka'eéstse'he: jacket
Hoestáto: belt
Hóseestôtse: earrings
Tôhé'kêsaévôhkêha'e: cowboy hat
Ho'ota: choker/necklace
Mo'éhno'ha: horse
Má'xeme: apple
Ma'xemeno: apples
Mahpe: water
Vé'ho'kôtse: sweetgrass
Nétónêševéhe: what's your name?
Náheševéhe: my name is…
Pévevóona'o: good morning
Tosa'e nénêxhé'óhtse: where did you come from?
Nâháa'e: auntie
Nahko'e: mother
Ného'e: father
Néške'e: grandmother
Náéšekâhaneotse: I am tired
Nétónêšetano: what are you thinking?
Névááhe tséhoó'henonêstse: who is singing?
Étónêstôheaénáma: how old is she?
Tsémomé'šêhahtase: Clydesdale horse
