His face paint was still slightly moist on his flush cheeks, his father had applied the blood root after his mother pulverized it in a stone bowl. He knelt behind some evergreen bushes with large tropical leaves, holding the bow and arrow slack. He could tighten up, pulling the pounds of tension back on demand. The pale men who had taken his family’s land and burned their grass thatched huts were stepping on burnt charcoals, making a cracking sound with each movement they made. Their language was sharp and made his ears ring with revenge, their garments were too heavy for battle. There were no women in the white man’s work day, except the three young sisters of his tribe they had taken to rape.
Scouting was something the white man seemed to lack in tradition and survival, where they had guns and surely would win in the end, the few victories of the Natives were unwritten but greater in skill. There were two arrows for each peach man standing in the relics, the tension pulled. Guns raised.