Chapter
1: No Pants!
I am in a valley of butterflies and clouds. Then I feel fur brushing against my
cheek. It feels like coyote’s fur! Wait, coyotes aren't in my dream. I sit up and rub my eyes. I hear someone screaming! It sounds like my mom! I stand up and quickly braid my hair. I slip on my shoes and almost exit our family’s
teepee, when I hear dad whisper shouting, “Ala, you forgot your pants!” I looked down at my bare legs and I noticed
that I had forgotten my pants! “Ooops!”
I said, and then pulled up my warm tan pants. When I looked up, I noticed that my dad was
up and dressed. Well, half dressed.
“Dad,” I said, trying to be very surprised but in my mind I
heard myself saying Ala, don’t you dare
laugh. “You..you forgot your
pants!” I couldn’t keep it in any
longer, and I burst out laughing. The
sight of his face was so funny when he
looked down at his bare legs, that I hit the ground laughing.
I must have hit my head harder than I thought, because when
I opened my eyes and sat up, I was on my horse Cloud. She is a very sweet brown horse with white
spots all over her. Then I felt a little
scratch of talons on my shoulder.
“Sanna!” I shouted gladly. Sanna is my other pet, a bald eagle. She is
gentle with me and always leaves me when she goes hunting, but comes back
eventually that day. Today she hunted a rattle snake and gave me the tail.
“Dad,” I said, “why are we on horseback? And where are
we?”
“We…well,” he stammered.
“Come on, Dad,” I said.
“Spit it out.”
“Well…your mother got taken by a pack of coyotes.”
It sounded to me that he said that Mom got taken by a pack
of coyotes, really fast so that he could get done with it as quickly as
possible. Once that was all in my head,
I said “Giddy-up Cloud! If we want to catch up to mom we need to make haste.” Cloud whinnied and took off.
“Ala, no!” shouted my dad.
But it was too late, I was heading for cactuses!
Chapter
2: A Prickly Situation
Cloud whinnied and reared up. “Ya!”
I said as I almost fell off. I
got off Cloud and walked a little bit.
Then, I noticed that Cloud was limping.
I motioned for Cloud to stop so Dad could catch up to us. “Ala,” he scolded, “never disobey me again
young lady!”
“Sorry Dad, but look!”
I said as I pointed at Cloud’s hoof.
Dad turned Cloud’s hoof around.
Cloud neighed as he took the prickle out of her hoof, then licked him
when he gave her an apple.
Chapter
3: The Map
As my dad lit a fire, I laid my head against Cloud’s back
and looked up at the sparkling stars in the night sky.
Sanna flew over and landed on a rock. She had found bits of deer on a dead deer’s
skull, and brought me a piece of its antler.
“Dad,” I said. “Where do you
think Mom is?” I wondered if dad would
know the answer to my question. Probably
not.
“Ala,” he finally said.
“That question can’t be surely answered, but I do have a good guess
where the coyotes are going.” He picked
up a stick and drew a map in the moist soil.
He circled the place where we are and drew an X where he thought the
coyotes had taken Mom. When he was
done, I studied the map and then pointed at the place where Dad had marked
‘ghost town’ and said “Why did they name it Ghost Town? They should have named it Deserted Town.” We laughed and then I fell asleep.
I woke up long before dawn.
I lit a fire and looked at the map Dad had drawn. Dad wasn't awake yet, so I didn’t think out
loud. Aha! I thought as I picked
up a stick and drew the quickest pathway to where the coyotes were thought to
be. Hmmm.
I thought. Well,
we’ll have to go through the woods and um
down this hill and -- I
stopped at the ghost town and shuddered.
Would it be faster if we went
through the ghost town or around it? I
pushed my braids back. Some times it
helps me think better. I finally chose
around it. Then I threw some sand into
the fire and fell asleep hoping that I had chosen the right direction.
Chapter
4: Flash Rock
I woke up with this nuzzle on my cheek. It was Cloud telling me in her kind horsey
language that she was hungry and you’d better get up. I rubbed my eyes and got up and gave her an
apple. Dad was meditating. That meant I was supposed to stay quiet, so I
took Cloud for a walk. But before I
could get off Cloud, a rock fell out of the sky and landed in my hand. I looked up and there was Sanna. I was pretty sure that Sanna had accidentally
hunted a rock that looked like an armadillo.
Then Sanna took off to find a different prey.
I got off Cloud and
then felt the rough sides of the rock. I
turned it over and on it were little squiggly lines. I couldn't make out what the picture was, if
there even was one. I turned it over
to one side and then it all came into place.
It was the map that Dad had drawn.
Only except that there was a pathway, and what was it? There was a little blue flashing light. The place where the light was, was where I
was. “Da—” I started to say, but I
remembered that he was meditating, and I decided that I would keep Flash Rock a
secret. I named it Flash Rock because of
its flashing blue light. I tied Flash
Rock to a piece of string that I found in my pocket and put it around my neck.
I took off the necklace that my Mom had given me for my 5th
birthday, and remembered how my mother had said “Something beautiful for
someone beautiful.” I sighed and put my
beautiful beaded necklace in my right pocket and waited for my dad to stop
meditating.
Chapter
5: Thinking
While Dad finished meditating, I copied the pathway shown on
Flash Rock on to Dad’s map. I carefully
tried to draw the exact same line, but I shuddered when I drew a line through
the ghost town.
Dad had finished meditating, so I said “Dad, I know the
fastest way to get where Mom is.” I
pointed at the map. “I’m sure that that
is the fastest way.” I didn't know if
the path on Flash Rock was correct.
After all, it was just a rock.
But something inside me knew that the markings on Flash Rock were
right. I just knew it.
Chapter
6: Into the Woods
“We’re off,” said Dad.
It is afternoon now and we are on our way to the woods.
“Ya!” we both said
and Cloud, (my horse) and Nightmare (Dad’s horse) galloped off.
As we entered the woods the sun started to set. I could hear crackling noises as if some
creature was following us. The more
crackling I heard, the more tense and afraid I became. “Stop!” I said. “ I've got a feeling that we
are lost.”
Me and dad motioned for our horses to stop. Then Dad said “We might as well be.” I pushed my braid back and thought. If only
we had some sort of compass. It is dark
now so we can’t make a sun compass.
Aha! I can use Flash Rock. I took Flash Rock out from under my dress and
noticed that we had made a left turn instead of a right turn. “Dad,” I said, “I know where we have to
go.”
Chapter
7: Hillside Slip
As we reached the end of the woods, it was late at night and
we laid down to sleep. But I just couldn't fall asleep. Maybe it was the
thought of creatures still following us or maybe it was that the moon was too
bright, but it seemed to me that rest coming was impossible. But somehow it came.
“Ala, wake up.” It was Dad shaking me to get up. We took our horses to a hill. I turned my back to Dad and checked on Flash
Rock to see if we were supposed to go down the hill. The pathway on Flash Rock went down the
hill. It was a pretty steep hill. A rocky hill too.
Cloud and Nightmare started to trot down the hill when
suddenly Nightmare tripped over a rock and fell on his butt, which knocked over
Dad and make him fall on his butt. And
then both of them slid in circles and bumped into Cloud which caused her to
fall on her butt, which caused me to fall on my butt. We slid in circles down the hill. When we reached the bottom, me and Dad looked
at each other and laughed. Then we set
off once again.
Chapter
8: Ghost Town
As we walked into the ghost town, a horrible thought passed
through me. What if there are real ghosts here.
There was nothing that I was more scared of than ghosts. Creak, creak.
I jumped. But I noticed it was
just the shutters. I thought I had heard
whispering, but it was the wind. Then I
saw a huge spider but it was just some sagebrush rolling around. I held my breath, with my eyes wide. The trip through the ghost town was the worst
trip ever. That is why I was so
relieved when we finally got out.
Chapter
9: The Big Hike
Peck, peck, peck, went Sanna's beak. “OK, fine.”
I said and gave her a scrap of meat.
“Here,” I said. We were about
half way up the big mountain (our final destination). I gently patted a panting Cloud and gave her
an apple. I looked up and shaded my
eyes. The sun was so hot that I felt
like a snowman melting in the summer. I
pushed my braids back and paused for a moment and then said, “The cave looks
about a half? No a quarter of a mile away.”
By the time we got up there, the sky turned from blue to
purple. We hoisted our horses up and
then both of our horses neighed. We turned around and jumped. There, standing right in front of us, were
two growling coyotes!
Chapter
10: Reunited
“Grrr,” the coyotes said.
“Well Ala,” said Dad to me.
“I think that this will be our last place alive.”
Then we heard a woman’s voice say “Stop!” The coyotes whined and backed off. Then out of the shadows came …. Mom!
“Mom!” I said,
running over to give her a hug.
“Teerlan!” my dad said, with tears coming into his eyes.
“Acrono!” Mom said, starting over to him.
They walked towards each other and right when they touched
hands, Flash Rock came off my neck and started spinning! It spun and spun until it had formed a little
blue tornado. Out of the top of the
tornado came a tiny little coyote cub.
“So that is why they brought me here!” said Mom.
“Wait,” I said. “You didn't know?”
“Well, no.” Mom said.
I heard a coyote bark.
Then Mom said “He said he likes you and you should stay.”
I frowned at her and said “You know how to speak coyote?”
Mom nodded and I turned to Dad. “May we stay here? Pleeeeese Dad.”
“It is fine with me if it is fine with the coyotes.” Replied
Dad.
Another coyote barked and Mom said “She says that it is
fine.”
“Yes!” I said. And I
jumped into the sky.
