The Mockingbird's Ballad

Mama Bear began, "This is what the old ones told me when I was a child: Before the whites came so close to our country, the people were strong and of great numbers. There was a powerful law among the seven clans. Lou, then we had no judges or laws like we have today in the white country. This law we lived by was written on all the people's hearts by the elders of each generation. If in an argument a person hurt or killed another person, the clan of the offended person had the right to give hurt or take the life of any member of the offender's clan." Mama Bear took a puff of her pipe, blew it out slowly and continued, "You go now to avenge the murders of your father and brother. You go to carry out the blood law, the ancient way of justice. You may not kill with your own hands, but you help those who do kill. When this happens always know it as a sacred thing - the making of justice with shed blood - a most sacred thing."

"I will, Mama Bear," Lou said to the shining creek. Her Mother, sitting on Lou's other side, took her hand and held it tight. She had never done that before.

Lou, her grandmother and mother sat for a few short minutes, then Mama Bear said, "Help me up, girl. We've got the morning meal to fix and supplies to sort out and get together."

When the three returned from the creek to Mama Bear's house, Nancy got busy rolling out biscuits on the table alongside the cook stove. Grand John L. sat stone-faced in his chair at the kitchen table. He looked only at his steaming gray coffee mug. The firebox of the stove was crackling, and soon the scents of bacon and biscuits blended with the fragrance of burning hickory and coffee, filling the morning air. Lou rushed to the stove and stood with her back to it, not three feet from the firebox. Mama Bear started helping Nancy with breakfast and Lou went for the plates and eating utensils.

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In the yard as the three prepared to leave, Nancy Bird's strong hug was a strength Lou didn't know was her mother's. The tiny woman's quiet voice spoke first into Alex's ear, "Redbird, Dotsuwa, come back to us safe, take care of Mockingbird," and then to Lou, "Sister take care of brother, and you'll come back to us safe."

The three riders and two pack mules left the place in single file: Lou on Ben in the lead with Bess's lead line attached to her saddle back, with Alex following astride Tom and leading Tess. J. N. rode at the tail with his hand resting on the pommel. Headed south, they were determined to find "Fightin' Joe" Wheeler, his horse soldiers and their war.