THE NATIVE WAR SERIES BOOK THREE - GEORGE'S STORY

GEORGE'S STORY - CHAPTER 1

I woke to see rain dripping through the canvas cover that stretched across the top of the conestoga wagon. As I sat up in my bed in the back of the wagon a thin dark shape came running at me. Just last thing I saw before I closed my eyes were the creature's flashing teeth. As I braced myself for the life ending bite, I felt the creature licking me all over my face. I was able to push the creature off me and get a good look at it's face. It was my hunting dog, Depe, who was glad to see me awake and was eager to get moving again. Depe was an energetic dog who loved to play and hunt. He had an thin frame but he was very muscular and extremely good at hunting rabbits and other small creatures. Depe had a elegant white and tan coat with a pointed nose and long legs, despite him being a medium sized dog. I ate cold venison from yesterday's hunt for breakfast before I got going to keep trying to find my land. As I took the first bite into the venison I heard a meow. When I looked up I saw a tanish white short haired tomcat looking up at me. It was or had been my eldest son's cat Keeny which we had brought to keep mice out of the food supplies in the wagon. He dropped what was it his mouth and it was a huge mouse the size of my hand. After looking at me expected and waiting I pulled the mouse back to him and he began eating it. After finishing my breakfast I left the wagon to wake up the oxen and hook them up to the wagon. As the oxen woke up and got into position for the harness to be attached to them, Depe ran out into the plains and back to the wagon barking like crazy. My conestoga wagon was pulled by a team of two oxen and can carry enough weight to move an entire family.

All of the oxen were easy to get along with and pulled the wagon without a complaint excerpt from when one slips and falls, except one. I nicknamed this ox, "Bully" for his aggravated attitude towards the other oxen and me. Once when I was unhooking the oxen from their harnesses, "Bully" rammed me in the stomach the second he was unhitched. After this I fell to the round in unimaginable pain and decided to name the ox you rammed me "Bully".

After all the oxen were hooked up to the wagon and ready to start off, I called Depe back to the wagon so we could get moving. As the wagon started off with a lurch when the wheels were pulled from the mud I heard small splat from behind the wagon that sounded like something falling. I stopped the oxen so I could check what the noise was and make sure they wouldn't pull the wagon into a ditch. The noise was a picture falling out of the back of the wagon. As I looked at the picture I felt a twinge of sadness and a tear formed in my eye. The picture was an image of my family, my beautiful wife, my two sons and my daughter. They had all started out with me on this journey to find a new plot of land and settle there, but before we had even gotten a couple days out of our old home Littletown they had all caught black pox. They were all dead within fours days of the pox appearing. Then Depe barked and my trance of sadness was shattered.

I jumped on the wagon and whipped the reins to get the oxen moving. Depe ran alongside the conestoga wagon for a while until he got tired and jumped up onto the wagon and settled next to me in the wagon. I am approaching the Grand Tetons and the violent Indian tribes who live there. As the wagon rolls through the plains I look out all around waiting for the attack that I thought would come. As no Indian battle cry or spears come out of the low shrubs and grasses that covered the prairie, I began to calm down. But to be sure I am safe I am stopping here at a clearing surrounded by bushes so that the Indians will have a harder time seeing my camp. As I set up camp I look all around my camp, in the distance there is a group of hills and closer there is a small forest. The forest is in between me and the hills so that I cannot see the base of the hills. I do think I saw a rustle in the forest but it is probably a deer or some other creature. Tomorrow before I leave I will go hunting in that forest and catch a meal so that I would have food for the day and possibly the next night. I could sleep outside under the stars tonight for it doesn't look like rain will come for another few days but I will choose to sleep inside my wagon 'cause I am scared that the Indians will find me in the night and I will wake to be scalped and burned. After securing my camp site, unhitching the oxen, and and making sure Depe wouldn't run off I started to make a fire. After making the fire to warm my camp, I climbed up into the wagon and tried to sleep. As I close my eyes and try to sleep I am feeling a sensation that can not wait to be addressed. After relieving myself in a bush a was able to crawl back into the covers in the wagon and sleep.