Falling Feather

F.F. Prologue

Falling Feathers Prologue

I could hear the screaming.. The crying of my mother as my drunk and abusive father yelled at her. When ever my father came home drunk and angry, my mother always told me to hide under my bed. Though I was fourteen, I would always obey like the good boy I was. I would hide and cry because I was angry too... angered by the fact that I couldn't help my mother, no matter how hard I tried... this I knew from experience.

I had once tried to help her by pulling a gun on my father, I was thirteen then. I threatened to pull the trigger, the barrel of the gun pointed to my father's back. He called me a coward, hiding behind a gun made by the white people who stole the lands and lives from our ancestors. He was right, I was a coward...

A coward for not pulling the trigger. Tears leaving their own trails below my eyes, I lowered the gun and fell to the ground, resting the weapon against my leg. Before I knew it, the gun was within the hands of the drunken man whom I called father. Shaking his head in disappointment, the older man left the room, only turning back once to look at my mum. "This isn't over," he muttered before leaving the room completely.

Not pulling the trigger was one of my biggest regrets. Every night my father would come home, either drunk, angry, or both, and he would hit my mum... Sometimes he would hit me then leave for a day or two. If we were lucky, he would stay gone for at least a week... But that rarely happened.

I was pulled out of my memories when my door burst open. A gasp escaped my lips before I pressed against the wall beneath my bed. "Get out here, boy. I wanna show you something," the old man sputtered before walking into my room. I felt my braid fall over my left shoulder and closed my eyes, grasping onto my own hair tightly.

The eagle feather, which was given to me by my grandmother, was still in my hair. "Get out here boy!" I felt goosebumps rise upon my brown skin, my father drawing closer and closer to my bed. I began to quake in fear. "Devereau, leave him be! This is between me and you!" I heard my mother cry, her pounding footsteps drawing closer to my bedroom. "This is all because of him, woman," the man's voice spoke harshly.

Before I knew it, my father stood right before my bed, his black boots laying still and silent as the toe was pointed directly at me. I jumped as he picked up the frame and mattress of my bed like it was nothing, revealing my hidden self. "This is all your fault!"

A whimper of fear left my lips as he bent down, his hand reaching out towards me. With a scream of anger, my mother launched herself onto the back of the being which threatened her child. "Run, Que'luw!" She shouted as she held on tightly, her arm wrapped around my father's throat.

With hesitation, I bolted for the door of my bedroom then down the stairs. "Run Que'luw, ru-" My mother was cut off by a loud thud, then the sound of a slap. "Go, Que'luw.." I heard my mother say once again, cries echoing in her shaky voice.

I felt my eyes sting with tears as I bent down to grab my buck skin moccasins that my grandmother had made me a year before she passed away. Swinging the door open, I hear; "You bitch!"

Now crying, I slip on one of my moccasins then quickly slip the other on before I run towards the backyard, towards the forest. A loud bang echoes through the air, a gunshot. Shocked, I freeze and turn towards the house only to find the silhouette of my father standing in my window, the shot gun gripped in his hand. His shoulders moved rapidly, as if he were panting or breathing heavily.

"Momma!" I cried out, the warm streak of tears slowly turning into a river. That bastard!

"Go, Que'luw"

The voice of my mother echoed in my head. Her last words to me, ever.

I will do as she told me, I will go. I will go far away from here... Away from him.

Shaking my head, I turned back towards the forest before sprinting into the thin underbrush of the forest behind our house. That bastard will never see me again, I will be sure of that. I will find my grandfather who lived on the next Indian reservation.

"Goodbye.." I whispered before closing my eyes for a long moment. Once that moment had passed, I drew in a sharp breath and continued on into the trees, the moon high in the sky and my mother on my mind.