Comanche Rain

She turned back to the battle with a broken heart and remembered her mother’s words: Be as savage as you need to be. Something awakened in her, and she became the ruthless savage she remembered.

She and Gwalchmai fought side by side, and together they charged the pale-face like a stampede of wild mustangs! They killed all the pale-face they came to and ran some down to kill them. They left none to tell the tale. After they were all dead, Amata turned back to her father, but he was no longer on his horse; he had fallen to the ground. She was running her horse as fast as she could to get to him when she saw the pale-face responsible coming toward her, stick in hand, but she didn’t care. She didn’t just want him dead. She wanted him to suffer.

Gwalchmai started to go past her and she screamed, “NO! My Mother will help me with this! Mother, you have been with me in this battle. Come now; fight not through me but by my side!” She heard an eagle and knew her mother had heard her cry for help. As she reached the pale-face she saw the eagle. As it descended on the pale-face, it changed form, taking the form of her mother. She was beautiful. She was as majestic as her father had been. She, too, was savage.

She began to cut into the pale-face’s flesh not to kill him, but to make him scream for death to come. Amata, too, cut flesh from bone. He tried to defend himself, but Amata stuck her knife in his eyes and twisted it. After the pale-face had suffered at the hands of not one savage but two, Amata said “Now you will die, pale-face.”

Amata took her spear, stepped back, and threw it at him. It hits him so hard it picked him up then knocked him to the ground. She looked at him to be sure he wasn’t breathing, her spear stuck in his skull right between his eyes with the feather covering one side of his face.

She turned to her mother, but she was already on the mountain top with her father. Amata rode as fast as her horse could carry her to the top of the mountain and jumped down to her father. As she reached him, her mother looked at her, and she could tell by the look in her eyes that he would not make it. Amata kneeled down beside him, her clothes drenched with blood and said, “Father?”

Sounding very weak he said, “Amata, your mother came to me. She is here. Did you see?”

“Yes, Father. I asked her to fight by my side and she did. We killed the one that did this to you.”

He said, “She is beautiful.”

Amata said, “Yes, she is, Father. Now rest, save your strength.”

He said, “Amata, I’m not going to make it. There are two things I want to tell you.”

“Yes, Father?” she asked, tears streaming down her face.

“First, please finish reading the pale-face’s books. Then keep them; you might need them again. Second, your children have a destiny just like you. I know your Mother has told you. Protect this destiny for all our people. Also, promise me you will now marry Gwalchmai as soon as you can, as soon as I am with the spirits. Promise me, Amata.”

“Yes, Father. I will do as you say.” She bends down and kissed him, her heart feeling as though it will stop. She had never known this kind of hurt before. She wondered how she would make it from day to day. She told him, “Father, I love you. You will always be with me like Mother, right?”

He answered, “I do not know what the spirits have in store for me, but if it is possible, I will be by your side always.”

She holds his hand, her tears falling on his shoulder. His breathing was shallow, and with his last breath he whispered, “I love you, Amata.”

She looked into his face and saw the light leave his eyes; he was no longer looking at her but through her. She knew he was gone.