Deviation Actions
Description
Mochi was trembling. The shooting, the yells, the death cries from outside had given way to a ringing in her ears. Nausea… The familiar soothing smells of the lodge, the fragrance of her cozy buffalo robe, absorbed with body warmth, the scent of buckskin, the fire and the morning stew, all these had suddenly been drowned out by other things. The freezing breeze of the biting cold which the intruder had brought with him. The metallic smell of the blood and the nasty stench of burned flesh were oozing from the lifeless body of her mother, lying close to the door opening. She could smell the unwashed vé'ho'e's stink who had just moments before stormed into the lodge and immediately shot her mother in the head.
But above all there was the biting stench of gunpowder in the air. Before her on the ground lay the buffalo rifle given to her grandfather five summers ago as a present of thankfulness by two gold-seeking vé'hó'e he had found wandering, almost crazy from thirst, along the Smoky Hill, taking them to camp where they had nursed them back to strength. Now she had fired the single-shooter into this vé'ho'e. As he had turned his eyes away from her murdered mother and on the tall, beautiful woman, she had seen it in his eyes. Before he killed her, he would rape her. The large man had grabbed Mochi and had tried to throw her to the ground. But she had broken free of his grasp. She knew she must fight or die. She had scurried to where the gun was stored in the lodge, and as he had lunged for her again, she had turned around and fired. Knowing that the gun was useless after one shot, she had grabbed a knife and… she couldn't remember. Everything was blurry. She gazed at the blood dripping from the knife and risked a glance at the vé'ho'e lying next to the fire. Was he really dead? Disgusted, she saw his stiff hóo'ȯxe twitching out of the opening in the vé'ho'e's blue rump sack leggings in a final spasm of aimless horniness. Then nothing about the vé'ho'e moved any more as he lay there, covered in his own blood and semen.
Dazed with shock, she gazed around the lodge. There was the half finished cradleboard she had been working on. She would never carry a baby in this. Her beloved husband lay dead in front of the lodge beside her dead father. They had placed Mochi and her mother inside and tried to make a stand against the mass of attacking soldiers. Outgunned and outmanned, they had never stood a chance. Their death cries were still ringing in her ears. She had to get up. Now. She had to grab the gun. And the bullet pouch. And a blanket. She had to rush out of the lodge before the next blue monster would break through the door opening. There was no time for goodbye. No time for grief.
Mochi sprang to her feet, ready to run the gauntlet of death waiting outside for her. Rage swept through her mind. She was no longer a daughter or a wife and wouldn't be a mother any more. Her beautiful home would be looted and burnt before sunset. There was only one thing left. She was warrior now, declaring war to the death on the vé'hó'e…
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This is a true story. It happened exactly 150 years ago during the Sand Creek Massacre when about 200 Southern Cheyennes who had been assured peace and safety were treacherously attacked and slaughtered by the mob of the 3rd and 1st Colorado Volunteer Cavalry under methodist minister and brevet colonel John.M. Chivington.
Mochi survived this day. For the next eleven years she was a warrior with her own war medicine and war pony and a member of the Cheyenne woman warrior society. The recently widowed woman didn't remain single for long. She became the wife of Medicine Water, a headman of the Bowstring warrior society. During her 11 years as a woman warrior, she bore him three children. Generations of descendants of Mochi owe their lifes to Mochi's resilience and fighting spirit as she refused to become another victim of the Sand Creek massacre but fought back on that terrible morning.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi_%2…