Soul Stance River - 36 - Final

" Damn you, let go my gun! " The morning hasn't even yawned yet and a terrible tussle is in my sight, Drouillard is wrestling his rifle from the hands of this Indian thief and the Field brothers are chasing after two others, to my left I can see the rest of the savages trying to steal our horses, damn! I'm gonna have to get raw, sprinting towards them fast as a fiddle I yell to one Blackfoot to drop my rifle or I'll shoot'em with my pistol he drops it and dashes like a boy caught honey dippin, I keep going to the horses with my rifle now and I get three of them thieves pinned to a cliff face 50 yards away with the devil in his eyes one of 'em points a musket at me, hell no! I cock and shoot the wretch through the belly but the demon gets up to fire one at me and the bullet done whistled my ear, outta shots I run back to camp to get the guys and gather the horses, Rubin keeps sayin that he stabbed the Indian in the heart I tell him to shut up and get on point, I can see the blood on his cotton shirt war is in my soul and I quickly go over to the dead Indian and place a Jefferson Medal on his body, let them know the judgement of American Prarie law, I figure we have a conservative six hours ahead of the Blackfoot retaliatory warparty, they will mutilate and scalp us for sure before we can justify ourselves, we've ridden like love refusing to be caught by tragedy regularly switching to fresh horses for 48 hours now, we napped for 4 hours earlier, our bodies are sore from the adrenalin of death and minds exhausted from moral frustration, Rubin is really tipped by the experience of plunging a knife into another man's heart so close to his face that he could feel the Indian's last prayer, The Mandans have cheered our return on this hot July day, Clark and I have given Dickson, Colter, and Hancock permission to stay behind to become the first American mountain men of the West, natural freedom is calling their names through the bark of savage fortune, Charbonneau has been paid in coin and Janey has declined to let Clark raise her child in the East, Sacagawea and I hug for the last time the warmth of her soul clinging to my unspoken need for her I can feel her fingers pressing into my shoulders while the happy side of her face anchors into my unclaimed chest, we release and the tears stay within to water the heart, I'll never find a woman like her in the East, my hands will never fully know her beauty but my soul does know the sound of her's and that's enough for now, more than 4, 000 miles and two years on this river, damn, its time to find a new place in this world - Justin A. Bordner 2015 I began composing this epic work on October 3rd, 2015 and have completed it through the grace of Providence December 12th, 2015, at 3:18 am 71 days...approximately 284 hours of meditation... I strongly encourage everyone to read the book, Undaunted Courage by scholar Stephen Ambrose, and to view the great PBS. documentary, Lewis & Clark... aside from the names of persons, places, flora and fauna, statements in quotations, and major events my descriptions of their journey are original, my work being achieved through meditative vision and personal poetic craftsmanship... I have been deeply inspired by the two aforementioned sources...J.A.B.