The wagon train was moving slowly through the grassy plains. The fifteen wagons spread out across the prairie, the poor families not realizing what was looming behind the rolling hills they were getting ready to make their way through.

The renegade band of Crow were lying low on either side of the path that the travelers had to go through. They were painted in bright war paint and ready for a good kill. They were looking for women to rape, food and supplies to help their little band make it through the winter. It had been a lean summer and winter was coming soon.

Tyler Chasez was riding along side the wagon his sister, mother and older brother were riding in. His father, Roy, was riding ahead with the wagon master. JC Chasez was ‘driving’ the team of horses that was pulling the wagon he was riding on.

How the hell did I end up driving this damn thing? I don’t know the first thing about a horse. It’s a good thing these creature follow each other everywhere or we’d be so screwed it wouldn’t even be funny. I knew I should have paid more attention during those damn classes dad made me go to. I still don’t understand why the hell we’re uprooting our entire family and moving to San Fransisco. I’m sure dad has his reasons but I’d much rather be sitting at home in Maryland. This is just crazy. We’re a bunch of eastern idiots. I can just see it now, Dr. Chasez killed by Indians, entire family murdered by band of raiding Indians. Oh, good job. Now you’ve gone and made yourself paranoid on top of being scarred to death these damn animals are gonna take off any second.

“JC, you ok?” Tyler asks from his horse. “You’re looking a little pale.”

“I’m fine. Just don’t really wanna be in control of these animals. Dad knows I’m no good with them. Why am I driving this team anyway?”

“Because, you’re the only one left. Mom and Heather can’t and Dad’s up with the trail boss and I have to tend to the few cattle we managed to buy to bring with us. That leaves you to handle the team of horse pulling our wagon. Now stop whining and do it.”

Just then they hear this blood curdling yell and figures on horseback barreling down upon the wagon train.

JC shoves him mother, who had been sitting next to him, into the wagon, “Tyler go get Heather and get her in the wagon, hurry.”

Tyler rode off in the direction of a group of young women that were walking between wagons. “Heather, come on we have to get you back to the wagon. There’s Indians approaching.”

About this time the rest of the people in the wagon train had finally spotted the group of Indians charging in from the right and had turned their wagons to the left to try to outrun them. Little did they know there was a group of Indians laying in wait there too. At the sound of the second blood curdling yell the Indians from the left began to charge the now panicked group of people.

The wagons were circled but it did little to deter the Indians. The eastern settlers were no match for the Indians. Soon the wagons were burned most of the men were dead or dying along with most of the women. The only sounds heard were the screams of the young girls being raped and then slowly bled and tortured to their deaths. The horses from the wagons were unhitched, the animals rounded up and all the supplies placed within two of the wagons that were not burnt and then the Indians departed as quickly as they had swooped down on the unsuspecting member of the wagon train.

As the sun went down, one lone groan could be heard from the ashes and bodies. On the horizon one man and his horse slowly approached the site of death and destruction. He quietly rode through the array of bodies until he approached a figure lying face down. At first glance the man looked dead but as the figure approached he could see the slight rise and fall of the man’s chest. The figure dismounts his horse, kneels next to the man on the ground and rolls him over.

The figure stands upright and glances toward the setting sun. “Thank you Great Spirit for bestowing this great blessing upon me. I will do all that I can to keep this man alive.” He gently lifts the injured man, places him face down on his horse and begins the long trip back to his village.

The man began to stir after the second day of the journey. The figure stopped the horse, removed the man from the horse, “You will be fine, paleface. You must drink water now.” He leans in and pours a small amount of water in the man’s mouth. The man drinks a bit and then starts choking. “Easy, you must make it to the Shaman.”

The man passes out again. The figure takes this time to look the man over. There are knife wounds all along his torso, his arms were both cut up along with his legs. The man’s face had miraculously not been marred in the least. He had a large gash in the back of his head though which had been continuously bleeding along with several of the cuts on the man’s body. The figure attempted to stop at least some of the blood flow by covering the wound on the man’s head with a strip of material he had taken from the dead man that had been lying next to his new charge.

He put the man back up on the horse and began his journey home again.