Last Ride by Kim Hutchinson

“Boy, run home.” A child looks up to see a majestic warrior, a Shawnee chief with hazel eyes. “The soldiers are coming. There is war and you might get hurt.” Weary of weariness, devoid of dreams, the buckskinned hope of many nations stands near a millstream with his hand on the head a white pony. A stamp of his foot had shaken the earth and united scores of thousands. The power of his voice had moved men who did not understand his tongue. His cause was finished. The tides of war and time had turned. His alliance was splintering. His one great love, a woman who had taught him of Shakespeare, the Bible, and Alexander the Great, had married, refusing him because he would not adopt the manners of her people, the conquerors, because he would not—could not—deny his own people or himself. He could see the future. His ancient way of life would soon be gone. “My body will remain on the field,” he has told his warriors. He is the first to see the enemy approach, the first to leap on his horse to meet them. As he gallops to his death, he stops to toss a sack of flour at the door of a farmhouse, saving a family of homesteaders from starvation.

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