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You stand as the Indians walk up the ridge, brushing the dirt off your denims. The young chief is out in front with two others by his side. His eyes are fraught with what he saw last night, the eyes of a rabbit. You wonder if yours look the same. Three dead raven carcasses, freshly decapitated, hang from your belt, the cold keeping the stink largely at bay. You keep your rifle in your hand and when the first three men get within ten feet you carefully and deliberately lay it on the ground. All three pairs of eyes flick almost in concert to your belt, then back up to your face.
The young chief steps forward, “Adwai’il, Obot núwya yat,” He waits a moment, looking back to the other chiefs. “Lio’t wa’yenat.”
You can intuit his questions have something to with wanting to know who you are and if you can speak Maidu. You remain silent, and he seems to pick up the hint. Slowly reaching down toward your cookfire, eyes trained steady on the Indians, you pick up a cup of coffee, take a small sip, and offer it out. The young chief does not move, but after a while one of the other braves steps forward to take it from your hand. He sniffs it, then takes a drink. He looks to the others and shrugs his shoulders, “Kaifiyat.” He passes it to the chief, who looks thoughtfully at the cup, then at your belt, and drinks.
The cup is handed off to the last of the three who also takes his drink, then waves for the rest of the Indians to proceed up to your cooksite. He returns the cup to you and you have a moment of alarm when you wonder if you’ll have to offer coffee to every Indian. You’re saved from the thought by the obvious disinterest of the older chiefs in partaking in any sort of ritual. The three old chiefs step to join their younger colleague in a line, decked with tusk jewelry, braided herbs hanging from their hair, and river shells.
The younger chief appraises the older three of something in their language, gesturing to you as he does so. After taking a moment with themselves, the oldest chief, a weathered man of near seventy by your reckoning, opens his mouth to speak.
“White man, why come, not welcome, our people, bad time, go away.”
This was going to be difficult. You decide to approach this as diplomatically as you can, seeing as there’s no way to tell how they’d react if they knew you were looking to kill one of their own. Even if he was a monstrosity.
