Choose from these exciting, original kids’ audio stories.

Clem the Detective Dog
Ralphie The Gopher
Sheriff Daisy & Deputy Bud
Rainbow of the Sioux
The Monotonia Chronicles
Tibbodnock Stories
Fiona the Smart Ghost
Ivan the Not-So-Terrible
Nikki the Invisible Girl
Sarabel to the Rescue

Alone in Indian Country

Huge black dragon-shaped clouds spit ziggity-zaggity lightning across the wide western plains. Thunder banged and clanged like the end of a fireworks show.

A few minutes later, as the angry storm blew off to the east and a bright rainbow arced across the sky, a small band of Sioux Indians rode their spotted ponies to the top of a steep ridge. On the prairie below, they could see the rutted trail that white settlers followed across Indian country to California.

But the braves saw something surprising. Where the rainbow ended, six canvas-covered wagons were grouped in a careless circle near a stream.

Twenty or so mules, many still wearing harness, grazed nearby. But the settlers, who should have been fetching water, washing clothes and cooking dinner, were nowhere to be seen.

Then, as the rainbow glowed even brighter, a slender girl of about ten, wearing a long blue-and-white dress with a torn sleeve, climbed out of a wagon and picked up a shovel.

Still watching undetected from the ridge, the Sioux saw that the girl was trying to dig a hole in the prairie at the end of a row of a dozen wooden crosses.

But the grass was so tough and thick that even after ten minutes’ hard work the hole wasn’t big enough to bury a squirrel. Giving up, the girl sank to her knees, sobbing.

A few minutes later, seeing no one but the crying girl, the tallest brave motioned the others to wait. Then he began riding downhill towards the wagons.

Startled by the sound of a hoof, the girl looked up just as the sun peaked from behind the last big cloud, lighting up her white-blond hair as if it were on fire. Seeing the Indian, she picked up the hem of her long dress, ran across the clearing and grabbed a long rifle.

The tall, black-haired Indian reined in his pony and sat unmoving as the girl struggled to lift the gun high enough to shoot him. But no matter how hard she tried, the rifle was too big and too heavy.

For a long minute the thin girl in the dirt-stained, blue-and-white dress and the young Sioux chief dressed from head to toe in fringed deerskin looked into each other’s eyes. When finally the girl dropped the useless gun, the Indian opened his hands palms up to the sky, as if to say, “What happened here?”

The girl clutched her throat and made a choking sound. Then she fell to the ground, coughed a few times and lay still.

When she sat up, the Sioux moved his right hand in a circle, as if to say, “Did everyone die of this sickness?”

Wiping her tears on her torn sleeve, the girl nodded.

Wheeling his horse, the tall brave galloped back up the side of the ridge to where the others waited.

“Everyone in the wagons has died of the white man’s sickness,” he reported. “The rainbow girl with the round blue eyes is the only one who lives.”

“Let’s ride fast and far,” a thin brave with small pinched eyes said. “Surely, this girl carries the Killing Sickness. If we go near her, we, too, will clutch our throats and die.”

“Eye of the Snake,” the tall leader said, “You have seen that Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, made a rainbow to lead us to this girl. And that He touched her white hair with the fire of the sun so we would be sure to know she had been sent to the Sioux for a reason. We must bring her with us.”

But the other braves agreed with Eye of the Snake that it was too dangerous to adopt a child who might be cursed with the Killing Sickness. So the leader, whose name was Chief Red Sky, replied, “Let us compromise by allowing her to follow us at a safe distance.

“I will take her into my tipi only if she stays healthy for the time it takes for a moon to be born, grow full and then slowly disappear.”

When the others nodded, Chief Red Sky rode out onto the prairie, where he selected a healthy mule with a saddle and led it towards where the girl stood by the wagons. Stopping on the other side of the clearing, he motioned her to gather her belongings and climb on.

At first the girl seemed too frightened to move. Then, looking at the deserted wagons and the little graves, she shivered and slowly climbed into one of the wagons. A couple of minutes later she reappeared clutching a rolled-up red blanket.

Mounting the mule, whose name was Alice, the girl made a quick

“cluck, cluck”

sound to urge Alice to run to catch up to the Indian, who was already halfway up the ridge.

But just as Alice began to gallop, the chief turned in his saddle, shouted a harsh command and held out his right hand to form a stop sign.

When the confused girl pulled back on the reins and brought Alice to a halt, Chief Red Sky used sign language to indicate that while she should follow him, she must always ride at least 50 steps behind.

And so, with the white-haired ten-year-old in the torn blue-and-white dress tagging behind on her mule, the small band of Sioux headed north across the hilly prairie of Indian Country.

When the Sioux camped that first evening, Chief Red Sky motioned for the girl to stay by herself. Leaving her a couple of strips of dried buffalo meat and some water, the chief joined his men on the other side of the hill.

Depressed both by the deaths of everyone on the wagon train and by being captured by the fierce Sioux, the girl ignored the food.

Instead, she fumbled in her blanket roll until she found Annabelle -- the stuffed tan bunny who had been her friend since before she could remember. Then, clutching Annabelle to her chest, she rolled up in the red blanket and fell asleep.

Next morning the Sioux started at dawn. Because they were scouting for Tatanka (animals we call buffalo, or bison), they moved slowly, so as not to miss even a small herd.

After a sweaty morning’s ride, the Sioux finally stopped by a stream to drink and water their horses. Chief Red Sky motioned for the girl to go downstream so the water she touched would not flow past the braves.

That afternoon the scorching sun turned the prairie into a furnace, burning the girl’s fair skin. And the rough packsaddle rubbed her bum so raw Alice’s every step caused her to bite her lip.

The next two days were much the same – so long, so hot and painful that the girl was too tired and too miserable to eat.

On the third evening, Chief Red Sky, who obviously worried about the girl, motioned for her to sit on a rock while he built a fire and roasted a prairie chicken.

Somehow the sweet smell of the cooking meat awoke the girl’s appetite.

The second the chief led his black-and-white pony upstream towards the Sioux camp, the girl scampered to the fire and grabbed the plump bird in both her filthy, sunburned hands. Then she gobbled it down as if she were a bear eating her first meal after a winter’s hibernation.

Again, the next day the Sioux braves continued north across the wide grasslands. Several times they saw good-sized buffalo herds. But instead of hunting them, the Sioux studied their speed and direction -- information that would be reported to the tribe and used to plan the next big hunt.

Perhaps you can imagine how the girl felt through this long ordeal.

Just six weeks before, she had excitedly left Independence, Missouri, the last white man’s town, with her uncle, aunt and five other families. Traveling slowly in canvas-covered wooden wagons pulled by mules, they hoped to reach California in four or five months.

Then, just as she had begun to love the rolling green prairie with its endless miles of tall grass interrupted by bright spots of wildflowers and clear, fast-running streams, the horrible sickness had arrived.

At first only a few people became seriously ill. Then in less than a week many more came down with the high fever that her Aunt Sarah whispered was the killer disease, cholera.

As each day more people died, the survivors, who were themselves sick, did their best to bury them in shallow graves, each marked by two willow branches tied together to form a cross.

The day before the Sioux found her, the girl’s Uncle Thomas, the last surviving adult, had died. Just a few minutes before he closed his eyes for the last time, he croaked, “Stay by the wagons and be brave. Help will arrive soon.”

But when the girl saw Chief Red Sky ride down the ridge, she was positive her uncle had been wrong and that she would be scalped.

But now – after days of the chief’s little kindnesses, she had begun to hope that maybe, just maybe, the Sioux really were the helpers her Uncle Thomas had promised.

On the afternoon of the fourth day of that long ride, the usually silent braves began laughing, calling back and forth, and urging their horses to move faster.

Despite going

cluck, cluck 
cluck, cluck

to tell Alice to keep up, the girl fell farther and farther behind.

Just when she feared she was being abandoned, she watched as the braves rode to the top of a distant rise and began to whoop before disappearing down the other side.

When poor, sore-footed Alice finally clippity-clopped up that last hill, the girl was amazed to look down on a small city of at least 150 brightly colored tipis clustered next to a stream.

A large group of Sioux, dressed in fringed deerskin clothing decorated with bright drawings of animals, had gathered at the edge of the village to greet the scouts.

Children raced excitedly back and forth, the boys happily bumping and pushing one another while the girls hopped and twirled like butterflies. Older girls stood by their mothers while teenage boys took the scouts’ horses to the river to clean and water them.

Watching from above, this happy homecoming reminded the girl of holiday gatherings back on her parents’ farm when she, too, was hugged by family and friends.

Although she was sure she had cried herself dry, tears again streaked her dirty, sunburned cheeks.

After what seemed to the girl to be a long, long time -- but was probably just a few minutes -- Chief Red Sky mounted a fresh pony and motioned for her to follow him along the stream bank below the village.

After riding Alice around a couple bends, the girl saw a small tan tipi sitting on a meadow near where the stream formed a shallow pond.

Just before he turned his horse back towards the village, Chief Red Sky signed that this was where she was to live. Alone, tired and discouraged, the girl barely had the energy to take the saddle and bridle off Alice before crawling into the tipi and flopping down on the surprisingly soft buffalo robes.

When she finally awoke late the next morning, the girl peaked out of the tipi, hoping to find something to eat. Seeing three eagle feathers tied to a pond-side willow tree, she scooted over and found a pouch of tasty venison stew nestled in a fork in the trunk.

The Sioux -- who she had been taught as a child were vicious, bloodthirsty savages -- had not only saved her from the doomed wagon train, they were taking good care of her.

But it was obvious the Indians couldn’t do the whole job – it was past time she began to help herself.

Not sure what to do first, the girl heard – or I guess I should say imagined -- her mother’s voice saying, “Everything looks better when you’re clean.”

Knowing that this was true, the girl walked to the pool, stripped off her long, filthy dress, and waded into the chilly water, hopping a little as the gravel pinched her toes.

Because she had no soap or washcloth, she cleaned herself by rubbing fine sand on her filthy ankles, her wrists and even the back of her neck.

After sitting on a sunny rock to dry her clean, fair skin, the girl scampered back to the tipi, unrolled her red blanket, and slipped into her only clean outfit – a long green dress with a white lace collar and cuffs she had worn only on holidays back in Pennsylvania.

Then, sitting just inside the tipi opening, the girl picked up Annabelle and asked, “Little bunny, little bunny, what will we do? What will we ever do -- now that we are so, so lost.”

But before Annabelle had a chance to reply, the girl heard a

click, click   sound.
Click, click, click

There, it came again.

Craning her neck so she could look behind the tipi, the girl was just in time to see a black-braided Sioux girl about her own age raise her arm to toss more pebbles against the side of the tipi.

But before she could get a good look, the Sioux girl dropped behind a tall patch of prairie grass.

Eager to make a friend, the girl stood up and stepped out of the tipi, whistling a shy little tune.

Almost immediately, the Sioux girl joined in. A few seconds later, she too stood up.

Now about 50 steps apart, the two girls studied one another, each surprised to see that except for the color of their hair and skin, they looked a lot alike.

Not only were they both tallish, wiry ten-years-olds, but they also shared strong, high cheekbones, slightly pointed noses and upturned smiling lips.

After a few minutes, the Sioux girl turned and ran lightly back towards her village. But when she passed the willow, she leaned over to place something by its trunk.

Before the Sioux girl was even out of sight, the white-haired girl gathered her long green skirt in her right hand and hurried to see what it was.

She discovered a three-strand leather bracelet woven out of the softest elkhide. Making her hand as skinny a possible, she squeezed it on.

She didn’t care that the brown leather looked odd next to her white lace cuff. The only important thing was that she had made a friend.

And a pretty great friend, too -- since next morning she found that, in addition to several pieces of dried buffalo meat, the Sioux girl had hung a fringed deerskin top and leggings from the willow.

And even more exciting, a pair of deerhide moccasins, decorated with dyed red and purple porcupine quills, sat on the ground underneath.

Slipping them on, the girl rushed back to the tipi to change into her new outfit. Finally free of the long dresses, she skipped to the pool to admire her reflection.

Turning proudly this way and that, the white-haired girl heard a giggle. Looking up, she saw the Sioux girl was sitting in a patch of purple wildflowers, trying to stop laughing.

The white-haired girl blushed. But then, curiosity overcoming embarrassment, she pointed at her new friend and held out her hands, palms up, to ask, “What’s your name?”

The Sioux girl pronounced it slowly. But when the white-haired girl attempted to repeat the unfamiliar Sioux sounds, she botched them so badly both girls giggled.

When finally the white-haired girl could say her new friend’s name properly, the Indian girl placed her hands on her chest, extending her elbows to the sides. Then as she flapped them up and down, she sang a little song – a song just like the one the white-haired girl had heard when she woke up that morning.

At first the white-haired girl had no clue what her friend was trying to say. But after the Sioux girl repeated these movements three times, she finally figured out that her friend’s name meant “Singing Bird.”

For many more mornings, Singing Bird brought food and sometimes a little present, such as a bear-tooth necklace, or a bow and a quiver of arrows.

Then, always careful to sit 50 steps apart, the girls spent hours teaching each other basic Sioux and English words. And even more fun, Singing Bird taught the white-haired girl sign language.

For example, to make the sign for a tipi, you put the first finger of each hand together to form a pyramid. And you sign Tatanka, or buffalo, by putting your fists above your ears and raising the first finger of each hand to make horns.

But everything changed one early morning late in the month white people call June and the Sioux name The Moon of Fattening. That’s when the white-haired girl opened her eyes to find Singing Bird sitting by her side.

At first she thought she was dreaming. But when Singing Bird took her hand she understood her days of living alone were over.
Signing that it was necessary to take the tipi down, Singing Bird showed her friend how to remove the buffalo skins and gather the poles.

Next, Singing Bird secured the ends of the two longest tipi poles to a rope tied around Alice’s neck, letting the other ends trail on the ground behind to form what the Sioux call a ‘traverse,’ or ‘pony drag.’

After tying the tipi skins, sleeping robes and even the white-haired girl’s rolled-up red blanket between the poles, the girls mounted and rode towards the Sioux village.

But when the girls crested the big hill, the white-haired girl was amazed to see that all the tipis were gone. That’s when Singing Bird pointed to the prairie, where several hundred horses, many pulling traverses, headed into the distance.

After taking a long moment to look south in the direction of the doomed wagon train, the white-haired girl turned Alice west to follow her new friend and the Sioux as they set out on the trail of the Tatanka.

The End