Divine Offal

How about a really short, short fiction this week. This is my first post using Dragon Naturally Speaking, although the edits were done manually.
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DIVINE OFFAL
By Mark Wildyr
   
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 The lone warrior stood in a small glen, dark eyes cast heavenward. Great medicine was at work in the late afternoon sky. In his twenty-five summers, Snapping Turtle had seen many stars flash across the night. But this was not a time for stars, and the object he now watched was quite different. It moved slowly, yet it moved. Bright as a small sun, the Sky Beast shook burning embers from a long tail. Truly, this was powerful magic.     Snapping Turtle dropped to his knees and quailed before this wondrous thing. At first, he feared this little sun would fall upon him and crush the life from his body. Then he came to understood it would pass far above his head. Not so the great shower of sparks that fell like offal from its brilliant tail. Wolf remained as he was long after the strange light had disappeared from the sky. Not out of fear; that had passed. No, his blood sang with a sense of waiting. Of anticipation.     The sun had dropped low on the horizon before he stirred. As he rose to his feet, raindrops that were not raindrops crashed through the canopy of trees around him, shredding leaves and stripping bark and raising small tufts in the meadow. He reeled backward as something heavy whistled past and struck the ground beside him. He blinked and stared at a smoldering hole that had not been there a moment before. As curiosity overcame fear, Wolf stepped forward and peered into the shallow pit. He made out the shape of a rock. What could hurl a piece of stone so hard it would whine and sink so deeply into the turf?      He recalled the falling raindrops of moments before. They had made a noise, as well. He’d heard them tear through leaves. And he understood everything. This was an offering from the Great Spirit. He had thrown his divine waste at Wolf’s feet. As a gift.     Without considering why he had been so chosen, he fell to his knees and reached into the hole. He snatched his hand back and put burned fingers to his lips. After a pause, he took the sheep’s bladder of water from its strap across his shoulder and poured cool liquid into the pit. The thing in the ground sizzled and popped and gave off the odor of scorched earth. The sun had almost reached the western horizon before he was able to touch the muddy water without scalding his flesh.     Finally, he reached into the pit and tugged out the still warm stone, astonished at the weight of the thing. Never had he hoisted a rock so heavy, especially one no larger than twice his hand span. It was flat and angular and gave off a dull shine like some of the white men’s tools. Immediately, he was struck with a thought. He would make a tomahawk of great medicine from this thing. It would doubtless give him power as a warrior.    And so, he fashioned a fine tomahawk with a haft of solid oak and a blade of the strange stone. His wife added tufts of sheep’s wool and woven trade beads. Then he shed the name of Snapping Turtle and began to live the saga of the mighty warrior known as Black Hatchet.
#####That's it for this post. Hope you enjoyed it. And thanks for checking out the site.
Mark

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