“The Legend of Raven Blackcrow”
Copyright 2007 Aaron Belchamber
Chapter 1
Nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a group of children in the playground at the Daunting Middle School are holding hands and dancing around a circle of rocks. In the middle of the rocks is a ball of hay beneath a chalk sketching of an old, black cowboy hat. The children sway one way then skip sideways in the opposite direction around the rock circle as they sing an old town song together:
“In Daunting, in Daunnnting,
Raven Blackcrow’s haunting….
Pitch a cross of straw, for him to rise,
and let the crows eat out his eyes.
Torch his head, and it will end,
or Raven Blackcrow will rise again.”
Where, one wonders, did that song come from? The school bell rings and the children leave home for the summer.
Chapter 2
Chief Mountain Eagle, the chief of the Wamasca Indians, is sitting on a log in front of a campfire with eleven restless children from the tribe. The children are fidgety, but respectful, as Chief Mountain Eagle stares into the fire, his aging eyes half closed in sleep... or perhaps in meditation?
A few of the children are talking very quietly to each other, their voices mere whispers and hums among the windblown tree branches, scattering leaves, and the occasional crackle from wood burning in the open campfire.
Some of the children stare reverently at the old, wrinkled man, the one they refer to as “Old Wise Eagle” – the man they know as chief, and who some call father, as in “father of the tribe”. The reflection of dancing fire in the old man’s dark pupils amplifies his commanding aura.
The chief gracefully bends down from the log to pick up his clay cup of warm root tea and takes a sip, an indication to the children to be quiet, for he was about to speak. Before the chief finishes sipping from his cup, most of the children gain their composure and shush each other quiet.
The chief suddenly opens his eyes wide, smiles, glances at all of his young friends gathered around him, and nods proudly. This is when he feels best, most purposeful -- most useful, he acknowledges to himself.
Ah, to be young again, his face says contemplatively. He is a man fully at peace with himself and the world. He smiles warmly, closes his eyes, and begins to tell his story.
Chapter 3
“Many, many years ago, before the buffalo were taken by the smoking barrels of the white man’s guns, a town of settlers was waiting to be born. That town, as we know it now is called Daunting. The name ‘Dahn-ting’ was mistaken as the name of this land by explorers who were the first white men to ever speak to anyone from the Wamasca tribe.”
“As we all know, the word ‘Dahn – Ting’ in Wamascan means ‘prairie dog’, a name our Wamascan ancestors had called the settlers,” the chief pauses as the children laugh and the smoke from the fire dances in swirls up into the cloudy, moonlit sky.
“Twelve settler families were traveling west in search of new land and they decided to make their home in the rolling prairie lands here in the Dakotas. Just past the bend in the river, the town of Daunting began to grow and the land-hungry settlers began chopping down many trees and putting up fences around the land they claimed their God said belonged to them. Though their claims were not valid, the Wamascas had no reason to believe these were not peaceful people, so they let them be.
“At first, the settlers were friends to us and they did nothing to stop the bands of our tribe and our brothers from faraway lands to pass through their lands. At first, they offered each other gifts and traded firs and smoke. But one day, that all changed. A lonely Indian painted and dressed all in black named Raven Blackcrow came wondering through Daunting and scared the settlers.
“Raven Blackcrow was the son of the highest chief of the Wamasca tribe at the time, Chief Meadowhawk. Raven Blackcrow was a very quiet, peaceful Indian. He had problems making friends with children his age, but he seemed to have a way with animals – especially blackbirds. Many say he could speak to the blackbirds. His best friend was a large raven who sat on his left shoulder and followed Blackcrow everywhere.
“When Raven Blackcrow was born, his mother died while giving birth to him. As a child, he was marked forever for causing his mother’s death. He was commanded by the chief to always wear black and paint his face black to carry the burden of his mother’s death with him every day. He was to carry this burden with him until his father no longer lived.
“When the buffalo herders from the sky came down to take his mother to the stars above, Raven Blackcrow came into this world, and around the tent flocked tens and tens of blackbirds – ravens and crows. They flew around the heads of those who came near, as if sent from the buffalo gods to protect the newborn baby, and that is from where his name, ‘Raven Blackcrow,’ came.”
“One day, when he was old enough to hunt alone, Raven Blackcrow decided to take a shortcut through the outskirts of Daunting on his way to visit his brothers on the other side of the mountain range, two days down the river.
“It was a sunny day, a whole moon before the eve of winter, when the settlers stopped being peaceful to the Indians. At first sight, the pilgrim farmers were frightened of Raven Blackcrow. He was dressed in black and his face was also painted black. His pet raven that sat on his left shoulder was a sure sign to the settlers that he was possessed with what they called “a demon”.
“Raven Blackcrow also wore a leather cowboy hat that he had found one day and rumors spread quickly that he had killed a settler for it. The children from Daunting who saw the tall, black-painted Indian, ran home in fright and told their parents they had seen an evil man swarms of hateful blackbirds flocked after.
“Raven continued on his journey, not giving the strange onlookers in Daunting another thought. The next day, the settlers awoke to their fields being ravaged by swarms of birds. Blackbirds. They had waited all year for their crops to grow into a bountiful harvest, but most of the food they were planning to store over the cold, harsh Dakota winter was now being destroyed by the swarms of blackbirds before their eyes.
“As an early snow signaled the coming of darker days and winter weather, more black birds came. From everywhere, they flew to feast on the settlers’ crops, and to everywhere they flew away with food and nesting in their claws in preparation for winter. Like the settlers, the blackbirds had to prepare and they took and ate what they could -- leaving the white people in the village with almost nothing.
“Angry, the settlers ran home, grabbed their guns and pitchforks and began killing the flocks of blackbirds. There were far more birds than the settlers had pellet shot, and as hard as they tried, the hungry birds didn’t stay away long. It was a battle of survival and the war torn fields of corn were sprinkled with dead blackbirds and a spoiled harvest.”
Chapter 4
“Some of the settlers decided to leave their homes and go hunting for food while many of the others stayed and decided to eat the just-killed blackbirds. That year, winter came even before fall could begin. The coldest winter ever remembered arrived soon after, and the settlers of Daunting were getting more desperate as each passing day got a little colder. Many of the birds the settlers saved to eat made them deathly ill. Within a week, more than half the town had gone blind or died from eating the blackbirds.
“Then one day, the mysterious Indian, Raven Blackcrow, was traveling back home from his visit with his brothers and took the same path home through Daunting. A settler spotted Blackcrow walking through the fields where the bodies of so many blackbirds lay still unclaimed by the desperately hungry settlers.
“It didn’t take lon
g before the settlers grabbed their guns and chased Blackcrow down. Frightened, Blackcrow was carried off to the middle of a field outside town. He cried as many of his friends, the birds, lay mutilated on the ground. His arms and legs were tied to a wooden cross as if to be sacrificed to the white man’s god.
“That night, the settlers held a vigil and each person took turns throwing the heads of dead blackbirds at him. For six days and six nights, Raven Blackcrow stayed tied to the wooden cross in the middle of the field and was left for dead. Much to the delight of the vengeful settlers, the black birds flew around him and slowly picked at his skin and eyes until he was blinded and scarred from head to foot as he cried and screamed and shook from the cold.”
Chapter 5
A loud pop from the fire startles a few of the boys, who quickly regain their composure in order to avoid embarrassment in front of their peers by looking scared. The Chief takes a long breath, smiles, and continues.
“On the sixth night, the settlers in Daunting celebrated their revenge on Raven Blackcrow. As they trekked through the darkness into the field to burn his body, the wind suddenly began to blow very strongly and the torches they used to find their way began to set the grass in the field on fire and crept quickly into town. The fire consumed these woods and surrounded Daunting. Most of the settlers perished, burning down every one of their houses to the ground.
“The ones who went hunting for food returned a few days later to find only two survivors. They helped douse the fires and marched to the field to make sure Raven Blackcrow was dead. They found the charred cross to which Raven Blackcrow was bound, but they never found his body.”
Chapter 6
“The Legend of Raven Blackcrow is written in the stars. To the settler, the fields of Daunting are cursed. If anyone pitches a scarecrow in any of the burned fields of Daunting and a blackbird picks out its eyes, that scarecrow will awaken the Spirit of Vengeance and call Raven Blackcrow to return for justice. The spirit of Raven Blackcrow will inhabit the scarecrow and he will be given six nights to seek revenge on the town whose descendants had once so cruelly tortured him. Legend says, the scarecrow can only be stopped if his head is completely burned to ashes.”
Few of the children had moved at all while the chief was telling this last part of the story. Some of the younger boys were beginning to get restless again. They glance uneasily around the woods, no longer feeling as safe as before the story had started, suddenly not feeling so comfortable in a world where such cruelty could take place.
The chief smiles mildly and wraps the patterned blanket on his shoulders a little tighter around him. He bends down to take another sip of tea from his clay cup and continues.
“Tonight is the night that we honor Raven Blackcrow and that is why we sit around the fire and listen to his story. It is tonight that we dance around the fire with our blackbird masks and honor him. By honoring him, we keep his spirit tranquil and happy.
“We let him know we remember who he was, and that we must forgive the white man to end the vicious circle of vengeance and killing. We dance around the fire tonight to remember where we come from and why we must be kind to a stranger, but never trust them until they are willing to dance with us.”
A Note About Scarecrows
Scarecrows have a creepy mystique about them. They’re lifeless, yet resemble us. Despite their positive utility (I assume they do keep birds from eating crops though I haven’t observed a scarecrow long enough to really know firsthand), a person will usually stumble upon one that appears neglected, tattered and worn. They’re often spotted from afar in lonely, desolate, out-of-the-way places and their eyes seem to follow passersby. Did its head turn, too, or was it just that its head and neck have loosened from its stranglehold upon the post it was hung from? Their bodies are often discovered unnaturally twisted -- victimized by the elements, birds or other hungry, curious animals. Doesn’t it sometimes look that like they tried to wriggle free?
Coming across a scarecrow can really help bring out the imagination! Imagine being lost or stranded with no sign of civilization around and coming across a scarecrow whose better days are far behind him. It almost looks desperate, hanging up there, angry, with nothing to lose. Patiently waiting to escape, life can’t get much worse than a scarecrow’s version of being nailed to a post eerily resembling a crucifix. The buzzing of insects and the brushing together of the wheat and corn in the swaying wind are the only sounds you hear for miles. You are more than aware that you are alone and as vulnerable as that poor bag of twisted, tormented, human straw staring down at you.
You approach cautiously, then its sunken eyes suddenly open, and it comes alive. Anger lights up his suddenly human eyes. The expression on its face turns into a twisted smile. You step back, dumbfounded, as the scarecrow tears itself from its cross with one thing on its mind -- revenge. Halloween and Indian folklore can definitely make for an interesting combination!
About the Author
Aaron Belchamber has been writing commercial copy for advertising, business and marketing plans, ad campaigns, poems and articles, infomercial and television scripts, blog articles, and movie screenplays for over 20 years. He was recognized as a “Light of Liberty” author for the support of Libertarian ideals and practical Constitutionally-based political solutions. For 8 years, he was general manager of his own advertising agency and has also taught college level web design and 3D animation at Southwest Florida College. He is also very proud to have been the Director of Advertising at Riddle’s Jewelry from 2010 to 2013.
He is currently an open source web developer and has been producing videos and 3D animations for television and the web since 1999.
Other books by this author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by Aaron Belchamber.
The Legend of Raven Blackcrow (a short story)
Look for the release of these upcoming books late 2014 and 2015:
Nannoveus
Thunderhead Falls
The Last Galactic Outpost
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