The world knew him as Red Mask, high chief of Copper Falcon Town, a lineage elder of the Four Winds Clan. I called him Father. His cardinal-feather cloak was thrown back over his shoulders and ruffled in the breeze. Sunlight glinted on the copper pin that held his gray-streaked hair in a tight warrior’s bun atop his head. The flat planes of his tattooed face accented his hawkish nose. His wide mouth now fixed itself in anticipation as the canoe raced across the wide Father Water. My father was beloved by our people and feared by our enemies. His mere entry into the Council House back home brought smiles to lips, a sparkle to the eyes of those in attendance. To me, however, my father remained a perplexing enigma full of contradictions: a man of well-kept secrets, anger, festering resentment, indomitable courage, and that rarest of traits: a charisma that brought men and women flocking to his various causes. Not even our recent military defeats at the hands of the T’so barbarians had dimmed that luster.
