The Vision of Sequem White Moccasin

In the quiet of dawn, when the wind still carried the night’s last whispers, Sequem White Moccasin sat upon the red earth and closed his eyes. In the stillness, a vision came upon him like the beating of a distant drum.

He saw a land, open and without end. Across it thundered great herds—not of flesh and blood, but of iron and fire. They were Mustangs, their hides shining with sparks, their breath the sharp cry of lightning.

They ran with no hunger and drank no water. Their hooves touched the ground without sound, yet the earth trembled beneath them.

These Mustangs roamed far and free, chasing the horizon with no fear of hunters or hunger. Yet, always, when the circle of days grew full, they turned back to the place from which they had come. There, one by one, they sank upon their four legs, as if bowing to the dust, and never rose again.

In time, Sequem saw the earth grow pale. A white powder lay thick upon the ground, as though the very bones of the land had been crushed and scattered.

Long before, the great Cats of the earth—those that dig and claw with iron teeth—had torn the soil open. Now the scars bled out in white, and the ground carried the taste of old wounds.

Even the Broncos of the Cowboys, lit with the same fire, could not escape this fate. They too returned to the hidden land and wasted away, their sparks gone cold, their frames silent.

Sequem’s eyes followed them beyond the edge of the sky. There, behind the great shield of the Sun, he saw where the dead Mustangs and Broncos gathered. They stood in endless lines, waiting, wasting, their power spent, their purpose forgotten.

When the vision faded, Sequem White Moccasin opened his eyes. He placed his hand upon the earth and whispered, “Even what runs without breath must one day return to dust. The herds of the future are not forever. Their thunder is loud, but their bones will be wasted behind the Sun.”

And so his people remembered, and they told the vision as a warning:
The land does not forget that the soil carries memory, and that all things—whether of hide or of iron—must bow again to the earth.