Skyward

I prepared myself to die. It was no hard thing to lie on the ground, and to give myself over to my Maker. Was it a sin? Should I have picked up what meager belongings I could carry and tried to walk on over that endless plain? It seemed so clear to me that my time had come, and that I should die here with Father; too weak to bury him, too weak to take another step. How I regretted him dying thinking I had carelessly left our rifle in the tall grass, but how could I have told him I had traded all of our ammunition for what little food the Pawnee could spare? I would cry, but there was no moisture left in me to produce a single tear. As the afternoon wore on, I felt small rustling in my calicos, and even the small inquiry of tiny feet across my face, but I no longer cared to brush away an ant. I was glad my eyes were blue to drink up the sky, to ease my mingling with Heaven, which I could feel lifting me as my body grew lighter and lighter.