A/N: Wow, I'm back so soon! Again, in the middle of the night. What can I say, I hold odd office hours. :) 
(Still going to regret this in the morning.)
Anyways, this is my next submission for the Gloves Up SmackDown contest! This time, the genre is fantasy, set in the Wild West. 
Quick disclaimer: This story may seem a little bit racist towards the Shoshonis. I do NOT support any racist opinions of my characters in this story! Those opinions are simply a reflection of the time period, nothing against the Shoshonis. The only reason I used a real Native American tribe, the Horse Shoshonis, is because the Native American myth off which this is based is from the Shoshonis, and it felt wrong to make up a fake tribe and give them a Shoshoni story.
I'll explain more about this myth and this story at the end. For now, enjoy!
Word count: 997

Standing atop a great boulder, my father raises his spear and tribal symbol in a gesture for silence. My people fall silent almost immediately, but the same can't be said for the scowling, jeering taipo-a, white men.

I eye them, with their odd clothing and reckless behavior. No wonder most of us call them kutiisi. Crazy.

"Tank you." I wince a little at my father's heavily-accented English, so different from how he tenderly addresses me.

"Ne en tepitsi tsaa suankanna, Kimani." I love you very much, Kimani.

Judging by the snickers I hear from the townspeople, his difficulty with their language hasn't gone unnoticed. "For who not know, I Chief Kwanah of the Horse Shoshonis."

More laughs.

"And I here to ask to leave our land a-lone," he sounds out the last word carefully, eliciting an even larger bout of laughter. I can feel my hand gravitating towards my own small spear. How dare they?

"Why should we?!" one of the townspeople jeers, and it's like a dam's been cut loose. The rest of the taipo-a join in, hurling insults towards my father and my people.

"We need food too!"

"Why can't you Indians help us out a bit, huh?"

"It's our land now!"

I know that the taipo-a settlement had a rough winter. I know that they lost a lot of people. But what they don't seem to get is that we lost people too. Maybe not as many, but still. And their loss doesn't entitle them to our land.

Tensions are rising. This needs to stop, or it could get out of hand, very quickly.

* * * * *

Blasted Indians expect us to leave 'their' land alone? It was never even 'their' land in the first place!

I toss aside the now-empty whiskey bottle and blindly reach for another, although I know I'm well over the line of roostered by now.

But then, a figure steps right out of the shadows directly in front of me.

If anyone claims I squealed like a damned girl, I will lambast 'em so hard, they won't be able to lift their beaten bottom off the ground.

It only takes me a moment to realize that the person in front of me isn't just anyone, but one of those damned Indians, a young lassie.

"Whatcha want, lil' girl?" I squint at her, tryin' to seem at least a tad intimidatin', even drunk. "Ya know I can bring the whole town down on you this very second, right?"

"Uh-huh," is her only reply.

"I'm serious, Indian."

"And I'm serious too." She steps closer, face hard as a rock. "Town needs to stop. Shoshonis will get hurt. And Manitou will come back."

I can't help it. I laugh in her face. "That's all ya got, lil' girl? Ya think you can scare us into 'leavin' ya land a-lone'?" I mimic her chief, tears beginnin' to leak out of my eyes. Lord, she actually thought she could do it.

"Not a threat. Manitou real. Protector of the Shoshonis," she insists, tryin' to keep up her lil' scheme. Well, I'm not fallin' for it. "Violent spirit. Will hurt you."

"Sure, Indian. Keep dreamin'."

At this, she fixes me with a witherin' glare. I'm about to tell her to stop playin' her games with me, but instead, all she says before sprintin' off is, "I warned you."

* * * * *

It's only a week later that we get our first real scuffle with the blasted Indians.

Me and my buddy, Shane, are on the trails with our trusty horses, when we come upon three of those Shosho-somethin's. On our trail.

Of course, the only option is to take 'em down.

We didn't even have a scratch on us when we got back, no siree; their spears, or whatever, were no match for our trusty pistols.

I fall asleep feelin' like a hero.

I wake up to screams.

I don't think I've ever gotten up off my bottom so fast. I run over to my window, and instantly, I'm airin' my lungs out with every profanity I can think of.

Because the house next to mine - Shane's - is on fire.

I don't have a second to waste, not if I want to see my buddy again.

It takes close to an hour to finally put out the flames, with the combined efforts of all the townsfolk, includin' me.

By that time, Shane is already dead.

Seein' his burnt, defiled body, an uncontrollable anger starts to bubble up in my stomach.

It's those goddamned Indians; it has to be! They probably wanted revenge for their dead buddies, and took it out on my buddy.

Well, they killed the wrong man. Now they're goin' to get the wrath of Cody Bancroft.

It hardly takes me a minute to saddle my trusty mount and ride off onto the trail, the same one Shane and I were ridin' just yesterday. My rage doesn't fade.

Suddenly, I remember the Indian girl's words, from a week ago. Manitou real. Protector of the Shoshonis. Violent spirit. Will hurt you.

No. Shane did not die to some spirit. Her story was probably cover, tryin' to make us believe some spirit killed Shane when it was actually them.

And then, out of nowhere, a thunderous boom explodes from the sky.

My bottom hits the ground hard, and I curse. I manage to open my eyes, just in time to see my mount take off. So much for trusty.

I glance up at the sky, hopin' to judge how bad the incomin' storm will be. Instead, I see a big rock hurtlin' down from the sky.

Comin' right for me.

I try to move, but I feel frozen, as though someone has tied me in place. As I watch, blue mist swirls around the rock, quickly formin' into the face of an Indian, with long white hair and a face twisted in fury.

The last thing I hear is the words of the Indian girl in my head. I warned you.

A/N: Well? How was it?

There are a lot of things I'd like to explain here. Firstly, I am NOT Shoshoni. All this information was found via hours of research. If I've gotten something wrong, I'd like to apologize, and let you know that it was not my intention to offend anyone. Please, correct me if you notice something wrong! Also, note that the characters in this story ARE NOT real! I made up Kimani and Chief Kwanah based on what I learned about the Shoshonis.
Secondly, the two myths which inspired the fantastical feature of this story, the Manitou. The first is a tale about a Shoshone and a Comanche, and the second is an Ute tale about a man named Acantow and his wife Manetabee. If you want to read them for yourself, just search, 'The Division of Two Tribes', and 'The Lost Trail of Colorado myth'. They came up as the first result on both, for me. 
Thirdly, the Shoshoni words in this story. All of them have the English word written somewhere nearby in the text, hopefully you can figure it out. I pulled them from the University of Utah's lovely Shoshoni dictionary project, just search up 'Shoshoni dictionary', and it should be the first result.

That's all the factual stuff you should know. Now, time for me to rant.
Initially, I was going to write the entire thing in Cody's viewpoint, but I got extremely uncomfortable writing the first scene, because there was too much racism for me. Unfortunately, that accurately reflects the time of the American Wild West.
And before you ask, YES, Sacagawea was Shoshoni. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a Shoshoni girl name that WASN'T Sacagawea.

I had a blast writing this one, and I learned a lot about Shoshoni culture while at it, too. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. :D