Monologue Of Hupa

The Summer of 1863, my mother told me that I needed to watch my younger sister Hupa and my cousin Karuk for the day while she and my aunt went to go gather some new plants. Hupa was about four foot nine inches tall, slightly tanned with long brown hair that mother made her keep in two long braids. She also had sweet brown eyes that came from our fathers side, she wore a golden leather dress fabricated with beads and strings of leather attached to it, and moccasins. Hupa, could be very loving and kind, but she always asked way too many questions for my liking.
“Akecheta, I do not want to study anymore! I want to go play! I’m tired of learning about these dumb plants! Why do I need to know about these? Why can’t I go play outside like everyone
else?” Hupa complained.
“Just do your work Hupa.
I don’t have the answers to your questions, so just do your work,” I replied to Hupa, annoyed. She never stopped with the questions and I grew tired of them, I was not her mother. I did not have all the answers to everything like the elders do, so why on this great earth would she continue to ask a seventeen-year-old girl all these dumb questions? I honestly did not have an answer for this.
“Hupa,” I announced, “if you really don't want to work then go draw on those rocks over there.”
Hupa looked up at me and smiled. “Really?!? You'll really let me go draw on the rocks Akecheta?” Hupa asked with her eyes glistening and her huge smile.
“Yeah, just be back in a little bit so mom does not worry.” I stated, as I watched Hupa run off towards the rocks to play.
Finally, I thought, I can do what I want without her getting in the way. But the one thing that I never saw coming was my grandmother becoming ill and my mother and aunt needing to go look after her for a few weeks. There was a legend that states if you don't go care for the elders in your family, they will come back to haunt you and your family after they die. Them leaving thus left me in charge of Hupa, and Karuk. I let Hupa go play on the rocks, never thinking anything of it, except each day Hupa would return and talk about this friend of hers that she met and how much she liked him and wanted us to meet him. Karuk would usually follow Hupa out towards the rocks and tease her because that is just
how Karuk is, always making fun of people and running off into trouble.
“Karuk?
Where are you?” I yelled
“I'm over here watching Hupa make a fool of herself drawing on the rocks. Why?” answered Karuk in an annoyed tone.
“I was just making sure you had not run off, like you did last time.” I retorted sarcastically.
I could hear Karuk roll his eyes it was so loud. Almost two weeks had passed since my mother and my aunt had left to take care of my grandmother. After three weeks of listening to Hupa talk about her “friend” I finally decided to humor her and follow.
“Be careful, Akecheta, he doesn't like new people that much, so don't be mean like you normally are.” Hupa stated in one of the most serious tones that I have ever heard.
“Okay Hupa, I'll be on my best behavior I swear,” I assured her, while doing my best not to burst out laughing.
As we approached the rocks that she loved to play on, Hupa became more and more excited the closer we came to the rocks until we finally arrived, and she could not hold back her excitement any
longer.
“It's okay, you can come out and play Otoe. She doesn't bite… well sometimes she does… but she hasn't recently!” Hupa shouted in a calm and kind tone.
As I looked around, I saw absolutely nothing and was beginning to grow annoyed with Hupa. Here I was standing on the rocks where she had drawn so many things and made this imaginary friend named “Otoe”, but I was not about to ruin her fun so I decided to play along.
“Hi Otoe,” I acknowledged, “I promise I won't bite just like Hupa told you.”
Hupa then whipped around and smiled at me with her large brown eyes without saying anything. It was almost dark and we needed to get back before anything happened to us.
“Hupa come on we need to go, we do not want to go towards the dells by accident.” I told her.
“Otoe is not ready for us to leave yet, so we cannot go yet.” Hupa replied, more serious than ever.
“Hupa, I do not have time for your games. We are leaving now. You know just like I do that if we end up over by the dells once it's dark we are going to end up by the cliff and you can't swim so let's go,” I commanded her, just like my mother does to me.
“Fine,” Hupa huffed, “but Otoe no longer likes you. He says he would hurt you if he could. But I won't let him.”
“Well thank you Hupa, how generous of you,” I replied sarcastically while I rolled my eyes. “come on let's go.”
The next day Karuk and Hupa were fighting like a cat and a dog so I made them go play on the rocks together until things worked out. A few hours later, Karuk, came running back to our tent and went to his studying.
“Where is Hupa, Karuk? I told you, not to come back until you two had worked things out.” I stated while glaring at him.
“We did, we worked everything out, so I came back.” Karuk replied while refusing to meet my eyes.
“Then where is she?” I practically growled at him.
“Umm, about that...” Karuk answered while staring at the ground.
“Karuk, where is my sister?” I yelled at him.
“She's on the rocks, dead...” Karuk mumbled in a whisper that I could barely hear.
“What? You did what to her? She is where?” I screamed.
“She is dead okay? I did it! She was making me mad, and we started to fight, and it just happened! I killed her!” Karuk shouted back into my face.
At this point, I went running out towards the rocks, but I found nothing lying on the rocks. I only saw the dark red blood from Hupa, that stained the rocks where she had spent so much time drawing on them. As I stood there looking for her, I saw all the puddles of dark red blood from where she had been hurt by Karuk. As I continued to scan the rocks, I could feel myself crying, and then I saw it. I saw her little body, lying there on the rocks that formed a small ball. I sprinted as fast as I could to her, hoping that she wasn't dead like Karuk had said. As I knelt down to hold my baby sister, my precious little sister Hupa, I felt a very cold breeze rush past me, but I made no thought of it at the time I was occupied with Hupa. I finally held her in my arms yet, I could still feel her warm red blood oozing out of her head, from where I can only assume Karuk, smashed her head against the rocks. I sat there rocking her, and crying, I heard sobs coming from somewhere behind me, but still, I saw nobody behind me when I turned to look. That is when I remembered Hupa talking about her friend Otoe.
“Otoe? I don't know if you are real or not but watch over Hupa please? Keep her safe wherever she is at…” I whispered so incredibly soft that I could barely hear myself as I continued to sob.
I stayed there for what felt like days, not knowing that Hupa’s body had become cold, or that her blood stained my hands.
A few days later, we held a burial for Hupa. Nobody had gone to tell my mother, or my grandmother what had happened. We all feared that it would send my grandmother to her death.
A week after Hupa had passed, Karuk, went missing and nobody knew where he had gone. I went out to the rocks where Hupa, had been savagely murdered by her own family, to try and find Karuk, since nobody else would. While I sat there looking around at all of the red stained rocks, I felt the same cold breeze come near me.
“Otoe? Is that you?” I asked quite nervously, there was no answer, but the cold feeling stayed near me.“Otoe, did you do something to Karuk? If you did leave and come back… if not stay here…” As I sat there waiting I could feel the warm sun on me once again, I looked around the prairie watching the wildflowers and lavender sway with the warm breeze, and then I could no longer feel the warm sun or warm breeze on my skin, the coldness had returned. I had my answer. Otoe, had done something.
“Otoe, is he still alive? Or did he die?” I asked timidly. “If he's dead stay, if not leave and come back...”. This time, however, Otoe, did not leave like last time, he stayed right by me. “Otoe, tell me what you did to him, tell me now.” I angrily added.
As I sat there waiting for a reply, I could smell a strong mixture of wildflowers and lavender. Both were Hupa’s favorite flower.
“I pushed him off of the cliff at the dells, you will never find him. The water below is much too deep for you to ever find him,” commented a raspy voice that I'd never heard before. But it continued, “I never liked that Karuk, Hupa, always said how cruel he was to her, but I never believed it until I watched him hit her time after time. This anger grew inside of me as I watched him throw her onto the rocks, and smash her head on the rocks, over and over again, until her blood began to spill out of her small and fragile little head, with each smash of her head against those rocks a loud and vigilant smash is all I could hear, along with the sight of even more blood came spilling out onto the rocks. That, is when I knew, I wanted, no needed, to rip Karuk, to shreds.”
It only made sense that Otoe, would be able to recount to me what happened to Hupa, that day. He, was the only one who was there to witness what happened. However, I never expected him to talk, or to tell me what had happened to her. That's when I smelled the wildflowers and lavender again, I should have thought it was Hupa, but it never crossed my mind, until, I heard that voice.
“Otoe, is telling you the truth,” added a small but strong voice that almost sounded like Hupa, “Akecheta, do not be scared, Otoe told you the truth about what happened to Karuk and to me both. And he's right, nobody will ever find Karuks’ body in the water.”
I thought I was just imagining the conversation I just had, so I went over to the dells to see, and found that everything I had heard was true. Lying at the edge of the dells was Karuk’s worn out leather shoes, along with his footprints going all the way to the edge of the cliff with the last one only having the heel of his foot. It was all true. Otoe had killed Karuk, because he murdered Hupa.