A few stories, should you be awake.

.

.

Is a story true?  Do we have all the facts?  I... will never know.  Even the stories I tell, there are things I didn't know, or didn't mention.  Some of those things are very important.  But I can't know everything, and some things get lost, in time.  So, when another tells a tale, I assume there are things unknown to the teller.  Or things not tendered for... various reasons.

War.  It's... the shortest one word version of history.  I have written and said that before.  I do believe it to be true.  The first blow was struck against God's will.  Then Cain struck the next major blow.  Things have only gotten worse since.  And, not just among men.  Whether from mans' actions, or through the loss of graces, animals sometimes hunt us.

In this next, I suspect men were involved.  They weren't skinwalker lions, nor were the lions spirits.  I believe the lions were trained.  Trained to change where they hit, alter how they hunted, learned to know men, watch them, and kill them.  Further, they were taught to hate men.  Then they were released to do exactly what they did.

True?  Just my suspicion.  I don't know if they were the only ones, but... that is a rare thing.  My guess is most lions trained as such... don't choose to follow the path they are put on.  They... find another way.  Hunting humans is something even animals know is ill-fated.

Many people like to believe Natives were... tranquil, at peace with their lands and with their neighbors.  My parts, called by whites, are Sioux and Navajo, Lakota and Dine to those among them who still remember.  What they seem to not realize is Sioux and Navajo means enemy, to the Natives who worked with the whites of the time, and against my peoples.  There... was no peace, no balance.  Just war, hunger, desire, like with... all peoples.

This wasn't a few isolated examples.  War was as it was, then as now.

Sometimes it isn't as it seems.  Though, a word of caution.  Often stories are told to defend the indefensible.  I don't trust national parks, for this very reason.  Rangers have no trouble killing an animal, but only after the lives of one or several or many humans have been taken.  Nor do they allow humans to defend themselves.  Some see humans as less valuable than wild animals.  Do they have a point?  I don't agree with the results, regardless.

And, among the worst of predators, in the worst of ways?  I had known some of this story, but never heard the final parts.  Now I know.  Well... assuming the story is told with truth.  I could look it up, but... this will suffice for the moment.  Perhaps, in another time, I will see if I can find verification or otherwise.

A few things to... provide the will to live?  It is what I see.  Offer thoughts?  Such as, what price life?  Death?  Truth?  I can't say for others.  But for me?  I can cry, a few tears in my proverbial beer, for a killer who just came shy.  But don't think I'll try to be the one crying in my beer, leaving any predator to die as it must.  Probably won't eat you though, if a human sort.  Unless I truly have no choice.  Then?  Two... tears... in the beer.  *grins*