Custers Surprise

Crazy Horse looked at the tall rickety structure with doubt.
"Running with Dogs, that is not a warrior's weapon! When the white man's army arrives, they will burn your tower down easily. A strong wind could blow it over! Of what use is it to me?"
Crazy Horse and Running With Dogs sat on their painted ponies a few hundred yards from a structure about 100 feet tall. Constructed of leather straps, tree limbs, and branches, it reached into the western sky like a oversized child's toy. Vaguely shaped like a windmill, wide at the base and narrowing toward the top, the tower it was mostly open air. Feathers danced in the wind from many places on the tower, giving it color and movement. A few Indians worked around the base of the structure while a group of ponies stamped and snorted nearby in the hot summer sun. Crazy Horse wiped the sweat from his brow. He had enough to think about with the reports of a large army of white men, commanded by the already-legendary General Yellow Hair, on the move. The reports said the army was wiping out many villages as they advanced. Crazy Horse had faced Yellow-Hair (also known as General Custer) before and knew it would be a bloody battle.
Running with Dogs replied, "Before the sun has moved its width across the sky, you shall see. The rocks-that-burn will fight your battle for you, Crazy Horse, and not one brave will be killed by the whites."
"How is this possible?" Said Crazy Horse. "Is your magic so strong?"
"It is, and you shall soon see for yourself. The rocks-that-burn have been worked into shape by the women and are waiting to strike the sparks from the sun. However, I have never before used such large stones. We must retreat to behind that hill". He nodded in the direction of a large rock bluff about a mile away.
"Very well, Running with Dogs, but if you have wasted this day it will cause much hardship when the white man arrives."
"Your day will not be wasted, Crazy Horse, indeed many will talk of this day for many moons to come." Running with Dogs said, as he turned his horse.
The two Indian warriors started to trot toward the bluff. The Indians at the bottom of the tower, having completed their work, also jumped on ponies and began to run away from the tower as whoops and war cries filled the air.
When Running with Dogs and Crazy Horse reached the ridge they slid off their horses. A brave appeared and led the animals away. Running with Dogs stood upon the rock and waved a signal to a lone warrior who's pony danced at the base of the tower. With a whoop, Running with Dogs dropped his arm. The brave reached out with his knife and severed a long piece of leather strap attached under much tension to the foot of the tower. With a war cry he took off at a dead run for the bluffs nearly a mile away. At the tower, the severed leather strap released a flap from underneath a large bag of water hanging high in the tower. The water began to run out of the bag and into a wooden trough which directed it to yet another bag. As the second bag began to fill, it started to strain at a small thong and a large leather strap that held it in place. This large strap was attached to a single slender limb, branches removed and polished smooth, that held back several young flexible branches also stripped of bark and lashed together. This assembly of flexible branches, the spring, was bent backward so that they were under terrific tension, held only by the single limb attached to the leather strap. This limb was rigged as a trigger; when it was jerked free the branches under tension would be free to snap downward with terrific velocity. Just as the upper bag ran out of water and the last drops ran into the wooden trough the small leather thong gave way, which allowed the lower bag to drop and jerk free the trigger branch, releasing the enormous tension stored in the assembly of branches. The branches whipped free in an instant. Attached to the far end of the branches where velocity was maximum was a piece of the rock-that-burns, shaped into a round ball approximately 10 inches in diameter. Located on the tower exactly where the velocity of the tips of the branches would reach its greatest was another piece of rock-that-burns, this one shaped like the grinders the women used to mill their maize. A hollow bowl shape was worn into this piece of rock, representing many hours of hand polishing with gravel from the riverbed. The bowl was approximately 10 inches in diameter. The tower trembled with the released energy as the powerful spring of branches accelerated. Leather lashings snapped under the tension but their work was finished. The ball slammed into the waiting bowl with tremendous force.
Microseconds later, as the lone brave whipped his lathered horse into the shelter of a rock bluff, nuclear fusion was achieved. Inefficient and low-yield, but effective, the fireball reached temperatures of 350 million degrees instantly. Feathers, tower and leather vaporized. The blastwave moved out at several hundred miles per hour, shaking the rock bluff Crazy Horse and Running with Dogs were sheltered behind. Ponies screamed with fear as braves held their bridles while the horses, eyes wild and nostrils flaring, reared and spun. Hurricane force winds followed, as an immense mushroom cloud built and climbed toward the sky.
Shaking the rocks and dirt off of his tunic, Crazy Horse stepped around the bluff and squinted at the fireball rapidly disappearing in the blinding smoke and dust. He gazed upward as the mushroom cloud, laced with purple lightning, billowed upward at almost the speed of sound past 65,000 feet.

"Yellow-Hair is in for a surprise."