The Night the White Deer Died

Gary Paulsen

For reasons she doesn't understand, 15 year old Janet feels drawn to Billy Honcho, and old Native American who sleeps off his drunken binges in the Plaza. Maybe it has something to do with the dream she has over and over - a dream of a white doe and a warrior dressed all in white and leading a pony, and drawing his bow to shoot the deer. Janet always wakes up before the deer is hit, until the night Billy comes to her house on a horse, dressed all in white and leading a pony, and asks her to ride away with him. That night she hears the stories of his people. That night she learns who he might have been. That night, the white deer dies.