“I’m sure that’s true.”  He’d rolled back the sleeves of his shirt and she liked to watch his hands on the reins.  She reached out and touched one of the silver bracelets that fit close on his wrist.  “I should have things so beautiful.”

“Warriors are raised to have no fear, but also to wear what makes them stand out.  They’re proud.”

“Then you need more.”

“I had more, shells and beads and bear claws and feathers.”

“I would give anything…”

“That’s done and gone.  All of it.”

“But the ones on their way to Washington?”

“They’ll be in their finest, everything they own.  The old ones, that’s who they are.”

She reached up and touched the silver at his ear.  “Did you ever wear anything other than hoops?” she said, and then she did smile.  She was having a conversation with him about jewelry.

“I wore many things once.  It’s the way of the hunter, the warrior, how they dress and paint themselves, the importance of each design, each item worn, fur, a feather, a bone, a quill, where it came from, which animal or plant, the colors used and the sacred meanings behind them.  The ancestors say how it should be.”

No white man could possibly understand this, Charlotte thought.  But the silver seemed a natural part of him, a flash of reflected light against the warmth of his skin and the unevenly cut midnight black hair. She reluctantly took her eyes away.  Time to change the subject.

“Did you get gifts?”

“For wearing feathers?”

“No, I mean when you were a child.  On a birthday or anything?”

“Not exactly like that but if you’re asking did people give you things, yes.”

“What’s your favorite thing as a child that you were given?”

“I don’t even have to think about it.  My first bow, when I was four.  My first pony, when I was six.  As a boy in a tribe, those were the only two things you needed in the world and to have them made you very happy.”

“Four?”

“When it would mean everything to you, be your whole life, it could never be too early.”

“It was very serious then.”

“In that way, yes it was.”

“I don’t have anything like that,” she said, “but do you want to hear what my favorite gift was?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t think so.”

“If you want to talk, I’ll listen.”

“Everyone had to have a horse so I’d get that anyway.  But back before the Second Migration, when we had money but there were also sometimes ways to spend it, my father bought me a doll that I’d wanted ever since I could remember.  It was called an Elizabeth doll and she had a china head and a little red mouth and blue eyes that opened and closed and patent leather shoes and a lace dress that came from Paris.”