Accompanied by an escort – no one trusted white men after the wrangler – we rode for over an hour until we came to a sod house, well-hidden in the side of a cutbank. I am certain I would have ridden right past it and never noticed a thing.

Chief Joseph dismounted in front of the soddy. Poker Joe joined him and gestured to me. Against every fiber of my being, I dismounted and followed, Hawk right behind me.

The man and wife stood in the doorway. I heard a baby squalling in the gloom behind them. I can’t recall what they looked like in any detail, except that the woman’s eyes were red-rimmed and her mouth set in a tight line. I know she was terrified. She also had a child to think about.

The man cradled a rifle in his hands. When he saw the line of mounted braves behind us, he slowly let it drop to the dirt floor of the soddy. He looked neither defiant nor resigned, but he carried the air of one who had, to use that delicate Western phrase, seen the elephant.

Poker Joe listened to Joseph, then moved forward. The woman took a step back.

“We will not harm you,” he said.

The man worked his mouth and spit just out the door. I gather he didn’t believe Poker Joe. I had the crazy notion of telling him that he really should hang around with a better class of Indian, if he thought Poker Joe intended harm, but had the good sense to keep my mouth shut.

“We are leaving this woman with you,” Poker Joe continued. He gestured me forward and so did Hawk. The man and woman looked me over.

I thought I looked quite nice. The skin around my eye was still faintly greenish yellow, but I had lost every ounce of baby fat I had ever been cursed with. My skin was a pleasant shade of tan, with no blemishes. I wore that wonderful deerskin dress with fringe on the bottom. I had braided my hair that morning, so it looked especially orderly. I’ve always wished my mouth weren’t quite so wide, but who can remedy that? (I mention it here because my husband chides me when I get a little critical in front of the mirror. I promise to take this bit of vanity out of the finished manuscript.)

For a moment, I was at a loss to interpret the look of disgust in that woman’s eyes as she measured me up and down. Then I realized what she thought of me. I took another step forward and looked down, suddenly self-conscious of the beaded moccasins I was so proud of, and my beautiful dress. The dress even had a row of elk teeth, and those are highly prized.

“You don’t understand,” I said.