We traveled next by stage – Russell, Majors and Waddell – until we arrived in the rain at what was known as Fort Oakland, near present-day Tonkawa, Oklahoma Territory. The Nez Perce had been moved farther west, but The Hot Place was no cooler.

We were heartily tired of travel, but stupidly, gloriously in love. Maybe it showed on our faces. When we knew we were finally in the settlement of Chief Joseph, all it took was one knock on one shack to be among friends. Hand in hand, we dealt with startled looks, then recognition, as The People looked closer at me and saw the quiet white woman who seldom complained on the journey, slapped Bear Coat Miles, and smiled a lot because she didn’t know their words.

They still call me Quiet Woman. Duncan was Hawk again, Kaya to all who knew him. We were taken to Chief Joseph’s shack and welcomed. We spent the night there under a buffalo robe, and two more nights before we made our presence known to the Indian agent at Fort Oakland.

To say that he was unhappy with us was the understatement of the year. He urged me to use good sense and return to Omaha before it was too late. Elizabeth Ann the Fierce assured him that it was already too late, and besides, she had no intention of leaving.

I remained an embarrassment to the entire Bureau of Indian Affairs for nearly six months. Duncan spent time in and out of the guardhouse on idiotic charges while the bureau tried to figure out what to do with us. Remember, this was at the tail end of former President Grant’s Peace Policy with the Indians, when, bluntly put, no one knew what was going on.

Maybe they thought to wear us down by separating us. I spent nights in the agent’s house with his slightly sympathetic family. As one of the Peace Policy agents, this one had come through the ranks of Presbyterians. When I mentioned to him that most of the Treaty Nez Perce at Lapwai were Presbyterian, too, he did not find it amusing. He and his wife spent too much time scolding me, trying to rouse in me a sense of shame that I would cohabit with an Indian, even a half Indian. (He really took it hard when I asked which half.)

The whole experience was dispiriting and humiliating. I imagine it might have gone on and on, except that it became obvious after four months or so that I was going to increase the tribal population. The agent gave up and assigned us a cabin and some land, plus seed and tools.