I turned around as he pulled on the blue shirt his mother had left for him. I wanted to ask him about the medallion and the shells he wore on a rawhide thong, but I figured I had interrogated him enough for one setting. He ate something outside by the fire, then headed for the horses.

I dressed next, pleased with Blue Mountain Woman’s neat stitches and the beads. I was still stiff and sore, but decided that youth was on my side and my backside would get used to days in the saddle. Surely we would find some settlers willing to take me in until the army showed up.

I was buttoning my bodice when I heard a rustling sound in a shady side of the shelter. Someone giggled. I looked closer to see an old woman. She favored me with a smile, then smoothed back her hair much as I has just done. She cleared her throat.

“’Fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy.’”

I blinked. “Excuse me?” I couldn’t have heard her right.

She repeated the verse again. Blue Mountain Woman must have heard the old one. She came into the shelter and knelt in front of the woman, then patted her head. “My mother. Her name is Catherine.”

I smiled at Catherine. She grinned back, showing gums with teeth either missing or worn down. Even a nearly toothless mouth couldn’t hide the fact that Catherine had to have been a beauty a number of years ago.

“’Fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy.’”

Blue Mountain Woman listened gravely, then looked over her shoulder at me. “She speaks good English, yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed. I didn’t know when I had been more enchanted. “Where did Catherine learn such fine English?”

Blue Mountain Woman asked me to repeat the question, and I did, using fewer words this time. She nodded. “Reverend Spaulding. He sprinkled her head.”

So Catherine had been baptized by Marcus Whitman’s old missionary companion? My United States history instructor would never believe I was staring at history.

Catherine sat up, and Blue Mountain Woman pulled her deerskin dress down to cover her pipestem legs. She picked her up easily and carried her into the sunlight. I followed.

By morning light, I saw that there weren’t as many tipis in the camp as I had thought. In fact, from the evidence in the clearing, most of The People slept outside, or under rude brush shelters. Consciously or not, I was still under the spell of those western dime novels, so I confess I was not impressed with my first look at a real Indian encampment.

Children and dogs were everywhere, the former underfoot near the cooking fires or rounding up horses, and the latter yapping around the former. The prairie grass was pretty well eaten down and trampled near the cluster of tipis. The grass in the distance looked waist deep and almost blue-green.

A fair-sized stream rippled through the meadow. Indian youths had planted themselves along the bank, spears held high, as they stared into the water. I watched in amazement when one of them thrust in his spear and bore it up seconds later with a struggling fish. The lad looked about Phil’s age, Phil who can’t even thread a needle. Other impromptu fishermen were equally successful. They were no doubt dexterous, and had the added encouragement of hunger, I am certain. My own stomach was telling me to do a little foraging, too. I watched the boys and girls and had to admit I was ill-prepared to survive anywhere outside of Omaha, Nebraska.