Talking to each other and laughing, they gutted the horse, tossing entrails to the omnipresent pack of dogs, who snarled and fought over Methuselah’s tidbits. When the women started to dismantle him, I came closer, took back the knife and knelt next to Blue Mountain Woman. She showed me how to separate the hide from the flesh and I did my best, skewering myself a few times until I got the hang of it.

Blue Mountain Woman was an excellent instructor. She guided my hand when it looked like I needed help, and encouraged me with throaty sounds like, “Ah ah,” and “Oh oh.” At one point she sat back on her heels and asked, “You are good. Who was your teacher?”

I wanted to assure her that Miss Sumner at the Female Academy only believed in meritorious, Christian works for the deserving poor. Blue Mountain Woman didn’t understand me, of course, but she wouldn’t have understood someone like Miss Sumner. Instead, I smiled and said, “You only,” which was true.

When I was elbow deep in blood and muscle, I had a fleeting mental picture of dressing for dinner in Omaha. I wanted to laugh, but as I looked around, I knew that none of my fellow diners would get the joke.

Dine, we did. Methuselah in small strips was better than Methuselah on the hoof. As I chewed, I practically growled over him like the near-wolf pack picking at his insides. He made a satisfying meal. He would have been improved somewhat by salt, but we had none, so that was that.

Hawk and the others rode into camp as we were wiping off the knives. He didn’t look like the same man who had ridden out two days ago, covered with dust now, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot from dirt and lack of sleep. He saw to his horse, waved aside a hot handful of Methuselah, crawled into the shelter and fell asleep before his mother had time to greet him. We continued arranging more strips of Methuselah over low-burning coals. By morning he would be fit to travel again, although in a different form.

After we finished, there was time before darkness ruled to sit by myself and look over the encampment. As I looked upon people I was beginning to recognize, I felt a mellow sort of peace descend on me. I somehow managed to overlook the growing unease that a terrible evil waited in a not-so-distant room, ready to pounce on the quiet calm I now observed. Like the mother I saw singing to her baby, or children playing what I would have called dodge ball, or older men smoking, I consciously put myself into the here and now. From force of habit, I glanced down to where my watch used to be. I smiled inside. Time no longer mattered. I stopped smiling. Yes, it did, and I feared time was short for The People.

Considering the state in which Hawk retired the night before, I was surprised to find him up and gone in the morning before Blue Mountain Woman and I stirred. This vexed me, because I needed to discuss the matter of a horse for me.