After a better breakfast than usual, thanks to Methuselah, Blue Mountain Woman went with her father to the horse herd. I sat with Catherine and gently tugged at her tangled hair with my trusty comb. I knew enough of sign language now to understand her when she put her fingers to her mouth. Without giving the matter much thought, I chewed some horsemeat for her. She leaned against me as I fed her, and my heart was full.

We had finished when Hawk came back to our campsite with a frown, his lips in a tight line. He looked like he wanted to kick something.

“What’s the matter?”

“Looking Glass is back.”

This meant nothing to me. I didn’t know he was gone. “Explain?” I asked.

“After that council for you, he rode to parlay with the Mountain Crows toward the rising sun.” He pointed with his lips. “He thought they would help us. We have traded with them for years. Buffalo robes for horses…” His voice trailed off.

“I take it that the Crows had nothing for you.”

He shook his head. “Nothing. We have no friends. The world is changing.” He seemed to notice who I was. “Come with me.”

He walked toward the herd and I walked beside him. I had noticed in my brief time with The People that men and women walked side by side, and not women behind the men. It was another thing to like about The People.

“I never thought any good would come of it,” he said out of the clear blue, after we had walked shoulder to shoulder in silence. He had even nicely shortened his stride to match mine.

“Why not?” Everything I had observed since my family arrived in Yellowstone Park – already it seemed like another world – pointed toward the indisputable fact that there was a lot of empty space out west. What could it possibly hurt if The People moved onto some of it?

“Remember when I told you about Vancouver?” I nodded and he continued. “It is a small town, according to my father. What I saw was many people, ships on the river, activity, movement. I wasn’t more than ten years old then, but it seemed to me that white people were filling up all the empty spaces. I wondered then if there would be anything left for The People, except that reservation in Idaho.” He shrugged. “But who listens to a ten-year-old boy of mixed blood?”

I could have asked him who listens to a woman of any age, but I was smart enough to remain silent. “Has Looking Glass ever been to Vancouver?”

“I doubt it.” He stopped and faced me. “Something else that makes my heart bad: However this ends, I do not think that the reservation in Idaho will still be given to all The People.”

“But…but you’ve been promised,” I reminded him.

He only smiled at me, then turned to look for his horse. Perhaps I could have told him that the government would never cheat The People, except that I wasn’t so sure. I was smart enough not to say it was a free country.