The only real difference I discerned was his build. For the most part, Nimiipuu are tall people, men and women. The men tend toward stockiness, which provides a majestic appearance. Hawk was tall but lean, and longer through the legs than the chest.

Nope. No Celt in Hawk that I could tell. He’d never be mistaken for Robert the Bruce. He was sociable, which could have been any group of people. He rode with Poker Joe, and riding close together, they laughed and talked in an easy way that I envied. Husbands and wives rode leg to leg, chatting as amiably as old married couples on a dining terrace at Newport.

That morning, we were strung out all over the valley, General Howard somehow a distant memory. We didn’t know that he had forwarded a series of messages to the Department of Missouri, which meant we had been handed off to another unit. Ignorance truly is bliss. Scouts loped far to the front until they were specks in the distance. Most of the women and children kept together in the center, with old men and boys circling on the fringes. No one’s guard was down, but I saw no particular concern.

People generally banded together in family groups, which meant that I rode among Joseph’s people. A little to the rear of us were families of White Bird’s clan. Poker Joe usually stayed with the scouts, but he sometimes traveled by Joseph.

After I had looked over the Nimiipuu I was familiar with, I concluded that slow morning by a mental review of the multiplication tables. I finished them and was starting on conjugations of Latin verbs when I noticed great clouds of smoke northeast of us. I wondered if the Nimiipuu scouts had started the blaze as a warning or if the fire was an example of simple Indian cussedness.

It was a little of both. The braves fired a stage station and also a nearby saloon, which were the two principal businesses of Coulson, called Laurel, or maybe Billings today. They found a light wagon, hitched it to the horses from the stage station’s corral and raced back and forth in front of the rest of us. It looked like great sport, with the driver taking some hair-raising turns. Several of The People clambered for rides when the wagon slowed down.

We all slowed as The People ran to watch or participate, and I dismounted to give my backside a rest. I lagged behind, kicking up dust clouds with the toe of my boot and wondering if this was a good opportunity to take French leave of my hosts. Everyone watched the wagon antics; I figured no one would miss me.

I probably would have left then, but I wasn’t at all sure about the condition of whoever belonged to the burning buildings. I didn’t fancy an afternoon or a day or two spent in the company of smoldering corpses.

I ambled along, staring at the grass in front of me. I looked up when a meadowlark cut loose with its surprising song. The clear notes hung in the air. I listened in appreciation, then consternation, as the sound turned into the tinny blast from a bugle not far away. I looked back and saw something that got me back on Fair One in record time and with no assistance.