I didn’t laugh, although I might have a few weeks ago, when I was only Miss Elizabeth Ann Everett of Omaha, Nebraska. I suppose a hawk swooping down was no stranger than a virgin birth or three people being one person.

He touched his chest. “My medal has strong medicine, too,” he said. His voice sounded drowsy, and I knew he would soon sleep.

I knew he meant the copper-colored medallion he wore on the rawhide strip about his neck. He always wore it.

“Tell me.”

“It was given to my great grandfather, father of Meopwits, by Meriwether Lewis.”

Lewis and Clark. My goodness. I recalled the stories of the Nez Perce aiding the starving Corps of Discovery as they struggled toward the Western Sea. Why should they not be held in honor in their own valleys, and not hunted through Montana Territory now?

Hawk slept, but I lay there with my hands behind my head. Blue Mountain Woman came out of the night. She knelt by her sleeping son and touched his head as gently as if he were a newborn. She pulled the robe higher around his bare shoulders and touched his cheek.

She did the same thing to me. I reached up and patted her arm. Mother might have flinched if I ever did that to her, but not Blue Mountain Woman. She smiled, then put her finger to my lips.

I knew I was safe with this family, no matter what the U.S. government threw at us. I can only blame that foolish thought on the longing of an almost-woman, Miss Elizabeth Ann Everett of Omaha, Nebraska. Somewhere, though, in that part of my heart that yearned, I knew I had another name. I didn’t know how to find it.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

In the morning, I stuck my head out from under the buffalo robe to steady rain. I pulled it back under again, not because I hate rain, but because the partially burned canvas of the shelter had no waterproof qualities.

This was no day to hit the road, in my opinion. I was stiff as a poker from sleeping on rocks and a clump of rabbit brush. I hadn’t even noticed them last night when I flopped down, exhausted, but there they were in the morning, grown to the size of boulders and a Christmas tree.

I protested when Blue Mountain Woman shook me awake, but since she refused to stop prodding, I got up. The ground all around me had turned to mud. When I took a stop, I promptly fell down.

A word about Montana mud is in order here. It’s the closest thing in nature to concrete. Walking in the gumbo is nearly impossible, as you soon perceive that you are getting both taller and heavier with every step.