We made only a brief noon halt because most of us had nothing to noon with. The rain eventually slackened from a torrent to a drizzle, with watery sunlight seen here and there among the clouds. The old ones started to laugh and talk among themselves, as if this was a big improvement. I felt more and more out of sorts, with Hawk still ignoring me. I was rehearsing all manner of biting remarks and trenchant abuse on him when I saw him next. It was silly of me, I know, but it helped pass the time.

Then Sturgis’s Crow scouts rode down on us.

They appeared suddenly out of the gloom, loping along not very fast, looking not too concerned, maybe trying to blend in between moments of sun and shadow. I didn’t realize they were the enemy until a shot sang out and a young girl herding ponies slumped forward and fell off her horse into the mud. She struggled, then sank face down in the ooze, silenced forever.

The scouts were more interested in the ponies than The People. Prolific horse thieves (according to Hawk), they waved blankets and slapped at the horses with their hands, cutting off a sizeable chunk of the herd before the Nimiipuu went into action.

I reined in my horse and stopped, uncertain what to do, as the Crow tried to run off as many horses as possible before they were driven away by the Nimiipuu, who were far superior riflemen. There was no way the fewer number of them could have overcome The People, but I was amazed at Crow audacity.

Not far from me, I saw a scout dressed in a private’s uniform blouse and little else, pounding an old man with the butt of his rifle. When he drew out a knife, I came out of my fog.

“You there! Stop that!” I spurred my horse forward toward them. “What do you think you’re doing to that old man?”

It sounded ridiculous to me at the time and even more so now, as I had not a single notion how to help. I just couldn’t sit there and watching that scout beat the old man senseless. Something must have snapped in me. To this day, I don’t understand why that sparked me to action I was unequal to handle.

The Crows raised his knife, balanced to throw, and held it there. Indecisive? Unsure of his target? I have no idea. He looked back at me and said something that didn’t sound polite in any language. He wheeled his horse and started toward me, his knife back and ready to throw. I raised that old gun Hawk had loaded for me, took serious aim because it mattered, and fired.