The force of the explosion threw me off my horse and I fell backward into the mud. The knife whizzed past my horse and landed behind me with a squish. I groped around in the mud for it, desperate because the Crow was nearly upon me. When it began to rain blood, I wiped the mud from my eyes and looked up.

The Crow scout still sat on his horse, his posture impeccable, but his head had disappeared, blown completely off his shoulders. Blood spouted skyward with a force to rival any geyser, then splattered down around me. I was warm for the first time since crawling from my buffalo robe.

He sat there – it sat there – never wavering for what seemed an excruciatingly long time, then toppled in the mud next to me. I probably would have screamed like a banshee – maybe I tried – but my mouth was full of mud and my teeth felt jarred loose from my fall. Instead, I lay there in what must have been shock, marveling at the whiteness of his neck bones.

After I could breathe again, I climbed back on Fair One. I was beginning to think I was made of sterner stuff than I knew, or my parents even imagined.

The raid continued only a few more minutes. Another Crow died and the others fled into the sheltering rain. It was a hasty retreat, but nothing to rejoice over, because their object had been realized. They escaped with more than one hundred horses The People could ill afford to lose.

Hawk dismounted in a hurry and stood over the Crow I had decapitated with my one lucky shot in a million. He toed the body for no discernible reason. God Almighty, his head was gone. I knew he was dead. Hawk did a peculiar thing, something that confirmed the other half of his origin that a mere glance would never have seen: He shook my hand. I was surprised and relieved. At least I had killed the right Indian.

Joseph joined us, demanding to know what happened, from the tone of his voice. Hawk told him, sparing no detail, but that was only my surmise from the intensity of his voice and his numerous, emphatic gestures. I thought Joseph would be pleased, but he wasn’t, not at all. He said something biting under his breath and stared at the dead man. I wondered where I had gone wrong.

When he spoke to me this time, Hawk interpreted. “He says, ‘I am sorry it came to this.’”

“I couldn’t let him beat that old man to death,” I explained. “Tell him that.”

Talk talk as Blue Mountain Woman would say, and then, “’You are good, but our fight is not your fight.’”

Joseph regarded me for a moment, a long moment, with a solemn face. He mounted his horse and rode to the dead body of the young girl, whose parents were kneeling and wailing.