From the amazing safety of Hawk’s arms, I watched Poker Joe, his back to us, as he whipped aside his loincloth and urinated on the dead man’s face. The sound of his water splashing on the corpse was more than I could stand. I vomited up mostly nothing, then clutched my throat.

Thinking back on something I try never to remember, I have to admit that I felt a tiny bit better as Poker Joe watered the wrangler with liquid contempt.

The two men helped me to my feet. Poker Joe held me while Hawk picked up the rifle lying nearby. He stared at the dead man’s horse, then went through the saddlebags, finding ammunition and a bag of jerky. He stood a moment over the wrangler, then spit on him. He spoke to Poker Joe in their other language, and Joe shook his head. They left the dead man’s horse there, quietly cropping grass. As much as anything, that act illustrated the measure of Nimiipuu contempt. No man of that tribe would ordinarily have left a sound horse behind.

After Hawk mounted his horse, Poker Joe handed me up. I saw Fair One at the top of the ridge, but I was in no condition to straddle her. I leaned back against Hawk, filled with more relief than I knew was my fair share. I wanted to live, and I had another chance.

We rode slowly back to The People, no one speaking. Poker Joe peeled off to talk to Chief Joseph and the other leaders. The discussion sounded a little heated. Shock and anger on her face, Blue Mountain Woman rode beside us. She leaned over and touched me several times. Like a wounded animal, all I wanted to do was hide.

When we made camp after sundown, Blue Mountain Woman and her friends hurriedly put up our canvas shelter and spread out a buffalo robe. Hawk carried me inside and laid me down. He knelt and touched his cleaner cheek to my bloody one, then left me to the women.

With gentle murmurs and warm water, they cleaned me of blood and somehow also of shame. Blue Mountain Woman and her friend Mary shook their heads over the deep finger marks on my shoulders and inner thighs. I told her what Hawk had done in retaliation, and they nodded their approval. “Sleep now,” Blue Mountain Woman said. “You are safe.”

I could open my one good eye in the morning. I decided against asking Blue Mountain Woman for her little scrap of mirror, and felt my face instead. My closed eye had swelled like some strange appendage, matching my puffy lips. I still couldn’t swallow well, but Blue Mountain Woman pounded dried camas root really fine and mixed it with someone’s liquor. Hawk held my head steady while she poured the mixture down my throat.