I also wanted Hawk to take me in his arms. That I would want love so close on the heels of my horrific experience with the wrangler told me something even then about resiliency. I have thought about this through the years, and I continue to wish that couple well, as I sit here in Oregon writing at my kitchen table. I don’t know if either of them survived Bear Paws, but I hope they did. Hope is all we have, when everything else is gone.

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

My last chance for safety before Bear Paws came the next day. Even now, my brother Phil wonders why I didn’t take it, which tells me that I have done a poor job in the intervening years explaining to him my life and how it changed – in my opinion for the better – after my weeks with the Nez Perce. As reluctant as I am to share some of the harsher details of that time which remains vivid in my memory, I will share this manuscript with my little brother. If he reads it with a good heart, as Hawk would have said, he will come to know me better.

We had another dust-up with the Bluecoats, who I assume came from Fort Benton to check up on the supplies at the landing. They should have chosen a better day, but orders are orders, I suppose.

It was comparatively minor and I might not have known of the incident at all, except that I rode in the rear of The People and saw Ollokot lead out with warriors back down our route.

Blue Mountain Woman and I watched them. As composed as always, she sat on her horse and kept her eyes on the braves until they disappeared behind another of the many coulees in that Missouri River drainage.

“Do you worry?” I asked her, puzzled by her serenity.

She gathered up her reins and turned her horse back to the line of travelers, so I followed. “Would worry help?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but he is your only son.”

“I had another, but he is gone.” She pointed with her lips toward this vanished son. “It is not his time yet.”

A month ago, I doubt I would have understood; now I knew she was right. Hawk would either come back or he wouldn’t, and nothing we could do or say would alter that fact. I pushed back from that sort of calm acceptance, but had the good sense to say nothing more. In my defense, remember please that I was only eighteen. I also wasn’t Indian enough and never would be.