“Nelson or Wilson wasn’t all that charming. Some of the people liked him okay, and some of the people didn’t. He could be pushy. He liked to order folks around. Some of us didn’t mind, and some of us did. You keeping up?”

I would nod and tell Bernie that, yes, I was keeping up.

“And one of the people who didn’t much care for Nelson or Wilson and didn’t like to be ordered around by some government gasbag was Leroy Bull Shield.”

SO WE’RE IN PRAGUE. On the Charles Bridge.

Mimi already has her guidebook open. “The bridge is famous for its statues of saints.”

“Great.”

“There are thirty in all.”

While Mimi reads the book, I watch the tourists as they crowd around the statues. Some saints are more popular than others.

“There’s St. Francis of Assisi and St. Wenceslas and St. Anne.”

All of the statues are weathered and black, but some have spots that have been rubbed golden.

“St. Joseph, St. Vitus, St. Christopher.”

Evidently, one of the tourist activities in Prague is statue rubbing.

“This is disappointing.” Mimi looks up from her guidebook. “It says that most of the statues are replicas.”

There are three plaques at the base of one of the statues. The first plaque shows a knight, a woman, and a child, while in the background, a group of soldiers are throwing a figure off the bridge.

“That’s St. John of Nepomuk,” Mimi tells me. “He’s the patron saint of Prague. King Wenceslas had him killed because Nepomuk wouldn’t tell him what the queen had talked about in the confessional.”

The second plaque is a bunch of writing that I can’t read. The third plaque shows a knight petting a dog that has been rubbed golden.

“Touching the falling priest is supposed to bring good luck.”

“What about the dog?”

Mimi gives me a hug. “I knew we should have brought Muffy.”

AT SOME POINT in the story of Uncle Leroy and the Crow bundle, Bernie would touch on the drinking.

“Leroy was no drunk,” she would say, “but he did drink. And Mr. Nelson or Wilson was one of those born-againers. Man thought he could talk to god when he was really just mumbling to himself. Drinking, according to Mr. Indian agent, led to singing, and singing led to dancing. Man would have banned laughing. Would have made smiling a hanging offence.

“One year, this Wilson or Nelson organized a sports day at the same time as the Sun Dance, to try to lure people away from Belly Buttes. And he ordered the buffalo tongues mutilated, so that the women couldn’t use them in the ceremony.”

“You never knew the man,” Mimi reminded her mother. “You weren’t even born yet.”

“Stories don’t die. Stories stay alive so long as they’re told.”