“Maybe I wear one because I lived in a Crow village until I was nineteen, so I adopted the ways of the Crow, and the hawk feather is big medicine to me.” He left it at that, since it seemed to please her, thinking it would be best not to tell her of his time living with the Blackfeet for a couple of years after that.

She paused to study his face for a moment. “I am lucky you found me, John Hawk. I think your medicine is strong.” She paused again, this time a few moments longer before confessing her thoughts. “I have a feather, too.” She got up from the fire, so she could reach down in the deep pocket of her skirt and pull a feather from it. She held it up for him to see. “It is a hawk feather, like yours.” Again, she paused, not sure if she should tell him or not. Finally, she decided she had gone this far, and she should continue. “When the evil man named Luke threw me down on the ground and tied my hands behind my back, he was drunk from drinking the firewater they carried and didn’t do a good job tying the knots. He told me he would kill me if I tried to run while he went to get some more firewater from his saddle. I prayed that I would die before I was forced to lie with him. I found that he had not tied my hands tight enough, so I tried very hard to loosen the rope. I got one hand free, but I was afraid he would come back before I could run away. Then I heard the sound of a hawk and another bird fighting in the sky above and the two white men started to shoot their guns at the birds. They did not hit them, but I felt something lightly touch my one bound wrist, and then I saw that it was this feather.” She held it up again. “While the men ran around like crazy men, trying to shoot at the birds, I saw that it was my chance to run, so I did, and I held on to the hawk feather and prayed as I ran that the spirit of the hawk would come and save me. I ran until I could run no more, so I found a place to hide.” She looked at him and smiled. “When you discovered my hiding place, I thought I had run into one of their friends. And when you said we would just sit there and wait for those two devils, I was almost sure they were your friends then. But now I know that the medicine feather sent a hawk to save me. It was just another kind of hawk.”