Or worse yet, if someone who didn’t know how but was open and vulnerable got hold of them—

Some poor fool trying to “get in touch with his roots”—or at least, the one-tenth of his roots that were some kind of Native American—oh, the mi-ah-luschka would have a wonderful time with someone like that. True, he’d be a bonehead to buy artifacts from someone who wasn’t a reputable dealer, but being a bonehead didn’t necessarily warrant the kind of trouble the mi-ah-luschka would visit on him.

They might even succeed in killing him.

And meanwhile—meanwhile there was the very real possibility that the things looted from Tom Ware’s ranch were the same ones plowed up by Rod Calligan’s men. And if that was the case, the Little People would be after every man on that crew like flies on a deer carcass. They certainly didn’t deserve retribution! The mi-ah-luschka might even be indirectly responsible for the dozer explosion; that meant they’d already killed. Blood fed them; there would be more killings. And the Little People were definitely of the “kill them all and let Wah-K’on-Tah sort them out” philosophy.

She rubbed the back of her neck and stared at the road ahead, trying to think in practical terms. First, she needed to have someone alerted to the desecration, so if the relics came on the legitimate market they could be confiscated. Let me think. Nobody on either side of my family is registered with the B.I.A., so there’s no way I can lodge a formal complaint, either with the B.I.A. or with the Principal Chief.

Here was where the flip side of not being registered came up. There were ways in which Jennifer was handicapped in dealing with government authorities. Registration was a touchy point with a lot of Native Americans, and definitely with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It was a touchy point with the B.I.A. precisely because of the whole reason the B.I.A. had been created in the first place; to control Native Americans. The Bureau had theoretical control over tribal lands, tribal moneys, over the stipends that whites thought were “welfare” and were really nothing more or less than the pittances the United States Government owed Indians for the lands that had been taken away from them, stipends paid out over so long a period of time that even some Indians didn’t really know what they were for.

We take away your hunting grounds, we take away your lands, we take your children and your traditions, and in return, we will give you the food and shelter you need. That was how the treaties read, when you cut out the bullshit and fancy language. How the Bureau had carried them out was something else entirely.