He told Craig in truth that he hadn’t known Sam or his family, but how could he tell him that the Hunting Wolf family were so notorious you didn’t need to know them? Moses and Marlene Hunting Wolf. The scum you scraped off your boot after stepping on a carcass. There were so many rumours on a reserve, rumours about everything and everyone, but some of them had substance. And there had always been a rumour that Moses had bumped off his old man. Eden Hunting Wolf’s body had been found battered to death in his cabin with the clear marks all over his head and body from the handle of an axe. But as usual no one knew anything, no one saw anything, no one would say anything. The ashes in the stove told the story of where the murder weapon had gone. Moses Hunting Wolf’s drinking buddies all swore blind he was with them at a moonshine session over at the east end of the reserve and that was that. Never mind that those buddies all seemed to suddenly come into some spare drinking money for the next month or so that no one remembered them winning at bingo.

But Sam. The first time he’d met him at the Fox Line depot he couldn’t believe that Marlene and Moses could have spawned this good-looking, pleasant guy. The women used to talk about him. In fact as soon as Sam’s voice broke he recalled a hell of a lot of the women used to talk about him. Seems after Moses ran off to the city to pursue his drinking career, that priest guy and his wife took a shine to Sam. Used to take him skiing, that was all Daniel knew. Sam was crap in rodeo they said, but he was a mean hockey player and took to skiing like he was meant for it. Weird thing for a Kinchuinick to do though, and Daniel guessed that’s why everyone thought Sam Hunt was an apple. That, and changing his name of course. Mind you, if Marlene and Moses had lived up to half of their reputation Daniel figured he would have wanted that name buried too. He thought of his own father, a weatherbeaten, quiet gnome of a man whose craggy face was always ready to break into a smile the moment he caught sight of Dan, and now Tess and Larry, and Daniel’s heart went out to Sam. Then he hardened it. Didn’t matter what your childhood was like. Nothing excused what happened to Joe and that kid. He’d had enough liberal bullshit for a lifetime from the social workers that hovered round the reserve when he policed it. He would say different to a white man, and that included Craig, but the truth was he thought a lot of asses needed whipping on that reserve.