Damn the treaties. And damn the delicate touch they were advised by the company to take with these filthy creatures. He should have frog-marched them from his camp the moment they showed their unwashed faces. Then perhaps this nonsense could have been prevented. He would make do instead with kicking the ridiculous buffalo skull like a rugby ball as he passed. If it made the men laugh, it would get them on his side, and that would be worth any risk.

McEwan waded through the snow towards the dark figures in their circle of herbs and stones. The Indians took no notice of him, bending slowly and passively to their various tasks like men dreaming.

When the tall, bearded engineer reached a point about four feet from the edge of the circle, Hunting Wolf broke off his chanting and without looking at McEwan held up a hand in warning to come no further. Angus McEwan paused. The Indian turned to face him. McEwan looked into the brown, horribly scarred face of this simpleton and weighed up the peril. The eyes of his men were burning holes in his back, but the eyes of this Indian were worse. Two black, burnished jewels stared out at him, glittering with a fierce and unexpected intelligence that made McEwan recoil. Something at the base of his spine wanted him to turn and run but he battled with the sensation and faced the savage like a man. His words, though he knew they could not be understood, nevertheless came from a dry mouth.

‘You are on Canadian Pacific Railway’s property.’

The Indian continued to stare.

Angus McEwan shot a furtive glance back to where the men were gathered, then walked quickly forward into the circle and kicked the skull from its mound. It was heavier than he had anticipated and the yellowing head seemed to gaze at him through its empty sockets as it toppled and rolled heavily into the snow. It was not the gesture he had hoped for. He had imagined it soaring into the air like a ball, with Indians chasing after it, as his men roared with laughter.

Instead, there was a silence. Seven Indians looked at him through the falling snow with inscrutable black eyes, and thirty-one railroad men watched with their breath drawn to see what would become of their sacrilegious overseer.

Hunting Wolf raised his hand slowly and McEwan backed off imperceptibly. The Indian moved his fingers together and apart as if his hand was talking and said something low, though it was said in a voice that to McEwan did not sound as if it belonged to the man. It made him more fearful than any shouting. In fact it made him very fearful indeed.