Sure he had heard. Born Indian. But fifteen years of being born Indian had been enough. Those white guys he saw in town, same age as him, same everything as him except their skin, they had homes and families and jobs, and no one filled their heads with all this shit.

He would watch them sometimes, from the steps of the food store where Sam sat with Randall and Harry doing nothing but kicking the dirt and watching the cars. The sight of those white guys filled Sam’s throat with a thick envy that stopped him swallowing, when they hung their elbows out of their new trucks and the girls would come over and do that cute twirling thing with their hips while they stood and spoke to them. They would drive away to things Sam could only imagine, things like they did on TV. Parties maybe, with big tents and chairs and tables on lawns. Or picnics in blowy meadows with ball games and rugs on the grass.

He saw the TV sometimes over at Randall Fishtail’s cabin, and there were always white kids like the ones in town doing great stuff. And what did Sam get to do, because he was born Indian and would die Indian? Sam got to hide from Moses’s fist in the trees until Calvin found him, and then build sweat-lodges to help him bring spirits that scared the living shit out of him.

If the spirits that spoke to Sam and Calvin could do anything for him, it would be to change his skin and let him ride around with those kids. Change his skin and kill his father. That would do, thanks.

Eden must have read his mind. He went deadly calm. ‘Two paths, Sam. Shamans got only two paths. Good medicine or bad medicine. Nothin’ in between. Other folk can go all kinds of ways and still be kind of good. But we got only two paths. You let that dark one inside get you, you be ending up much worse than your Pappy.’

And he’d stared at Sam real hard then, until the boy had been so ashamed of his thoughts a film of tears had formed in his jet-black eyes. Eden had just closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair.

And Sam’s eyes were closed now as he wrestled for his sanity.

Indian shit. Just a pile of steaming, festering, stinking, made-up Indian shit. These were the nineties. That was a ski restaurant out there full of people eating fast food, who came here in hatch-back cars along highways and went home to brightly lit houses with central heating. It wasn’t a fucking tipi full of old men who still believed in wittiagos and demons and spirits.

And he was Sam Hunt, for Christ’s sake. He went to the cinema. He had an electric toothbrush. He played Pac Man on Billy’s Nintendo. Fuck all that ancient bullshit.