"Sorry. We go quick or up to ears in buffalo hunters."

I laughed and felt better. He built a fire and made the brew. The first sip of the too hot brew reminded my body of the soothing relief was on the way, as well as confusion and it blurred my thoughts so I could not say what happened when. While I fretted over that, the pain was gone before we went far. The ground was smooth and flat. The ride was more gentle or did the brew gentle it?

Whether I jumbled up what was in my head on purpose, or it was the brew, or both, or the fact I did not want to remember what took place that morning, I wasn't sure what happened when. I knew it wasn't good.

When we stopped next, we were on the flat land, Li'l Fox watched me load the Hawkin as he made the fire. My pain had me moaning the last half hour. In a few minutes he was holding the brew up to my lips. It was hot, but almost immediately my brain began to float on something I did not see.

"I'm hot," I said.

Then, I was eating rabbit he handed me. He rearranged things on the sled and left the upper half of my body uncovered. There had been quite a bit of bouncing around on the way off the mountain. We were moving faster than necessary, but Li'l Fox wanted to put distance between us and those men.

"You OK now," Li'l Fox reassured me once we were done there.

He reached to turn the barrel of the Hawkin down toward my feet. If it accidentally went off, it might blow off my foot but not my head.

I felt no pain as my thoughts danced around inside my head. I kept thinking I forgot to feed the chickens and take the slop down to the pigs. I tried to get up and stopped as soon as the pain pierced my brain. I lay perfectly still. I wasn't going to try that again. Then I felt the motion. We were moving slow now. I remembered I was hooked to a horse.

Where were we going?

I looked for my knife, but I couldn't find it. It was somewhere among the hides and all the gear we all of a sudden had on the sled with me.

When he stopped to make more brew, I remembered to ask him, "Where'd my knife go?"

"In buffalo hunter. No time get mine."

"You stabbed him?" I asked, not knowing why it surprised me.

I knew they were bad men. They meant to hurt us. They probably meant to kill us. We'd never know, because they died before they could tell us. Li'l Fox wasn't waiting for them to hurt him before he went into action. There was also the animosity white men created in the Indian people.

"I stab before he cut throat. They not good men. I hurt before they hurt."

There was a lot of grass and I could hear the horses walking ahead of me. Li'l Fox was no longer left to carry the load. Odd how things works out. A trip that might have taken another three or four days on foot, with him dragging me, became half a day with the horses. I didn't know where I was going, but I knew when we got there.

There was a great deal of fuss made over me. The woman, Medicine Woman, immediately started giving orders. She gave me the next brew, and my long sleep continued on the flat lands in a village next to a stream.

I would hear water washing over rocks in my sleep. I ate soup, drank strange brews, and on the second day, I woke to Medicine Woman wrapping my leg in moss. She covered it with bark. She gave me another cup of brew, and in a few minutes I was sleeping again.

I woke for meals. I woke while she treated my broke leg. I woke when Li'l Fox touched my arm. He said, "Me fine. How You?"

"Fine," I said without knowing how I was.

Each night I woke as he crawled under the buffalo robe with me. It was still cold at night and Li'l Fox was warm. I never had a brother. I liked Li'l Fox. He seemed concerned about me, but I hear him talk with Medicine woman about my leg. They talked in Pawnee. I understood a little, especially when they put in English words that gave me the direction they were going in. As I slept and listened, I learned more about Pawnee words.

I was white. That's what Pawnee people saw, but I knew things about hunting, how to respect what was made available to us. I knew far more Pawnee than I let on, because they spoke freely, which allowed me to learn even more words. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. I put the pieces together while I lingered between being a wake and asleep.

Time was passing as I became accustomed to my new surroundings. I got stronger and everyone in the village saw me and I saw them. I thought about the valley where the river ran. Why I left, and how I came to be here. Making sense of where I was and why I was here didn't register. I hadn't been here before.

Li'l Fox went with me on my first walk.

Medicine Woman said, "You walk now."

She wasn't a woman you could disobey. Even while being given the order to walk, I was weak, my brain only half functioned, and there was no way for me to put all the pieces together. I just went along with whatever went on.

It was warmer, probably spring. I don't know how long I was on the mountain or how long I'd been in the wigwam in the village. Spring was close and I leaned on Li'l Fox. I took a single step and I stopped. I could do this. What was it I was doing? I found myself standing with Li'l Fox holding onto me. I was doing something. I'm sure of it.

"You take step," Li'l Fox reminded me as Medicine Woman watched.

I was walking. Now I remember. I took one step and wondered why Li'l Fox was holding onto me. I knew who he was. I knew who Medicine Woman was. I wasn't sure who I was. I wasn't sure why I was there.

"Take step."

"OK."

I took a step.

"Take step."

I was out beyond the wigwam. People passed and stopped to watch me walk. They smiled at me. I smiled back.

"Take step."

"I'm tired," I said.

"We go back. Turn round."

I would if I could remember how. Turn around?

I'm not sure how far I got on my first walk, but I was ready for a nap.

The walks came more often each day. Before long I was able to walk without leaning on someone. I became a lot less sleepy each day. I was starting to feel stronger.

Each day I walked a little longer. Li'l Fox stayed close. If I looked like I might get in trouble, he was right there, backing off when my steps looked more certain. Boys my age and older gathered around me. They encouraged me and walked with me. I walked more each day. I walked until I was worn out.

For a week there was no more brew to drink. My mind cleared. Thinking became easier, and everything came back into focus. Now when my leg hurt, Medicine Woman rubbed liquid into my leg. Sometimes it was hot and sometimes it wasn't. Every time it soothed the ache that came when I over did it. I over did it a lot, because I wanted to get stronger. I wanted to play with the other boys.

I supposed it was April when my steps became longer. I walked for an hour or more at one time. I walked two or three times a day. Medicine Woman stood outside the wigwam watching me move. If I missed one step or limped once while walking, it was more rubs, hot and cold. I felt alive. I felt strong, and when I got bored with walking, I started to run. Li'l Fox did not run with me.

We walked to nearby pastures to watch the boys play. It was always Running Horse who came up. He wanted to talk. I played dumb and spoke only English. He used English words mixed with Pawnee. I did understand his curiosity about me, but curiosity and fondness are not the same thing. He was a cheerful boy. He watched me in a way that made me unsure if he liked me.

I was a white boy, but I was already planning to change that condition.

Li'l Fox and Running Horse were the best of friends. Since Li'l Fox was as close to me as any boy had ever been, I thought I'd try to trust him and see how it turned out.

I was still listening to the talk in the wigwam without letting on I could understand. I had plans but until I looked more Pawnee, I would not speak Pawnee, except in the way they spoke English. Mixing and matching words of the two languages wasn't unusual. There were no words for things we said in English.

Dark Horse was the other presence in the wigwam. He did not speak often. When he did, he spoke Pawnee. He used no English words. He rarely spoke to me, but he would say something to Medicine Woman that she'd say to me. I found Dark Horse interesting. I wanted to talk to him, but now, I only listened. I did speak English in the wigwam.

My leg was well on its way to healing completely. I felt no pain and it felt stronger by the day. There were times I didn't remember how I broke it. When I did remember, I wondered how I was still alive. Starting with that fall, everything that happened to me afterward seemed like it was part of a dream.

There were memories of shooting a griz, chasing a griz, being chased by a griz, and somehow I ended up in a Pawnee village on the other side of the mountain. It may not have been quite as stark as that, but time lost all meaning by the time I reached the village.

When I tried to remember what happened before I fell, only escaped the big griz by being small enough to crawl through the trees once he knocked the Hawkin to one side. Li'l Fox showed me the shirt I'd been using as a pillow. Four claw marks shredded my beautiful rawhide shirt. Sure enough, on my side were the same claw marks, healed now, but open by the griz when he grabbed at me.

I never knew I had a wound there, but I slept through most of two to three months the way I figure. Not knowing I was clawed was more significant than not being sure what was real and what was a dream. I was in a stupor and as hard as I tried, I had trouble making sense of things I remembered.

The griz was the easy part. When he stood up behind me and knocked the Hawkin out of my hands, he was big. I dropped to my hands and knees and was small enough to crawl away, but he wasn't fooled. He knew where I was going, and he got there the same time I did. He was twenty feet away from me. I had rocks too steep to climb on one side, the cliff was behind me, and that griz was in front of me. When he stood up on his hind legs, he was huge. When he took a step toward me, I stepped into nothingness. Nothing that happened after I took that step that made a lot sense. The thought of that griz makes me dizzy.

Li'l Fox knew when I was thinking about the bear. I'd always close my eyes and cringe at remembering the sight of it. The thought that I should be dead.

"You think about griz," he'd say, looking at my face.

I nodded.

I couldn't speak until that memory passed. How did Li'l Fox know me so well? I hadn't been alert or aware of much for months. The only reason I was here was because Li'l Fox saved me more than once.

I was alive and well in a Pawnee village next to a stream I heard months before I ever saw it. While I lived in the cabin in the valley where the river ran, I laid in bed at night wondering about being Pawnee. I knew all about being white. I was white. I got a pass on being Pawnee. I didn't want a pass. I wanted to know who I was, and now I was living in a village with Pawnee.

Life is strange.

One day while we were up stream and sitting next to the running waters, I asked Li'l Fox, "Where did you learn English."

"Tappers come. Hunters come. Speak French. Speak English. Most know some English. We learn speak words," he told me.

"Dark Horse?"

"No speak English. Speak Pawnee."

"Why does he only speak Pawnee."

"He Pawnee. Remember enemies. Many enemies speak the English. He no speak English."

It made sense in a round about way. The older men had seen it all, and that's why they numbered so few. The warriors faced the overwhelming flood of Europeans, and few warriors were left in the village. There was a passel of boys who would grow into warriors.

I saw myself differently than most whites, separated from them because I was Pawnee. What the Europeans considered me to be, was less than white. I wasn't white by virtue of my Pawnee blood. The Pawnee saw me as white by virtue of my white skin. It's how the men in Lawrence's store saw me.

They had Pawnee blood in their veins. So did I, but I didn't know what to do about it yet. I needed time to figure out what it meant. It was what a lot of my thinking was about at one time.

I had many questions. Most concerned where I would fit in the world I inhabited. I could blurt out, 'I'm Pawnee,' but who would have believed me? I needed to prove I was Pawnee. That's when I could talk about it. Even Li'l Fox didn't know, because I hesitated telling anyone, I was Pawnee.

This was the piece I was looking for most of my life. This is what was missing from my life. I couldn't explain it to myself yet. My mind had been at rest for so long, I wasn't sure of much. Once I was ready, I'd tell Li'l Fox.

I owed my life to Li'l Fox twice over the way I figured. I didn't tell Li'l Fox I needed to kill a griz to prove I was a man to my Pawnee paw. It be hard to believe and awful convenient for a boy who ended up in a Pawnee village. I got to think on it for a spell. Speaking of that which might not be believed was tricky.

I'm afraid he'll laugh at me when I explain why I went to the mountain. My father is Pawnee. I'm Pawnee, and I wanted to tell him that, but not yet.

I understood more of what was said than I let on. My Pawnee wasn't that good, but hearing the Pawnee words was like being back in Mrs. Taylor's class. The one thing I could do while resting in the wigwam was listen. I knew enough Pawnee words to make sense of what was said.

Maw tried to teach me Pawnee the way Paw taught her. I'd take her words I heard Paw say. She'd use Pawnee with English to explain the words. She told me what many words meant. She didn't understand all the words I took her.

I learned by using my ears and keeping my mouth shut. I didn't want to speak bad Pawnee. When I spoke, I wanted every word to be understood. It would take a while to be comfortable enough to want to come out as Pawnee. My white skin was bound to cause doubts about my identity. It would take a while to switch from being white to being Pawnee, but I had a plan.

I couldn't undo my white roots. I was brought up in a white world. I was looking for a way around that fact. Listening and not speaking seemed the best way to learn. I heard things I didn't understand or couldn't be certain if I heard it or dreamed it. While inside the wigwam, I slept most of the time. Just eating or drinking took all my energy out of me and ended with me going back to sleep.

Medicine Woman didn't treat me much differently than she treated Li'l Fox. She was a kind and gentle woman who healed a lot of people. There was always someone coming to the wigwam with this complaint or that. Medicine Woman would think about it, go get some herbs or something else I saw as an ordinary item you might find in your cabin, and they'd go away happy.

I had a memory of something that had bothered me from the first week I was in the wigwam of Medicine Woman and Dark Horse. I've tried to push it out of my mind, but I heard a name I recognized. I thought on it quite a spell. I can hear it as clear as I hear the stream. I can't make out the voice, but i clearly heard the name, Proud Eagle.

Did I dream it. No I did not. I clearly heard the name because it hit me like a ton of bricks. I hadn't known what my father was called by the Pawnee, until mother talked about Morning Dove and Fox something, my brother.

Who was Proud Eagle to the people in that wigwam. No one had mentioned the name or anything that might indicate my father was related. The only thing that made any sense, Lit'l Fox was my brother, and Medicine Woman and Dark Horse were his grandparents, but they weren't his grandparents. They were his parents. They were old enough to be his grandparents. They were old enough to be Paw's parents. They were younger than Father Kelly, but not by much.

Along with everything else I had on my mind, that worried me a lot. It's another reason I wanted to listen without them knowing I understood more and more each day. I wanted to be sure of who they are and of their relationship to Proud Eagle. If they talked about him once, they might talk about him again.

For the time being, I would keep my mouth shut and live the life Li'l Fox has brought me to. I can truly know what it means to be Pawnee. I will be Pawnee.

I began running by myself. Li'l Fox didn't mind not running. He watched me run. Medicine Woman watched me running, and she said nothing. Once, while I was increasing the amount of running I did, instead of walking, Dark Horse took to watching me run. Medicine Woman smiling. It was like having the approval of everyone including Running Horse who stood next to Li'l Fox as they watched me.

It was spring and the days were passing. Once I was running and feeling strong, I joined in the games the other boys played. Games that were different from the games I played at home. Other games were similar to our games.

At first I wore one of the breach cloth made for Li'l Fox. Then, Medicine woman made me a breach cloth that fit better, because I'd grown since I came to her wigwam. Li'l Fox's breach cloth were too small for me. I stayed outside most of the time. When I wasn't walking, I was running. When I wasn't running, I was playing. I listened and I said little.

There was something else I was waiting for. Li'l Fox knew what I was doing, and so did Medicine Woman. From sun up to sundown, except for taking meals, I was outside. I burned, peeled, burned, peeled, and then I began to brown.

Medicine Woman put a mixture of liquid and grass on the burns, and she applied a lotion once I began turning brown. She knew why I never came inside, while the sun shined. She may not have known my thinking but she could see what I did. It would take time, but my skin darkened. Only where the breach cloth covered me did I still have white skin.

Out of sight out of mind.

I was a white boy when I arrived. I was a novelty. Boys looked at me in wonder, because they probably didn't see many white kids. After so many months in the village, with me almost as brown as some of the lighter skin boys, did they remember when I was white and didn't speak Pawnee?

When I spent too much time with the other boys, Li'l Fox came up with a new way to get my attention. We began taking rides on our horses. I never thought of them as our horses, but Li'l Fox had his, and the other one was mine. The horses reminded me of something I mostly forgot about, and wasn't sure of, because of my state of mind after I got my broke leg, and not remembering made it easier on me.

With a blanket between me and the horse, I wasn't too keen on how I was supposed to stay on the horse. Li'l Fox thought nothing of it, so I did what he did, and we rode horses with Running Horse, and who with the name of Running Horse, didn't have a horse. Of course he did and we went riding together.

The horse and I didn't see eye to eye, and my riding him was a bit scary, and then I remembered what a boy at school told me what he did to get his new horse to put up with him. I started taking an apple to the pasture when we were going riding. I'd keep it away from the horse, and then I'd surprise him with it.

It worked better than well. When the horse saw me coming, he trotted right over and began nudging me with his nose until I coughed up the apple. Me and old Shiftless became right good friends. I don't know how he'd been treated, but he seemed to like the life of carefree horse ridden a couple of times a week.

One day while Li'l Fox and I were riding on our own, he guided me into the forest, and we went a short distance before he got down off his horse.

Li'l Fox left me sitting with the horses and he went into the forest and came back with a branch he took from one of the trees. We took it back to the wigwam, and after we went in and ate, he began shaping it. I knew what he was doing. I'd seen Paw do it. At first I wasn't sure, but as he shaved off the bark and smoothed the wood, he was making a bow.