Chapter 14

Absent his shackles and shed of the restraint of strange men, Cut Hand became his true self, one fully as likable as I anticipated. He turned the teaser—trying to convince me arboreal limbs rubbing in the wind were tiny tree squeaks, mythical birds of the imagination. He tested to see if I showed a dread of owls and the two-noted poorwills—his name for whippoorwills—night creatures he claimed were souls of departed warriors.

“What did you think when you came over that ridge and found yourself in the middle of us?” I asked in English as we walked the ponies.

“Run from grizzlies. Find wolves,” he answered in his tongue.

“And that first night when I was trying to talk to you?”

“Sounded like a loon going Billy-Cut Hand, Billy-Cut Hand!” he joked in argot.

“And…and when I touched your chest?”

“I thought of kicking you in the stones,” he answered in his tongue. “But you saved me from Red’s knife, so I let you feel around. Besides, I didn’t know when the Pipe Stem would show up.”