Chapter 2

Stripping in front of other men didn’t bother me any. My pa and my brother Alex and Matthew Brandt—who might as well be my brother—and me were always showing some flesh between skinny dipping in the river or spending time in the sweat lodge, a holdover from Pa’s heritage. He was born half Yanube—a cousin of the Sioux—and it still showed up in his blood now and then.

Timo, on the other hand, didn’t have brothers and was shy about shucking his clothes in front of others. So we usually cleaned up at different times to preserve his modesty. Today, after visiting the necessary, I walked into the back room he used for bathing and found two tubs of water.

“Hope it don’t bother you none, but since it’s your last night here, I thought we’d sit and jaw a spell.”

“Fine by me.” I slipped braces off my shoulders and tugged down my trousers. In half a minute, I was buff and heading for the tub. Timo was still gawking when I stuck a toe in the water and backed away.

“Sorry if it’s too hot.”

“That’s okay. It’ll cool off in a minute.” I turned away when I saw what he was looking at.

He gulped out loud. “You look just like him.”

I shook my head at the familiar refrain. “Can’t. He was full-blood, I’m quarter.”

“He was like that too.”

“Like what?”

“Didn’t mind me looking at him. You know…nekked.”

I hadn’t minded, but I was beginning to now. “That’s the thing about Indians. They figure the body’s natural. Only needs enough clothing to keep it warm.”

Beginning to go all goose pimply, I stuck a foot in the tub and tried not to howl. Despite fixing to roast my acorns, I sat down quickly.

“For somebody so young, you’re…you’re built like a grown man.”

“Uh, thanks. Hard work, I guess.”

He finished undressing and walked to the other tub. He’d had a good look at me, so I took one at him. Smithing had kept him fit as a fiddle, putting meat on his arms and torso and keeping it off everywhere else. He had more hair than I did. I favored Pa’s side of the family more than Ma’s. Pa didn’t have hair anywhere except right around his privates. And his head, of course. Like me.

After he settled into his tub, I grabbed the bar of soap he’d laid out and started scrubbing. It didn’t bother me getting sweaty and grubby, but it sure was a pleasure washing it away. The bathing room at the Mead was better because Grandpa had used gravity to bring spring water from the hill behind us right into the stone house he’d built. It felt fresher standing beneath a stream of water than sitting in your own washed-off sweat and dirt. That’s why I always used a jug of fresh water to sluice over me after tub-bathing.

That done, I wrapped myself in the big towel he’d left for me and sat on a stool while he kept on soaking. Didn’t seem friendly to run out when he’d said he hoped to do some talking, so I sat and listened to him reminisce about the old days. Inevitably he ended up comparing me to my great uncle.

“You got his build. He was graceful like you are. Them eyes. Never seen none like them until you came around. Black as pure carbon with little flecks of gold.”

“My pa’s got eyes like that too.” Good to have something to contribute.

“You’re the spitting image of him. Except…”

“Except my hair.”

“That’s it. First time I saw your head, I thought somebody’d took a paintbrush to it. Never seen black hair like that.”

I was across the room, or he’d have reached out and touched it. My mop was a glossy Indian black with little dots of my ma’s yellow hair sprinkled throughout it. I wore it short in the white man’s way, and Ma said it looked like the night sky with stars popping out in it. When Alexander and I went hunting in the daytime, he’d make me go bareheaded. A gold-speckled head got antelope so curious they forgot to run away. At night, Matthew’d make me wear a cap because the yellow caught the moonlight and scared deer away. I’d taken some teasing about it in my day, so hair was a halfway touchy subject with me. Timo didn’t seem to notice; he kept on talking about how pretty it was. Not strange, like everybody else called it, but pretty.

Figuring we’d been sociable enough, I got up, excused myself, and threw on some fresh duds before going out to the stable to check on Arrow Wind. My pony was the third or fourth horse in the family to be labeled that way over the generations. Cut Hand had ridden the original. He’d died astride the first Arrow’s back too.