Shoshoni thought responsible for the trouble with the soldiers. I remain silent, as does Washakie.
“Pocatello,” Hanabi insists when he doesn’t respond.
Washakie grunts, but he seems to be wrestling with a decision. Finally he raises his eyes back to mine.
“We go to the Gathering Place every three winters.”
Like the Pawnee, most tribes measure time in seasons, not years, when it is measured at all.
“All Shoshoni. North, east, and west,” he adds.
I remember Hanabi telling me this when we camped at the Green.
“You are going there now?”
“Yes.” He sighs heavily. “Pocatello will be there.”
“I do not know if it was Pocatello’s band,” I say.
“It was,” Washakie says simply. “These are his lands. He will take the animals he stole to the Great Gathering. He will trade them. He will trade your woman too . . . or kill her. And the white men will never know who is to blame.” He shrugs. “But word of the attack will spread among the whites, and it will cause trouble for all tribes. For all Shoshoni. For all the people.”
He is so certain, and he speaks of Naomi’s fate so emotionlessly.
“Will you take me there?” I choke, trying to control my rage.
“He will not give her back to you. You will be alone in a sea of Shoshoni.”
“He will not be alone,” Hanabi says, folding her arms and gazing at her husband fiercely. “He will have you,” she snaps. “He will have our people.”
Washakie doesn’t argue with her. He simply studies me.
“You want to kill Pocatello? You want to kill his men?” he asks.
William’s bubbling scalp and Warren’s face rise in my mind. Elsie Bingham with her cheerful smile and her adoration for her homely husband. Winifred. Winifred, who I loved. Wyatt and Webb and poor Will, who carries the weight of it all on his twelve-year-old shoulders.
“Yes. I want to kill him. I want to kill his men. And if my wife is dead when I find her, I will kill him, and I will take his scalp back to her brothers so they know I have not looked away from what was done,” I vow.
“And if she is not dead?” he asks. “If I can get her back for you?”
I do not know what he wants from me, and I wait, my jaw clenched over my fury and fear.
“I will take you to him,” Washakie says. “I will take you to the Gathering. But you must promise me that if your woman is alive, you will take her and the tua, the child, and go. No killing. No revenge.”
“And if she is not alive?” I have to whisper the words.
“If she is not alive, I will help you kill Pocatello.”
Hanabi bows her head, and I sit in stunned silence.
“But only him. Then you will go, and you will leave the white man out of it. You will not go to the white army and send them here. You will not show them the graves and point your finger.”
Hanabi raises her worried eyes to mine, waiting for my response.
“You understand?” Washakie asks, and now his voice is almost gentle.
“It won’t be just Pocatello and his men who suffer,” I say, understanding more than I’m willing to admit.
He nods. “Newe.” The people. “They will all pay.”
I cover my eyes with my hands, the way Will did, trying to erase the horrors he’d seen.
“Is your woman strong?” Washakie asks, still gentle.
“Yes,” I whisper. “She is very strong.”
“Then we will go and get her.”
NAOMI
The man who took Wolfe from my arms and gave her to his wife is named Biagwi. He is the only one who did not kill, but I wish he had. I wish he had killed me. I think the one who dragged me into his lodge by my hair is Beeya’s son. His name is Magwich. And he killed Pa.
That’s how I identify them: the one who took me and Wolfe. The one who killed Pa. The one who killed Warren. The one who stabbed Homer Bingham, and the one who took his scalp. I didn’t see Ma die. I didn’t see Elsie die, but I know who carries their scalps too. I know who burned the wagons. One of the men is their chief, but I do not know his name.
We walk all day. We go where wagons would never go, moving north. The morning of the second day we walk within a mile of high white adobe walls surrounded by circled wagons and clustered lodges, and I realize with a start