fire was stoked high, and the medicine man and the old warriors danced around it for hours, sweating and pleading with something—or someone—to bless the hunt to feed them through the winter. The women didn’t dance or pray. They kept vigil around the edges, keeping the fire burning and the men moving.
Two worlds exist in a Shoshoni tribe. A world of women and a world of men. The two worlds overlap, creating a slice of coexistence, a place of shared toil and trouble and dependence on one another, but there are still two worlds. Maybe it’s the same among all tribes, all Indians. All people. I don’t think the Dakotah near Fort Laramie were any different. I don’t think my own world is that dissimilar. Maybe with Ma and Pa, that overlap was just greater. Ma had her duties and Pa had his, but those things were on the edges, and they lived and loved in the middle.
The middle is narrow here.
The men eat first. Always. The women prepare the food, present the food, and then wait for the men to be done with the food before they gather and eat what’s left, sitting among the children, just enough apart from their men that the distance between the two worlds feels like an ocean to me. John always finds a space between—he too lives in the middle—talking with the men but waiting for the women. Hanabi clucks her tongue, and Lost Woman shows me how to serve him, but he will not eat until we do.
“Jennie,” Hanabi says to me, as if that one word is enough explanation of John’s peculiarities. I suppose it is. I know exactly what she means. John was not raised by a Shoshoni woman, and he will never be completely comfortable as a Shoshoni man.
In other ways, this life suits John. His hair has grown, and his skin has soaked up the sun, making him almost as brown as Washakie. He speaks with an ease and fluency that amazes me. He is well liked, and he likes in return, and I can’t help but wonder what his life would have been like had his mother not died, had he not been dropped into a white world and forced to adapt. I watch him the way I’ve always watched him, fascinated by him, awed by him, trying to find my way back to him.
He is excited for the hunt and lies beside me in the wickiup, a bundle of nervous energy, eager for the morning. He reminds me of Webb or Will, a little boy, unable to hold still or rest because something special is coming. He tries to damp down his enthusiasm for my sake, but I can feel it pouring from him, and it makes me glad.
He feels guilt when he is happy. We both do. We don’t talk about my brothers—any of them—but they, even more than Ma and Pa, are always with us, waiting. Watching. Disturbing the peace between us. In the quiet darkness of the wickiup, we have all the privacy we once longed for, but I feel the weight of a dozen May eyes, and I cannot turn to him, even though I want to. Even though I need to. Even though he needs me.
I don’t know where Wolfe is or if he’s well, and it haunts me. But I’m comforted by one truth: Weda can do what I cannot. She can feed Wolfe. She can keep him alive, for now. Washakie has promised John that when the hunt is over, the meat dried, and the skins readied, we will go to the valley where Pocatello winters, and we will stay until the snows melt. After that, I don’t know.
I watch from the plateau, sitting with the women and looking down on the matted, humped backs of the buffalo below, our horses grazing behind us. They are saddled with the empty packs and the tethered poles we will use to pack the meat when the hunt is over, but for now, we just watch.
We are only twenty feet above the meadow; the jutting cliff face provides a place to observe without getting in the way or trampled by the herd if they swing too close, and judging from the excitement among the women, I don’t think our view is typical. Hanabi keeps saying, “Naomi! See? See?” and clapping her hands. I do see, and my heart is pounding with dread and anticipation. John says Dakotah and Washakie will do the