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Horn two years ago.”
    Dirk found no opening in that closed mind. “Well, you’re safe now. You can go back to bed.”
    â€œI won’t sleep a wink,” said Amy Partridge.
    But they drifted into the rectory, and Dirk heard the door shut behind them.
    Dirk drifted through the pale light. He saw a single lamp burning at the army post, and no light at all at the agency. No light burned at Chief Washakie’s residence but Dirk was pretty sure the chief hadn’t missed a thing. The Dreamers had announced their presence, choosing a moment when the army was miles away. This was probably the work of Owl, Waiting Wolf, and Dirk didn’t doubt that the youth could run circles around the blue-shirts. The army probably would never catch the boy, not on a reserve with so many hidden refuges and mysteries tucked into its vast size.
    As he passed the chief’s residence, a quiet voice caught him.
    â€œNorth Star, come sit with me.”
    Dirk discovered the chief sitting in deep shade, staring out upon the moon-washed night. He was wrapped in a red-and-white Hudson’s Bay blanket, the red barely discernible.
    Dirk settled himself in the next wicker chair.
    â€œIt is a good night, brother,” Washakie said.
    â€œThe Dreamers came.”
    â€œAnd went away.”
    â€œThey frightened the vicar and his family.”
    â€œWhat did you tell them?”
    â€œI told them about how Father De Smet had made friends of the very tribes most feared by white men, and how the father looked after their needs and helped those people deal with the tide of white men.”
    â€œAnd what did this man Partridge say?”
    â€œHe said Father De Smet only delayed what was to come, and the result was the Little Big Horn.”
    â€œThen he is not a friend.”
    â€œNo, sir. He burns with the need to civilize the savages and bring them to the True Faith and make the savages just like white men.”
    Washakie exhaled his exasperation. “And the Dreamers are devils, yes?”
    â€œYes, sir. He thought they rose out of the pits of hell, out of the very earth.”
    â€œThey left something for me.”
    Washakie handed Dirk a furry feather. It had to be from a Great Gray Owl.
    Washakie eyed Dirk. “I don’t plan to die anytime soon, but the Dreamers seem to have other ideas.”
    â€œIt is a threat?”
    â€œWill they seek my life? No. But Owl, the great bird, will pursue me. As the whites might say, it is written. It has been seen.”
    â€œMy mother didn’t explain all these things to me.”
    â€œShoshones have no religion in the sense that white men have one,” Washakie said. “We are led to our own universe in our own way. Your mother had nothing to teach you because each Shoshone pursues his private path, often in secret. There is no white men’s Bible, no tracts, no catechism for the People. These mysteries are discovered by boys when their time comes to listen and wait. It is something for you to find, not for her to teach.”
    â€œI was taken away at age eight, put in a Jesuit school in St. Louis. That’s what separates me from you, Grandfather.”
    â€œYes, and it was good you went to St. Louis. You are a brother, North Star. You are one of the People, and you will help us learn how to live the new way.”
    â€œBrother? Not by blood.”
    â€œBy all the mysteries that bring life to the womb of a Shoshone woman. We live in a world we barely know, and some of what we know is not what we see, but what rises inside of us. It rises in me to call you brother of all my People.”
    â€œWhat will you do with this owl feather, Grandfather?”
    â€œTomorrow I will ride in my wagon to the encampment on the river, and give the feather to Walks at Night.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œHe will not accept it, but let it drop to the clay.”
    â€œAnd it will lie there.”
    â€œThe winds of time will take it away. They