In my dreams, with time being lost in my mind, I heard and thought a lot of things happened, that I couldn't be sure happened. It was like I got a piece here, a piece there, and none of the pieces fit together, but I heard my father's name in the lodge where I lived with Medicine Woman, Dark Horse, and Lit'l Fox.

Could I have dreamed it? In my brain it is clearer than anything else that happened while I was lost in the fog.

It was the one thing I remembered more clearly than anything else on the day I didn't get the me the drink a half dozen times that day. I got the drink at night before I slept. I didn't get the drink that day and we ate twice before I noticed the change. I wasn't alert to anything right away. I become more alert.

"How is pain today?" Medicine Woman spoke in plain English.

"No pain," I said.

I'm almost sure if I said there was pain, I would get the drink. There was something to like about the drink that made everything go around in circles inside my head. It was like floating off to a peaceful place. The confusion that came with it annoyed me. I wouldn't say anything to get the drink except to sleep.

I had no desire to wake up in severe pain and need to wait for the drink. When I slept, I liked drifting off into a more peaceful place.

Medicine Woman spoke plain English. I understood every word. When they spoke to each other, especially Medicine Woman and Dark Horse, I could get some idea of what they were talking about. My Pawnee was mostly the words Paw said, and Maw explained to me when I asked her to. I knew many Pawnee words.

I would have blurted, "I'm Pawnee," but that seemed unwise. I looked white, and until I was more sure of myself, I would let them think what they may.

It wasn't clear to me where I stood. I would wait to announce, I'm Pawnee.

I wanted to be sure of who they are and of their relationship to Proud Eagle. If they talked about him once, they might talk about him again. Now that the fog lifted, I would listen and see what I could learn.

For the time being, I would keep my mouth shut and live the life Lit'l Fox has brought me to. I can truly know what it means to be Pawnee. In time, I will be Pawnee if they allow me to stay.

There is talk of Lit'l Fox bringing home broken animals, who he nurses back to good health before letting them go. Medicine seems to be the business of the lodge where I live.

Many people come and go during the day, and each says hello to me, as if I belong there. Lit'l Fox has brought home many animals, and I wonder if I am another animal he will heal and send on his way.

I don't want to go anywhere. This is a place I once dreamed of being.

The latest new experience, Lit'l Fox helped me to stand. Medicine Woman watches me as Lit'l Fox takes me outside to where other boys play. I stand in the bright sunlight that almost blinds me. Lit'l Fox walks with me a few steps. The boys are laughing and joking about things I don't understand as they move about me.

"That's far enough. Let him rest a while," Medicine Woman said, and Lit'l Fox and I sit out in front of the lodge as boys frolic between the lodges.

It feels good to breathe fresh air and to move around. I have no pain.

I don't feel strong.

The next few weeks, we walk each day. Some days we sit outside. Some days we go back inside when it is time to eat. Each day I lean on Lit'l Fox, and I walk a bit further. I feel stronger each day. I feel like I want to keep walking when Medicine Woman says I have walked long enough.

The boys are always out. They always see me and they walk to me and Lit'l Fox. They mostly speak in Pawnee, but there is English mixed in.

After a few weeks, I get up and go out by myself, and I walk and walk and walk and walk. By the time I am back, Lit'l Fox and the boys are outside playing games. I joined into some of the games when they tossed a leather ball back and forth.

I am learning the lessons the boys are teaching me. Their games aren't so different from games played at school. Some I've never seen before. When they play rough, I stay to one side. I'm not ready to tangle with other boys yet.

I have the urge to run, and I can run alone. Medicine Woman still watches me. She asks if I'm having any pain. When I come back from a run, she hands me something roasting over the fire in the lodge.

It is warm and I sweat while I run. I have begun to feel like I have healed. I am growing stronger.

Lit'l Fox didn't mind not running. He watched me run. Medicine Woman watched me running, and she said nothing. Once, while I was increasing the amount of running I did, instead of walking, Dark Horse took to watching me run. Medicine Woman smiling. It was like having the approval of everyone including Running Horse who stood next to Lit'l Fox as they watched.

It was spring and the days were passing. Once I was running and feeling strong, I joined in the games the other boys played. Games were different from the games I played at home. Other games were similar to our games.

At first, I wore one of the breach cloths made for Lit'l Fox. Then, Medicine woman made me a breach cloth that fit better, because I'd grown since I came to her lodge. I was outgrowing Lit'l Fox's breach cloth as time passed and the playing became more and more a part of my day.

When I wasn't walking, I was running. When I wasn't running, I was playing. I listened and I said little.

My skin burned, peeled, burned again. Medicine Woman put lotion on my skin, and she warned me not to stay in the sun all day every day.

When I still stayed outside all day every day, Medicine Woman knew what I was doing. She didn't know why I was doing it, but she saw what was happening to my skin.

There was something else I was waiting for. Lit'l Fox knew what I was doing, and so did Medicine Woman. From sunup to sundown, except for taking meals, I was outside. I burned, peeled, burned, peeled, and then, after what seemed like forever, I began to brown.

Medicine Woman put a mixture of liquid and grass on the burns, and she applied a lotion once I began turning brown. She knew why I never came inside, while the sun shined. She may not have known my thinking, but she could see what I did. It would take time, but my skin darkened. Only where the breach cloth covered me did I still have white skin.

Only Lit'l Fox saw me without my breach cloth at night. He was the only one to see my still too white skin. It was my shame among the Pawnee.

It worried me something fierce. The other boys swam naked. I never took off my breach cloth during the day. I was pure white under it, and it defeated all the work I had done to turn my visible skin brown. Brown like Pawnee boys.

Out of sight out of mind was my calculation, but who didn't know what color I was under that cloth. I was white when I arrived in the village. My skin turned brown, but I was still white. The Pawnee knew it as well as I did.

Who was I trying to fool?

I was a white boy when I arrived. I was a novelty. Boys looked at me in wonder, because they probably didn't see many white kids. After so many months in the village, with me almost as brown as some of the lighter skin boys, did they remember when I was white and didn't speak Pawnee?

I spoke Pawnee to the other boys. I didn't speak it in front of adults. They would accuse me of trying to be Pawnee, and they thought they knew better.

When I spent too much time with the other boys, Lit'l Fox came up with a new way to get my attention. We began taking rides on our horses. I never thought of them as our horses, but Lit'l Fox had his, and the other one was mine. The horses reminded me of something I mostly forgot about, and wasn't sure of, because of my state of mind after I got my broke leg, and not remembering it made it easier on me. I knew what I wanted to forget, but when you know a thing, you know it and denying it is so much wasted time.