With a blanket between me and the horse, I wasn't too keen on how I was supposed to stay on the horse. Lit'l Fox thought nothing of it, so I did what he did, and we rode horses with Running Horse, and who with the name of Running Horse, didn't have a horse. Of course he had a horse, and we rode together.

The horse and I didn't see eye to eye, and my riding him was a bit scary, and then I remembered what a boy at school told me about what he did to get his new horse to put up with him.

I started taking an apple to the pasture when we were going riding. I would keep it away from the horse. Then, I would surprise him with it.

It worked better than well. When the horse saw me coming, he trotted right over and began nudging me with his nose until I coughed up the apple.

Me and old Shiftless became right good friends. I don't know how he'd been treated by the buffalo hunters, but he seemed to like the life of a carefree horse ridden a couple of times a week.

One day while Lit'l Fox and I were riding on our own, he guided me into the forest, and we went a short distance before he got down off his horse who had no name. Lit'l Fox left me sitting with the horses and he went into the forest and came back with a branch he took from one of the trees.

We took it back to the lodge. We went in to eat. After eating, he began shaping it. I knew what he was doing. I had seen Paw do it. At first, I wasn't sure, but as he shaved off the bark and smoothed the wood, he was making a bow all right.

He shaped it, heated it, shaped it some more, and after a while it looked like a bow. Medicine Woman brought him a deer tendon. I knew what it was for. I couldn't string the bow Paw made, but I was sure I could string a bow now. I was sure Lit'l Fox knew how to string his bow.

Lit'l Fox was Pawnee.

I remembered my mother saying my brother's name, "Fox something."

I heard my mother's voice saying it as clearly as a bell ringing in my head. I woke up with a start, as Lit'l Fox slept beside me.

"Lit'l Fox? Fox something?"

As when something was too convenient to believe. I looked into Lit'l Fox's face.

Did he look like my Paw?

Lit'l Fox was small. He didn't look much like Paw, but neither did I. Except my eyes. I had Paw's dark eyes.

"What are you looking for?" Lit'l Fox asked as we ate that morning.

"Just thinking," I said.

Lit'l Fox had my father's eyes. I had too much to think about and I shook it out of my head. All Indians had dark eyes. Paw had dark eyes. Lit'l Fox had dark eyes, and so did I. It didn't mean nothing.

I remembered Maw's eyes. I remembered the Prophet's eyes, and the eyes of most of the boys at school. They all had a different shade of blue eyes. Many boys who weren't elated had similar color eyes.

I did my best to remember Maw's exact words.

"His wife's name was Morning Dove. His son was named Fox something."

"Lit'l Fox?"

It was too crazy. There were Pawnee clans all over Kansas Territory and in Colorado Territory. There were all kinds of Indians on the Plains this far west.

My brain still played tricks on me. If I thought about something enough, it twisted itself into knots in my brain, but not this.

Each time I watched Lit'l Fox that day, I was left to wonder about his eyes.

I always thought life would be better if I had me a brother.

It was awful convenient that I went to the mountain for a griz, and I came back with a brother. No, I didn't believe it either.

Maw probably never said Fox something. She said something and now I imagined it was Fox something. She had said Morning Dove. I was sure of it.

"What are you looking for?"

"Nothing," I said, as I watched those eyes.

My father's wife and son were kilt, and that was that.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The night Lit'l Fox made the bow, he carried it to just outside the lodge, after stringing it with the deer tendon. He strung the bow by bending it back against his foot, slipping the second loop in place neat as you please, after the first loop was installed on the bottom of the bow.

"Come," he said and in a minute we were outside.

I was following Lit'l Fox most of the time, but we went no further than the front of the lodge. It wasn't dark but the sun was gone from the sky. Lit'l Fox aimed almost directly over his head and fired the arrow.

"You hear land. Go get arrow," he said.

I listened and heard the arrow land a few dozen feet away. When I came back with the arrow, Lit'l Fox had gone back inside. I went in to sit beside him.

"You take," he said. "Too tight for Lit'l Fox."

I watched him carefully craft the bow. I watched him increase the tension on the deer tendon. The bow was always going to be my bow. I understood that when he brought back the branch that became my bow.

Why else take me with him?

My mind seemed to work fine. Lit'l Fox gave me something that would keep it busy for months to come. I wouldn't worry so much about his eyes, and I would learn the bow. It wasn't an easy skill to master, and when I went out to fire it the way I saw Lit'l Fox fire it, somehow bow and arrow ended up on the ground.

I'm sure I did something wrong. I wasn't sure what.

Lit'l Fox often anticipated what I was going to say. I could often anticipate what Lit'l Fox was going to do. He was making a bow for me, and that boy was the key to what I was going to become, and no one anticipated that.

We knew each other pretty well by this time. We were like brothers. If I had a brother, I couldn't be any closer to him than I was to Lit'l Fox. I admired him. I looked up to him, and I was a little afraid of a boy who could kill two men in a minute and then go about his business like it was never done, or spoken about.

I wasn't afraid he would do something to hurt me. I was afraid that he could do something I couldn't do, even to save our lives.

I knew there was a larger world out there, and I knew nothing about it. The world I wanted to know about was the world of the Pawnee. Once I dug into it, I would learn all I could and I would do things the way Pawnee boys did them.

I would learn the bow because I was a hunter, and Pawnee hunters hunted with a bow. That didn't mean I stopped worrying about that other thing.

I'd watch Paw do the same thing Lit'l Fox did. I saw how Lit'l Fox strung the bow. I could make a bow now. It might not be a bow as fine as the one he made for me, but, in time, I would make such a bow. The secret of making arrows was still unknown to me, but I would watch Lit'l Fox make his arrows, and then, I would make my own arrows.

I had no trouble doing things that I watched other people do. Especially I watched the things Lit'l Fox and Running Horse did. I liked watching both of them.

There had been talk of a deer hunt in the fall. It wouldn't be that much different than when I went off with Paw to get a buck or two. This time we would be a group of boys going to hunt on the mountain. We hunted on the mountain, because it froze on the mountain first, and you didn't want to take your deer before the first freeze, if you hoped to store meat for the winter. It wouldn't do to store tainted meat, and so we hunted after a hard freeze hit the mountain.

I would go on the hunt with the boys from the village. My Hawkin would stay in the corner of the lodge next to the two buffalo rifles. I intended to go on the deer hunt the same as all the Pawnee boys. I planned to get a buck. I planned to get it with my bow.

I hadn't gotten anything with my bow yet.

Since I hadn't got an arrow to hit anything I aimed at yet, I had work to do.

Lit'l Fox made the target. He stood fifty feet away. He raised his bow with an arrow in place, and as he brought bow and arrow down, as he hit his site line, he fired the arrow and hit the target on his first try.

"You shoot," he told me.

He handed me a quiver with a dozen or more arrows.

He helped me with how to hold the bow, and he put the first arrow in place so I could hold it against the bowstring. I took careful aim and the arrow went, I know not where.

That's when I noticed Running Horse watching me make a fool out of myself. I hadn't seen him in two days, and now he comes to watch me.

Running Horse smiled.

"Plenty arrows," Lit'l Fox said, undaunted by my lack of skill.

He made no effort to find the arrow I just shot. I had no idea what direction it might have gone in, after seeing Running Horse, I knew I didn't hit him.

I know how many times I missed the target. There were twenty arrows, and I quit with a single arrow left in the quiver. I lost nineteen arrows, and I saved one so I could remember what an arrow looked like.

Lit'l Fox walked off talking to Running Horse, and I stood there watching with my bow and one arrow in my hand. I guessed today's lesson was over.

How could I be so bad at something I needed to do well?

I spent the next hour searching for arrows. I found two. One was so high up a tree, I didn't try to retrieve it. If I fell out of a tree and broke my leg again, I wouldn't be able to go on the autumn hunt. I intended to go on the autumn hunt, and I was going to bring back a buck that I shot with my bow.

Luckily, both Lit'l Fox and Running Horse brought me ten arrows a piece the next time we went out to practice with the bow.

The following day, after lunch, we walked into the pasture away from where the horses grazed. No one wanted me shooting anywhere near where the village horses were kept.

I was armed and dangerous.

We shot at a target a little closer the next day. First Lit'l Fox stood on the line, and he hit the target on his first shot. Running Horse stepped up to the line and put his arrow even closer to the center of the target than Lit'l Fox did.

I put my toes on the line before I showered arrows all over the place. I only lost half the arrows the second day. I was making progress. Neither Lit'l Fox or Running Horse seemed perturbed by my poor marksmanship. I couldn't understand why I couldn't do this. I always hit game I aimed at with my rifle.

That was more of a straight line. Both my teachers started off by tilting the arrow skyward, and bringing it into the kill zone, and they both hit the target every time they released an arrow. Neither of them shot an errant arrow to make me feel better. They both hit the target every time.

At least I didn't drop bow and arrow at my feet any longer, while trying to figure the bow out. I was tempted to go get my Hawkin and blow that target up.

I was determined, which didn't amount to much. I still didn't get an arrow anywhere near the target for the next week.

None of my arrows hit the target, but two arrows went in that direction. That is when I saw Dark Horse. He rarely came out of the lodge, and he saw the stupid white boy Lit'l Fox brought home make bow shooting look like an impossible task. Making a fool of myself never appealed to me, and I did it in front of the great man. I began to think I would never learn to fire my bow.

Both Lit'l Fox and Running Horse showed me their technique for hitting the target several times. They both took turns hitting the target before walking off together and leaving me to do whatever it was I did.

They sure knew how to make a guy feel better.

How could anyone hit that little target?

In the third, or maybe it was the fourth week, I no longer lost my arrows. It was a victory of sorts. Each time we went out, and we no longer went out every day, Lit'l Fox and Running Horse fired a couple of arrows into the target.

I watched.

I got angry.

I was going to learn to fire this damn thing if it kills me.

Lit'l Fox talked me through it one more time. He stood, toes on the line, he lifted his bow with an arrow in place, and he hit that sucker dead center.

"Thanks," I said, not meaning a word of it.

I hoped they would both leave before I did whatever it is I was doing. I didn't need an audience to do it. I already felt foolish.

I didn't know what was wrong with me.

Lit'l Fox used his bow. He faced me as I stood to one side. He let the arrow go and it embedded in the middle of the target. He didn't even look at the target and he hit it. Maybe that was it. You hit it by not aiming at it.

Even I knew it was stupid. I was ready to try anything. I could not look.

"Pull back. Hold. See down arrow. Take in breath. Let out breath slowly. Let arrow go. Hit target every time. See."

I saw all right. Now I had to hold my breath, or let it out? He hadn't mentioned the breath thing before, and he did seem to stay focused on looking down the arrow until he picked up what he was shooting at.

It didn't exactly click into place, but I felt differently about how I used the bow to lower the arrow until I saw the kill zone.

This time I did exactly what he said to do without such an ironclad focus. I took a deep breath as I raised my arrow, and in one continuous motion I brought bow and arrow into the kill zone, releasing the arrow once I emptied my lungs.

The arrow hit the ground a few feet in front of the target, but it went straight, and for the first time I imagined I could hit that thing with a bit more power, but I hadn't worried about power. I worried about firing an arrow straight.

"See. You catch on. Do what you just did. Don't worry about anything but keeping your arrow on a straight line. Once you do this, you will work on adding distance to your shots. You do fine."

That little pep talk did wonders. I was learning. I wasn't losing my arrows.

The trick was not to worry about anything but holding the arrow steady as you bring the bow down and release the air in your lungs. It even felt smoother.

"Why didn't you show me that before? I mean explain it to me?"

"You need to feel bow first. One step, next step, next step is to hit target. You do fine."

His skill with a bow was impressive. I tried to do it exactly like he did it.

After my best day with the bow, we got up at first light three days in a row. Lit'l Fox would draw the line we put our toes on, and he fired one arrow into the target. For the next hour, it was my turn, and on the third day, with Lit'l Fox watching, I put an arrow into the very bottom of the target with the chicken feathers to make it more realistic.

Twice he had to tell me, "Take breath. Important to take breath. Let it out."

I left with the same number of arrows I came with. I hadn't been losing arrows for some time, but every once in a while, I made one of those errant shots I couldn't begin to explain. Most arrows I shot in front of me, or so it seemed.

One morning I woke up. Lit'l Fox was still sleeping, and I eased myself out of the buffalo robe and put on my loin cloth, and I took my bow and arrows out with me. This I had to do on my own.

I had the feel of the bow, and I kept my arrows close to the target. I hadn't made any shots close to where Lit'l Fox and Running Horse put their arrows, but I was going to practice each morning, until I could put my arrows toward the center of the target with the chicken feathers in it to make it more realistic.

Lit'l Fox never mentioned me cutting him out of my practice with the bow. He taught me what I needed to know. Watching him and Running Horse wouldn't improve my ability with the bow.

Practice was what was called for, and I went out at first light each morning to practice. I didn't know how long it would take for me to be able to shoot a bow the best I could, but I intended to find out.

I was always a hunter, and soon, I would be able to hunt with a bow. I still hadn't killed anything with a bow. The idea did come with apprehension. No, I wasn't fearful of killing game. I killed too much game to let it worry me. I wasn't sure I was good enough to bring down a buck with the bow, and when the chips were down, I wouldn't want to face a griz with a bow and arrow.

The way I figured, you had one shot at a griz, before he would be on me. I didn't believe I could kill a grizzly with a single arrow. I could bring down anything with my Hawkin, but the Pawnee didn't have Hawkins.

It was more than two weeks before I hit the target again. I lifted my bow skyward, inhaled deeply, bring my bow down into the kill zone, exhaling all the air in my lungs before releasing the arrow. It hit the target a few inches from the center where Lit'l Fox's and Running Horse's arrows always went.

I did my Pawnee dance and my smile stretched across my face. In all the time I had been practicing, I hit the target exactly twice. What I knew was, I would keep practicing until all my arrows lodged close to the center of the target.

Time didn't matter to me now.

Once I hit the target the second time, I hit it a third and fourth time the same day. Collecting my arrows, I went to the lodge to eat and catch up with Lit'l Fox and Running Horse. I always caught up with them to play until the afternoon.

They hadn't come out to watch me practice. They knew I was going in the right direction, and if I needed to know something, I would ask. I didn't ask.

I broke one of my arrows taking it out of the target. It lodged so deeply that the arrowhead stayed in the target. I could make my own arrows now, but I was still using the arrows Lit'l Fox and Running Horse made for me. I knew which were which, because Running Horse dyed his feather's red.

Lit'l Fox didn't dye his feathers, and I would dye mine black. I wanted hunters to know which arrows were mine. When I killed me a buck, I wanted everyone to know it was my kill. I intended to kill a lot of deer with my bow.

I was never more confident that would be the case. I was still a hunter. Changing weaponry was an obstacle almost too large to overcome, but I had overcome it, and one day as Lit'l Fox and Running Horse came to find out where I got off to, they watched me put eight of ten arrows in the center of the target.

I was a hunter. I was a bowman. I would be one of the best bowmen.

"You come long way," Running Horse said.

"Told you," Lit'l Fox said. "Anyone who can kill a griz, can learn the bow."

Running Horse let this piece of news go without commenting on it. He did take a long look at me, as he pondered what Lit'l Fox said.

My main idea was to be able to bring down a buck on the autumn hunt. I would settle for a doe, or a couple of rabbits. A skunk would do, since I killed nothing with my bow yet.

I thought of the Hawkin in the lodge. I knew there was shot and powder enough to use it on the autumn hunt, but I wouldn't use it. I needed to hunt with a bow, until it was as comfortable for me as hunting with a rifle. I had been hunting with a rifle since I was nine. I knew my bow for a few months.

After needing to ruin an arrow to get it out of the target, I began moving the line back. I'm sure that Lit'l Fox and Running Horse knew I was shooting the arrow further and further as time passed. From time to time, one of them or both of them might put their tows on the line to hit the target close to its center.

Once they snot, I put my arrows close to where their arrows landed.

I was no longer amazed by what they did. I wasn't as good as either of them. Running Horse was the best archer. He was good at all things he did.

I always nodded my approval after watching him fire his bow.

I hit the target every time now. I couldn't put all of my arrows in the center, but they were respectably close to the center. If I shot a critter that close to his heart, he would be dead in a minute, if not right away. I could live with that.

I could kill a buck if I got a shot at one.

I was stronger than I thought, and I moved the line further from the target. Neither Lit'l Fox or Running Horse blinked twice once I increased the distance. They both put their arrows right in the middle.

As I became more confident. I saw Running Horse becoming more visible. After hitting the target with every arrow one morning, I erased the line I was using, walked back five paces, drawing a new line. I saw Running Horse watching me, and yes, I was trying to impress him with my skills.

I can't say why I was so eager to impress a boy I admired. There were older boys at school. I never felt a desire to impress one. I avoided bringing attention to myself in the white man's school, but I wasn't beyond bringing attention to myself when it came to Running Horse. I liked him fine.

As I stood behind the new line, I saw every arrow I lost in the treetops.

I cringed before getting a grip on myself. I knew what the bow would do.

I took one of my arrows, setting it in place, as I raised the bow, bringing it down until I found my sightline, and I fired the arrow into the middle of the target before I turned to smile at Running Horse who stepped into the open.

"You come a long way," he said.

I felt absolutely giddy. Running Horse made me feel good about myself. After Lit'l Fox, the person I wanted to notice was Running Horse.

The next morning when I left the lodge, Running Horse was waiting.

"I don't want to disturb your practice. I would like to walk with you. I watch you practicing. Maybe move back a few more steps. Your bow isn't too strong, but it will reach a few feet further."

We talked as we walked. I savored every word, and it was quite business like with suggestions and observations, and each word was filled with his warmth. He thought I might object to him helping me.

Was he ever wrong. Running Horse was the most beautiful Indian I knew. There was no one I would rather walk and talk with, but when all was said and done, when it came to bow shooting, I was on my own, but I was a hunter.

I moved ten more feet back, and I hit the target eight out of ten times.

I only had ten arrows by this time, and I got Lit'l Fox to make several arrows while I watched him. I only lost one arrow in the last weeks, and I no longer needed to practice every day. I would have time to make my own arrows.

I was ready to make my own, now that I could get them to go straight.

One morning, I saw Running Horse watching me shoot at the target. I breathed in a big gulp of air, while raising my bow, I exhaled as I let the arrow go when it was in the kill zone. I watched it fly the extra distance with ease. It hit the target near the center. I hit the target near the center a lot these days.

I looked at Running Horse and smiled.

Running Horse had nothing to say about what he'd seen me do. I had been at it for many months since Lit'l Fox made me the bow, and I was great shooting at a target that didn't move. Game had a tendency to move and I hadn't shot anything with my bow but a piece of wood with chicken feathers stuck in it.

I wasn't ready to go hunting on my own yet. I hit the target every time I shot at it, as the deer hunt approached. Now, if the deer would only stand still, I was in business. The deer weren't that prone to allow me to shoot them.

One morning, it wasn't Running Horse observing me, it was Dark Horse. He'd watched me when I was first walking with Lit'l Fox, and we didn't get far from the lodge. He sat outside the wigwam beside Medicine Woman at times. They watched me as I ran. No one else ran the fields the way I did.

There was plenty of activity to keep me fairly slim.

I often ran home from school to the cabin in the valley where the river runs. I liked to run and hardly being able to walk for a time, had me wanting to run. My right leg was weaker than my left leg. I could feel it, and so running helped my legs gain strength, until my right leg was as strong as my left.

Lit'l Fox watched my target shooting at times. He didn't say anything. He saw me moving the distance between me and the target over and over again. I made a point of using the shorter distance and slowly doubling it. I never went further away than that. It suited the strength of the bow. It suited my strength.

I would go bow hunting with Lit'l Fox before it was time to go deer hunting, but it was the deer hunt I was looking forward to. As I felt more confident with my bow, I didn't go out as often. When I go out twice a week, Lit'l Fox would go with me to monitor my progress. He had little to say to me about it.

I took this to mean I was using the bow properly.

"You do good," Lit'l Fox said one morning. "Deer Hunt soon. You ready."

I noticed Running Horse watching me during the day when I played the games the Indian boys played. I wasn't particularly skilled at games I hadn't played before, but when a game was similar to the games we played at school, I was able to hold my own.

As my leg gained in strength, there were fewer days Medicine Woman attended to it. My limp wasn't a big factor, but it told me to be careful to let it keep healing at its own pace. If I felt it more than usual, I didn't run all out while we played, but I was as fast as the other boy, and I built up my stamina by running the hills around the village.

No one ran with me. That was no different from when I was home.

I no longer drank the drink, and the scrutiny of the village had found other things to interest it. While people on their way to doing some work or just out for a walk might stop to watch us playing.

At times, people stopped to watch me running across a nearby hill.

I was one of the boys, and I didn't stand out once my skin took on a browner look. Among a bunch of Indian boys, I was a face in the crowd. There was nothing immediately visible that made me look different.

I felt different. I could use a bow without looking foolish. I didn't kill anything with my bow. I fired my arrows at a stationary target, and when I hunted with a rifle, I mainly shot at critters who didn't know I was there. I could kill game on the move with my squirrel gun. I wasn't sure I would be able to kill anything with a bow. I had yet to kill anything with my bow.

The bow wasn't a rifle. Being able to get game standing still, or in motion, was an important skill to master. I didn't want to be a good hunter. I wanted to be one of the village's most reliable hunters. I wanted the amount of meat I brought back after a hunt to be equal to the amount of meat the best hunters kilt.

As I got game when Paw told me to go get supper, I would get game along with other Pawnee boys when we hunted. I learned to hit game with my rifle over two or three years. I was in my fourth month mastering the bow. I did with the bow what I done with the rifle. I might not be one of the best bow hunters in the village yet, but I was becoming one, and Running Horse, the best bow hunter, kept his eye on me.

I wasn't clear on what he saw when he looked at me. I knew what I saw when I looked at him, and I often watched him move. It was a vision that kept me warm all over, spring or summer.

There was no reason Running Horse captivated me, but he did.

Whether a game I knew or one I was learning, I felt Running Horse's eyes on me. I wasn't sure why. He watched all of us when we played. He joined in the play when he had a mind to, and he watched when he didn't play with us.

I could often feel his eyes on me.

He joined us to run, jump, and climb. Even though he watched what each of us could do, he spent a lot of time with his eyes on me. Some days I would stop what I was doing and look in his direction. My eyes found his eyes on me.

I wasn't sure how to feel about that.

When I relaxed to take a break from the games, Running Horse would come over to talk. I wanted to look good for him. I worried I looked sweaty and there was a certain smell that came from playing as hard as I could play.

I wanted to be at my best when Running Horse was in the vicinity, but no matter what condition I was in, he seemed interested in me.

I was watched since the first time I emerged from the lodge to take a walk. I smiled and was happy to see so many happy faces. Lots of people watched for me, until my skin darkened enough they couldn't separate me from other boys at play in the pastures.

When Running Horse's eyes were on me, they stayed on me, and I made an effort to run close to him to say hello. On some days I stopped and talked to the most beautiful Indian I had ever seen.

What wasn't to like about Running Horse? He always smelled great.

Some days, in the midst of battle, I just smiled as I passed where he stood.

At school, I was more like Running Horse than I was like the other boys. I joined in from time to time, but I knew I didn't belong with a bunch of white boys, and they had no idea I wasn't white.

You had to be white to be in that school.

How did other people get to learn? What they could see of me was white.

What would they have done if I said, "I am half Pawnee."

I never found out because I was warned not to reveal it to a soul. I was sure they'd tear me limb from limb if they knew that an Indian was sitting in the classroom with them. They would have been horrified. Their parents would have gone insane. It's hard to say what they would have done to me. It wouldn't have been good, according to the prophet, and I didn't want to find out.

I was a white boy by all outward appearances. I did nothing to have anyone doubt it. I was the preacher's grandson. Of course, everything was on the up and up. Preachers don't lie, do they. They didn't in town, and I was passing in spite of having a Pawnee father.

I learned to play all the games. I played the ones I was good at. Some games I sat out. Sometimes I ran while the other boys played.

Some days I took my bow and went off by myself to practice. I didn't do that as often now. Once I hit the target almost every time, I didn't need to continue to practice as much. I never practiced shooting my squirrel gun, once I hit what I shot at. Once I was satisfied that I knew the bow almost as well as I knew that old squirrel gun, I cut back on practicing to do other things.

No one cared if I played games well. They would care if I hunted well.

I hadn't shot a critter with my bow. I knew I would kill game soon. Each step I took made me a better bowman. When the time came, I would hit whatever I fired my arrows at. My hunter's instincts told me that.

Before the autumn hunt, I had been in the village for a second year. I knew the excitement around the autumn hunt. I remembered feasting from the year before, after the autumn hunt. I was just beginning to walk on my own then.

This year I would go to the mountain to hunt with the hunters.

During the heat of summer, we took opportunities to go to the pond to swim and cool off. We fished often and one morning when I joined the boys with Lit'l Fox, Running Horse had a target similar to the one I shot at, and he hung it a good distance away. We gather to shoot our bows once a week.

It was further from the target than his archers were accustomed to. Running Horse wouldn't do something to make me look bad. He never had before.

If he drew the line there, he was sure I could hit the target from there. I was sure I hadn't shot at the target from that distance before.

As was typical, Running Horse watched each archer. After everyone took a turn, Running Horse moved the line further back. Boys who didn't hit the target sat down. Each time he drew a new line, fewer boys took a turn. When he drew that final line, he hadn't taken a single shot. Neither had I, and the new line would be a challenge, but I knew what I knew, and when he got up to finally take a turn, that's when I would take my turn.

It was personal now.

When he drew that final line, he looked right at me, and I smiled. Two could play this game, and I was just the bowman to play with him.

The eyes of the boys were on me now. It wasn't unusual for Running Horse to take only one shot at the target, after all the other boys were done. He was that good, but no one really knew or thought I was that good.

I didn't know if I was that good, but we were about to find out.

When Running Horse drew that final line, he went over to get his bow. When I stood up, Lit'l Fox handed me my bow, and a single arrow.

I could hit the target at each distance the other boys used. I never shot an arrow at a target that far away before. If I didn't at least hit the target, I would look foolish to boys I couldn't afford to look foolish in front of.

I pushed all doubt out of my mind. I would hit the target.

Running Horse stood on the line he drew, took a single arrow out of his teeth, and he took his time raising his bow, letting it settle down into the area where he was aiming, and he let it fly. The arrow took a big arc as it found its way to the target, hitting it dead center.

Boys hooted at Running Horse's show of dominance as an archer. He once again proved he was the best archer in the village.

Running Horse turned and smiled at me. He knew what I had been doing all summer. He saw me moving further and further away from the target. The smile wasn't a smile of triumph. It was a smile of recognition. He thought I could hit the target from that distance, but would I?

I repeated his moves, taking the arrow from my teeth, and aiming it at the sky before lowering it into my sightline. I fired the arrow that arched the same way Running Horse's arrow arched, and it lodged in the target beside his arrow.

No one made a sound. Each boy walked to the target to examine the two arrows at the center of it. I didn't know how much further away Running Horse could hit a target, but on this day, we both hit it from a distance he picked.

He did not draw another line. He was satisfied, and when we were ready to walk back to the village, Running Horse put his arm over my shoulder as Lit'l Fox, Running Horse and I walked together.

I had no illusion about my skills with the bow. I was good because I took the time to become good. I still hadn't killed anything with my bow, but on this day, I made a shot that was similar to Running Horse's. All the boys in the village saw me do it.

Whatever they were expecting to see, they hadn't expected that.

For his own reason, Running Horse left it there. He could have out shot me. I knew it and the other boys knew it, but I had matched the one shot he took that day, and none of them would forget it. When we went to hunt, they would expect me to give a good accounting of myself.

Now, all I needed to do was hit game I shot at.

I was sure that was easier said than done, but for the time being, I could live with being the second best with a bow when it came to shooting at a piece of wood with chicken feathers stuck into it.

My ability to make that shot did give me more confidence with the bow. I would be more confident with a rifle in my hands, but we didn't hunt with rifles.

I suppose being Pawnee made what I did better. I was proving that I could do the things the other boys did. I was living the life of a Pawnee, and whether I looked good or not all that good, I was still doing the same things other Pawnee boys did. I felt good about that, because I was Pawnee. One day, I would say so.