My long blond hair reaches my shoulders now.

Hair has a special significance in the village. A man's hair is a statement about who he is. Medicine Woman brushes my hair after I bathe at the pond.

Maw used to chop off my hair before school started in the fall. She just whacked it all off. A couple of times a year she would take the scissors to my hair again. I would feel a few pounds lighter, and I felt any breeze that kicked up.

If Medicine Woman was busy, Lit'l Fox would brush my hair for me. My hair hasn't been cut since I left school when I was about to turn fourteen. It has grown down to my shoulders.

At times Running Horse is in the lodge, and he watched as my hair is brushed. No one else has long blond hair. Most boys have hair the color of a raven's feathers. It's not difficult to pick me out of a group of Pawnee. While my blond hair has darkened a shade or two in the four years I've been in the village, the name Tall Willow describes me. I no longer stand on my tiptoes to be measured against Running Horse. He is maybe a half inch taller, but I've put on weight and I am close to his size. I still fit in his arms fine.

It was two days after Lone Wolf watched us practicing for the hunt we would go on soon. I had returned from rinsing off in the pond. Lit'l Fox was doing the brushing, and Medicine Woman had a surprise.

"Lone Wolf say, 'Put these in Tall Willow hair," Medicine Woman said.

She took two eagle feathers out from between two pieces of cloth.

Besides the feathers of the eagle being sacred, they were beautiful.

"Chief Lone Wolf take feathers from eagle on the butte."

Without ceremony, Lit'l Fox began weaving my hair around two eagle's feathers. I saw men with such feathers. Dark Horse wore such feathers for ceremonies and official gatherings when he sat at Lone Wolf's right hand.

I did my best not to separate myself from the other boys. I couldn't be sure what this was about. Why was the great man giving me feathers?

None of the boys wore feathers in their hair. Their hair was longer than mine. I didn't understand. The feathers made me feel uncomfortable.

"I shouldn't wear these," I said.

"Lone Wolf say, "Tall Willow earn. No argue Lone Wolf," she said in broken English.

Medicine Woman spoke better English than I did. She was making her point. What was the chief doing? This felt wrong to me, but I wasn't a chief.

"Big Medicine, Eagle feather. Plenty good with bow. These say so," Lit'l Fox said, and Lit'l Fox always spoke truth.

He was giving me Eagle's feathers because I didn't put an arrow in him?

I can't say why I felt so much pride over a few words and two feathers. I never felt more Pawnee. I didn't think Lone Wolf knew I was alive.

I didn't think Running Horse asked the chief to come watch us. Chief Lone Wolf did what he did, and no one needed to tell him how to do it.

No, the feathers were Chief Lone Wolf's idea, but the question remained. He knew what the boys did and when we did it. He had seen Running Horse working on the bow. Maybe Running Horse said, "For Tall Willow." Maybe he didn't.

The day after he gave me the bow, the chief came to watch us. It was no secret I didn't shoot at the target until Running Horse drew the line. It was a distance only he could reach before this.

When he drew the line these days, I stood on it beside him, and that must have been what Chief Running Horse came to see.

I heard boys say, "He is nearly as good as Running Horse."

I wasn't as good as Running Horse, and no one doubted he was the best bowman in the village, but I gave him a run for his money. No one had ever done it before.

If someone else stood on the line with him at an official practice, and he reached the target from there, Running Horse would move back ten more feet and fire again. Why he didn't do that to show he was better than I was, I can't say, but I suspect. I suspect he didn't need to prove he was better than me.

By not drawing the line further back, he was accepting my challenge. No one thought I was Running Horse's equal with a bow. It didn't come as a surprise when his arrow found its way to the center of the target. It was a surprise when my arrow lodged next to his.

We all knew that Running Horse could draw the line another ten or twenty feet, and he would hit it, and I couldn't shoot an arrow that far, but Running Horse didn't draw another line. He took one shot. I took one, and that was that, as the second best archer in our village. Even when he didn't draw another line to separate us and prove his superiority, he hit the target dead center, and I came close to the center, using the bow he made for me.

I was making the point, I am no average bowman. I may have only been using a bow since I got to the village, but I had been hunting for years. That's all it meant when I waited for all the other boys to shoot, before I shot.

I had more to think about when I saw Running Horse as soon as Lit'l Fox and I left the lodge. Running Horse was waiting in his usual spot.

I laughed when I saw him.

He had two eagle's feathers woven into his hair.

He never wore anything that separated him from the other boys before.

I knew Running Horse would be chief. What would I be?

"When Lone Wolf speak, it law," Running Horse told me.

"Lone Wolf speak plenty loud," I said. "Beside you, I'm hardly Indian at all."

"You plenty Indian. One day, sit at Running Horse's right hand, as Dark Horse sits at the right hand of Chief Lone Wolf."

Is that what was being said? Was there more to it than that? Was Chief Lone Wolf acknowledging my place among his clan? Did he know I was Pawnee?

Once I saw Running Horse, it made sense. I practiced to become a good bowman. It was my only job. Next to Running Horse, who never missed the target, I was the best shot. Maybe if I had one feather and Running Horse kept the two feathers, it would have made perfect sense, but nothing was perfect.

I didn't know the reason that Lone Wolf wanted us to be seen as equals with the bow, but Lone Wolf was chief. I didn't know what was said in the lodge where Running Horse lived. It was no secret that Running Horse and I were together. Perhaps it was about how far I had come since arriving here.

I did all I could to prove myself, except saying the words, "I am Pawnee."

Maybe I didn't need to say it. Maybe Chief Lone Wolf said it for me. He didn't give Eagle's feathers to a white boy, and he picked me as Running Horse's right hand man.

The hunt was ahead of us, and all the bowman would be tested. If we brought back two or three bucks, it would feed the village for a while. We would supplement with whatever critters got too close to our bows near the village. Our job was to supply meat.

Tales about the hunt always came back with the hunters. Old tales were kept and told at gatherings, and new tales were added if they were bold enough to make the Pawnee laugh or think about the hunters.

When I did anything well, Running Horse was happiest. Our hunting skills were similar and we both brought back game when we hunted. We spent much time waiting for a shot and no one made waiting more enjoyable.

Running Horse was my best friend and closest ally after Lit'l Fox.

While I lived in a village that showed me kindness, when I first emerged from the lodge of Dark Horse and Medicine Woman, I was a butterfly coming out of his cocoon. My life at the cabin in the valley where the river runs was one of indifference. I was free to go and do what I wanted, but I was restricted by the fingers of the hands that held me there.

My mind wasn't so easy to hold in place. In my dreams I ran free.

I knew of nowhere beyond the town and the places Paw and I hunted.

My Indian blood flowed in my veins and in spite of a life without any kindness for others, with the same blood. I was a captive by virtue of my birth into a world where I didn't feel welcome and I hardly belonged.

In the land of my father, and my father's fathers, going back before any written history, we lived in harmony with Mother Earth and the creatures who lived with us. We lived beside our brother the buffalo, the antelope, and the deer.

Along with the settlers came a disregard for the people and creatures who lived side by side for a thousand years. The practice of using up everything they found here when they arrived had changed Mother Earth forever. Creatures we lived beside since the dawn of time are disappearing from the land. The people here when the Europeans started coming are fewer each day.

As a white boy, there was nothing to fear.

As Pawnee, I would lose everything in time. These were my people in good times and bad. Lone Wolf knew how important deadly accurate archers would become in a successful hunt and in defense of our people. He knew how important it was for Running Horse to become a good chief. After Lone Wolf and Dark Horse were gone, our generation was expected to lead the village.

Chief Lone Wolf knew we couldn't win in a fight for our way of life. We would die with honor as the Europeans plowed the Pawnee under. We might not win, but our tormentors would know they had been in a fight once it was over.

We wouldn't fight until we had no choice. Once the fight was on, they'd think they grabbed ahold of a wildcat's tail.

Until that time, we'd go on hunts in the fall and in the spring, and we'd live the lives we had. I'd be with Running Horse, and we'd love each other as best we could. We wouldn't worry about things to come. We'd take care of today.

I knew I was Pawnee, when Lit'l Fox took me to the Pawnee village. I could just say, "I'm Pawnee too." How stupid would that look. I was as white as any white man, whiter than many of them. "Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm Pawnee."

Having the people in the village thinking Lit'l Fox brought home a fool or a jokester wasn't appealing to me. My suspicions had been confirmed more than once, but how did I tell them I was son of Proud Eagle? It sounded too crazy, but I would say it, once I was ready. I hadn't been ready.

My mother told me that Paw's people lived on the far side of the mountains he watched after supper each night. He lost his wife, his son, and his arm after renegades attacked his village. She said her son was named Fox something.

If my brother wasn't dead, why was I told Medicine Woman was Lit'l Fox's mother, and Dark Horse was his father? I'd heard Proud Eagle's name mentioned while I was supposed to be sleeping. I couldn't get the pieces to fit, and for that reason I stayed silent.

Lone Wolf knew I was Pawnee. He had to know. He wouldn't give Eagle feathers to a white boy no matter who he was in love with. If Lone Wolf knew, his brother Dark Horse knew. If Dark Horse knew, Medicine Woman knew. The only one in the dark was Lit'l Fox.

I couldn't turn things upside down by announcing to Lit'l Fox, "Oh, by the way, I'm your brother. Your father is my father."

That is the truth I was left with.

What if I was wrong? I would look like a fool. Why would Medicine Woman and Dark Horse lie to Lit'l Fox about who they were? If they were his grandparents, my father's parents, that made more sense. If he was my father's son, then, he was my brother.

I dreamed about being Pawnee. My dreams had come true. I finally knew what it was like to be Pawnee.

I let it go rather than let it make me crazy. I had work to do to be a good Pawnee. My best thing, hunting, needed to be relearned. Instead of a rifle, I was introduced to a bow. Yes, my Hawkin was likely to hit and bring down more game from a greater distance, but it wasn't how you did it here. The bow did the hunting, and I went about learning everything there was to know about the bow. Even when I lived at the cabin in the valley where the river runs, I was a hunter.

With Lit'l Fox and Running Horse at my side, I couldn't remain ignorant for long. They were good Pawnee boys. I could do worse than following them into a life that was pure Pawnee. I learned something about myself and my feelings. I spent a lot of time not feeling before. These days, I lived to feel Pawnee.

Like coming to the village, it wasn't anything I did. Lit'l Fox found me with a broken wing. He took me home with him to heal. He took me to a home where it was okay for me to be Pawnee. It was better than dreaming about being Pawnee.

If the rest of my life was this accidental, how can I know it all won't switch back? I'll wake up in the cabin in the valley where the river runs. Is it some game cooked up in the idle mind of an impish god? We are chess pieces being moved around on an invisible board.

Here I learned to smile and feel gratitude. I refuse to go back. I'll die here before I go back there. This is where I belong. I belong with my people. I learned to smile here. I learned to feel gratitude for the life I was living. I still wasn't sure of how it came about. I remember I went to get me a griz, and here I am.

Medicine Woman healed me. Dark Horse watched over me. Lit'l Fox stayed by my side. There was no indifference here. I was not like anyone else in the village, but I was here, one more living thing, one more Pawnee being Pawnee in my own way.

I did not know how to be in a village like this. I became myself in spite of all the warnings that I was not good enough, I did not belong here. No one in the village looked like me. I needed to learn, I am not a color, a race, or a cookie cut like every other cookie. I was free to be me if I dared to think I could.

No one rushed me into being this or that. It was up to me to find myself. They would feed and care for me while I looked. I became a hunter, because I always was one. I went about being the best hunter I could be with a bow.

I had a burr in my blanket, and it was time to get it out. The night before we left to go hunt on the mountain, I waited until Medicine Woman was stirring the pot over the fire pit in the lodge.

"Who is Morning Dove?" I asked, knowing the answer.

Medicine Woman dropped the spoon. Dark Horse turned his eyes on me.

"I heard the name from you, Medicine Woman. I've heard the name before. Who was Morning Dove? I think it is important that you tell me."

I wanted it to pin them down. I'd been made to feel more Pawnee than I had before. It was time to get the answers I needed to get my mind straight.

"You come Dark Horse," Dark Horse said in perfect Pawnee.

I understood every word.

I waited for him to leave the lodge first. I knew the proper order of things. Two eagle feathers didn't make me more Pawnee. Two eagle feathers couldn't explain the order of things. Only Medicine Woman and Dark Horse could explain.

We walked to the pasture. We walked across the pasture. We walked into the forest and Dark Horse looked into the stream. I stopped beside him.

"Where you hear name? I no say name."

"Medicine Woman say name to you. You were talking about Lit'l Fox. You stopped talking once she used the name. I hear name before."

"Where?"

"At the cabin in the valley where the river runs. Where my father, Proud Eagle lives."

Dark Horse turned into my eyes. He now knew what I knew. If he didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't, but he knew I knew the truth about who Lit'l Fox really was. I was his grandson, and to keep the secret from Lit'l Fox, he needed to deny his grandson. The man I knew as Dark Horse couldn't do that.

We walked and talked. He spoke Pawnee, and I understood each word. He made sure I understood. They knew I was son of Proud Eagle. Stories had come to the lodge about a one-armed Pawnee living in the valley of the river. Medicine Woman had known who the one arm man was, and she knew I was her son's son almost from the beginning, once I told her where I lived.

While I was healing. While I still had the fever and was under the influence of Medicine Woman's drink, I was the one who cried out Proud Eagle's name. Once I told Medicine Woman where I lived, she knew the day was coming when Lit'l Fox needed to be told where his father was, and why his grandparents raised him as their own rather than have him deal with the death of his mother.

Many in the village died the day the renegades came. Many escaped into the trees to lose themselves. When hunters came home from the hunt, they saw the slaughter, and Proud Eagle and Fleet Horse joined the chase of the men responsible. Ambushed by the same renegades, my father's brother, Fleet Horse, was killed with other Pawnee from the village.

Other warriors, along with my father were not found. The theory being, some of the men were wounded and not killed. They managed to get back on their horses to continue the pursuit, and they fell in a place that wasn't found.

I couldn't say what happened to the other men, but my father had fallen next to the trail. Phillip Dubois, trapper and adventurer, found him. He put my father in his wagon, nursed him, amputated his arm when it couldn't be saved, and on his way to St Louis to sell his skins, my father left the trapper's wagon, and once again he fell ill along the trail on his way home.

My mother's father found Paw not far from his home, and he took the wounded Indian home to be nursed by Maw. The rest was obvious.

Paw's story was known by no one in the village. I couldn't tell it until Medicine Woman and Dark Horse told Lit'l Fox who he really was. After that, I'd be free to tell Lit'l Fox I was his brother, and my father being his father, I would tell him what I knew, and not because my father told me, but because Maw did.

"You say, 'Proud Eagle.' You have fever. Not talk straight. Cry name."

That night when Dark Horse and I walked and talked in the moonlight, he now only spoke directly to me, once I told him what I knew, he spoke the only English I heard him speak. He wanted to be sure I understood.

It was important for me to understand his exact meaning.

"You say, 'Proud Eagle.' With fever. Very sick. Yell that name."

I laughed at my crazy mind. I said the names I heard in the wigwam. It was me all along.

"Dark Horse grandson," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Morning Dove Lit'l Fox's mother. We no tell Lit'l Fox story of death. No point. We were his parents. My brother, Lone Wolf, say raise as own. We not tell. You come. Medicine Woman know. Wrong hair. Wrong nose. Proud Eagle eyes. I am Proud Eagle's father. You are my grandson."

"Lit'l Fox is my brother," I finally said with certainty.

I had been right all along.

"Lit'l Fox brother," my grandfather said.

The heat boiled behind my eyes. I fought my tears. Lit'l Fox was my brother. There was more pulling me toward those mountains than I imagined. It explained a lot and having it verified did my heart good. Dark Horse was my grandfather.

Lit'l Fox was Tall Willow's brother. I wanted to yell the words.

My grandfather stood looking into the stream near the pond. He looked into as if he found strength from the flowing waters.

"Grandfather," I said in Pawnee.

My grandfather turned to face me, and I hugged him. Touching elders wasn't always the thing to do, but it's what I needed to do, and so I hugged him.

He hugged me.

I feared Dark Horse because of his silence. Now, he had spoken to me. What he said closed the distance between us. It would stay closed.

This was my father's village. These were my father's people. I had come home. This was my village. These were my people, and I belonged here.

My mind cleared.

All the pieces were now in place. I knew, and Lit'l Fox had to know. I would not be able to hold back the knowledge he was my brother.

My doubts and worries vanished the night I asked, "Who is Morning Dove?"

It was a loaded weapon that my grandfather unloaded for me. This question allowed the truth to come out. I was afraid to ask the question, but if had I not asked, we might never have been able to become the family we became. I might never have been sure that these were my father's people.

If I wasn't holding my grandfather, I'm sure I'd have flown around the pasture. A solid weight had been lifted off of me.

I was brother of Lit'l Fox, Medicine Woman was my grandmother, Dark Horse was my grandfather. This made Running Horse my cousin. Because Lone Wolf was uncle to Fleet Horse, that meant he was related to me. Did Lone Wolf know he was related to me before giving me the feathers?

Lone Wolf knew everything about his village. He had been told who I was. My head swirled with the removal of the mystery about who I was. It told me why I was so easily accepted in the village. I was a son of a son of the village.

I couldn't believe Lit'l Fox knew. He'd have called me his brother if he knew. He didn't know or even suspect it.

I felt a strong connection to Lit'l Fox. He did save my life, but what I felt was what I'd feel for my brother. What about Lit'l Fox. He had to be told.

"Come. We walk."

I walked beside my grandfather as he did his best to explain. I did my best to understand when he returned to speaking Pawnee. I knew all of the story now, and he put the pieces together the same way I had, only he knew the piece that came after my father saw Morning Dove and Lit'l Fox covered in her blood.

After Morning Dove was killed, Lit'l Fox was covered in his mother's blood. Proud Eagle saw this and he thought they were both dead. His thoughts became those of revenge. The warriors had been away hunting buffalo, and when they came back to the destruction, they went after the men who did this.

Fleet Horse, brother to Dark Horse returned to tell of Proud Eagle being shot, but he died from his wounds received in the ambush where Paw was shot. The renegades, knowing they'd be chased, waited to ambush the warriors.

While in my stupor, which kept me quiet enough to heal, I called out my father's Pawnee name. Medicine Woman simply got the verification of what she suspected all along.

Who would tell Lit'l Fox?