Dark Horse consulted with Medicine Woman, and she told me that I could tell Lit'l Fox the truth when we went hunting. In this way he'd have plenty of space and time to work out in his mind what I told him.

This both thrilled and scared me.

"I'll tell him," I said. "We're going to the mountain tomorrow. I'll wait until we have some time alone, and I'll start by talking about Proud Eagle. I'll tell him he is my father. I'll tell him about the attack on his village. I'll tell him that not only is Proud Eagle my father, he is his father too."

Medicine Woman nodded approval to the plan, once Dark Horse and I returned to the lodge.

She feared telling Lit'l Fox. There was another reason besides anger that they stayed silent for so long. Lit'l Fox's heart was not strong. It's why he tired easily and didn't come out to engage in the games with us some days. Medicine Woman feared he might react badly to the news his parents were actually his grandparents. Since I was his brother, the news coming from me would be less of a shock. Yes, his grandparents lied to him by virtue of their silence, but when all was said and done, he not only ended up with Parents that were his grandparents too. As an added bonus, he got a brother out of the deal.

All in all, he comes out ahead in the end. It sounded good to me, but how would it sound to Lit'l Fox?

I waited for Lit'l Fox to go to sleep in the lodge before going to Medicine Woman. When she stood, I put my arms around her, hugging her to me. When I came to her lodge, The top of my head only reached her chin.

I was taller than she was over four years later.

When she sat down, I sat in front of her, and her gentle hands brushed my hair with long gentle strokes. I put my head in her lap. Her fingers brushed my hair as we finally knew each other as grandmother and grandson.

It would be difficult to describe my feelings. Everything fell into place.

"Grandmother," I said.

"I am your grandmother," she confirmed. "I am mother of Proud Eagle."

I did not cry. I was too happy to cry.

I finally came all the way home.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

It was hard not to claim the first thing next morning, "You brother," but I couldn't. There was a plan and I'd stick to it for Dark Horse and Medicine Woman. I'd be careful to draw the lines where each belonged. At the end of my talk with Lit'l Fox, he'd know about his mother dying in the massacre. He would know about my father. He would know who I was.

That's where it got tricky. My father was his father. How do you tell a boy closing in on twenty, I'm your eighteen-year-old brother. I was almost sure I turned eighteen a few months before. I was going on my fifth hunt, and I didn't hunt the years I turned fifteen and then sixteen, when I was learning to walk and to hunt with a bow.

Running Horse wasn't waiting for us outside the Wigwam. We were leaving in the afternoon. It was nearly three hours to the mountain on foot, and we would camp on the flat land and would climb to the top tomorrow. There were camps on this side of the mountain that the Pawnee used. I saw several when Lit'l Fox brought me down, and I'd see more camps on our way up last hunting season.

I had a hunch that Running Horse was putting his gear together, and he'd do that before he came to the lodge. We wanted to reach the mountain before dark. We'd camp on the warmer flat land and begin the climb early the next day.

"No worry. He come," Lit'l Fox told me, as he saw my eyes search for him.

My brother watched me like he knew something I might not know. He was happy and he didn't know how happy I was and couldn't say.

I wanted to hug him and call him my brother. I turned away so hugging him wouldn't be so easy. I'd known Lit'l Fox for years. He saved my life, and now I'm nervous, because I have so much to say to my brother.

I want to laugh. I felt like I might cry.

I wanted to hug him. I wanted to call Lit'l Fox my brother.

When Running Horse came, I hugged him. I brushed my lips on his.

He smiled.

"You like Running Horse?"

"Tall Willow love Running Horse."

Lit'l Fox laughed.

He didn't know why I was so happy, and Running Horse was only part of it. When we hunted on the mountain, we went together to the place where we'd hunt, and Running Horse liked being held, while we waited for game to appear. He liked a lot more than being held, but that had little to do with game.

I liked holding him. Being close to him meant total peace. His smell, his touch, made my mind rush around inside my head. I wanted to stay on the mountain with Running Horse. I want to stay forever, holding him and being held by him. We did hunt. We didn't have a lot of time left to hunt, but enough time for Running Horse to shoot the biggest buck. Sometimes I would get a buck too.

I wondered how he would react to what I told Lit'l Fox. We were blood relatives. His father and my father were brothers. He knew his mother and father were dead. He knew Lone Wolf was his uncle who took him to raise.

That brought up an interesting question. What did Running Horse know? Did Lone Wolf tell him that Lit'l Fox's parents had met the same fate as his own?

What would he say when he found out we were cousins? Will his feelings for me change? I didn't want anything to change. There was one thing for sure, things would change even if I objected. All things change in time. On the plains, things changed too fast for comfort.

On the hunting trip, Running Horse and me would be alone for hours every day. Should I tell him what I would tell Lit'l Fox?

No, I didn't want to give him a chance to alert his best friend to what was coming. I knew Running Horse wouldn't do that, but I still wasn't going to tell him until I told my brother.

I needed to tell Lit'l Fox right away, while I had my thoughts straight in my mind. That meant telling Running Horse right away too. If things changed between us, I wouldn't think about that unless I had to. Love should hold us together, and I was telling him almost as soon as I found out the truth. He would understand that I had to tell Lit'l Fox first.

We left in time to make it to the bottom of the mountain before dark. We brought dried meat and some sweet bread to eat that evening. We'd sleep on the bottom and move up to the first hunting ground by tomorrow evening. We'd try to leave enough time to hunt for fresh meat to eat tomorrow once we camp.

There was laughter and joy as we chased each other, rested from time to time, and drank from streams and ponds we passed. It was still fairly warm on the bottom, while snow covered the top of the mountain where we'd be hunting.

"When will white men stop coming?" Young Antelope asked as we sat around the fire that night. "Will they ever stop coming?"

"Keep coming," Running Horse said. "They are like the blades of grass. Tall Willow, you go to white school. They stop coming one day?"

"They take our land and everything on it of value, just as they've always done. They invade, plunder, and occupy what isn't theirs. They didn't escape Europe's harshness. They brought it with them. Always invading, taking. Always killing, destroying, fighting, claiming it as they who are civilized."

"We savages. We live peaceful lives. Live in harmony with Mother Earth. Take what we need, leave the rest for others to enjoy the bounty."

"When they have enough?" Running Horse asked.

"Never enough," I said. "The English and French have fought for five hundred years. They named one of their wars, The Hundred Year War. These people are related. Come from same family, and they fight. Always the fighting. No peace, and people have little to eat. Kings take all. Kill anyone doesn't like it."

I could hear Mrs. Taylor teaching us about European history. I never gave much thought to how Europeans lived. They lived far away, but it was the Europeans who kept coming. They didn't come here to escape the madness in Europe. They brought the madness with them.

"Killing, dying, they take anything of value, and they can say anything they like. They have weapons to back it up. No one thinks there is some way to stop the Europeans before they overrun us. It isn't talked about. You rarely want to talk about that which will end you."

"We will search for a way to get along with them, but they keep coming. One day see land they like. They take. We will protest about the treaty we make. They say, 'No make treaty with savage. Savage get off our land.'"

The quiet fell over our camp as we looked into our fire. Nothing to say.

"While there is plenty of room for everyone, they won't live along side of savages. The savages must go. Savages live in darkness. Good Christian people can't abide the darkness. They must kill us to bring on the light," Young Antelope said. "I will fight. I will die an honorable death defending that which is ours."

I knew that too much honesty coming from me wasn't welcome. We all knew the same truth. Once we might have believed that they might stop coming while there was still room for the Pawnee to live. It was late enough that we knew they would not stop coming until they took the entire country.

I told them what I knew as the boys sat wide eyed listening to every word I said. Once I realized what I was doing, I stopped talking.

Someone else could talk. These truths I knew. I needed to be more careful.

No one had anything else to say.

Running Horse squeezed my hand. He knew I spoke the truth.

One by one my companions moved into his bedroll.

I just told my friends they were all doomed. I wish I had stayed quiet. Was it cruel to tell them what was coming? I had not intended to be cruel.

Maybe they would forget my words by tomorrow. I hadn't been in Mrs. Taylor's class since forever, but I still remember her words. She knew the Europeans would never stop coming. She didn't mind as much as the Indians did.

I minded. I didn't know how to stop them. They had big guns.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

When Running Horse and I made love, we did it when we got off together without our friends. We couldn't make love in his lodge because Lone Wolf lived there. We couldn't make love in Medicine Wamon's lodge. It was a bit crowded.

We knew places where we could go to be together. On most days we went off holding hands and we might be gone an hour or two. It wasn't necessary to hide our affection, and what wasn't there to like about being in love?

We slept in the same buffalo skin Running Horse slept in at his lodge. No matter the temperature, it was comfortable, even when we needed to kick it off in order to cool down. We went to the mountain once the snow appeared, but the ice and snow hardly cooled us down once we got going good.

I suppose we could have gotten up and rolled in the snow to cool off, but we didn't. We turned down the buffalo robe and let the night air do what it did. After a time, we were back at it, and the night air cooled us off a little.

The hunt offered time to do many things, even hunt, but often, it wasn't what we did first. We left plenty of time to hunt, and we knew a couple of spots where we always got some big game.

How strange life can be. We will go to hunt on the mountain where Lit'l Fox found me. It was mid-winter, my brother had come to hunt alone. Each time we came to the mountain to hunt, I remembered the first time I was on the far side of the mountain we watched from the cabin in the valley where the river runs.

This time there were seven of us on the hunt, plus Running Horse and me.

When Lit'l Fox brought me down off the mountain, he had no idea who I was. I was a silly white boy determined to prove his manhood. He took me where I learned to be Pawnee, and I would be a man when the time came.

I went to a place where the truth took three years to get itself told. I was already more Pawnee than white by then. I can't imagine knowing who I was and not ending up with things being far different than they were. I needed to be more Pawnee to appreciate my Pawnee grandparents and the secret they kept from Lit'l Fox.

We would go to the mountain where Lit'l Fox found me. We would go as friends and allies. We had come home brothers. I could have died on that mountain the autumn I went to get my griz, and Lit'l Fox saved me. He took me home to live in a place I dreamed of being. He took me home, where I became Pawnee.

I felt the mountain's pull on me. I thought it was the call to prove my manhood. It was much more than it appeared to be. I was a lonely boy, caught between two worlds and belonging to none. The pull of the mountain on me was taking me to the village where I belonged.

Father Kelly would say, 'This was part of God's plan for you.'

If that was true, where was God all those years I lived a life with little more than rules and discipline? If there was a hand guiding me, guiding Lit'l Fox, so I would know my brother, and find my family, maybe it was the Great Spirit's hand.

I got so much more than a griz. I was no longer drawn to the mountain. It stood as a barrier between me and my old life. I had no desire to return to it. We gathered our gear and left the village on foot. We wouldn't take the horses. There was little food for them on top of the mountain, and the snow and ice would make it too dangerous to risk taking our horses. After reaching the bottom of the mountain, we set up camp to finish our climb the next day.

We took with us what we needed to build the sleds we'd bring the meat back on. We'd cut branches to use for the sleds. If we could get three to four bucks and various other critters, we would have a successful hunt.

There was excitement as we moved toward the mountain. There was laughter and chatter. The boys were in a playful mood. I walked with Running Horse on one side and Lit'l Fox on the other. We chattered about the hunt and our expectations of taking many bucks home.

We went to sleep one by one, and there was little left to say as the fire burned itself down to glowing hot coals. It gave off heat, but the first night, it wasn't really that cold.

Once we stepped foot on the mountain, it would get colder than cold.

As soon as we were up the next morning, we began to climb. The path changed a little as weather influenced where it stood. It wasn't hard to follow, even when it changed directions. It would be half a day to the snow line.

I remembered the forest with no trail to follow. I remembered being lost for days before finally reaching the mountain. I remember my hunger as we nibbled dried food and climbed the second day.

The other boys bragged about what they intended to do, and how each would bring down the biggest buck on the mountain. I didn't need to brag. I knew I'd bring down a fine buck, and the one Running Horse shot would be bigger. It's simply how it was. If anyone got a bigger buck than me, I wanted it to be Running Horse, and if it was Lit'l Fox, that would be fine too.

Lit'l Fox put my Hawkin in the corner of the lodge, the first time I was there. I hadn't touched it since the day he took me to the village. I wanted to learn to do things the Pawnee way, and they didn't have Hawkins.

That rifle would move with me when I changed lodges later on, but I didn't fire it again. It long ago needed to be cleaned to keep its preciseness. I did not hunt with the Hawkin, and I no longer took care of it.

It was a symbol of where I came from, and how things were done there.

We took frequent breaks while we climbed. We conserved our energy. Once on the top, we'd need to get meat if we didn't want to have dried meat again. Boys going on a hunt might start out with some dried meat to keep up their energy, but once on top, with game all around us, we wouldn't settle for dried meat. We would hunt until we had enough meat for all of us.

We were hunters, and we would get fresh meat.

That's when we'd sit and eat and celebrate the hunt and the hunters, doing what Pawnee hunters did for a thousand years. Our father's, father's, fathers hunted this mountain, but it was unlikely that our sons would hunt here.

The railroad was being built to cross the country, and a journey that could take as much as a year would take less than a week, once its tentacles stretched in all directions. I imagined my Pawnee brothers might not have seen a train yet.

It was a mighty symbol of progress. Progress for some meant death to many, and death to a way of life older than any European country. It meant death to our way of life. I saw a railroad train in a book, but it was a powerful sight.

We enjoyed our freedom and the ability to provide meat for our village. We ate until we were stuffed, and we laughed and sang songs of the Pawnee hunters and warriors passed down to us through the ages.

We wouldn't stop to build a fire and rest on the way back with our sleds full of meat. We saved dried meat to eat on our way home. Taking as many sleds as it took to carry the meat we killed home. We wasted no time getting there.

Once home, the celebration would start and go on as long as it took to prepare the meat for storage, while eating our fill of meat while it was plentiful.

We camped just below the snow line. It was a couple of hours to the top, and a few minutes to several sources of water. Running Horse got into the buffalo robe with me. He carried it rolled up on his back the first day. He wore it the second day. It was a familiar place to sleep.

It was plenty warm, even on the mountain, but we created our own heat, and the firepit was only a few feet away. It was good to have the fire close.

Our camp on top was close to several sources of water, and we could usually bring down a rabbit or two and a woodchuck or other meaty animal large enough to feed all of us the first night with enough left over for everyone to get a piece of hot meat in the morning once we built up the fire.

The way of the hunt didn't change much. Sometimes weather, a turned ankle, an unexpected fall might slow us, but we would be in camp and ready for the hunt by the second evening no matter what we encountered on our journey to the snow line campsite. We were all ready to hunt, after a good night's sleep.

I was excited about the hunt. I was excited about talking to Lit'l Fox. Once we were on top, I would pick the time to get him to go off with me. If someone made a kill right away, I would get Lit'l Fox to come with me while the meat was being readied to go on the fire. The first kill always meant a fine meal.

I didn't want to rush it. I would take my time, I was planning what to tell him, how to tell him. I couldn't just say, "I'm your brother."

I was a hunter. By this time, I was good with the bow. I wore the two feathers Chief Lone Wolf gave me. The feathers reminded me that I was a good hunter, and I would bring back my share of meat. I no longer worried I wouldn't make the shots I got at game. My confidence as a bow hunter was high.

Running Horse and I hunted together. That was the case for almost all the hunts I had been on since arriving at the village. At first, Running Horse looked after me. I was new. He was concerned. He no longer hunted by himself. These days, we looked after each other while we hunted.

We stayed close even when we stood to bring down a buck or two. Hunting was best when we stayed close. For me, shooting a buck wasn't the only thing I planned to do when Running Horse guided me to the spot he picked.

There was always a tree for him to lean against, and moss that was easy on my butt when I leaned back against his chest as his arms closed around me.

I was both warm and excited to finally be in his arms. We were here to hunt. We were here to be together. We were here because we belonged here. This is the kind of thing I once did alone. I'd been hunting for as far back as my memory took me. I had never done any hunting as nice as the hunting I did with Running Horse. His arms were strong, and his lips nibbled at my neck and ear.

The amazing thing was, Running Horse could do all of this and keep his eye open for game at the same instant he worked on driving me crazy. It wasn't a bad kind of crazy. It was the kind of crazy that was crazy about Running Horse.

Lit'l Fox didn't have the stamina to keep up with the two of us.

Running Horse told me how Lit'l Fox was sick a lot as a child. The only thing given to Lit'l Fox in our lodge that I didn't get was the drink Medicine Woman fixed for him at times when he was weakest and out of sorts.

I could smell the same bitter drink that had me off my feet and asleep for months, while I was healing. Lit'l Fox did not look sick to me, but no one doubted anything Medicine Woman did, and I wouldn't be the first.

There were times he didn't leave the lodge for days on end. Lit'l Fox didn't entertain the idea of hunting with Running Horse and me. We went fairly far from where the camp was, and we moved fast in order to get to where we were going to hunt, and to get our hands on each other.

Because of being the oldest boy, Running Horse spent a lot of time with Lit'l Fox, the next oldest boy. Once they walked a ways, they slow to be sure he kept up, when he looked the most fatigued. He hadn't been sick since I got there, but I knew of my brother's weakness long before I saw him faulter on a hunt.

It's why Lit'l Fox didn't go with us when we left camp on top to hunt. Lit'l Fox went with Young Antelope and Big Bear. They were the youngest hunters and new to the hunt. This made them a bit unsure of themselves. In this way, it wasn't about Lit'l Fox's weak heart. It was about an older boy's wisdom. He is looking after the younger boys who looked up to him. If they had questions, Lit'l Fox had the answer.

Not only did it give Running Horse and me time to be alone together, but it was necessary for Lit'l Fox not to push too hard once we were on the mountain.

I asked Medicine Woman about Lit'l Fox's lack of stamina.

"It is illness of heart," she told me. "Lit'l Fox not strong. It is a struggle for him to keep up. He knows not to push himself too hard. He push anyway. Make self sick. Needs to drink medicine and rest until he is stronger."

From the start on the morning of the hunting at the top of the mountain, Young Antelope and Running Horse both had a buck by noon. It was cleaned and brought to camp to cut up and allow to sit overnight before Young Antelope and Big Bear would pull the sled back to the village.

Along with the bucks were an abundance of rabbit, two antelope, and various other game that went back on the first sled. It was best to send two hunters with each sled, just in case of trouble. At time wolves got the scent of the meat if it wasn't completely frozen for the trip back.

Wolves were smart enough to avoid men, unless they were starving or sick. This also allowed one hunter to pull while the other one rested after he pulled for a couple of hours. Young Antelope and Big Bear would reach the village on the second day, and the celebration of thanks would follow. It wouldn't end until all the hunters were home and the meat was prepared to be stored.

It would supply the village for a few months if we hunted small game and fished between hunts.

In spring, before the last freeze, the hunters went to the mountain again.

With hundreds of pounds of meat needing to be on its way to the village, we were sure we couldn't be on the mountain more than three days. We'd butcher and prepare the sled to carry the meat back on the morning of the fourth day, and the older stronger boys would have the rest of the meat at the village by dark.

Once on the bottom, we could pull the sled at a trot, taking turns pulling it.

We did cut a good size roast off one of the bucks before it went back. Having such good fortune right away meant we could take the time to enjoy the fresh venison before sleeping the first night on top. We planned for two more nights, and the fourth morning.

We would have the sled ready to go. Getting the sled to the bottom would take several hours, but once we reached the flat land, we'd each take turns pulling the sled at a trot. We'd not stop, which meant eating dried meat. We'd get the meat to the village after dark, but there would be people expecting us, and almost all the meat on the second sled would be butchered, smoked, and stored.

As I woke up that morning, I still hadn't told Lit'l Fox, and we'd be gone all day hunting in a spot Running Horse liked. We never failed to get a buck there, and so I would need to wait until we came back to talk to my brother.

Like his uncle Lone Wolf, Running Horse would be chief. He had the tools a respected and loved leader needed. I had no desire to lead. There was too much responsibility. I doubted I'd be an effective leader. For fourteen years I did what I was told. Running Horse was learning to be free, to think free, and to learn the lessons to make him the fine Pawnee he has become.

From the first time I laid eyes on Running Horse, he was the most beautiful Indian I had seen. In my lifetime, that would remain true. He was magnificent and always would be.

"Can I hunt with Lit'l Fox tomorrow?" I asked him.

"We were going to the far side tomorrow. We always get a buck there," he said, rolling over to look at my face.

"I need to talk to Lit'l Fox. I don't know how he will react, and if we hunt together, we'll be alone and he might react better if we're alone."

"React. What is this react, Tall Willow?" Running Horse inquired.

"It's not something I can talk about right now, Running Horse."

"We no keep secrets. What you can't tell Running Horse?"

"I can't tell you. I need to tell Lit'l Fox. I don't know how to tell him."

He nuzzled his chin against my neck and kissed me so gently that a chill ran through me.

"You tell Running Horse everything. You can tell this," he said, kissing my neck.

"He's my brother."

Running Horse stopped kissing my neck.

"We all brothers," he said, not sure he wanted to hear anymore.

"Morning Dove was my father's wife. She died in massacre. He go with your father to kill renegades. Your father killed. My father wounded. My mother nursed my father and I got myself born. That's how I know what I know."

Running Horse rolled on to his back.

"You in village for years. You know this how?" he said, becoming serious.

"I need to be alone when I talk to Lit'l Fox. We go to the other side of the mountain in two days. Tomorrow, I hunt with Lit'l Fox."

"Take all day to tell? You tell in the morning. I come back and we hunt on far side of mountain. Get buck."

"That's a better plan," I said. "We'll go to far side in the afternoon."

"How you know this?"

"I suspected. I was almost certain that Dark Horse and Medicine Woman were my grandparents. A few days ago, Dark Horse told me the story. I told him that I'd tell Lit'l Fox that I was his brother while we hunt."

I could tell Running Horse did not like what I told him. The event was known because he didn't live with his parents. He lived with Chief Lone Wolf. He'd been told the story behind Lone Wolf becoming his guardian. He knew the story of the massacre. What Lit'l Fox knew about it, I wasn't sure. He knew Medicine Woman as his mother and Dark Horse as his father. Dark Horse didn't tell me about the massacre, but it was part of village lore.

I would wait until the morning, and I'd ask him to hunt with me.

"You no hunt Running Horse?" Lit'l Fox wanted to know.

"This afternoon go with Running Horse. We need to talk, Lit'l Fox."

"We talk all the time. We talk in lodge. We can talk then, hunt now."

"You and I will hunt now," I said as if I had it all planned out.

"We hunt now," he told me as we got ready to leave our camp.

"No hunt Running Horse," he said, as we walked.

"Hunt Running Horse in afternoon. We hunt in morning," I told him.

"Lit'l Fox was shooting a rabbit before I could get warmed up. I shot a rabbit while he cleaned his and we were both cleaning rabbit, and preparing to take it back to camp, because all the meat we hadn't frozen had been eaten.

We had enough rabbit for everyone, but I still hadn't told Lit'l Fox."

As we came into camp with the two rabbit, Running Horse and Young Antelope were already there with two rabbit they killed, and the smell of cooking rabbit was heavenly. My rabbit never smelled that good when I cooked it. I needed food and I needed it now, and I took a stick full of rabbit when it was handed to me. I had all day to have the talk with Lit'l Fox, although our days on the mountain were getting fewer every day.

"You talk Lit'l Fox?" Running Horse wanted to know between bites of rabbit.

"No, we got rabbit right away. Bring to cook and you're cooking," I said in my defense.

"Tell me what?" Lit'l Fox asked like he had no idea what.

"Serious talk?" Running Horse said. "Bit secret to tell," Running Horse said far more than I was comfortable with him saying.

I wanted to do this myself, but every time I was about to tell him, I didn't.

I knew I shouldn't tell him first. How could he say that with Lit'l Fox standing right beside me eating rabbit?

"Big secret," Lit'l Fox said. "When we keep secrets?"

"He insist," Running Horse said. "Must not speak of it."

"Tell Lit'l Fox secret," my brother said with skepticism.

"What secret this?" Young Antelope asked.

"The massacre," I said, not thinking anyone would want to hear more.

"And," Young Antelope said. "What secret? We know massacre."

"Massacre kill the mother of Lit'l Fox."

"And…?" Young Antelope asked.

"Lit'l Fox father go to avenge mother after massacre. There was ambush. Proud Eagle was wounded, left for dead. Fleet Horse wounded. He die after riding back to village."

"No secret," Big Bear interrupted. "What secret?"

"Proud Eagle was son of Medicine Woman, Dark Horse," I said.

"My father's brother," Running Horse said. "He dead. Killed when Fleet Horse shot. My father come to village. Tell of ambush before he dies."

"Proud Eagle didn't die. Proud Eagle is my father," I said.

"He die. No come back. You speak foolish," Young Antelope said.

"Proud Eagle not die. He is Tall Willow's father. I am Lit'l Fox's brother. Your parents are your grandparents. They are my grandparents. They are Running Horse's grandparents," I said, feeling exhausted by meeting resistance. .

How did everyone end up in the middle of my talk with Lit'l Fox?

This wasn't the plan.

Why didn't I tell him while we were cleaning our rabbits?

"Lone Wolf tell Lit'l Fox grandson of Dark Horse, Medicine Woman. What matter this? It change nothing. Medicine Woman, Dark Horse raise me."

I looked at Running Horse. He shrugged.

"You knew already?"

"You say secret. I didn't know what you want. Yes, I knew. Lit'l Fox knew. Nothing changes. Everything is like it is, after you tell secret."

"Lit'l Fox knew." I said again.

"Know mother and father dead," Lit'l Fox said. "I grow up in lodge of Medicine Woman and Dark Horse. They act as my parents. They grandparents."

"Proud Eagle is my father," I reminded him. "I'm your brother. You didn't know that."

"You brother up here," Lit'l Fox said, pointing at his head. "Now, you brother by blood. What difference? You brother in heart already. I have no brothers. I have Tall Willow. You brother."

"I'm your brother. Proud Eagle thought you were dead. I'm told you are brother who died in the massacre. I wasn't sure you were my brother, but the thought crossed my mind. Dark Horse tell me all last night."

"I don't think so," Lit'l Fox said. "We have father I never know. You know. He is your father. Dark Horse my father, my grandfather. Proud Eagle leave. He doesn't come back."

I threw my arms around him and hugged him. He hugged me back.

"Take you long time to say so little," Lit'l Fox said. "You like brother because you are brother. Okay. It no change anything. We always be brothers."

"You not do so much hunting," Barking Dog said. "You want get hands on each other."

We all laughed.

"That too, now that all our secrets are told," Running Horse said.

After we all had plenty of rabbit, I followed Running Horse over the top and we went to a spot on the far side to hunt. We hunted there before, and as I sat back in his arms, we watched a clearing a few dozen feet from our tree. There was a stream across the clearing, and we had good luck hunting there.

Hunting had already been good, and a couple more bucks, an antelope or two, and whatever else popped up, and we would be ready to go home.

As I thought over what Maw told me over the years, I wondered if Lone Wolf told Running Horse who I was early on.

As I sat taking warmth from Running Horse, I thought about Maw and Paw. Maw told me Paw stayed with Phillip Dubois until he thought he was strong enough to make it back to where his village once stood. He thanked the trapper for saving his life, and he left his wagon that was headed east.

He once again collapsed by the road somewhere near our town. Enter Father Kelly, who did the Christian thing, taking Paw home to save his life and for his daughter to nurse. It was a simple thing for the Profit to do, but it got complicated before it was all said and done.

Maw and he fell in love. They married in her father's church. He didn't like Paw, but he loved his daughter. Buying the farm in the valley where the river runs, they were far from town and him. He'd love his daughter from a distance, and the prying eyes of town people wouldn't get a close look at his daughter's farm hand, except we went to Lawrence's to get our goods, and the men in there made sure they got a good look at the half Pawnee.

Proud Eagle was Fleet Horse's younger brother. Which meant Lit'l Fox and me were cousin to Fleet Horse's son, Running Horse. I knew only that Fleet Horse died. Did he die trying to rescue his younger brother in the ambush? This was the part of the story Maw didn't know, and I found out a little at a time.

Once Fleet Horse returned to the village, he died. Medicine Woman could not save her son's life. Her other son was never seen again. They thought him dead until visitors to the village told of a one-armed Pawnee man living at the cabin in the valley where the river runs.

Once Lit'l Fox brought me to Medicine Woman's lodge to heal, I spoke to her about living in a cabin in the valley where the river runs. She knew I was her grandson from the first day, but fear over secrets kept, had her keep one more secret, until the day I asked, "Who is Morning Dove?"

It was all out in the open now, and the one thing that Lit'l Fox was never told. His father was alive, and he was my brother.

All of it happened years before I was born, but Lit'l Fox lived through it, even if he was too young to have any memory of the massacre. It was spoken of as the reason the village had been moved. Lone Wolf thought that best so the men who carried out the massacre didn't know where the village got to.

I put the pieces together for Running Horse. He knew parts of the story. He wasn't clear on what it all meant. It took me a while to get it straight in my mind.

Running Horse didn't ask a lot of questions. I told him about my life before I went to the mountain, but none of the details about where I lived and what I did altered anything. We were who we were. While the details were interesting, and it allowed me to know my grandparents as my grandparents, nothing else changed.

I needed to tell it as I understood it, and it took time for me to completely understand how all the pieces I knew fit together. It was all out now, I calculated.

Lit'l Fox knew what I knew, and little changed. My worries were for nothing. Things I worried about usually turned out like that. Life was weird that way.

I don't know how much the rest of the village knew about my father. I suspected Medicine Woman knew but wasn't talking. If she passed the word about her son's whereabouts, I can't say. Talking out of my head without knowing what I was saying I told her where I was from. She knew who I was by virtue of where I came from.

I felt as though I had gone in a circle along with my father. He left his village, nearly died, and ended up with the Profit's daughter nursing him. I left the cabin to get me a griz, not to mention prove I was a man while doing it, and I ended up in the village he left nearly twenty years before.

Why Paw didn't return to his village, I can't say, but his village wasn't there after Chief Lone Wolf moved his people to a more isolated spot to keep them safe. If Paw had gone to the village where he knew it was, it had been burned and no one was there. They didn't even bury the dead in that spot. They buried them once they found the place where the new village would be.

I can't even imagine what Dark Horse and Medicine Woman thought once I told them I was from the cabin where they knew my father lived. They were grandparents of a grandson they didn't know, and I was in their lodge. That had to throw them off balance.

Proud Eagle had two sons.

They then kept this secret for years. Then a slip of the lip gave me an opening to find out who these people really were. They were far too kind to simply be good Samaritans. They made sure I healed and grew strong. They didn't want anything to change either. They didn't know how to explain it to Lit'l Fox and so the words remained unsaid until the name Morning Dove came up.

That's when I knew. Morning Dove was my father's wife, Lit'l Fox's mother.

I worried more about Running Horse's reaction. Lit'l Fox could count his lucky stars, he had Dark Horse and Medicine Woman for grandparents. He could have trouble with it at first, but in time he'd see they were protecting him from a difficult truth he was better off not knowing until he was grown.

Lit'l Fox's weak heart had to be considered too. Leaving well enough alone was what my grandparents decided to do. As much as I worried about the secret I carried, everything was known, except for me being Lit'l Fox's brother.

Why Lone Wolf hadn't told his brother that Lit'l Fox knew the entire story about the massacre, I can't say and wouldn't ask. The whole truth was out there now and I just wanted to let it be. I worried about it for too long already.

Our grandparents acted as parents to Lit'l Fox. They protected Lit'l Fox and cared for him. There was no lie in that. Waiting until he was old enough to understand what happened to his mother and father was the kind thing to do.

The only problem with how I saw things, Chief Lone Wolf had already described the massacre to Lit'l Fox, and he knew who his grandparents were, but it changed nothing for him, and the only thing that did change, instead of me being a brother he adopted, I was his real brother, which didn't really change anything either. We couldn't have been closer than we already were.

Why did I think the information I had was so significant? It was all out now, and in spite of the mess I made of it, it was a relief that I could speak the truth and come away knowing everyone knew I was Pawnee.

We all knew who everyone was, and I had it all straight in my mind.

Maybe I spent too much time thinking about this stuff.

After everyone ate their fill, we had enough rabbit and deer meat to cook and feed us for the next two days, but if we had good luck that afternoon, we would freeze the meat on top overnight and start back tomorrow morning.

Lit'l Fox got an antelope. I got two more rabbits. By the time we came in we needed to make another sled to hold all the meat, and we would go back for a few hours more to see what we could see.

We ate more rabbit and gave thanks for the bounty in the hunt. We would go back the next morning.

We would start one sled once we were up, and then we would bring the second sled down once we prepare the meat for travel.