Chapter 103: Chapter 103

Neither Appleton, nor his wife, Jane, quite knew how to treat me. I laughed on the inside of my mouth that this young couple drew their wages from Cuthan, who was as Indian as I was, yet were helpless to assign a station to me. From all the books I had read, the English were a class-conscious lot.

Crow Johnson made me welcome in the forge in his own stolid, undemonstrative way. He already had John pumping the bellows and Matthew in the loft forking hay.

“Have you seen any sign of the one we spoke of on my last visit?” I asked in Lakota when we managed a moment alone. I was surprised at how eagerly I put the question and at the flicker of disappointment when he had not, although he’d had word of Lance from a blood family from Laramie passing through last week on their way to the pipestone quarry on the big lake.

“The old man said he knew our friend and claimed he’d gone crazy. Says he kills his own now, as well as the whites.”