These many years later,I remember some of the things that happened concerning that night spent drinking whiskey with Cletus Smythe. I remember Cletus singing a song called "The Rascal's Return", and that he was in tears by the end of it. I remember singing for him Fish Hawk and the Bear, an old Nez Perce song about a man who went hunting and was cornered by a bear that turns out to be the spirit of his uncle who died in a snow storm many years before. I accompanied the song with a dance that went with it, but which diluted the touching aspects of the story, because I kept tripping over rocks and roots while doing it. After that song, I remember nothing until waking up to a throbbing headache and the smell of coffee, left in a tin cup for me by Cletus. Next to it was a stale biscuit which some ants had found first, and some jerked elk meat. I got to my feet and began to walk toward the river to bathe, when I noticed my left foot was extremely painful to put weight on, result of an apparent campfire burn. The sun was very high before I started off again down the Missouri.

Several days passed uneventfully until I smelled wood smoke one hot afternoon. In a bend of the river, I found a large number of lodges that had been strongly built of mud and timber, and thatched with saplings and pine boughs. The entire village was silent except for the occasional bird song or buzz of flies. Grass grew hip-high in the lanes between the houses. At last I saw a thin column of smoke rising from one of the larger lodges. I tied my pony to a bramble and approached the lodge, pulling aside a blanket that covered the only opening. It was dark and quiet inside, and smelled of musk and sage. Then I heard a woman's voice, unsteady, mumbling in an unknown language. It was not the white man's language, but when she looked at me, half-risen from her pallet on the floor, she said a white man's name....Emmett.

I smiled, although she couldn't make much of that in the dark, and I tried some words in my language, and some words I had learned from Cletus. "Friend", I said. I took some dried pine and lay it on the coals, and as it caught, the light fell on her. I had heard of the Death Rash, although it had never fallen on my people. But in the light it was clear to me that it had fallen on this woman. I suppose my first instinct was to turn and run, but she held out an empty earthen cup for me to fill with water, her hand shaking, and as I filled it I saw another small figure beside her, clinging to her but staring back at me without fear, hair black as the night sky, eyes blue as a mountain lake.

I stayed with the woman, bringing water and wood, washing her bedding in the river, trying to feed her, though she took no nourishment. The child, a girl of 3 years, had somehow escaped the small pox, although she made me understand that her father had died of it, the man named Emmett. So had the rest of the village, died or fled in fear of dying. This little girl was named Hannah. She was my companion during the many spells when her mother lay sleeping, helping me dress meat from the deer I slew, carrying water, then returning to lie by her Mother when she awakened or to comfort her as she tossed in fitful fever. When at last, after several days, her mother died, Hannah even helped me to make a grave for her by where her father had been lain.

Hannah rode before me on my pony after that. We traveled some three days travel down the river, when I awoke one night with my head pounding, thirsty and in a cold sweat. Before I could reach the bank of the river, I must have fainted. I was awakened again by the little girl patting water on my face with her hands. I was able get back to the camp and to collapse on my blanket, but could do little else. I recall hours passing with no clear distinction of day or night, but I do recall Hannah bringing water to me, singing to me, clinging to my side as she had done her mother. During a moment of clarity, Hannah asleep beside me, I resolved to take her, break camp, and move on to anywhere but this place. Steadying myself, using my spear as a staff, I rose and began to pack our meager gear. Finally I awakened Hannah, who happily mounted the pony.

The pony ambled along the river at his own pace, Hannah keeping up a steady jabber to try to keep me awake. I had no strength, and the time came when the effort need to stay on the pony was more than I could bear. Then Hannah cried out "Tala-Cho!" and at the same time I smelled the smoke. Something was burning nearby, just down stream.

It had been a white man's cabin. All that was left now was a rubble foundation and some still-smoking timbers. And before it, sitting as if to watch the last gleaming embers grow cold, was a woman. At the moment we glimpsed her, she saw us as well, and stood. I rode toward the woman, her eyes hollow, but a vague smile playing on her mouth as Hannah called out to her. Soon Hannah had dismounted, and the woman kneeled in front of the little girl to speak with her. I noticed the woman was carrying a child.

As I dismounted, I remember saying "friend", but no more, for I suppose I collapsed. I was useless to them, in and out of a raving fever, but the two of them cared for me, made camp and provided food for me. The woman bathed me, and held my hand in hers. There were several nights when I could feel death hovering in the air around me. Once I woke, the two of them sleeping, the stars scattered above me, all silent, but with the sense that something strong and ominous was approaching, like a great powerful beast. As I stared up at the night sky, a shape suddenly loomed over me, blotting out the stars. Sitting up, I tried to stand but couldn't. Reaching for my spear, I could not find it. The creature heaved a great breath, shook dust from the thick matted hair of his back. The coals of the nightfire flared, revealing the great head and body of the old buffalo.
"Grandfather," I said," you have come to take me with you." He walked several paces, turning as if beckoning me to follow. "Wait," I said. "I wish to go." But I remember that I could not rise, even for this death. A cold wind sprung up, and I shivered in it, pulling the blanket closer. My skin was wet and freezing. I raised my head to look for the Buffalo, and he was gone. I slept.

In the morning, the woman smiled at me as I sat up. I was hungry, and told her so. Hannah laughed, and tried to climb onto my shoulders, but the woman held her back.

In two more days, we were able to leave that place; the woman, who was named Katherine, Hannah, and me. But of course, you know what happened after that. Katherine and I raised Hannah and Jacob in this place that has changed so much from the wilderness outpost it was when first I came here. Katherine and I have prospered as farmers, earning enough to enter into a highly profitable drayage business with the infamous Ella Forsyth. Ben and Dixie Huntington were married, and Ben elected to Congress in 1848. Some say he'd have gone even farther if certain incidents of Ben and Dixie's early years hadn't been brought to light in the St Louis Dispatch. Wolf Brother...well, I have no idea what happened to him. I hope he is getting fat on salmon in his old age up in Idaho. I think he would be happy to know that the only child Katherine and I had together, Zeke, has the same rebellious spirit, and the same feisty wildness in his look that takes me back to my youth in the far-away Shining Mountains.