With the day going from bad to worse, the stunning nature of it made me go dumb.

My life was conflict free. Then, I went to the New York City Stockyard to meet Phillip.

I'd never known anyone who attracted conflict the way Phillip did. From the teamsters to the Stewarts, to Nester, to the cavalry, to Iron Pants band of Pawnee, trouble seemed to be waiting along each trail we found ourselves on.

This was the West. It proved to be nothing like the South. Going by wagon across a mostly unsettled land, was unsettling. We couldn't outrun trouble. It was out there, waiting for us.

We ate after the gathering stood still for a while. Once the day went on, and people went back to their every day activities, food was brought to the three of us. Samuel's friends stayed close to hm. They knew we were about to leave the village to their sorrow.

We'd interrupted the mourning and were a distraction from the grieving. The Pawnee took care of business, and we returned for the funeral rites that were customary for Pawnee.

Life had to go on. Life would go on. Life did go on, and after we were fed, Iron Pants supervised the bringing of supplies that we badly needed. There was fresh meat, raw vegetables and breads. It was like a feast in waiting. It was a sight for sore eyes.

A middle age woman came up to where we sat carrying a deerskin shirt. It didn't have any wear on it the way the pants and loin cloth had been worn by one of the boys before giving it to Samuel.

The woman spoke to Phillip, because he had been speaking Pawnee since we arrived at the village that morning. Handing over the shirt, she walked away.

"Samuel, this is a gift from Happy Woman. She made it for her son. He was killed in a skirmish with Commanche warriors. She made it for him but after he died, she put it away as a reminder of her son. She wants you to have it, because you need a good shirt."

Samuel took the shirt and he looked after the woman. He ran to her, kissing her cheek and telling her, "Thank you."

She was laughing as she went back to her teepee.

"Nice people," Samuel said when he walked back to the wagon.

We were all well fed when the wagon began to move, and we'd have food until we got to where we could buy supplies.

It was a quiet wagon. I sat beside Phillip. Samuel rode Chestnut beside him. We needed to go south for a while before we came to the trail west. We took the right turn and went our usual mile an hour. None of us had anything to say.

We'd gone no more than an hour, when a creek appeared on our right. We followed it for another hour before coming to a clump of trees that offered shade. It was early to call it a day, when we had gone but a few miles in the last three days, but Phillip guided the wagon up in between the tall trees to get us out of the late afternoon sun.

I helped Phillip in unhitching the horses. Samuel unsaddled Chestnut and took him to the creek to drink, and then he went back for Dobbin. By that time, Phillip and I were taking the horses that pulled the wagon to water them. Phillip hobbled them on a patch of grass that would keep them busy grazing for the next few hours.

I wasn't hungry but Phillip built the fire to make coffee, and I got the grinder and beans.

Grinding away, I watched Samuel talking to Chestnut and Dobbin as he hobbled them near where the other horses grazed. He came back to where the fire was burning and he stood looking into the flames as Phillip got the cups to wash in the creek.

"Nice people," Samuel said, still feeling his deerskin clothing.

I hadn't mentioned my mixed feelings about the slaughter of the buffalo hunters. Phillip took less blame in my mind, because we came in to the middle of a tragedy in motion. As a man who knew these people, refusing their invitation to accompany them was never possible. For me, it represented the reason why the Indians were savages.

I knew both sides of the story, but I wouldn't have known if I didn't feel obligated to go with Phillip to the little girl's funeral bier. Most white people were never going to be witness to why Indians could act like savages. Their's was an ancient society. They had their ways.

"Indian justice is swift and not always measured. The wagon those men rode in killed that little girl. Everyone in the wagon rode off as if her life had no value. It made them all guilty."

"It didn't hurt that these men were killing their food source," I said.

Phillip smiled.

"John, to say that these men slaughtering buffalo had nothing to do with the attack on them would make me a fool. Yes, they were easier to kill because of their chosen profession."

"How many men have you killed, Phillip?"

At first I thought he might hit me. When he began laughing, I knew he wouldn't hit me.

"I could tell you that you're treading on ground that is none of your business, but we've come too far for me to become a liar now. I killed two men. I might be considered an accomplice in killing two other men. They were buffalo hunters, and my brother, Lit'l Fox, killed both of them, but I was with him when he did it."

"Buffalo hunters?" I asked, sensing a theme.

"Why did you kill two men?" Samuel asked, saving me from needing to ask him why.

"First, I'm Pawnee. I am Tall Willow."

"Why aren't you with your people?" I asked, worried less about men Phillip had killed.

"That is a long and complicated story, John."

"The two men I killed were responsible for my brother's death," he told me.

"Lit'l Fox?" Samuel asked.

"Lit'l Fox," Phillip said.

"Who did you kill?" I asked, thinking that was why Phillip wasn't with his people.

"Major Meeks, a cavalry commanding officer. Tall Elk, a traitor to my people. I did what needed to be done. By killing Major Meeks, I put my people in danger. If I didn't run away, they'd have come and slaughtered the people in my village. By leaving, I hoped they'd be more concerned with catching me than killing my people."

"You ran away?" Samuel asked.

"I took a new identity and I ran for my life," I said.

"You became Phillip Dubois," I said.

"I became Phillip Dubois."

"Why Phillip Dubois?"

"That is a complicated story," Phillip said.

"We're going somewhere? We moved five miles in three days."

"I was raised white. My father was Pawnee. Phillip Dubois picked my father up along a trail in Northern Colorado Territory. My father had been wounded chasing renegades that attacked his village while the men were off hunting. My father's wife was dead, and he thought Lit'l Fox was dead, when he went with other warriors to track down the culprits."

"Your father is Pawnee?" Samuel wanted to know.

"My father is Pawnee. Phillip Dubois found him on the side of the trail. He'd been wounded when the renegades who attacked his village waited in ambush to kill anyone who came after them."

"Who was Phillip Dubois?" I asked.

"He was an adventurer, a trapper, and a man of the west. He was carrying his skins to St Louis, and he picked up my wounded father, nursed him, as he moved east. My father left the trapper, because he didn't want to go east. He collapsed along the trail trying to get back to his village. My grandfather picked him up to nurse him, took him home to my mother, and it's obvious what happened after that, and I'm the result."

"You were raised white?"

"I was. I could pass as white, because my skin is white. My grandfather was a preacher and a bigot. He hated my father, because his little girl fell in love with him. I was born in a cabin in the valley where the river runs, a few hundred miles northwest of here."

"How did you meet your brother if you were brought up with white people?" Samuel asked.

"When I was fourteen, I'd gone as far in school as I could go. For my fourteenth birthday, my mother gave me a Hawkin rifle. As rifles go, it's as good as fine rifles get. For years something was eating on me from the inside. I knew I was part Pawnee. I knew nothing about the Pawnee part of me. I knew enough about my white side, that made me want to find out about my Pawnee side, but I had no way to do that. I settled on going to get a grizzly bear to prove to my father, I was a man."

As probably happens to a lot of boys, I thought I was a man, and I thought I was capable of going to the mountains, kill a grizzly bear, and get him home to show my father. Had I been a man, I'd have known better, but that's what I set out to do."

"Did you get a grizzly bear?" Samuel asked.

"I did, and another grizzly bear got me."

"How's that," I asked, enthralled by more of the adventure in Phillip's life.

"I'd shot a good size griz, and before I could do anything about getting it home to show my father, another griz showed up. It was after me and I ran out on a shelf at the edge of the mountain, and I fell down on some rocks ten or twelve feet below where the griz was."

"What happened?" Samuel asked.

"I was waiting for the griz to come to eat me, and an Indian boy looked over the ledge. He'd seen tracks that led to where I'd fallen. When he looked down, I was looking up."

"Lit'l Fox?" Samuel said.

"My brother, Lit'l Fox, found and rescued me. He carried me back up to where I'd fallen from, and he made a sled to carry me back to his village. On the way there, two buffalo hunters came upon us. They made some lude suggestions about what they'd do to us, but Lit'l Fox grabbed my knife, thrusting it into the first hunter's chest. He stood with his bow and arrows, killing the second hunter about twenty feet away. I couldn't move. I couldn't have done anything to stop them from doing what they wanted to us."

"Your brother saved you a second time," Samuel said.

"I'd known him for less than a day and he saved my life twice. That was long before either of us knew we were related. He was doing what came naturally to him. He'd come to the mountain to kill a deer, and instead, he comes home with his brother."

"That's why you didn't stop at the general store once we got to Kansas City? They're still looking for you."

"They don't stop looking for a man who killed a major in the cavalry. I've had run ins with cavalry, and besides my heart beating a mile a minute, nothing ever came of it. If they knew who I was, I'd be dead on the spot."

"That's why you were so emotionless about what happened to those buffalo hunters."

"I don't celebrate violence, no matter who is being violent, John. Indian Justice isn't as neat and well defined as white man's justice, but justice doesn't always appeal to everyone. Yes, the buffalo hunter is busy trying to starve us to death."

"There's other game," I said.

"Once you remove the main source of food, you leave secondary sources to fill the breach. The main source is large and capable of feeding everyone and still the number of buffalo hardly dwindles. I've heard that there were thirty to fifty million buffalo before they decided to kill them all."

I realized, as a speculator, if I had 30,000,000 buffalo, and 0 cattle, I'd speculate the buffalo into an inexpensive food source that could feed everyone in the country. I'd get rich selling buffalo meat. At the same time, I'd avoid importing less healthy and more expensive beef cattle from Europe.

"How'd your brother die?" I asked.

This was what I'd been hoping for since the beginning of the trek west. As close as Phillip and I were for month after month, I knew there was more to the man than I'd seen. Asking him questions hadn't unlocked what he kept hidden before today. I couldn't even imagine the life Phillip had lived.

"His wife was stolen by Meeks. Tall Elk helped. My brother's heart broke when he went to get her. He understood that he was helpless against a fort full of soldiers, where Morning Star had been taken. I found him a hundred yards from the gate of the fort. It turned out that Morning Star killed herself, realizing that Lit'l Fox was going to be killed and she'd be left in the hands of people who would do her harm."

"How did you kill the two men responsible?" Samuel asked.

"I called out Meeks. I called him out in front of his entire command. If he hadn't come out to face me, he'd be seen as a coward. He brought Tall Elk and another cavalry soldier out with him, figuring to make short work of dispatching me."

"How'd you kill them?" I asked.

"My bow."

"You killed all three of them?" I asked.

"I killed the two responsible. The third man had been the man who brought Morning Star's body out to me. I'd given him his life because he did what he needed to do, knowing I could have killed him. I didn't kill him when he rode out with Meeks and Tall Elk. I figured we'd had a meeting of the minds, and he wouldn't kill me. I was right. He said he'd stall the cavalry long enough for it to get dark, and then they'd wait until the next morning to come after me. I rode away with the bodies of my brother and his wife. He stalled the hunt for me until morning, allowing me to get away."

"You were a white boy. You lived with the Pawnee. You returned to being white," I said.

"That's the path I took. I am Pawnee. I've always been Pawnee. I am white because I can pass for white. If I stop passing, I'm a dead man. They don't stop looking for an Indian who kills a cavalry officer. I killed him with malice a few hundred yards from his command, and they wouldn't take kindly to my getting away and not facing cavalry justice."

"How do you adapt to being white, being Pawnee, and then, going back to being white?"

"I am Pawnee. I was never white. That which lived inside of me was struggling to get out all my life. I didn't know how to reach it to free it. My hunting trip to the mountain is what took me to where I could be Pawnee. I often imagined I was a wild Indian. The idea I went to the mountain from the south at the same time my brother went to the mountains from the north, wasn't accidental. His finding me came from us sharing the same blood. When my life was in danger, he felt it, and he found me. It's the only thing that makes sense. When he found me, he freed the Pawnee inside of me. Once that was done, I was able to become Pawnee. That's what had been eating on my insides all my life."

"How did the grizzly bear find you?" Samuel wanted to know.

"I probably killed his mate. I wasn't paying attention. I killed the grizzly bear, which is what I came to do. My hunt succeeded and I would prove to my father, I'm a man. The excitement meant I was careless, because I wasn't a man, I was an excited boy. The bear took a swipe at me about the time I least expected it. He knocked the Hawkin out of my hands, and I slipped away in the brush with him after me. No one had to tell me, when a grizzly bear is chasing you, you don't want to be caught, and I stood to run away, but he got between me and the only escape route, and as he closed in for the kill, I backed off the cliff on to a shelf below. I don't remember much after that. I couldn't move. My leg was broke under me," he said. "Lit'l Fox found the dead bear, my rifle, and the tracks the bear and I made going to the cliff I fell off of. When he reached the cliff, he looked over to see how far I had fallen."

"You were close to your brother?" Samuel asked.

"I was close to Lit'l Fox. He showed me how to be Pawnee. My grandmother, Medicine Woman taught me the language and Pawnee tradition while I healed in her lodge."

"Your brother lived with his grandparents?" I asked.

"His mother died in a raid on the village. His father, my father, went to avenge her, and what he thought was his dead son."

"But he wasn't dead," I said.

"He wasn't dead, and we met when we both went to the mountain we could see from where we lived."

None of it was that surprising. The storyline was extraordinary but knowing Phillip for all these months, seeing how he handled himself made every word believable.

"Where did you go when you ran?" Samuel asked.

"I went home to where I was raised. I changed my appearance, going back to being white. My parents provided me with what I needed to pass for white. I kept moving east, because it was the cavalry in the west that was looking for Tall Willow. I couldn't go back to being my parents' son. That would have put them in danger. They'd have had scouts tracking me, but my father knew how to confuse the trail so it looked like I was going north toward the mountain, when I actually was on the south side of the river moving east."

I got up to pour all of us coffee. I didn't want Phillip getting up while he was in a talkative mood. I'd been waiting to know his story since we'd met, and he was telling all, because we'd reached a point where telling it seemed like a good idea.

"I went east and then south. I worked on cattle ranches and on cattle drives. I took a job to guard a wagon with a gold shipment that was going to St Louis. It came from Oklahoma. It took a month and a half. I'd heard that the real Phillip Dubois had been in St Louis, where he took his skins to get the best price for them, but that was a few years before. I doubted we'd cross paths, and once I got the gold shipment where it was going, I'd get out of the city," he said, swirling the coffee in his cup as he looked inside it.

"What happened?" Samuel asked.

"Things, situations, have a momentum all their own. I walked into a situation that existed before I ever got to St Louis. I had my dog Demon who went with me when I guarded the gold. Demon is quite a dog, and Dan was quite a guy, and we all came to the same spot at the same time. Dan was curious about Demon, and when it was all said and done, I signed on to be a surveyor going west again, years after I was wanted for killing Meeks. John met Dan when we came through St Louis to drop off the wagons going further west. I guess I met Dan eight or nine years ago now. That gave me a chance to go back west with a reason for being there. I was employed by the 1st National Bank of Wichita, now just the 1st National Bank that has branches everywhere."

"That was the link that we shared. I went to New York City because I was ill and needed to see a doctor I trusted, and he knew George at 1st National Bank, who arranged for my passage west," I said. "That brought us together."

"That brought us together. I rode Dobbin east, because the results of a survey they wanted me to report on in person, and George was the man I dealt with in New York."

"We've come full circle, now. You are back where you came from," I said.

"Close to where I was raised, and a little further to my village, but where we will do our surveying isn't that far from where I lived the first twenty some years of my life."

"How did you go from being Pawnee to being white again. That had to be difficult."

"Hardest thing I ever did, John. I didn't give two hoots for my chance of getting away. I did not like being white the first time around, but I was a kid, and everything gets magnified when you are immature. I knew what I wanted, and I went after it, but avenging my brother meant giving up the life I loved. I became white in slow motion. First, I just went east, but there were more and more people when you went east. I took out of the way jobs on cattle ranches, and I hired on for a cattle drive. I was a face in the crowd," Phillip said.

"There's safety in numbers. I was in the right place at the right time to get the job of guarding the gold shipment. That's when I was exposed to a lot of people. Most of them were doing what people do. I did what I was doing. They were just people. I realized there wasn't any trick to it, you just went along your way. My opinion of white people changed. Men like Dan and George are good men. I realized they were in the process of destroying the way of life I lived, but everyone was moving west, and the life I loved was going to be destroyed sooner or later. The actions of a few white men meant little in the larger scheme of things."

"Will you ever go back?" Samuel asked. "To being Pawnee?"

Phillip looked into his cup, swirling the coffee inside as if it might hold the answer.

"I never wanted to leave. I'd be with my people now if I could. It's been a long time, and it's been on my mind, especially since seeing Iron Pants, being with people like me.

"Why Iron Pants?" I asked.

"Back before I left my people, Iron Pants rode from Oklahoma Territory where other Pawnee lived, and he road for over a week warning of the cavalry and a coming war. Because he rode so far so fast, he was given the name of Iron Pants," Phillip said.

Samuel laughed.

It was then the commotion started.

We were just getting ready to eat, and finish our talk, when there were horses all around us and a clatter, some confusing sound of voices and a merriment that defied these circumstances.

It was then that Samuel and his three Pawnee friends ended up in a tangle on the grass that covered the camping spot. The laughing and giggling were renewed from earlier that day.


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"Wagon Tracks"

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"Indian Justice"

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