Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) by Bill Yenne

were being told across this country, words of
you
are spreading as well. You have heard of
them
. They will hear of
you
. We must go quickly.”
    As much as he would have rather spent the next hour—or the next lifetime—watching her in the moonlight, Cole knew that she was right.
    They bade good-bye to the trader’s wife, who was making her way to the outhouse as they mounted their horses, and rode away, guided by the stars.
    *   *   *
    â€œ K
OKUMEKIS KOKATOSIX KUMMOKIT SPUMMOKIT!
” N ATOYA said happily, looking up.
    â€œYeah, I agree . . . it’s fun to look at the stars,” Cole laughed, presuming that her words celebrated the heavenly spectacle of a clear night on the cusp of winter.
    â€œThat is a saying we have,” she said, continuing to gaze skyward. “I guess it is sort of a prayer . . . asking the moon and stars to give me strength.”
    â€œI sort of guessed that,” Cole said, putting the stress on the phrase “sort of.”
    â€œThey
hated
this prayer at the mission school . . . they wouldn’t let us say things like that. Finally an old padre came and asked about our prayers. At last, there was a black robe who understood . . . He thought it was splendid too.”
    â€œMe too,” Cole agreed, looking at the stars.
    â€œHe was also one who understood about the
nátosini
, the power of Es-tonea-pesta,” she laughed, pulling her buffalo robe tight about her.
    â€œWho’s
that
?”
    â€œThe maker of cold weather,” she smiled.
    â€œYeah, he’s sure working overtime tonight,” Cole agreed.
    In the predawn darkness, Es-tonea-pesta had the temperature near zero by the reckoning of the white man named Fahrenheit, but Bladen Cole felt sufficiently warmed merely by the presence of the girl named for the elusive Buffalo Stone.
    â€œTell me about Double Runner,” he said after they had ridden for about another half hour.
    â€œHis name is Isokoyokinni in Siksikáwa,” she said. “He is named for the footrace between the antelope and the deer. He lives
nápikoan
-style in a wooden house and takes in strangers. You can always find at least one
nápikoan
in his camp.”
    â€œThe trader made him sound like as much of a scalawag as the scalawags he takes in,” Cole said.
    â€œI do not know this word.”
    â€œIt means rascal . . . troublemaker.”
    â€œI do not think this of Isoko-yo-kinni,” she said. “He is self-important, and he likes to have property and
nápikoan
things, but he is not
bad
. I think the trader sees him as a rival. Not every
nápikoan
who sleeps in Isoko-yo-kinni’s camp . . . who rides in Siksikáwa land . . . comes to make trouble.”
    Cole nodded in agreement.
He
was a
nápikoan
who was riding in Siksikáwa land.
    Just as it was stirring to life for the day, they arrived on a bluff near the heart-shaped butte from which the settlement took its name.
    There were many tipis and a few clapboard buildings, making it a metropolis by comparison with the other places that Cole had visited in Blackfeet country. Around and among the tipis, a few women were stirring cooking fires to life while their men still slept. A couple of kids were running about, shouting and laughing.
    â€œYou should wait here,” Natoya said. “I will ride down and see what I can discover.”
    She was right. A white man with a Colt on his hip would attract a great deal of unwanted attention. A lone Indian woman appearing in an awakening settlement would blend in seamlessly—so long as her own Colt remained discreetly concealed beneath her robe.
    Cole watched as she dismounted and led her horse through the fringes of the encampment. He could see her breath in the cold air as she spoke to the women who were cooking the morning meal. He could see her gestures and those of the women with whom