Swift Hawk paused to give himself time to settle his emotions. “The mountain route is the better of the two. Though it is longer, there is no risk of running out of water for yourself and your stock. Besides, the mountain route travels toward my cousin’s fort.”
“Your cousin, you say?”
“Aa, yes. However, it is probably more truthful to say that my cousin is adopted. The fort is known as Bent’s Fort. William Bent, who built the fort, married my adopted cousin.”
“Ah, Bent’s Fort. William Bent married a Cheyenne woman, didn’t he?”
“He did.”
“And she is youradoptedcousin?”
“She is. I was adopted by the Cheyenne when I was still a young boy. Bent’s wife, Owl Woman, and her sister, Yellow Woman, are my adopted cousins.”
“Ah…” said Julian, as though this explained something, “and your real tribe is…?”
“My own tribe is an old one, but it is distantly related to the Blackfoot, who are in the North.”
“Blackfoot.” Julian drew out the word and frowned. Thenunder his breath, “The tigers of the Plains.”
Swift Hawk didn’t deign to respond.
“Blackfoot, eh?” Julian repeated, and running a finger under his collar, he sighed. “Then you might have heard of a friend of mine, since he used to scout up that way. John Bogart?”
“I do not know him,” answered Swift Hawk, “but I know of him, since he is one of a handful of white scouts. I have often heard William Bent speak of him.”
“Ah, then maybe you have heard of me too?—”
The angel in white placed her hand over her brother’s arm. “I think I should tell you that?—”
“Yes,” drawled Julian, “I’ve spent many an hour with Bogart over a campfire, talking of many things.”
“Julian, listen to me?—”
“Taught me everything he knows, and vice versa, and?—”
“Please stop this. He knows,” said the angel succinctly before turning away from the two of them, where she directed her gaze out toward the dancers, as though she were more interested in them than in the conversation at hand.
Julian frowned. “He knows? He knows what?”
Spinning back toward her brother and lowering her voice, she whispered, “He knows that you have never met John Bogart.”
“But…but…” Julian looked decidedly uncomfortable, and he strained his gaze in his sister’s direction.
“Don’t look at me like that. I did not tell him,” she defended. “Mr. Hawk was listening to us the other day.”
“He heardustalking?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said.
“But I didn’t see him anywhere around there.”
“Yet he was there. I spoke to him after you left.”
Swift Hawk frowned at the young man. “The white man has not learned to sense the presence of another. And it is this thatoften causes his doom. If you are to scout, it is one of the first of several awarenesses you must gain—to sense the presence of another being.”
Julian’s eyes grew large. Without so much as a blink of an eye, he said, albeit a little defensively, “What do you mean, learn? Iama scout.”
Swift Hawk raised a single eyebrow.
