The chief sat at the place of honor opposite the door. He was perhaps sixty, broad through the shoulders, with gray running through the hair he wore long and loose save for a single small braid at his temple wrapped in red cloth. A scar ran from his left ear down into the collar of his shirt, an old white seam. He wore a trade-cloth shirt and a striped blanket over his knees, and in his hands he held a long-stemmed pipe that he did not light. His eyes went over Wes the way a buyer's eyes go over a horse at a sale ring: not cruelly, but missing nothing.
Rides Far sat at her father's left, a little apart from the men, and indicated a robe on the near side of the fire. Wes sat. He had been warm a moment ago. Now he felt the shaking start again somewhere under his breastbone, and he clamped his jaw against it.
The chief spoke. His voice was low and unhurried, and he spoke for some time, and when he paused Rides Far turned toward Wes.
"My father says you are welcome at his fire. He says the storm brought you, and the storm does not ask permission, so you need not apologize for being here." She waited a beat. "He also says that you are shaking, and asks if it is still the cold or if someone has told you stories about us."
Wes felt the heat climb into his face. "Some of each," he said honestly.
She translated. A ripple went along the back of the lodge, low laughter, and the chief smiled for the first time, a small dry smile that made him look ten years younger.
"He says that is a good answer. He says a man who admits to being afraid is less dangerous than a man who pretends he is not." She paused while her father spoke again. "He asks how long you have ridden for the man Pike."
"Two years. Going on three."
"And you drive his cattle."
"Yes, sir. Ma'am." Wes looked from one to the other, unsure where to aim his words. "I drive them to the agency on beef day, mostly. Sometimes I'm sent to bring in strays that wander up onto the reservation. That's what I was doing today."
When this was translated the chief was silent a while. He turned the pipe in his hands. Then he spoke a few short sentences, and every man at the back of the lodge went very still.