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a Dreamer,” he said.
    â€œAnd what did you dream? What did the spirits bring to you, old friend?”
    â€œI am a follower of Owl. His dream is true.”
    â€œHave you dreamed?”
    â€œI listened to Owl, and his dream is good. It is what will be.”
    â€œAh, but you call yourself a Dreamer.”
    â€œI hear the Dreamer, Grandfather.”
    Washakie nodded, and turned to another, Mare. “My friend Mare, are you a Dreamer?”
    Mare’s gaze was hard. “Owl came to me. I dream. The Owl will glide over the white men and they will vanish.”
    â€œHow will they vanish?”
    â€œThe Owl will drive them away for all time.”
    â€œAnd how will Owl do that?”
    Mare slid into silence.
    â€œWill the white man decide to go away, and turn his ponies east?”
    More silence.
    â€œWill Owl summon warriors to drive the white soldiers away with bullets and arrows?”
    None in the crowd responded.
    â€œWho among you are Dreamers?” Washakie asked.
    The silence only deepened. Dirk could see that the tenuous peace between the chief and this crowd had vanished, and a certain defiance had risen in its place.
    The chief waited. Time stretched thin.
    Dirk wondered who would speak first, but the chief, easy in his authority, chose to talk.
    â€œVery well. I have learned from your silence. You are not true Dreamers who have been visited by a spirit. You follow a young man whose vision you do not doubt. That is a courtesy among us: we never question the vision received by any of the People.
    â€œI will tell you what will happen if you rise up against the white men. They will send more soldiers, and more and more. The Lakota and the Cheyenne defeated Custer at the Little Big Horn, and defeated our Shoshones and the Absaroka. But look at the result. Where are they now? They are being rounded up and put on reservations. If the mighty Lakota could not drive away the white men, why do you think you can?”
    â€œWe are Dreamers,” said Mare.
    Washakie’s reasoning wasn’t getting anywhere with these angry men.
    â€œIf we die, then we will die bravely. If the People die, then the People die,” Mare continued. “For what life have the People now?”
    Dirk knew enough to keep silent, though he wanted to respond. The People could have a good life if they changed their ways. They could have a good life even if the Yankee government never did another thing for them. But only if the People let go of their past.
    â€œThe People will have as good a life as they choose for themselves,” Washakie said.
    Dirk thought it was a superb response.
    â€œWe will not turn ourselves into girls,” Walks at Night said.
    That stirred a sharp response.
    â€œOwl, Owl, Owl,” one chanted.
    They took up the chorus. “Owl, Owl…”
    Washakie raised a hand, an ancient gesture used by men given authority, but no one paid him heed. It dismayed Dirk. In all his time on the Wind River Reservation, he had never seen any Shoshone treat the chief with no respect. And that struck Dirk as somehow menacing.
    Washakie knew it. He stood tall and quiet, letting his hawkish gaze survey each of these men, one by one by one. Something critical had passed here. Dirk could only sense its outlines, because he had been too far removed from his mother’s people to grasp what was happening. But clearly, these men were throwing out the chief who had paved the way into reservation life.
    They would not be girls.
    They would not do women’s work, and everything except warfare and hunting was the office of women. Everything that the Americans wanted them to become was a threat to their manhood.
    And the odd thing was, Dirk thought, he empathized with them. It would take generations, not a few months or years, to transform them—if ever. People forced to let go of their deepest beliefs, passions, visions, habits, and comforts might choose to die because nothing would be