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folks out here, but at least I can spit without hittin’ one of ’em.” He then demonstrated this statement, yet again. “I can be my own boss and do as I please. If White folks could look inside my head and see how much I hate ’em, I’d be hangin’ from the nearest cottonwood faster’n a jackrabbit. So instead of shootin’ Whites and burnin’ their homes to the ground, I get my satisfaction by peddlin’ guns to the Injuns. Way I sees it, they got as much reason as me to be fond of Whites.”
    That night we set up camp. Buffalo-Face served up beans, dry bread and hot coffee. I’d never had coffee before, and I promptly spat it out. Buffalo-Face laughed as I grimaced and wiped my mouth with handfuls of grass. “Give yourself a week, son, and you’ll be suckin’ it up like it was mother’s milk!”
    I liked Buffalo-Face. Outside of a Mexican boy stolen from a ranchero during one of our winter encampments, he was the only non-Comanche I had ever spent any time with. I wondered if I should tell him I was a skinwalker, but I remembered Medicine Dog’s warning concerning who I showed my true skin to. Buffalo-Face wasn’t a White, but he wasn’t an Indian, either. I fell asleep, pondering the question of whether I should tell him more about myself.
    When I awoke, the coffee pot was on the fire but Buffalo-Face was nowhere to be seen. I found him down by the creek, stripped to his waist, washing his face and upper body. His muscular back was covered from shoulder to waist by scars that ran from rib to rib. The wounds were very old, some of them five or six deep in places. I watched him for a few more seconds, then returned to the camp.
    When Buffalo-Face came back, he had put his shirt back on and was shrugging into his braces. He bent to pour coffee into a dented tin cup. “You sure you want to go ahead with this plan of yours? You seen the stripes on my back when I was washing at the creek. That’s what White folk had to offer me.”
    â€œMedicine Dog told me that Whites are crazy. Is this true?”
    Buffalo-Face nodded and swallowed his coffee, grimacing—whether from the bitterness of the brew or his memories was impossible to say. “That they are. But not fall-down, foam-at-the-mouth crazy. Whites are singular creatures. They ain’t part of nothing but themselves, not even other Whites. Mebbe that’s what makes ’em act so snake-bit.
    â€œLet me give you a bit of free advice, son. Whatever you do, always watch your back. Whites may hate niggers, Injuns, kikes and chinks—but that don’t mean they love their own kind. If they can find a way to get what they want and leave you bleedin’ and nekkid in the snow, they will. Whites ain’t out for no one but themselves. Bear that in mind whenever you’re dealin’ with ’em—don’t matter if they’re a man of the cloth, an old spinster lady or a young’un in knee pants. Whatever you do, don’t trust ’em any farther than you can throw ’em.”
    I spent most of the next four weeks learning to speak English—at least talk it good enough to get myself understood. Buffalo-Face was astonished at how quickly I picked up the lingo. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I have a natural aptitude for learning languages. At last count, I’ve become fluent in thirty-seven, including Swahili, Mongolian and Aborigine.
    On the second week on the trail together, we were drinking hot coffee and studying the stars overhead. I’ll always remember that night—how the air smelled of ox dung and coffee grounds, the sound of tobacco juice sizzling in the campfire. I was enjoying the best of both worlds there—Indian and White—without knowing it. I knew there was no way it was going to last forever, but I had no idea how long it’d be before I would know such peace again.
    Suddenly Buffalo-Face looks