Chapter 13On his next visit to the family on Saturday, Gideon brought word Iron Head and his party had reached the agency safely. Strange then, that I had received no word from Bird. This was welcome news, of course, yet in a way it brought a sense of abandonment.
Ides undoubtedly picked up on my mood. He began spending more time with me as I repaired farming equipment or worked in the blacksmith shop. The boy never tired of pumping the bellows and feeding the fire. He insisted on applying the hammer, but even using two hands, the child was unable to strike more than an awkward blow or two. Ides stopped addressing me as Uncle John, choosing Medicine Hair instead, sometimes in English and sometimes in Lakota.
During his “Indian periods,” he would have lived in breechcloth and moccasins ha
