The night we arrived at the nameless river, Cut and I sat beside a fire and practiced our language skills while Splitlip and Wild Red went about their own business. Cut’s argot was beginning to make sense to me now, and I found it less exacting than English. Cut was as hard a taskmaster as I, insisting on the correct pronunciation and not allowing laziness with the language. That would come later, as it always does when one grows comfortable with a tongue.
“Damnation!” Red flared suddenly. He had been on the nettle all afternoon. “Don’t you never shut your trap? Bad enough the red belly’s mangling good American, but your grunting in that pig tongue is gitting me down! Another thing. Tell that heathen to shut his mouth tonight. Like to never got no sleep, him moaning like he done last nigh
