Chapter 12The next day Cut Hand began his courtship of Morning Mist, which bore all the earmarks of a short affair. Only the close scrutiny of the entire village kept her from crawling into his blankets that very day. The next fortnight was as painful for me as any I remember. I slept on a cold bed in the bachelors’ tipi while Cut rotated between his father’s lodge and a bedroll beside mine. A bargain was struck, horses exchanged, and the marriage was accomplished quickly. A week before the move northward was expected, Cut Hand took Morning Mist to bride. Their wedding night, spent in a new tipi near his father’s, was pure agony for me. Images of Cut mounting his new bride left wounds like a flint blade. Pale Hunter shriveled, and my testes crawled upward, seeking cowardly shelter. I was w
