“Beyond the Big Muddy is a place where men are women and women are totems; where the Great Spirit is trapped in a big lodge; where fat war chiefs make thunder in kettles; and where people drink water that burns the brain! I see this in my dreams, and I think, ‘This would really suck.’”

-Shooting Bull, to his Son, RedJacket

RedJacket rode his pony proudly and gently with his lance resting across the stallion’s shoulders as JillSong toiled along behind him, her dog dragging a litter with the babies and food in it, and her dragging the tepee hides, buffalo blankets and poles behind her, her paleface pots and pans and other trade goods hanging from her sagging shoulders.

The dog whined in complaint as they headed uphill toward the overlook, and she followed in kind, “RedJacket, this is buffalo shit! You have a perfectly good horse there. Why not let him haul this load while you walk with me, hand-in-hand, like lovers again.”

“Are you stupid woman? This war pony needs to be fresh for battle. What if the Crows come—you expect me to fight on foot? Besides, how am I ever going to steal a horse for your dimwitted brother, so that he can go steal a wife of his own and stop coming over to eat out of our kettle, if old Swift Knife here has a sore rump from hauling all of your stuff?”

“You are the horses rump Husband! You sleep in this tepee too. This is fundamentally unfair. You are stronger than me, and you should be hauling our goods!”

“Our goods? Woman, if you appeal to my father for a divorce and he grants it, you keep it all, and all I have is Swift Knife and my weapons. It is your stuff—all of your fancy paleface junk—so you haul it.”

RedJacket and JillSong made the rise and looked down into the Purple Plum Valley where they planned on camping for the week, only to see it ruined, defiled by some pale corpse of a white man strapped to a big piece of tree being dragged around by a stupid clod of a horse and digging up the ground, while his pretty straw-haired wife sat in a butt hammock and sewed.

JillSong dropped her load and screeched, “I knew this was a shit deal! Look at that, that’s a man. Look at how strong he is; digging up the ground that you would have me beak with my fingers—which you complain are too rough and use as leverage to have my little sister sent under your sleeping blanket. Why can’t you be a man like that? Look how nice her things are. I’m about done being a fucking Indian you know!”

RedJacket was now in a rage. “Strong, strong—a whipped dog more like! Why aren’t I a man like that? I’ll show you why!”

RedJacket went thundering down into the dug up valley on Swift Knife with his lance leveled at the stupid paleface chest with JillSong’s voice pleading in the background, “No, don’t! We should trade with them. You’ll get blood all over the nice white blankets!”

The paleface unstrapped himself and ran like a woman caught alone under the Raider Moon only to be run through screeching like a an old crone in mourning.

Later in the day RedJacket sat while the world spun and he drank the white man’s fire water. His wife JillSong was making nice with the soft-skinned white woman that he had every intention of bedding down with tonight. Then, on the edge of the valley, he saw them there, more pale-faced horse soldiers than a drunken warrior could count. What was worse is they had ten Crow scouts with them to sniff him out from under whatever rock he might find to hide. And JillSong was not supportive at all.

“You horse’s ass, I told you this was a bad idea!”