The tent frame was permanent, made of saplings lashed to the trees that edged the clearing. Someone had ditched around it, and Sett watched the water rush off toward the creek while he sat in the relative dry and smoked. The summer storm poured down; huge drops of water so heavy that they fell straight to earth, and thunder rolling closer. Sett pulled off his damp boots and put them under the end of the bedroll. He pulled the blanket up around his shoulders, then up over his head like old man Talking Crow when the stories turned sad. As if he were sitting there beside Sett's fire, speaking in his soft tongue about his daughter marrying away to a white man, and the traditional hunting grounds being taken over by the miners and railroad tracks, the old Blackfeet leader had lamented the changes to his world. Now the loss from years ago visited Sett, a darkness held out by the woven wool of the trade blanket.

SETTLER'S LAW, page 60