THE DREAM WAS VIVID right down to the smell of whisky!

Still fresh was the cavalry's surprise attack at Big Hole, slaughter of women and children, the elderly--exterminate the red vermin! Our warriors had blood in their eyes, and at Birch Creek in Idaho they spotted a freight-wagon train bound for the town of Salmon. Four sets of doubled wagons, three pulled by mules, the fourth by eight horses. Fine-looking horses.

Warriors ride in and swirl around sizing up the situation.

Warriors dismounting, their friendliness gleaming with an edge of menace. Trying to play cool, the teamsters light a cooking fire. They sell some bags of flour, cheap. One white man grabs a bucket and heads for the creek. Tension is tangible, like a static charge in the air. Teamsters going stiffly through the motions, scared out of their wits. Tension like right before a lightning strike.

Very good horses. Good teeth.

GUNFIRE!

All six teamsters lay dead. The man with the bucket escapes by floating downstream. Two Chinese are detained. Warriors rifling the wagons discover ten barrels of whisky. Warriors guzzling whisky. Chinese pretending they're horses, spurred by gunfire into snorting and whinnying and capering around on their hands and knees. Drunken warriors like wild animals.

The chiefs finally say Enough!

Sober warriors start smashing barrels and dumping whisky and a brawl breaks out--Nez Perce fighting Nez Perce! Five Snows shoots Stripes Turned Down! Chelotokiktkin and Red Elk fire at each other and Red Elk is hit in the hand! Coyote With Flints stabs Heyoom Pishkish in the side--

The chiefs prevail.

Remaining whisky is dumped on the ground. Wagons and their merchandise are torched. The new horses are allocated and we move on, dogged by cavalry. . . .

I shivered myself awake, cling-wrapped in sweaty sheets and stunned by Joseph's living anecdote. Sordid behavior was the main theme--was this his way of responding to my sordidness? A spiritual man rubbing my nose in carnality? From that idea precipitated ultimate awareness of Joseph as no simple ghost in my synapses. As real as our eyes, he was a reasoning presence. Maybe the voice I heard before inhaling the first serpent was a trigger? The Don't came from inside, sound and thought. Sure, after my sexual jamboree with Cheryl, where I even sensed automatic defenses against Joseph injecting himself into my experience . . . after that I'd faced up to him being in me, but somehow it hadn't landed me in certainty any more than phasing into Joseph in front of Buzz and Hoagy and Spitz. Stark realization had me now, forced me to accept that since Whizzer had come back, distraction had kept me from any more than obliquely facing my situation. Distraction, or fear? Whatever the reason or reasons, none of it seemed more important all of a sudden than the basic question: What does Joseph think of me?

I climbed from bed at 5:59 and went to the mirror in my bathroom. The eyes . . . ours. Lost as to what day it was, I retraced events, using my fingers to count up to fourteen. Two weeks since ground zero at the mine. Another Tuesday, start of our third Tuesday together. For two weeks Joseph could've rummaged through my mind, perhaps learning things about me even I didn't know. Or things I couldn't face--would I melt down into a psychological wreck? The disgusted chiefs finally had to say Enough! Joseph's pasting me with the whisky dream, same thing. Enough. I stood there in my bathroom, naked inside out. Two weeks and I'd merely circled myself, feeling much as I'd felt upon first seeing our eyes. Move on, dummy! Climb off the goddam merry-go-'round and simply be yourself. Give Joseph a decent chance to--a sudden urgency to learn as much about him as I could jumped me. Nuns find time to read.