J. Edward Chamberlin - The Banker and the Blackfoot: A Memoir of My Grandfather in Chinook Country

We had found most of the chocolate eggs so it must have been just after Easter, and I was sitting on my grandfathers knee in the backyard of our house in Vancouver. He was smoking a meerschaum pipe carved into the shape of a prancing horse, and I said I was going to be a cowboy and ride a horse just like that. He said he knew some cowboys and some Indians too; and they both believed in Jawbone. I asked, Whats that? and he said it meant being as good as your word. Then he said, I believe its time to tell you a story.

IT WAS A LOVELY SPRING DAY in the foothills of southern Alberta. The snow-covered peaks of Chief Mountain and the Rockiesthe Blackfoot backbone of the worldwere shimmering on the western horizon, the colours of the grasses heightened by shadows when clouds crossed over, and the abiding wind whispering its promises of permanence and change. Riding down the main street of Fort Macleod in the spring of 1885, my grandfather saw a Blackfoot man riding towards him leading a string of horses ambling along at a lazy pacing trot, looking like country dancers on the way to a performance. He noticed from a distance that the Indian rider sat his saddle at an unusual slant, so the shoulder of his coat blanket was what my grandfather first saw of him; but when they came closer he turned to greet my grandfather in a sign-language gesture of welcome, and they exchanged names.

Makoyi-Opistoki, said the Blackfoot horseman. Crop Eared Wolf. John Cowdry, said my grandfather. Jack.

Crop Eared Wolf signalled his interest in my grandfathers horse, so Jack took the cue and made a wavy motion as he put his hand on the high withers in front of his saddle to indicate how comfortable his horse was on a long ride, and clenched his fist on the long, flat croup from his horses hindquarters to the dock of his tail to signal lots of strength there. Crop Eared Wolf nodded courteously as though he was learning something for the first time; but my grandfather recognized from the easy way he sat his horse, even with the slight awkwardness he had noticed, that he was an experienced horseman and would have known all that at a glance. Then Crop Eared Wolf asked, in English, about its colour. Chestnut sorrel, said my grandfather, knowing that the Blackfoot had over a hundred words for the colours of horses, none of which he had yet learned. To make up for his ignorance he told Crop Eared Wolf an Arab story he had heard, about how the creator went to the everlasting wind and said, I want to make a creature out of you, and the dutiful wind became dust, and the creator took a handful of it and made a horse the colour of the desert antsorreland hung happiness from the forelock between the horses eyes. Crop Eared Wolf took in the story, chuckled and pointed to my grandfathers hairwhich was the same colour as his horse, burnt chestnutand dubbed him Sorreltop Jack. My grandfather knew that the Blackfoot often named their horses for their colour, and that Crop Eared Wolf might be making fun of him, but he took to the name anyway because he admired his horse and was proud of his hair. Before he had time to reply, Crop Eared Wolf said he was sometimes called Many Horsesand that he did in fact have many horsesbut he preferred the name Crop Eared Wolf because wolves had taught the Blackfoot how to hunt in packs, and how to work together. You can still see them in the night sky, he said. Makoyi-yohsokoyi was the Wolf Trail. The Milky Way.

He pointed to my grandfathers knees, which were bent as he sat in the saddle, signalling surprise that he rode with short stirrupslike the Blackfoot, in fact, but unlike most newcomers to Blackfoot territory, such as the North-West Mounted Police officers who had come ten years earlier and almost all the ranchers and cowboys who had followed them. My grandfather said he liked being able to shift his weight from side to side or forward when he needed to, showing how he did sothen stood in his stirrups smiling, and said it was also because he was short. He had noticed Crop Eared Wolf seemed to be too. He didnt say so, of course, but he did ask him why he rode with long stirrups, and Crop Eared Wolf indicated that he had been shot in the leg during a fight with the Cree twenty years earlier. Jack could tell he was proud of his time as a warrior.