Chapter 26 Summary

Cash picks Alice up at midnight to go to the dance, which will last all night. On the way, they figure out that Letty has set them up. "Every once in a while," he says, "the old gal chases a pair of folks up the right stump."

Ledger Fourkiller, Annawake's uncle, is the medicine chief and presides over the stomp dance; and Alice at last meets Letty. She is annoyed that the tribe is managing her love-life.

A fire, which has been kept burning perpetually since the Trail of Tears, is at the center of the ceremonies. The dance is a highly formalized, ritualistic arrangement of all the people in the clan that involves pipe-smoking and a one-step dance performed in tiers of people, mostly according to age and sex. Alice is directed to a particular area by Sugar, who is surprised that...