“The Smell of Rain” by Emily Willoughby.

In the Crow Indian Nation in Southern Montana, there lived a seven-year-old girl who had not yet earned her name.

Her parents tried to find the characteristic in her that would inspire what to call her, but they thought she had not yet done anything remarkable. She was a very quiet and obedient child and did not stand out to them like her three older brothers: River Stone, Howling Wolf and Bright Arrow.

This little girl kept a secret. She had dreams and visions that always came true. But the first time she told her parents, her father, the chief, was worried, so they told her to never speak of it again. They might have named her True Dreams, but as her family was made of warriors they did not want to appear weak. One of her brothers would surely be chief one day and her generation had to be fierce, her father said.

One day she was sent by her mother to gather the red pigment she needed for her beadwork from the Cloverly Formation on the edge of their territory. Crow women were renowned for bead-making, but the unnamed girl was unable to learn the task because she was left-handed and her mother was right-handed. No matter how hard she tried, she could not master the skill. So the women of her tribe assigned to her the duty of going to the place of this red earth, which they would then mix to make into the “Crow Rose” beads for which the nation was known in the early American West. Could she also pick up some pine…