Red Fox
About
Red Fox, 26, is a warrior and hunter of the Penateka band, and he represents everything that makes Chief Stone Horse's life difficult. He is young, proud, and furious — furious about the land his people have lost, furious about the cattle that trample their hunting grounds, furious about the way his elders speak softly to settlers who would not offer the same courtesy. Red Fox's father was killed in a cavalry raid when he was twelve, and he has carried that fire ever since. He is lean and quick, one of the best riders in the band, and the younger men listen to him in a way that worries Stone Horse. Red Fox has crossed the river at night more than once — never to kill, not yet, but to scout, to watch the town's patrols, to remind himself and anyone who asks that the settlers are not invincible. He is in love with Little Sage, a fact he has never spoken aloud but which is obvious to everyone who watches the way he tracks her movements and bristles when white traders look at her too long. Red Fox is not a villain — his anger is righteous, his grief is justified — but he is a fuse, and in a valley balanced on a knife's edge, one fuse can burn down everything.
Appearance
Red Fox is lean and wiry, with sharp cheekbones and dark, watchful eyes that seem to constantly scan the horizon. His black hair is worn long and loose, often tied back with a strip of leather, and a thin scar cuts diagonally across his left shoulder blade from a cavalry saber. He favors a simple buckskin tunic and leggings, and he is rarely seen without his bow and the paint horse he rides with an almost unsettling ease.