Chapter 2

At least that’s what I thought when I woke up on Tuesday.

The boilers must have been working overtime because the school was so warm it was hard to stay awake. All the teachers knew this, so they worked with us.

As Mr. Hurley said, “If I nod off while giving a lecture it must be terrible listening to it.”

In the afternoon it had cooled down enough that we survived the day. I heard Miss Bales set a record for how many kids she gave detention.

At lunch, I found out that Cheryl and I were going on a double date with Tom and Tracy. They wanted to see s movie, and apparently, it would be better received by the Colonel if we doubled for our first date.

Tom would be driving, so I could be in the backseat with Cheryl. If we didn’t double date we would have to get a ride with a parent. I bet the Colonel hadn’t thought of that.

After school, I went straight home. I was looking forward to meeting Mr. Redfoot. I wondered if he would be wearing full regalia. When the doorbell rang I was first there.

Standing outside in an overcoat, fedora and business suit was a gentleman holding a briefcase. He introduced himself as Alex Redfoot of the Shawnee Tribe. He asked if Richard Jackson was available.

I invited him in and introduced myself and the rest of the family. As he shook hands all the way around, I inspected him. He was nothing like I thought he would be.

He had high cheekbones and dark hair going grey. It looked like he had a good suntan for this time of year. His features were strong, but not over the top. Since I knew he was of Indian heritage I could see it. If I hadn’t known, he would have been just another man on the street.

We invited him to the kitchen and offered coffee. He turned it down explaining he would like to see the items and didn’t want any liquids near while he examined them. I had set the box out on the kitchen counter. Mum had picked up several pairs of disposable white cotton gloves at the pharmacy. Mr. Redfoot and I donned a pair each.

I opened the container and set each of the medals out on the table. He extracted the photographs that had been sent to him from his briefcase. Before he started he said a phrase that I didn’t understand, since it wasn’t in English that wasn’t a surprise.

He explained, “I was afraid I was on a fool’s mission. I will check everything, but I know it is real. I was giving thanks.”

He then proceeded to examine everything carefully. Even to the extent of pulling a magnifying glass out of his case. He compared everything to our photographs and then to another set he had brought with him. He explained that these were pictures of known examples of the actual medals from various museums.

“No one museum has a collection of all the medals. They are individually rare, as a collection I can’t even begin to guess.”

He then proceeded to review the letters. I gave him a typed copy of each of the letters. He asked who had done this. When I explained that I had read and typed out the copies, he just nodded his head and continued his review.

He looked at each of the letters, which he compared to photographs of similar documents signed by each of the authors.

He showed us other known copies of the various signatures that in every case matched the signer of each letter, but that the main text had been written by a secretary.

He explained that was expected for this sort of letter. It wasn’t a personal letter but a government letter. The signer would have stated a need for the letter and a general thought on its contents. He would have then reviewed the letter prior to signing it.

In the case of the King of England, it would have been presented for his signature and he would have done so without even reading it. Running a large empire didn’t give the King time to review anything involving natives outside of his colonies.