There were rumors floating around that actually he had a hoard of gold cached out on his place from the years he was a buffalo-hunter.
By the time Max was eleven years old, he was as lithe and quick on his feet as his Indian forebears.
He could ride any horse he chose without a saddle and could shoot the eye out of a prairie gopher at a hundred yards with his.22.
His black hair hung straight and long, Indian fashion, and his eyes were dark blue, almost black in his tanned face.
They were seated at the table one night, eating supper, when Sam looked over at his son. "They're startin' up a school in Dodge," he said.
Max looked up at his father as Kaneha came to the table from the stove. He didn't know whether he was supposed to speak or not.
He kept eating silently.
"I signed you up for it," Sam said. "I paid ten dollars."
Now Max felt it was time for him to speak. "What fer?"
"To have them learn you to read an' write," his father answered.
"What do I have to know that fer?" Max asked.
"A man should know them things," Sam said.
"You don't," Max said with the peculiar logic of children.
"And it don't bother you none."
"Times is different now," Sam said. "When I was a boy, there warn't no need for such things.
Now ever'thing is readin' or writin' "
"I don't want to go."
"You're goin'," Sam said, roaring suddenly. "I already made arrangements.
You can sleep in the back of Olsen's Livery Stable durin' the week."
Kaneha wasn't quite sure she understood what her husband was saying.
"What is this?" she asked in Kiowa.
Sam answered in the same language. "A source of big knowledge. Without it, our son can never be a great chief among the White Eyes."
This was enough reason for Kaneha.
"He will go," she said simply.
Big knowledge meant big medicine. She went back to her stove.
The next Monday, Sam brought Max over to the school.
The teacher, an impoverished Southern lady, came to the door and smiled at Sam.
"Good morning, Mr. Sand," she said.
"Good mornin', ma'am.
I brought my son to school."
The teacher looked at him, then at Max, then around the yard in front of the school cabin.
"Where is he?" she asked in a puzzled voice.
Sam pushed Max forward. Max stumbled slightly and looked up at the teacher.
"Say howdy to yer teacher," Sam said.
Max, uncomfortable in his clean buckskin shirt and leggings, dug his bare feet into the dirt and spoke shyly.
"Howdy, ma’am."
The teacher looked down at him in stunned surprise. Her nose wrinkled up in disgust.
"Why, he's an Indian!" she cried. "We don't take Indians in this school."
Sam stared at her. "He's my son, ma'am."
The teacher curled her lip cuttingly.
"We don't take half-breeds in this school, either.
This school is for white children only." She began to turn her back. Sam's voice stopped her. It was icy cold as he made probably the longest speech he ever made in his life.
"I don't know nothin' about your religion, ma'am, nor do I mind how you believe.
All I do know is you're two thousand miles from Virginia an' you took my ten dollars to teach my boy the same as you took the money from ever'body else at the meetin' in the general store.
If you're not goin' to learn him the way you agreed, you better take the next stage back East."
The teacher stared at him indignantly.
"Mr. Sand, how dare you talk to me like that?
Do you think the parents of the other children would want them to attend school with your son?"
"They were all at that meetin'," Sam said. "I didn't hear none of them say no."
The teacher looked at him. Sam could see the fight go out of her. "I'll never understand you Westerners," she said helplessly.