Sharon laforge larry colton

Author reading

Larry Colton will read from "Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn" at p.m. Saturday at Elliott Bay Book Co., S.

Main St., Seattle.

Early in his visit to the Crow Reservation in eastern Montana, Portland author Larry Colton bicycled into a hot prairie head wind.

Counting coup by larry colton

A beat-up old truck went by with the passengers staring hard at him. Then the truck turned around and began to track him.

Colton had never been on a reservation before he started researching his smooth new narrative, "Counting Coup." He told himself there was no need to be afraid, especially since the truck had a blown-out tire.

But his heart raced as the flap, flap, flap stayed by his ear.

Then a woman on the passenger side rolled down the window and gave him a toothless smile:

"In case you're interested," she said, "you're going four miles an hour."

This is the Crow Reservation through Larry Colton's eyes.

The scene has