Who is Joseph Musket from The Dark Wind and what is their importance?

Joseph Musket was Tom West's friends. Tom was murdered in Santa Fe Penitentiary. Joseph and Tom were arrested together after a failed drug smuggling operation. When Musket was paroled, Tom's father Jake gave him a job at the Burnt Water Trading Post. Jake later tells the Navajo Tribal Police that he fired Joseph, who later returned and stole a lot of pawned silver from the Trading Post.

When Chee visits Musket's mother, she tells him that when Joseph came back from prison he had a good deal of cash and was planning on buying a herd of sheep and rejoining his people as a herdsman. He had arranged for Hosteen Begay to sing the Enemy Way ceremony for him on leaving the prison. His mother also describes the metal splints Joseph had had to wear on his hands after a horse accident, and in doing so explains the origin of his name of "Ironfingers".