Shaman Part 48

_Even the dead sometimes send a sign._

The next day the sky was cloudy, and the air warmer than last night. All morning long women walked past Redbird's wickiup, looking curiously at the man who sat there motionless. Like Redbird herself, they had never before seen a man while his spirit had gone to walk the bridge of stars.

When men went on spirit journeys they always retired to the forest or to caves.

In the afternoon He Who Sits in Grease, a Fox brave, came to Redbird as she and Sun Woman sat before their doorway plaiting baskets, a short distance from White Bear. The brave was carrying a stout bustard with feathers striped brown, black and white. He hunkered down facing her and laid the bird before her.

His thick lips worked nervously. "This is for White Bear," he said.

"When he wakes up. It is the fattest of the three that I killed this morning. Tell him that He Who Sits in Grease gives him this gift. I want him to ask Earthmaker to make the animals come to me more willingly when I hunt them."

Before Redbird could protest, the brave stood up and backed away, his eyes timidly averted from the figure outside the doorway.

_He thinks White Bear is holy!_ The thought made her more angry at White Bear than ever. She wanted to kick him again, but women were watching from a distance, and she knew they would make fun of her.

"Get _up_," she said softly to White Bear. "Go _away_," she said, grinding her teeth.

She wished Owl Carver would come back from visiting the other camps to put a stop to White Bear's torturing her like this.

_But he might force me to accept White Bear as my man._

Amazingly, she felt a lift in her heart at this thought. She herself could never forgive White Bear, but if Owl Carver, her father and the shaman of the British Band, ordered her to, the decision would be made for her.

Then, at least, this torment would end.

Sun Woman silently picked up the bustard, sat down and began plucking the feathers, piling them in a basket to use for adornments and bedding.

To escape from being rubbed raw by White Bear's presence, Redbird went out into the woods along the Ioway River, as Sun Woman had done yesterday, to gather herbs. The medicine plants were at their most powerful now, because they had been gaining strength all summer long.

Late in the day the sky darkened rapidly. The purple-gray clouds seemed to hang so low that she could reach up and touch them. She heard the first drops pattering on the branches above her. As the rain started to fall faster, it drummed on her head and shoulders. Sighing at having to give up this comforting work, she put a lid on her basket, stood up and started back for the camp.

Her doeskin s.h.i.+rt and skirt kept the rain off her body, but her hair was soaked and her face was streaming by the time she got back to the wickiup. She would build up the fire and dry herself off. Its heat would feel so good. She hoped Eagle Feather and Sun Woman were already inside.

She stopped before the silent, sitting figure outside the wickiup. The brown blanket was pulled up over his head. Sun Woman must have done that. The blanket was sodden with rain, and he looked like a rock growing out of the ground.

The beating of rain filled her ears.

She squatted down and looked into his face. Water ran in rivulets down from the blanket into his half-closed eyes. He did not even blink.

She s.h.i.+vered. The cold rain was coming down so hard she could not see most of the camp. A lump blocked her throat.

"Come inside," she said. She had to raise her voice to hear it over the drumming of the rain.

White Bear neither spoke nor moved.

"Come in. It is raining. It is cold. You will die out here." She realized she was screaming at him.

"Oh!" she cried helplessly.

She sat on the ground, looking into the rain-slick, light-complexioned face with the strong nose and the long jaw that she had loved long ago, the face she had thought about so many times and had seen so often in dreams. A black crust of blood had dried over the place where her rock had gashed his cheek. On the same cheek a raised white line ran from just under his eye to the corner of his mouth.

To try to wake a man on a spirit journey could be dangerous for him.

But her hands seemed to have a will of their own. She had to touch him.

She reached out, clutching his shoulders through the sopping blanket, heedless of the rain pouring down her own face, running under the collar of her doeskin s.h.i.+rt down her back and chest. She shook him.

"Get up! Come in out of the rain!"

His body felt lifeless when she shook him. But did she see a flicker in his eyes?

"Please, White Bear, please!"

He blinked.

She threw her arms around him.

"Oh, White Bear! I do want you back."

She crawled closer to him, pus.h.i.+ng her body against his rigid form.

She felt pressure against her back, pulling her closer to him. His hand.

Then his other hand.

She felt his chest rising and falling against hers.

Strong arms were holding her.

She looked up into his face, and color had come into the pale cheeks.

The brown eyes were looking down at her, warm with love. She forgot the rain and the cold, and nestled in his arms.

She saw tears spill out of his eyes, mingling with the rain on his face.

She, too, was crying. She had been crying ever since she sat down with him. She held him tight.

Looking past him, she saw in the doorway of the wickiup the small form of Eagle Feather, staring at them.

12

The War Whoop

Owl Carver held the watch up by its chain; his smile of approval showed he'd lost a tooth in front since White Bear left with Star Arrow.

"A handsome gift. I thank you for it. But what do you mean by saying it tells us the time? Do we not _know_ the time?"

White Bear scoured his brain for a way to explain.