he remembered how Owl Carver had said, after Eagle Feather smoked the
peace pipe with the Winnebago, that he could be a greater shaman than
any of them. But that would happen only if he was raised as a Sauk.

Floating Lily was dead. Redbird could not live with the people who had
murdered her.

And--she touched her belly--this was not White Bear's child.

She began to cry aloud.

She sobbed till she thought her ribs would crack. Her throat burned; her
voice rasped. She pressed her forehead against his chest. She heard him
groan in pain, but he was hurting her more than she could ever hurt him.

"How can you ask me to stay where they killed Floating Lily? How can
_you_ stay here?"

"What would you have me do?"

A sudden thought occurred to her. "The pale eyes give gold for land.
Take pale eyes gold for this land, and you can take the gold with you to
the Ioway country and share it with our people."

"No, Redbird," he said sadly. "What could we do with gold, out there in
Ioway? Sometimes the long knives have given our chiefs gold in return
for land, yes. In no time the gold melted away. Gold by itself is like
seed corn. Without the right ground to plant it in, it is soon used up
and gone. The only way I can use the wealth my father Star Arrow left to
me is to stay here and work with it."

She had stopped crying. This hurt too much for tears. Only when Floating
Lily was killed had she felt more pain than this.

For a moment she could not bring herself to say the words she had to
say.

From somewhere she summoned the strength to speak.

"Then I must leave you."

Each word, she felt, was an arrow fired into him.

His arms tightened around her. "I beg you to stay."

_Spirit of the Redbird, help me to do what I must._

It would hurt less if she acted at once. She pushed herself away from
him. She stood up and crossed the room to the closed door.

"May you walk always in honor, White Bear."

"No, Redbird, no!" _He_ was crying bitterly now, and he rolled over and
buried his head in his pillows, beating the bed with his clenched fists.

She could not bear to leave him weeping like this, like a child she was
abandoning. She would rather see him angry.

Then the spirit Bird, whom she had called on for help, sent her a
message. She saw Wolf Paw, as he had looked when he was proud and
undefeated, with the red crest on his head, a red blanket wrapped around
him and black paint around his eyes.

_Why did I neve