you had me
with you?"

He did not answer at once, and that made her feel as if a rough hand had
squeezed her heart. But then he smiled at her, and she felt better.

"Yes, if I could share my life with you, the pain of leaving Saukenuk
would be less." Then his face darkened. "But we could not live on our
own. A man or a woman cut off from their tribe can no more be happy than
a flower after it is picked can continue to grow. And I would have
dishonored the promise I made with the sacred tobacco. The spirits would
turn their backs on me. My mother and Owl Carver say that if I go with
Star Arrow, I may learn things that would help our people."

She was thunderstruck to realize that he actually wanted to go with Star
Arrow. Then what was all this weeping for?

He did not care for her as much as she did for him. That made her angry.
She pushed herself a little apart from him.

"I see that I have been a fool to chase after you, just as my mother
said. It means more to you to go and live with the pale eyes than it
does to have Redbird as your woman."

His eyes widened. "We have never before today spoken of this, you and
I."

"Did we have to speak?" She felt herself getting angrier and angrier.
"Why do you think I went looking for you when you went on your vision
quest? Why do you think I followed you from the village today? And why
did I say I would go with you across the Great River? Yes, I did want to
be your woman. But you do not want me. You want to go away with this
pale eyes father of yours, and maybe you want to take a pale eyes woman
for yourself."

His mouth as well as his eyes opened up in amazement. "I have never even
seen a pale eyes woman. How could I want one? I do want Redbird to be my
woman. And I weep at leaving Saukenuk because I must leave you."

Again she reached out to him, putting her hands on his arms. "I would
rather be cast out of our tribe than lose you."

He shook his head. "We do not have to lose our people or each other. It
was part of the promise sealed with sacred tobacco that I am to come
back. If we ran away now, Earthmaker would be angry with us."

She moved closer to him. She had seen Earthmaker in dreams. He was
taller than the tallest tree, and he carried a great war club with a
ball-shaped rock at the end of it and looked much like Black Hawk, with
a long black lock of hair coiling down from the top of a shaved head.

"I wish I could meet and talk with the spirits, as you ha