down for the night. He went to his own pallet on the east side of the
wickiup.

Now that Redbird was ready for sleep, the baby within her woke up, and
its kicking, along with burning feelings that rose from her stomach to
her throat, kept her awake.

The stillness was disturbed only by the chirping of countless frogs.

_Where were those frogs today when we were looking for food? We must ask
the Frog spirit to let us catch some of them._

Then she heard another movement. Someone was crawling across the
reed-covered floor of the wickiup. She caught her breath. Yellow Hair's
sleeping place was on the side opposite White Bear's, and the movement
was unmistakably from her bed to his.

A little later she heard other sounds that were also easy to
recognize--the crackling of a bed's reed matting, whispers, little gasps
and groans, loud, fast breathing.

Yellow Hair's cry of pain sounded as if it had come through clenched
teeth. She still did not want anyone to know. Redbird smiled to herself.

As she listened to White Bear's heavy panting, Redbird remembered the
sharp pain inside her when she first received him on the island near
Saukenuk.

White Bear sighed loudly, and then everything was still for a time, and
Redbird heard the frogs once more. They were probably mating too. How
wise of Earthmaker to make his creatures into woman and man, so they
could give each other such wonderful pleasure. Earthmaker knew
everything, but it was hard to see how he could have invented man and
woman without having seen something that gave him the idea.

Him? Redbird had always pictured Earthmaker as a man, a giant warrior,
but now she wondered whether the spirit that gave life to the world and
all things in it might be a she. Or, better yet, maybe there were two
Earthmakers, a he and a she.

As she had so many times before, she wished now that the tribe's custom
would permit her to become a shaman, so that she might see into these
mysteries with her own eyes, as White Bear and Owl Carver had.

The sounds started up again from White Bear's bed, the movements, the
whisperings. Redbird thought about how good it was to have her man
filling her solidly, giving her delicious feelings as he moved in and
out. And she felt herself warm with desire.

She smiled ruefully in the dark.

_Now I want him and I cannot have him, because I sent Yellow Hair to his
bed._

_I hope this baby will be born soon, so I can lie with White Bear again.
O