Nancy and Woodrow left him. He
whispered a prayer of thanks to Earthmaker.

He crept back to his horse and walked it till he found a deer track the
horse could follow, then mounted and trotted northward.

He was back riding on the trail when an arrow, thrumming, buried its
head in the dirt just in front of him. It startled him so that he nearly
fell out of the saddle. He reined in his horse.

Men on horseback emerged from the trees ahead of him. They rode toward
him silently, five of them. Two pointed rifles at him, the other three
bows and arrows. They were red men, but wore pale eyes' shirts and
trousers. Their hair was long, bound by brightly colored sashcloth
bands, and they grew it full, not shaving part of their heads as most
Sauk men did.

He sighed and held his hands out from his sides to show that they were
empty. The Winnebago could have shot him off his horse without warning,
so he supposed they meant to let him live.

The man on the right side of the trail, who held a bow with an arrow
aimed at White Bear's heart said, in Sauk, "I am called Wave. We are
looking for Black Hawk. Where can we find him?"

White Bear decided to make a joke of that. "Do you want to help him
fight the long knives?"

Wave laughed, and translated it for his companions, who laughed also. He
wore a brave's red and white feathers dangling from earrings, with two
more standing upright in his hair.

He said, "The long knives have offered horses and gold to whoever
captures Black Hawk. We are not enemies of the Sauk, but we want the
long knives' friendship." The man spoke Sauk fluently and without an
accent.

"It is a shame that the Winnebago fight on the side of the long knives,"
White Bear said. "One day they will take your land from you, as they
have taken ours from us."

Wave shrugged. "Look what has happened to you, who fought against them."

_Red man betrays red man, and only the whites gain. It is as I told
Redbird. If we want to live in this land, we ourselves must become like
the whites._

"Come," said Wave. "We must take you to the long knives' war chief."

White Bear slumped in despair, realizing that he was no longer a free
man. He looked about him. The trees, the birds, the Great River, they
were all free, but he was in the power of his enemies. The world was a
darker place. Black Hawk's war, for him, was over. He wished he could
have warned his people about the approaching army of long knives. And
also, his h