s had set up camp. This
was a peaceful place, but with White Bear gone and her dread of what
might have happened to her loved ones at the Bad Axe, she could feel no
peace.

"A lovely place, this lake," said Owl Carver, sitting beside her.

_But it is far from White Bear._

The thought of White Bear's having to make his way through Winnebago
country haunted her. She longed to look into the birch forest behind her
lean-to and see him walking toward her through the white tree trunks.

She missed Yellow Hair and Woodrow too. They were to her another sister,
another son. She hoped that by now they were out of danger.

She had left so many people behind at the Bad Axe, people who had always
been part of her life--Sun Woman, Iron Knife, her two sisters. In the
seven days since Black Hawk had led their little group north on the
ridge trail leading to Chippewa country, there had been no word from the
rest of the band.

Redbird's fear for the people she loved was like a ferret eating away at
her insides.

From his medicine bag Owl Carver took the pale eyes time teller White
Bear had given him and opened its gold outer shell. Redbird saw black
markings on its inner surface and two black arrows.

_Could it tell me when White Bear will come back?_

The old shaman dangled the time teller by its gold chain over Floating
Lily's tiny head. The gold disk gave off a regular, clicking sound, like
the beating of a metal heart. Floating Lily's brown eyes opened wide and
her flower-petal lips curved in a wide, toothless smile.

Eagle Feather, sitting beside Redbird, said, "Grandfather? Is it right
to use a sacred thing just to make the baby smile?"

Owl Carver smiled. His face these days seemed to have caved in. All of
his front teeth were gone, and his mouth was as sunken as Floating
Lily's, while his chin and his nose jutted out.

"A baby's smile is also a sacred thing."

Redbird said, "Have you asked the spirits what has become of the rest of
our people?"

From a cord around his waist Owl Carver untied a medicine bag decorated
with a beadwork owl. He opened it, let little gray scraps sift through
his fingers and sighed.

"Last night I chewed bits of sacred mushroom," Owl Carver said. "I saw
pale eyes' things--lodges that travel over the ground on trails made of
metal, smoking boats with bonfires in their bellies, villages as big as
prairies. Crowds of pale eyes seemed to be cheering for me. It made no
sense. It told me n