6

In the Ancient Grove

Redbird watched, an aching, empty place in her chest, as White Bear
disappeared into the woods at the edge of the Rock River.

"What a fool!" Water Flows Fast, standing nearby, had spoken. "The pale
eyes have steel knives and blankets and big sturdy lodges that are
always warm and never leak. They always have enough food. I would be
happy to go live with a pale eyes if he asked me."

"Is your prattling tongue never still, woman?" said her husband, Three
Horses.

"It was my prattling tongue that agreed to marry you."

Redbird had no heart to listen to them bicker.

"Let me through!" she cried, and the crowd parted before her.

"Where are you going?" cried her mother. "It is shameful to run after
him." She grabbed Redbird's sleeve. "All the people will laugh at you."

"Let me go!"

As Wind Bends Grass pulled at her, Redbird's eyes met those of Wolf Paw,
standing beside his father, the war chief. He glared at her. She knew
he, too, wanted to tell her not to run after White Bear. But if he
showed that he cared that much, the people would make fun of _him_.

She turned her back on all of them--Wind Bends Grass, Wolf Paw, Black
Hawk, Owl Carver--and began to run.

When she reached the riverbank she saw no sign of him. For one
panic-stricken moment she thought, _Did he throw himself into the
river?_

Then, downriver, she saw a canoe gliding over the glistening water. He
was paddling hard and was almost out of sight around a bend.

Her own small bark canoe, on which she had painted a bird's wing in red,
lay a short distance down the riverbank. She pushed it into the water,
jumped into the rear and seated herself in the middle. The canoe's
bottom scraped over the riverbank as she pushed off with her paddle.

She stayed a distance behind White Bear, just close enough to keep him
in sight. He might not want her to follow him. She could not guess what
was in his mind right now.

What would she do when she caught up with him? She had hoped to marry
him, if not this summer, then the next. Ever since she was a small child
she had found him endlessly fascinating. More so than ever since his
return from his spirit journey. Nothing, she thought, would make her
happier than living with him. Sun Woman had told her all about what
happens when a man and a woman lie down together--knowledge that Wind
Bends Grass had insisted that she did not yet need. It sounded painful,
pleasurable, frighten