man wearing a deep red blanket stepped out of the woods. He stood over
the beached canoes with his arms folded.

Wolf Paw.

His eyes were like splinters of coal, and the black circles he had
painted around them gave him a terrifying aspect. The crest of red-dyed
deer hair that sprouted from his shaven skull seemed strange and savage
to White Bear after six years away from the Sauk.

White Bear rowed in close to the riverbank, uncertain how to greet Wolf
Paw. The brave said nothing, did nothing. A maple branch swayed in the
wind. Red leaves fell, and sunlight flashed from a steel-headed tomahawk
that Wolf Paw was holding.

White Bear's belly knotted.

He skidded the boat to a halt on the bank a short distance downriver
from Wolf Paw. He climbed out the front end, pulled the boat up on the
bank, unloaded it and turned it over.

Wolf Paw watched in silence as White Bear slung his pack and bags on his
back, picked up his rifle and rested it on his shoulder. Looking at Wolf
Paw's red crest and blanket and buckskin trousers, White Bear realized
how strange he himself must seem to Wolf Paw in the green clawhammer
jacket he had worn to his father's funeral.

Now they were face to face.

_I will wait for him to move, if I have to stand here till sunset and
all through the night. He chose this strange way of meeting me. Let him
show me what is in his mind._

He heard the boughs creaking in the wind around him. River water rippled
over the stones along the bank. He heard a redbird whistling in the
distance.

Wolf Paw drew a deep breath, opened his mouth and let out a war whoop.

"_Whoowhoowhoowhoo!_"

White Bear's heart gave a great thump, and he fell back a step. He heard
rage in the whoop, and the frustration. Wolf Paw was angry at him. Why?
Maybe just for coming back.

Wolf Paw held the tomahawk high. Corded muscles and dark veins stood out
in his rigid arm. Two feathers dyed red danced just under the steel
head. He repeated his war whoop, and then his lips drew back from
clenched white teeth.

He whirled and plunged into the woods, leaving White Bear shaken and
open-mouthed. He stood still, listening to Wolf Paw crashing through the
trees and shrubs, kicking piles of leaves, until the noise died away in
the distance. No Sauk ran noisily through the woods like that, unless
driven by some madness.

White Bear sighed. Oddly, he felt less frightened than he had before he
met Wolf Paw. Before, he had not known w