and red on the western horizon.
It had been high when he sat down here. He must have gone on a spirit
walk.

"I knew it would be like this," Sun Woman said. "It would come one day
when I least expected it--my son would be back again."

He sighed deeply. "To see my mother makes my heart as big as the
prairie."

They sat facing each other and she gripped his shoulders. "You are a man
now, a very handsome man." She ran her hand along his cheek, and his
whole face felt warm. He kept his gaze fixed on her eyes.

She said, "You have learned much. You have been hurt. Your face is
scarred." She followed the line of the scar with her thumb, leaning
forward to peer still more closely at him. "I see sadness in you. Your
father is dead. That is why you have come back."

She sat back and closed her eyes for a silent moment. Then she began a
song for the dead.

"Earthmaker, show him the way.
Lead him over the bridge of stars and sunbeams,
Along the westward Trail of Souls.
Take his soul into your heart."

After she had finished the song, Sun Woman wiped the tears from her face
with her blunt fingers. She reached out and stroked his cheeks as well.
He had not realized that he was crying.

But grieving for Pierre reminded him to reach into his medicine bag.

"I have a gift for you, Mother." He took out the flat silver case with
its velvet neck cord, opened it and showed her the pair of spectacles
Marchette had brought to him from Victoire. "Do you know these?"

"Your father wore circles of glass like these. To see the marks on the
talking paper."

"Yes. These are the same ones." He closed the case and pressed it into
her hand. "Now you have something that was close to Star Arrow."

She said, "He was with me for five summers only, but in spirit, ever
since. Now I will feel even closer to him." She slipped the ribbon over
her head and dropped the case down the front of her doeskin dress.

He saw the tracks of more tears on her smooth brown cheeks in the fading
light. This time she did not wipe them away.

"Tell me all that has happened to you," she said.

As White Bear talked, he deliberately made his voice loud enough to
carry, so that Redbird, in the wickiup, might hear.

When he was through telling his story, he felt weighed down by guilt.

"I fled, Mother, even though I promised my father I would care for the
land. And smoked tobacco with him to seal the promise. Should I have
stayed?"

She pu