t together for
greater warmth.

"I was down in the woods, seeing to our horses," Redbird lied. She had
been near the horses, but only to watch for Gray Cloud.

"I needed you here," Wind Bends Grass said crossly. "I was stringing
beads for a new sash for your father, and your sisters are too small to
help me."

_Does my mother want me to string beads while Gray Cloud freezes to
death?_

"The snow was heavy on the horses' backs," Redbird said. "They needed
someone to brush them off."

"Nonsense," said Wind Bends Grass, sitting up. "You were waiting and
worrying for that pale eyes boy. And meanwhile Wolf Paw came again to
speak to your father today. How can you refuse the son of the mighty
Black Hawk and think of marrying that boy who has no father? His mother
lay with a pale eyes and got Gray Cloud. The pale eyes lived with her
only five summers and then ran away. He would have run away sooner, but
our people held him prisoner because of the war."

Redbird heard muffled giggles from the bedding beside her mother. Her
little sisters thought the story of Gray Cloud's parentage funny. Wind
Bends Grass struck with her hand at the two shaking bundles.

"Wolf Paw already has a wife," Redbird said.

"He is a _man_," said Wind Bends Grass. "A brave. He can make two wives,
three wives, _four_ wives happy."

Rage at her mother for belittling Gray Cloud when he might be dying
boiled up inside her and almost choked her. She bit her lip and held
back the angry words. She hurt too much to want to quarrel.

She took off her fur cap, wet boots and mittens and laid them near the
fire. Keeping on her buffalo-hide cloak, her doeskin dress and leggings,
she lay down on her own pallet, padded with blankets and prairie grass.
Curling up her legs, she wrapped the heavy cloak around herself.

The wickiup was quiet, except for the popping of burning twigs.

Redbird knew that her fear for Gray Cloud, deepening as the night
deepened, would keep her awake. She decided that when they were all
asleep, she would go back to the wickiup of Sun Woman and watch with
her.

She lay staring at the blackened ceiling that arched over her head.
Partly obscured by drifting smoke, the curved poles cast deep shadows in
the flickering light. Iron Knife had laid fresh branches on the fire.
Smoke stung her eyes.

Sometimes she thought she saw spirit messages above her in the patterns
of the twigs interwoven with the larger poles, and in the cracks in