Carver did a shuffling sunwise dance around him, shaking a gourd rattle
and chanting:

"Go forth and dance with the spirits,
Become a spirit yourself.
Bring back a gift for the people,
Bring back the words of the spirits."

Black Hawk, standing in the circle that had gathered to watch, stared at
him with an intensity that frightened him. Sun Woman and Redbird stood
with smiles of quiet pride. This time Redbird need not fear that he
would freeze to death on his spirit journey.

It would be painful to be away from Redbird, he thought, as he looked
into her eyes, saying a silent good-bye. Now, after a brief feast of
love, they must go hungry again. But only for a night or two.

White Bear turned his back on the declining sun. The ceremonial bearskin
swung heavily on his head and shoulders as he trotted out of the camp
toward the trail that ran along the river's edge. As he entered the
woods, another pair of eyes, hostile, suspicious, caught his. Wolf Paw
again, standing with folded arms.

_Wolf Paw still loves Redbird. And hates me._

He felt much stronger than he had when he arrived at the camp.
Alternately walking and running, he moved quickly and surely down the
Ioway River, and he remembered the way to the bluff of the sacred cave.
Several times along the way he met Sauk and Fox warriors. They
recognized the sacred bearskin, with the bear's skull covering his own
as a partial mask, and stepped aside with eyes averted as he passed
them.

The sun had sunk behind him by the time he had come to the end of the
almost-imperceptible trail to the top of the bluff. He stood there a
moment, looking out across the clear blue sheet of water that was the
Great River. He stared at the Illinois shore, the rich, flat bottomland
at the river's edge, the wooded bluffs, much like the one he was
standing on, forming a wall, beyond which rolled the autumn-tan, endless
prairie.

A beautiful and fertile land, from which his people--and he himself--had
been exiled. Would his vision show them a way back?

He scrambled down the face of the bluff to the cave and swung into the
entrance.

In the shadows he could barely make out Owl Carver's wooden owl standing
over the row of skulls with their stone necklaces; or the white bear
statue guarding the unknown depths of the cave.

He settled himself facing the entrance and chewed some scraps of sacred
mushroom Owl Carver had given him. Nothing to do now but sit and wait