man. To live in accord with the gift Earthmaker
gave her. She thought so often about it that it became a longing within
her, even though she knew that such a thing could not be.

This, Redbird thought, was the most she could hope for--to become a
medicine woman, like Gray Cloud's mother. A medicine woman had an
important place in the band, but she was not listened to, as the shaman
was.

Sun Woman reached out and laid her bare hand on top of Redbird's, which
was still in a mitten. "That is why I would be pleased if you and my son
shared a wickiup."

Redbird was startled and, amidst her fear and grief for Gray Cloud,
delighted. Truly, no mother ever spoke like this before words between
parents had been exchanged. And to know that Sun Woman would accept her
as her son's wife--wondrous!

But Gray Cloud might already be dead. "How can we talk and smile so?"
she cried. "He is up in the sacred cave, and the snow fell all last
night and all day today."

Sun Woman shook her head. "When I gave the boy to Owl Carver, I gave up
the right to say what was to be done with him. Like Owl Carver, Gray
Cloud belongs to the spirits now."

"But the spirits--" Redbird waved her hands helplessly. "They protect as
they like and they let death strike as they like."

A shadow of pain crossed Sun Woman's face. "Do you say such things to
hurt me?"

Redbird was shocked. "No!"

"Do you think I feel no pain?"

Redbird felt tears filling her eyes, burning them. She wiped her face.
"I know you do."

Sun Woman brought her face closer to Redbird's, took Redbird's chin in
her hand, and said, "I do not show pain because I do not want to make
others suffer with me. But you know what I feel."

Sun Woman opened her arms, and Redbird pressed her body against the
bigger, older woman's. She felt Sun Woman's strength flow into her and
she knew that she had found more comfort here than she ever would in the
arms of her own mother.

In the firelit wickiup, Redbird looked around her, thinking that this
was where Gray Cloud had been a baby. She looked at the bench where she
knew he slept every night. Where he must sleep again.

"Do you have anything to give a person who has been very cold for a long
time?" Redbird asked urgently.

"Ah." Sun Woman went to the back of the wickiup and came back with a
bundle of long, dark red peppers.

"These peppers are grown far to the south, where the sacred mushroom and
the bright blue stones come from. The lo