for many days and nights. It was time she went
to bed with White Bear.

Yellow Hair walked beside her around the edge of the lake. Ahead of them
ran Eagle Feather with a captive pale eyes boy named Woodrow. Iron Knife
had brought Woodrow back from a raid, and White Bear had taken him under
his protection too.

Woodrow, a few years older than Eagle Feather, was darting this way and
that, uprooting plants and throwing them down, tasting berries and
spitting them out. Redbird watched him with amusement. She had already
grown fond of him.

Woodrow said something to Yellow Hair, who smiled and turned to Redbird.

Speaking the pale eyes' tongue slowly, adding the few Sauk words she
knew and using gestures, Yellow Hair managed to explain to Redbird that
Woodrow was unhappy because he did not know what to pick.

"If look good, pick," Redbird said, using the little English White Bear
had taught her. "Not eat. If I say good, then eat."

Woodrow grinned and nodded to Redbird to show he understood. He ran off
after Eagle Feather, who was looking for birds and squirrels to shoot
with his small bow and arrow. Woodrow had been a captive only half as
long as Yellow Hair, but unlike her, he seemed happy with his lot.

Redbird doubted that Eagle Feather and Woodrow would find any squirrels
or birds. Very little that was edible, plant or animal, lived in this
marsh, and over a thousand people had been foraging in the area for more
than a moon. The last time the British Band had eaten well was when Wolf
Paw brought the cattle. And among so many people, those cattle had not
lasted long. Many people were digging in the ground for worms and grubs,
roasting them and eating them in handfuls. Some people were even
secretly killing and eating horses, though Black Hawk had decreed death
for anyone caught doing that.

As for Redbird herself, she felt an emptiness in her belly from the time
she woke till the time she went to sleep, and she found herself wanting
to sleep longer and longer as her strength ebbed away. She worried
constantly that the baby inside her was not getting enough nourishment
and would die or be stunted. The people around her were starting to look
like walking skeletons.

They came to a point of land covered with pale green shrubs thrusting
out into the lake. Redbird called Eagle Feather.

"Go for a swim around the other side of this point and take the pale
eyes boy with you."

Eagle Feather's blue eyes glowed. "May