ctor. Many Sauk hated pale eyes.
One might get at her. Or her own people might even kill her by mistake.

Yellow Hair had missed so much. So tall and beautiful, but she had
nothing to show for her life--no man, no children. Redbird felt sorry
for her.

"You love White Bear?" she asked, hugging herself as she said the word
"love" to show what she meant.

Now Yellow Hair turned pale--even paler than usual--and drew away from
Redbird. She shook her head violently, her bright golden hair swinging
all wild and loose, and said, "No, no, no!"

But she stared at Redbird too fixedly, and Redbird could see that she
did not mean what she said.

White Bear wanted Yellow Hair, but said he did not want her. Yellow Hair
loved White Bear, but said she did not love him.

White Bear and Yellow Hair were both being foolish. It came of Yellow
Hair being pale eyes and White Bear being part pale eyes.

And so now Redbird took a deep breath and said, "When we sleep tonight,
you go to bed of White Bear. He make you happy."

Yellow Hair's eyes grew huge and her face glowed with a joyous wonder.
She stammered and gasped as she asked Redbird if she really meant it, if
she would really let such a thing happen.

"I happy when you happy, White Bear happy," Redbird said.

Redbird had come to see Yellow Hair as a younger sister who needed her
help and guidance. She liked Yellow Hair much more, in fact, than she
liked either Wild Grape or Robin's Nest. Her sisters had always sneered
at White Bear, and Yellow Hair saw what a fine man he was.

Yellow Hair suddenly looked frightened. She stood up abruptly, picked up
her fringed doeskin dress and struggled into it. When her head appeared
through the neck of the dress and she shook her hair free, she was
crying again.

No, she insisted, she couldn't do that. It would be wrong.

Redbird thought she understood. This hungry, dangerous time was a
terrible time for a woman to be carrying a baby.

"You not want baby? Sun Woman makes tea keeps woman from getting baby."

Yellow Hair talked for a long time. Redbird tried hard to follow what
she said, asking questions and making her repeat herself. It had to do
with Jesus, the pale eyes spirit Pere Isaac always talked about. Jesus
would not like it if Yellow Hair went to bed with White Bear.

Redbird remembered White Bear telling her that Yellow Hair was the
daughter of a pale eyes shaman. The Jesus spirit might be a special
spirit for her, then.