That surprised me somewhat. “Aren’t you one? Or something like that? A—a healer?” I had vague memories of Ian telling me about the False Face Society, healers who would gather to offer prayers and songs over a sick person.

“Well, no.” He rubbed a knuckle lightly over his upper lip, and I thought he was—for once—trying not to laugh at me. But no; he’d only been making up his mind what to say.

“Do you not know what the word ‘sachem’ means?”

“Rather obviously not,” I said, a little miffed. “What’s it mean, then?”

He straightened up, half consciously. “A sachem is an elder of the people. A sachem might advise and lead a great number of his people. I did.”

Well, that accounted for his self-confidence.

“Why aren’t you a sachem anymore?”

“I died,” he said simply.

“Oh.” I looked around us. We had come to the trout lake, which was glimmering with a cold bronze light; the sun was coming down, and the forest surrounding us was mostly pine and birch trees, dark against the sky. There was no sign of any human habitation. I took a deep breath of the wind and the coming dark. I’d taken his arm coming down the hill; his flesh had been warm and solid; I’d felt the hardness of his bones.

“You’re not a ghost, are you?” I said, and thought, oddly, that I would have believed either answer.

He looked at me for several moments before answering.

“I don’t know,” he said.

We found a fallen log and sat down. At the far end of the lake, a family of beavers had built a lodge that dammed the small creek leading out of it. I could see a beaver on top of the lodge, its stocky form silhouetted against the light, head raised to the breeze.

“Jamie says they mostly come out at night,” I said, nodding toward it. “But we see them often in the daytime, too.”

“They feel safe, I suppose. I have not heard many wolves. Other than small Hunter; he howls very well but is not big enough to hunt beaver yet. And his parents don’t let him out at night.”

“Haha,” I said politely. “How did you come to die? An accident?”

He grinned at me, showing teeth that were visibly worn but mostly present.

“Few people do it on purpose. A snake bit me.” He pushed back his left sleeve and showed me the scar on the underside of his arm: a deep, irregular hollow in his flesh, about two inches long. I took his hand and turned it for a better look. He was very lean, and well hydrated; the larger blood vessels were clearly visible, firm under the skin.

“Good Lord, it looks as though it bit you right in the radial artery. What sort of snake was it?”