I couldn’t, but I didn’t tell Hawk that. Looking Glass had no objection from me, if anyone had inquired of me. Yes, stop and hunt. Still, there was something about this place.

Hawk turned away, his head down. When he looked up, I knew he had made up his mind. “I don’t care what Looking Glass thinks,” he said quietly. “We are going on in the morning, even if we have to travel by ourselves.”

I sighed, which earned me a sharp look. I wished I had something of value to trade for a bite to eat. Up until then, I was skeptical of that Bible story where Esau sells his birthright to his twin brother Jacob for a bowl of soup. I understood now. Esau was probably as hungry then as I was now.

If I couldn’t eat, I could at least find some conversation. Since Hawk looked uncommunicative, I went in search of Poker Joe for some sympathy. That turned out to be a smart idea. Poker Joe sat cross legged by a cooking fire with Chief Joseph, whose wife had left him in charge of stirring a cooking pot. He stirred every now and then, but mostly as punctuation to his conversation. They looked up when I joined them.

A smile playing around his expressive face, Joseph looked toward our shelter. “He has a bad heart?”

I nodded. “Hawk wants to leave for Canada right now.”

“It would be wise,” Poker Joe agreed, which didn’t exactly advance my own case. “Well, wise if we were led by wise men.”

Even though Looking Glass was nowhere in sight, I lowered my voice. “Why does Looking Glass do this?”

Poker Joe shrugged. Chief Joseph ran the stick around the cooking pot. He dipped out a modest serving with a tin cup and handed it to me. I couldn’t believe my eyes to see chunks of actual meat in the broth. I ate, hardly stopping for breath, despite the fact that I had noticed in recent days that the Nimiipuu dog population was on the wane.

Hawk was gone when I returned. I saw him walking toward the ridges that rimmed our stopping place. He had wrapped Blue Mountain Woman’s trade blanket around himself. He walked steadily to the top, working his way up easily enough. He stood there for the longest time, looking toward the south and east, seemingly unmindful of the wind blowing colder by the minutes.