Four days was a long time, but Buffalo Caller could wait. Infinite patience was one attribute of a good warrior.

Several times recently a disturbing dream had visited him. It was an old dream, actually. He had first experienced it after the great raid on the coast, when for a short time he had held the captive boy with red hair. In the dream he had seen his old friend Antelope, warning him that the red-hair was an ill omen, that the boy should be killed before he could bring evil upon The People. But Antelope had already been dead when the dreams had begun; the Texans had regained the red-haired boy. The dreams had eventually become less frequent, though he had never quite put them out of his mind. It seemed to him, when he allowed himself to dwell on it, that the spirits were saying Antelope had been right.

It was probably true enough that red hair was a bad omen, because Antelope, a fearsome warrior, had died trying to kill the boy who possessed it. To Buffalo Caller this meant that red hair had great power. The spirits were telling him to beware of anyone whose hair was red.

Fortunately there seemed to be few red-hairs among the Texans. The rest were fair game.

Fasting was little hardship for Buffalo Caller. He had done it many times on the war trail and in quest of a vision. The discomfort was small compared to the satisfaction of a victory or being visited by a dream of good portent. The first night he slept well. His dreams were an empty succession of meaningless images. He was not disappointed. He did not expect a real vision the first night or the second. Usually they did not come to him until the body had advanced beyond the distracting sensations of hunger and thirst and the mind was open to whatever message the spirits wished to deliver.

By the close of the third day his vision was blurring because of self-imposed deprivations. He considered this good. Unimportant details faded, and he could better see the intentions of the spirits, better hear their voices above the whisper of prairie wind through the dry grass.

He was not aware of dropping off to sleep. It was as if he drifted without effort from the conscious world to one in which dreams became reality. He saw around him a great mass of warriors and more horses than there were buffalo on the plains. He saw the white man’s houses and felt the ground tremble as the invaders mounted a charge upon them. He saw the warriors’ mouths open wide as they raised their voices in a grand cry for victory, yet there was no sound, only silence, only feeling.

It was a wondrous thing, but puzzling.

He saw himself on the ground and saw the Texan horsemen rushing down upon him, swarming like angry bees. But most passed on, disappearing into a haze. Only one remained. Buffalo Caller realized with a start that though this was a grown man, he had the face of the boy once captured, then lost. And his hair was red like blood.