“And what did Tawis do to help you escape?” Bird Flying asked. The fact that her voice was so kind—despite the pain he saw in her eyes—made it hard for Okwaho to reply. Bird Flying was always kind, no matter what. Even after her husband, Looks Forward, had been killed—back before they left Onondaga to make this small village—she never expressed anger toward the Swampy Land People whose warriors had killed him.

Okwaho took another breath. “Tawis,” he said, “my friend, my brother, he shouted ‘RUN!’ Then he dove at the men and knocked them into the stream.”

A very small smile came to the lips of Bird Flying. “Of course.” She nodded. “That is my son. And you did as he wanted. You got away.”

Okwaho nodded. “Maybe he’ll find some way to escape,” he said. It was all he could think to say. And even as he spoke those words it seemed as if he was hearing someone else say them, someone who was unsure of himself and did not believe what he was saying.

“Perhaps he may,” Bird Flying said, but there was no hope in her voice.

How could she have any hope? Okwaho thought. How can any of us have hope for anything?

Every person in their little village had lost someone over the last few years. A brother, a father, an uncle killed in war. A sister, a brother, a dear friend, or even a mother, taken away, kidnapped to become part of another nation. There they might take the place and even the name of another person lost from that other nation as a result of the war that had no end. It made Okwaho angry to think about it. This endless warfare was like a cannibal monster that was always hungry, always reaching out with its skeletal hands to take more and more lives.

Bird Flying looked toward the direction from which Okwaho had come running. It was not as if she was trying to see anything or anyone. It was as if she was saying goodbye. Then she sighed, turned, and went back into the Snipe Clan longhouse.

chapter three

STORY

A story is a powerful thing. When he was only five winters old, Okwaho had asked his mother why stories had such an effect, why whenever he heard one told he felt as if he was there while the story was happening. Even when it was a tale from long ago, or one about such monsters as stone giants and talking heads, it was as if it was happening right before him, taking place all around him. He no longer heard his mother’s voice. Instead he found himself seeing and experiencing things alongside the ones the story was about.