Okwaho knew which nation was which from the arrangements of eagle feathers on their caps. The Senecas had one erect eagle feather on top. The Flint Stone Nation had three erect eagle feathers. The Standing Stone People two up and one down. The Swampy Land Nation wore one lying down. While Okwaho’s own Onondagas had one standing eagle feather and one eagle feather lying down.

But those Flint Nation gustowehs were different from any of the caps that Okwaho had seen the men of his Onondaga people or any other Longhouse man wear. Those fitted hats, which covered the tops of men’s heads to provide them with some protection from arrows or the blows of war clubs, were usually made from thick leather or ash splints. He could see that the caps worn by the Mohawk men probably had that same construction. But there was a difference. Instead of just having eagle feathers on top, those Flint Stone Nation gustowehs were decorated with many split turkey feathers, placed all around their cap. It fascinated Okwaho so much that he turned his attention from trying to see if a certain person might be climbing out of one of those Standing Stone canoes.

“Do you see how different our gustowehs are?” a familiar voice said from behind him. It was Carries.

“I do,” Okwaho said. “Why are there so many split feathers on them? They look like the turkey feathers we fasten to arrows.”

“Ah,” Carries said. “Your eyes are good, my young friend. That is exactly what those feathers are—split feathers from arrows.”

Carries smiled broadly in that way of his, making his facial tattoos dance. Okwaho sensed that he was waiting for him to ask more, that those split feathers were part of . . .

“A story,” Okwaho said. “There is a story about those feathers, is there not?”

“There is,” Carries replied. “As you know, an arrow without feathers cannot fly straight. A few moons ago the men of one of our Flint Stone villages were so excited when they heard the words of the Peacemaker that they decided the first thing they needed to do was to make peace with the Standing Stone village closest to them—a village that had been at war with them for as long as anyone could remember. They rushed to that village as fast as they could.

“‘We are here to make peace with you,’ they said to the village elders when they reached the town of their former enemies.

“‘If you are here to speak of peace,’ the Standing Stone elders said, ‘then why have you come here carrying weapons of war?’