He left the sentence unfinished, but she finished it for him. “Like me,” she snarled. “And I’ll break his skull for him. Dad, if you have a way to hear from him, messages can go the other way. You let that bunch of overgrown adolescents know that there’s a lot more going on here than he thinks—and that’s not from Jennifer Talldeer, P.I., it’s from Kestrel-Hunts-Alone, Mooncrow’s designated apprentice. I think at least some of his friends will get the message and back off a little. I hope. If they don’t—I am not going to place myself between them and a bunch of angry mi-ah-luschka. And that’s my word on the subject.” She sniffed disdainfully, as her father winced at the mention of the Little People. “That won’t stop David, of course. He’s probably gotten so damn sophisticated that he doesn’t believe in anything anymore.”

Her father was quiet for a long moment. “Well—that was the other—the real reason I was worried. I may not have the Medicine, but I’ve seen it at work. This is old and powerful stuff you’re messing with. You weren’t making any inferences, but I can read between the lines. Somehow, this looting and the explosion are related. Watches-Over-The-Land was an unusually gifted man. The medicine stirred up against someone who stole his bones is going to be pretty severe. I don’t want you standing between the Little People and anybody.”

“I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, Dad,” she replied flippantly, but then sobered, and smiled at him reassuringly. “Remember, I have Mooncrow. He’s a horny old coot, but when things get serious—well, he’s as good as they get. If we can’t handle this together, no one can.”

Finally her father’s expression of concern faded. “I guess you’re right, and I really can’t make any good assessment—it’d be like you trying to figure out a weld. You know what you’re doing, honey. And you know what you need to do. So does the old man, as far as that goes, though sometimes I wonder how you put up with him living with you.”

She shrugged, secretly pleased that her father had given her the ultimate accolade of an adult—“you know what you’re doing.” “Maybe I’m more than a little contrary myself,” she admitted. “After all, it’s man’s medicine that I’m learning—”

Her father sighed. “Now you know I wouldn’t be a good parent and a good Osage if I didn’t worry about that, too.”

She tilted her head to one side, giving her reply a lot of thought. This was the first time he had actually come out and said that, and it deserved a decent reply. “I can understand that. But please, remember that he is the Teacher; I was the one he chose, it wasn’t the other way around. Not using this power—” she shook her head, “—no, I couldn’t let it just lie there, it would be—it would be denying a responsibility. As if I had all the ability of a great artist and refused to draw. No, that’s not right either.” She considered for a moment more. “It’s a demand on me, in my heart. It’s more than that, because it’s not just something for me, it’s something for my family, my clan, my gente, my nation—it’s more as if I got elected president and refused to serve. I kind of got elected to this, so it really would be the wrong thing not to do what’s right with the power.…”