Mooncrow couldn’t make anything more of the pouch than she could, except to assure her that although Watches-Over-The-Land had made it, it had not belonged to him. In a way that was both reassuring and disappointing. It would have been good to recover at least one of her ancestor’s looted possessions, but she wasn’t certain she had whatever it took to handle something once belonging to a shaman as powerful as her forefather had been.

In the end, when she looked at the clock in her headboard and saw the time, she realized that all she was going to do now was think in circles. Almost four in the morning, and she knew very well she was completely exhausted. She stripped and climbed into bed; but once she turned off the lights, she stared up at the ceiling, unable to go to sleep.

Well, I can force myself, she thought. I can make myself relax if I want to. But do I want to? Obviously there’s still something bothering my subconscious. I suppose if I don’t deal with it, it’ll be showing up in my dreams. I sure as hell don’t need that.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what that something was. David Spotted Horse, that’s what. He’d come back like the proverbial tomcat.

Though tonight he’d probably lost one of his nine lives from fright alone. He’d had a good scare thrown into him by the Little People. …

But now that she thought about it, she wasn’t entirely certain that he had been in real danger after she knocked him on his ass. A scare might have been all they intended after that moment. They were so unpredictable; they were perfectly capable of changing their minds within a few seconds.

They’re almost as contrary as Mooncrow. Hard to tell what they intend from one moment to the next. Certainly the leader had been willing to listen to her, and although he had given in, it had been without much of a protest, much less a fight. Was that due to the effectiveness of her protections, to her own ability, or to the fact that they had decided not to bother with David anymore and accept that she was protecting him? There was no way to tell besides asking them, and no guarantee that they’d tell the truth if she did.

Oh, if David had managed to get himself killed, they’d have taken him, all right. He fit right into the category of “those condemned to roam the earth, out of the sight of Wah-K’on-Tah.” There wouldn’t have been enough left of him to paint if the bomb had gone off in his face; he’d have been lawful prey. Messing with stolen Osage relics, dying without paint, being buried without paint—she had the feeling they’d have had him even if he’d been white.