David simply nodded. Intuition had told both of them to dress for hiking, and now she was glad that they had, for Mooncrow led them right down to the creek bed, where they followed its path for at least a half mile. It was pretty rough hiking. None of the flood-control projects had gotten this far up the creek. It was full of downed trees, old tires, even a dead car. Rocks ranging from the size of a bowling ball to the size of that old car studded the bottom of the ravine, but above their heads Jennie winced at the thickets of wild plum and plenitude of blackberry vines; the going would be no easier up there.

Finally, Mooncrow held up his hand, as they reached a grove of ancient willows, cottonwoods, and redbuds. He looked around, as if he was taking his bearings, and then scrambled up the bank using the exposed roots of a willow with a trunk that must have been two feet in diameter.

David and Jennie followed, to find him holding to the trunk with one hand as he examined every inch of the ground around the willow, frowning. She couldn’t see anything here, and she wasn’t prepared to use that inner vision just at the moment. The willow that Mooncrow stood beneath would probably wash into the creek after a few more big storms; fully a third of its roots were exposed. Across from them was the silted area that had been the old creek bed; now it supported a flourishing community of saplings, weeds, and brush. Up and down the creek bed was more of the same.

But Mooncrow kept peering around, and finally looked down through the mat of willow roots. And then he blanched.

“What’s wrong, Little Old Man?” Jennie asked quickly. “What have you found?”

“It is what I have not found, Kestrel,” he replied, as David reached out to steady him. His voice was strong, but his hands were shaking. “It is what I have not found.”

He sat down then, on the roots of the willow; Jennie joined him, with David on the other side. “You know that I told you how Watches-Over-The-Land had defeated an evil man,” he said. Jennie nodded; this was for David’s benefit, for he had not heard the story. “It was needful for him to drown that evil man, and then bury him. Needful to drown him so that his blood could not touch the earth, escape, and take his spirit with it; needful to bury him, so that his spirit could not wander, so that it would be held in place by the earth. If that man had become like the mi-ah-luschka, he could have found others to work through. It was here that our ancestor buried that man, with a willow planted over his body to hold him there.” Mooncrow’s face grew bleak. “But nothing lasts forever, and the willow did not hold him. Look—”