Shamanic apprentice to her grandfather, her spirit-name was taken from her spirit-animal, student as she was in the teaching of one of the Little Old Men of the Ni-U-Ko ‘n-Ska, the Children of the Middle Waters, whom the Heavy Eyebrows and Long Knives called “Osage.” By birth and by spirit, she was gentle Tzi-Sho gens, the peacemakers, and here lay the irony, for not only was Mooncrow teaching her the peaceful medicine of Tzi-Sho, he was teaching her the medicine of the warriors, the Earth People, the Hunkah. And, as if that were not enough, he was teaching her the special medicines reserved for each of the clans! For that, she had thought, one had to be a Medicine Chief and not simply a shaman. Grandfather had never once come out and said that he was—

Then again, maybe he was simply living up to his contrary nature. He wasn’t registered, either; nor were any of his forefathers. And he wouldn’t use any of the Peyote rituals that had crept into, and indeed supplanted, most of the Osage ways; they were like kudzu or mimosa in the red-clay soil—not native, but once there, impossible to get rid of. He had certainly been teaching her things no tradition she knew of called for; he had adopted the Lakotah sacred pipe; and he was passing to her the medicines of virtually every Osage clan from Bear to Otter to Eagle, things she thought were kept as clan secrets.

That would be like him; the man who cheerfully used an electric sauna for a sweatlodge, who prepared sacred tobacco in a fruit-dryer bought at an ex-hippie’s yard sale, who purchased his cornmeal for ceremonies at the big chain grocery—

Who taught a woman Warrior’s Medicine.

Kestrel realized where her thoughts were leading her, and resolutely brought her concentration back where it belonged. This Seeking was not about Mooncrow, but about herself. About her progress, or rather, lack of progress.

There was something holding her back, and she did not know what it was. Mooncrow would not tell her, saying only that if there really was something holding up her progress, she already knew what it was; typical contrary reasoning. She wondered where he’d gotten that particular mind-set; it wasn’t typical for Osage Medicine. And it certainly made life difficult for his student. She could have used a teacher less like Coyote and Crow, and more like Buffalo and Eagle. Simpler instruction, fewer tricks; more straightforward direction, fewer riddles.

He’s doing it to me again. Making her annoyed, taking her thoughts off the path. To be honest, making her angry. He had chosen to teach her, and how he taught her was his choice, not hers. It was her duty, her privilege, to learn. If she were failing somewhere, it was up to her to find out where and why, and correct it. Only then would she earn her medicine-pipe.