It jolted her out of herself—but not into the other worlds. She was still in her own world, standing beside her body as Grandfather stood beside his. To any onlooker, they were only an old man and his small granddaughter, enraptured by the dancers.

“Someone is trying to make trouble, Kestrel,” Grandfather said. “Two someones, I think. One of them is white—he wants to cause a fight and blame it on the Peoples. But the other is Osage, he wants the fight too, but he wants it to get power over some of the young hotheads. That is what we feel. We must deal with both these young men.”

“But Grandfather, how are we to stop this fight—like this?” she asked, puzzled. “Shouldn’t the policemen take care of it?”

An innocent question; at thirteen, she had still trusted the police. She had still trusted in white man’s justice. Grandfather had not disabused her of that—because he was wise enough to know that sometimes the wrongs were not entirely one-sided. Perhaps that was why she had gone into law in the first place.…

“I will deal with the white boys; I am more used to this way of things than you are,” he told her. “But I need a young warrior to deal with the other—” His eyes sparkled as he looked at her, and she knew that she was the one he meant. Excitement had made her shiver; this was an adult task. And Grandfather made it clear that she was to deal with this young man without supervision.

She saw then that he had his own medicine-costume on; it looked much like his dancing-gear, except that he carried his implements openly, not hidden in their pouches.

“He is taking peyote,” Grandfather continued, a faint note of disgust in his voice. “He has taken it already, thinking it will help him dance better, to raise the power he needs to control and impress his friends. He has not even done it properly; he has not followed either the West Moon or East Moon Church ways; he has simply made up some nonsense of his own. He will be able to see you. You must go and stop him.”

It never entered her head to tell him no. Grandfather was right; this was important. There had been trouble at this site before, and there were people who came to the powwows purely to harass the participants. The only way to get permission to use public land like Mohawk Park was to make the event open to the public; that meant open to troublemakers, too. Liquor was a problem, for people often brought strong alcohol with them; heat and hot tempers did not help in the least.