The thick muffled silence of the snow made McEwan’s head beat with the rhythm of his own blood and he stepped back from this madman and his talking hand. The men were beginning to mutter from their shady grandstand beneath the trees and through his inexplicable fright Angus McEwan realized that he had played a bad hand. Friendless, he turned quickly from Hunting Wolf and steered his awkwardness towards the camp.

The eyes that followed his progress betrayed a variety of emotions. There was pity and anger, and glinting in one or two were the first signs of malicious delight at his error. But in one pair of very deep and dark eyes, there was naked hatred.

Angus McEwan, however, saw no one’s eyes as he stumbled through the snow while the Indians at his back destroyed their defiled site and went in search of a new one.

The boy turned the wooden crucifix over in his small brown hands, his fingers gently tracing the relief ivory figure of Christ. It was a curious object but he liked it. The white of the little bone man’s flesh against the dark wood fascinated Walks Alone, which is why he had been sitting on the floor for at least an hour, holding it and stroking the figure.

At the foot of the flesh-and-blood white man’s bed, his mother, Singing Tree, was squatting, chewing dried meat to soften it and replacing the masticated pieces carefully in her hip pouch. She alternated her gaze as she performed this ovine task between her son and the figure of the thin white man lying asleep on the bed, his chest rising and falling beneath the ragged brown blanket.

Henderson stirred, groaning slightly as he turned in his sleep.

‘Put the totem back, Walks Alone. He will wake soon.’

He looked up at her with huge black eyes, then past her to the bed as Henderson awoke, brought back to consciousness by Singing Tree’s growl at her son.

As though pulled by wires, James Henderson sat up from the waist and shrieked. She was at his side with one swift movement, a thin dirty hand on his shoulder.

‘There is nothing to fear. Lie down and know you are safe.’

Henderson looked at her with wild eyes, then swept the room with his stare like a man expecting attack. He gasped when he saw Walks Alone looking up at him with a furrowed and solemn brow.

Singing Tree followed his terrified gaze. ‘That is Walks Alone, our son. He is here also. He has fetched wood for your fire.’

For a moment Henderson was lost. Where was he? Why was he in bed in the daylight, still partially clothed, with two Indians in his room?