He turned the wooden cross over in his hands as if looking for its secret. The Henderson man had carved it well. One piece, and where the bars crossed, a rough and tiny figure of a man with his arms out. It was nothing like the beautiful bone and wood one that Walks Alone had held and hoped to keep in the cabin, but it was good and he liked it.

Henderson had seen him hold it when he came back a few hours ago, but there was no time for smiling or thanking him with his hands. He had brought terrible news. Walks Alone had sat on his blanket next to the wall of the tipi listening to the tall man try to tell his story. His mother, and his father, who had woken and was well, had listened carefully to Henderson’s tale of the things that were happening in the white man’s village. Then his mother had looked at his father in a strange way when she heard of the death of the man McEwan.

They were all gone now. He was alone in the tipi, tending the fire and touching his cross, trying to discover its magic which he could not comprehend. But there was much he could not comprehend. He had been astonished to hear his sister’s name spoken again in the tipi today. They never spoke of her in front of him. At least not when they thought he was listening. But he had heard his mother crying sometimes at night when she thought he slept, and heard her call her name. And today, her name had been on all their lips but his. Walks Alone looked into the fire. They thought he could not bear to hear it. They were wrong. He said it every day inside his head, and he relived her death in minute detail just as often. The spirits had taken his voice with that death, but he would not forget. He could not. Not even if he wished to.

‘Take her, Walks Alone.’

His father’s tone had been brusque that hot summer evening. The camp was only hours old and they had much to do before nightfall. Singing Tree had gone with the women to the river and the men were in the camp with a few scattered children who were too tired after the long journey to accompany their mothers.

She had put her chubby little arms out to her father and was crying that he would not hold her. He had been busy with his medicine, herbs and roots that he was pounding to give to an elder to whom the journey had not been kind.

‘Why must I take her, Father?’

‘I must have quiet. Fetch wood and take her with you.’