Hunting Wolf would not move. The scheme was foolish. How could he stand amongst them and let them examine his heart, when he himself did not know the contents of it? He was drawn only by the name of his child, and now he wished to go back. His wife was unsure of his heart also. He saw it in her eyes. Her suspicion was that he had killed a man. He could not tell her the blood that spattered his clothes and face and body when they found him in a trance was from the creatures that had died before him like actors. He scarce believed what he had seen himself. But he made himself believe. He had been warned. All his life warned, and now was the time.

‘You go on, Henderson. I have changed my mind. They will not believe me, for I have nothing to tell. But I would see this trapper. I will wait here, and watch.’

The Reverend Henderson looked into the chief’s eyes and tried to read them. They were closed to him. Henderson swallowed and blinked against the snow. He had to ask. He had assumed, but now he could not assume.

‘Hunting Wolf. You kill man McEwan?’

Hunting Wolf looked beyond Henderson to the cabins, their smoke rising from the metal chimneys. He spoke in a dream.

‘I do not know. In truth, I do not know.’

Singing Tree huddled beneath the lodgepole pine gazing through the falling snow to the mountains. Snowchild. Sometimes she thought in her sleep that she was with her yet. Wriggling beneath her arm, warm and plump, shifting in a child’s sleep. And then she would wake and know that it was not true. She had blamed no one but herself for her child’s death. But it had made her doubt her husband in a small way. If he were such a great shaman, how could he not have foreseen such an event?

And this mission they were on now, how much was true? She knew the tales. But she was a practical woman. There had been no spirits in her life other than the one she prayed to, and who came only in dreams. Spirits were of men. Bad and good. Like men.

She would not let herself believe that Hunting Wolf had killed the white man. Such folly, such evil, would be unthinkable. And yet what was she to think? Powderhand had whispered of it as if he were glad. But she was not glad. She wished to be home, on the reserve in their cabin, away from all this madness and magic and fear.

She knew the spirits came to her husband. That much she believed, although her bitterness over their silence on her child’s death was profound. But evil spirits could come too, and they may use a man if that man is not strong, not pure in his heart.