Still, it hadn’t been as bad as Eagle Robe had said. He had said it would look like his worst dreams come true and he might be fooled. Who would be fooled by that black misty thing?

Maybe, he mused, it was making someone, somewhere else, believe in it. Showing someone else their worst dreams come true. Billy closed his eyes for a second and prayed with all his heart that the someone would know it wasn’t real.

He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and ploughed on through the snow towards his Dad.

60

Alberta 1907 Siding Twenty-three

She walked slowly between the deep ruts in the snow that the dragged poles were making. The horse that pulled their belongings, a few pots and skins cradled in the stretched tipi hides, left piles of orange-brown droppings in its wake that steamed gently in the cold air.

Singing Tree stepped carefully over one then looked up at the jagged peaks that were searingly white against the blue sky.

The snow had stopped. It fell in great heavy thumps from the branches as the silent line of Kinchuinicks passed, loosened from its hold by the sun, and brought down finally by the brush of a shoulder against a low branch or a hoof snapping a concealed dry root.

Singing Tree could see an eagle circling below one of the peaks. It was a dark shape from below, its wingtips open like the fingers of a hand. But when it turned and caught the air again to soar its feathers glinted in the brilliant sunshine like a fish in a river flipping over with a silver wink.

Was it him? She stopped for a second and watched the bird, until it disappeared behind a tower of rock. She lowered her head and walked on.

Singing Tree thought then that perhaps the Great Spirit had created love as a punishment. The pain that it could inflict was unrivalled by any other. He was gone, and her heart felt as if it had grown claws and was tearing its way out of her breast.

Claws.

Tearing their way …

She flinched, longing to dampen her thoughts as she dampened the fire.

But it should be remembered. The worst of it. It had to be. If they were to forget, to keep the darkness of the events in a silent place in their hearts, then they would forget for the future too. Her face became hard and old, as she squinted into the middle distance. Remembering.

The white men. How they shouted and gestured and wanted her husband’s blood. But they would not go into the hole they had made in the mountain. They stood instead at a distance from the entrance while the chief of them spoke and made wide sweeping movements with his hands. She had held Walks Alone tightly to her breast, for she had been afraid for him as much as for Hunting Wolf.