He vomited once again as he crouched and remained still, panting, waiting for the nausea to pass.

‘Lap up your hot sick, Kinchuinick. Fitting food for a pig.’

He stayed still, his eyes open now, staring at the undulations of the gloomy floor described by the daylight from the arched entrance. Gruffly into the rock-strewn ground, Sam spoke a question to himself.

‘What did we do to make you hate like this?’

The laugh again, then a music-hall imitation of Sam’s own voice. ‘You breathed in and out.’

The laugh became manic in its filthy raucous rasping, and bile rose in Sam’s throat again. He closed his eyes, fought it off, and pulled himself upright. He turned and slumped against the tunnel wall, oblivious to the sharp rock grazing his naked body, and as his eyes rolled back in a fevered head once more, Eden was back with him.

It was a state of bliss. Sam sought it and opposed it at the same time. It was not a place he wanted to be, this land of spirits, that was reached only when the mind was clear and pure and the soul was that of a shaman. And yet who could resist this velvety, seductive haven?

They were together in a sweet meadow, as they had been a few moments ago before Sam had cried out in anger at the eagle’s demands. He was young and straight and handsome, this Eden. Dressed in his robes with the sun glinting behind his head.

‘He hates because he is hate. Do not converse with him.’

Sam felt the warm sun heat his frozen body. The sun darkened for a second as the great bird circled again, throwing its majestic shadow over Sam’s upturned face.

He squinted up at the sky then back at the shining figure of Eden. ‘If I cannot converse how can I understand his nature to battle with him? To trick him as you say I must?’

Eden tilted his head slightly. ‘Tell me, Hunting Wolf. Tell me who you are.’

Sam frowned, ‘I am Sam Hunting Wolf.’

‘Your happiness lies where?’

Sam frowned again. ‘In my wife and my children.’

‘As it should. But in your ancestors, your elders? In your blood?’

‘No. Not there.’

‘Why not, my Grandson?’

Sam moved his warm shoulders and felt the grass at his ankles stroke the skin of his legs. When he spoke in this place it was as though his words were spun from his mouth like strands of sugar. The speaker could see them, watch them form, and yet he knew somehow that there was no sound. It was easy for those words to come directly, being spoken before they were censored. Here, there could be no duplicity. No lies. Here the truth was that which was written on the heart.

‘I despise it. White men are right to despise us. Look at the legacy you’ve left, Grandfather.’