I look for Jilly, but she’s not sitting anywhere close. Then I realize she’s at the front of the stage, dancing like a little tangle-haired dervish. I blink in surprise until I realize that Joe must not be the only one who knows the crow girls well enough to get some personal attention from them.

“Got a light?” someone asks me.

I start digging in my pocket for a packet of matches as I turn around, only to find Jack standing there with a cigarette between his lips.

“What happened to that fancy Zippo of yours?” I ask. “Did you finally lose it in a card game?”

He grins. “I don’t lose at cards.” He pulls the lighter out and gets his cigarette going. “I was just making conversation. You want one?”

I take the proffered cigarette and he lights another for himself.

“How’s Joe?” I ask.

I haven’t seen him since Anwatan and the crow girls brought him back from the dead.

“Being Joe,” Jack says. “Last time I saw him he was back in Fitzhenry Park, doing his mystic Indian fortune-telling thing like nothing ever happened. But that’s what I like about Joe. He falls into these big stories, but he never lets them take over his life. He just goes back to Cassie and that extended family of his, and it’s all good.”

“I’m glad. I like him.”

“What’s not to like?” Jack takes a considering drag from his cigarette, then adds, “Heard about what happened at the big meeting.”

“You and everybody else. So, which side are you on? The one that thinks I’ve got a cerva’s generosity of spirit, or the one that thinks I’m an idiot?”

“Neither. It’s not something I’d have done, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong.”

“I just knew Mira wouldn’t have wanted her own death answered with another.”

Jack nods.

“But you don’t agree.”

“Well, that’s the funny thing,” he says. “I’ve just come back from a sortof babysitting duty, watching one of Anwatan’s killers prove that he’s actually a sweet little guy.”

“One of the bogans?”

“Yeah. Although he wasn’t actually in on any of the kills, and it turns out he was coerced into even doing that much.”

“Your point being?”

He shrugs. “Well, I would have just put him down and been done with it. But Anwatan made Joe promise to look out for him, and like I said, turns out he’s really okay. Messed up from the part he had to play in those hunts, but determined to make up for it. That’s not something I would have learned if I’d done things my way.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s funny how these things turn out.”