He shrugs. “Just that I’ve heard of you. This black spruce jay, wandering around these parts, doing good.” He smiles. “It’s kind of funny, now that I think of it. My name’s Whiskey Jack, and Whiskey Jack’s what people call you birds. That’s about as close as corbae and canid are going to get without having mixed blood like my buddy Crazy Dog.”

I take another drag from the cigarette and start to hand it back, but Jack shakes his head.

“Keep it,” he says and starts to roll himself another one.

“Did you know her?” I ask.

“Who? Walker’s little girl?”

I nod.

“Yeah, I did,” he says. He sighs and gets his cigarette lit. “They named her well: Anwatan. Calm Water. I guess it’s okay to speak her true name, now that she’s gone. She was a little sweetheart, always ready to see the best in everything. But I guess you know that already.”

I shake my head. “I never met her.”

“But here you are, paying your respects all the same.”

I nod.

“So, why?” Jack asked.

I just look at him, then finally say, “You sure do talk a lot.”

“Yeah, that’s what everybody says. But that doesn’t mean I don’t listen. And man, I’m as bad as you blackbirds when it comes to being curious about just any damn thing you can think of.”

I hesitate a moment, then realize that telling what I know is a way of adding to Anwatan’s story. Like the songs and dancing coming up from below, it would help her spirit move on. So I tell Jack about the fiddler I rescued from the bogans, how the bogans had been out hunting, how Lizzie buried Anwatan’s remains and played a lament over the grave.

“That was a kind gesture on her part,” Jack says.

“She seems like a pretty decent sort.”

Jack starts to pull out his tobacco pouch again, but I shake my head. I get out my own and roll us each another cigarette. Jack lights them with that shiny lighter of his.

“You sweet on her?” he asks.

“Who, Lizzie? Hardly. Like I told you, she’s human.”

Jack shakes his head. “You’ve got to get these preconceptions out of your head. Seriously.” Then he smiles and gives me a considering look. “She sweet on you?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Man, you blackbirds really don’t have a clue, do you? You’re either all dark thoughts and deep philosophy, or you’re headlong into having some fun. You need to learn to mix it up a little.”

“Like the crow girls.”