And having delivered his ultimatum, Ojeeg sat down.
“Right you are,” said Jean. “The Fisher has told the truth.”
“The Fisher!”
Marvin’s startled voice rang out as if he were once more in France.
“Certainly. Ojeeg means the Fisher. One of his sons is the Little Pine, the other died in the war. That was Ozahwunoo, the Bluebird.”
Marvin sat speechless.
But on hearing Jean’s reference to the Bluebird, his grandmother took up her parable in the difficult tongue.
“One good doctor worth all dead bones. Ozahwunoo not there. Ozahwunoo here!”
The Little Red Leaf gave a frightened glance toward the window, as if she expected to see her tall son standing there in a spectral blue light. But “here” did not mean the window. The old woman’s fingers were suddenly busy at her own bosom. She drew forth a little pouch, opened it, and beckoned her grandson to her side.
“Read, Shinguakonse. I have kept them eleven moons. I not speak of these to a drunkard.” And Shinguakonse read aloud from a bloodstained scrap of paper which Marvin recognized as a leaf from Gregg’s notebook: