"And you will find your own path. For some of the people the path you find will be good. But many others will journey in sorrow into the setting sun. And there they will disappear forever."
Bewildered, Gray Cloud looked from the Turtle to the pale eyes near him and back to the Turtle again. These things the Turtle had said were strange, like the words Owl Carver would chant before the council fire. Must he bring his people a message of suffering and sorrow? Would they listen?
He wanted to ask more questions but he felt a gentle pressure from the great body of the Bear beside him, and he knew that his visit to the lodge of the Turtle was ended.
2
The Spirit Bear
Redbird stood at the edge of the hunting camp, beside the grove of trees where the band's horses were sheltering from the falling snow. Her tears mingled with the snowflakes melting on her face. Wherever she looked, a white curtain hid the land.
Would Gray Cloud die? The thought made her heart feel as if a giant's fist was squeezing it. Yesterday, at midday, her father had sent Gray Cloud on his vision quest, and in the most dangerous time of the year, the Moon of Ice, when the spirits harvested the living, leaving only the strongest to survive through to the spring. And just as night fell, the snow had begun. Would the spirits take Gray Cloud?
Tears burned her eyes and she felt dizzy. She had not slept all last night, and she had waited and watched through the day.
As she stood looking eastward, where Gray Cloud had gone on his spirit journey, it came to her that he might already be dead. The wind must have been blowing snow into the sacred cave all night and all day. Gray Cloud, in a trance, might already have frozen to death. She might be weeping for a dead man.