Her face twisted with rage, she threw the rock.
For an instant he was blinded as it hit his cheek, stunning him, and his head snapped back.
He felt a pounding pain in the back of his skull as his vision cleared. The ache from being hit with a rifle butt had come back.
He heard gasps of dismay from some of the watching women, laughter from others.
Wind Bends Grass called out scornfully, "I am ashamed to call this fool my daughter. I cast her out of my lodge because she would accept no suitors. At last comes the one who ruined her for all the others, and she drives him away with a rock. I think we should throw rocks at her."
The crowd's laughter was louder, although White Bear saw that Wind Bends Grass did not mean to be funny.
His left cheekbone throbbed, the cheek Raoul's knife had scarred, and he felt a trickle of blood. But he would not let himself lift his hand to wipe it away.
Redbird's hand went up to her own face, as if the rock had hit her. Her slanting eyes widened with a look of horror.
She whirled and ducked through her dark doorway.
"Go in there after her, White Bear!" one of the women called.