As he thought about seeking a vision, White Bear began to feel more hopeful. He might not have to displease Owl Carver and Black Hawk by speaking of the strength of the long knives and sounding like He Who Moves Alertly. Instead, the Turtle, in that sacred cave looking over the river, would tell him what he should say. It was sure to be wiser counsel than anything he could think of himself.
He remembered his boyhood dream of being a prophet for the Sauk. Now he would be able to tell them where their future lay.
But then he remembered words Owl Carver himself had once spoken to him. They had stayed in his memory because they had made him so uneasy.
Many times the people do not want to listen to the shaman. The truer his words, the less they hear him.
The next night White Bear and Redbird sat facing each other on opposite sides of the wedding fire before Owl Carver's wickiup. White Bear's fringed shirt and trousers of soft doeskin, worked until it was nearly white, were a gift from a brave whose wife Sun Woman had helped with a difficult childbirth.
Redbird's dress was of white doeskin as well. Around her neck hung the necklace of the small, striped megis shells that had belonged to Sun Woman.
White Bear looked beyond the fire. Hundreds of men and women were standing in the shadows watching the ceremony, those of Redbird's Eagle Clan on her side of the fire, the Thunder Clan, kin of Sun Woman and himself, on this side. The daughter of the shaman was marrying the son of a pale eyes father and a medicine woman, and White Bear had returned from a long journey among the pale eyes and was a shaman himself. It was a wedding that people wanted to see.
Wind Bends Grass, standing behind Redbird, spoke of her daughter's character. Even though she had spent all of her life scolding her, tonight she extolled her to the skies. She was beautiful, loving, skilled, obedient. Then Wind Bends Grass instructed Redbird in her wifely duties, making one small change from the usual speech. Instead of telling her to give White Bear sons, she told her to give White Bear more sons.
Strangely, at this moment, White Bear found himself thinking of Nancy Hale. Was she still longing for him somewhere across the Great River?
If Raoul had not driven him out of Victoire, his promise to Pierre might have kept him there. He might never have come back here, not found out till much later that he had a son, never have been united with Redbird as he was tonight. Truly this was coming home. He felt so at peace, he could almost be grateful to Raoul.