Redbird had come to see Yellow Hair as a younger sister who needed her help and guidance. She liked Yellow Hair much more, in fact, than she liked either Wild Grape or Robin's Nest. Her sisters had always sneered at White Bear, and Yellow Hair saw what a fine man he was.
Yellow Hair suddenly looked frightened. She stood up abruptly, picked up her fringed doeskin dress and struggled into it. When her head appeared through the neck of the dress and she shook her hair free, she was crying again.
No, she insisted, she couldn't do that. It would be wrong.
Redbird thought she understood. This hungry, dangerous time was a terrible time for a woman to be carrying a baby.
"You not want baby? Sun Woman makes tea keeps woman from getting baby."
Yellow Hair talked for a long time. Redbird tried hard to follow what she said, asking questions and making her repeat herself. It had to do with Jesus, the pale eyes spirit Père Isaac always talked about. Jesus would not like it if Yellow Hair went to bed with White Bear.
Redbird remembered White Bear telling her that Yellow Hair was the daughter of a pale eyes shaman. The Jesus spirit might be a special spirit for her, then.
But I am also the daughter of a shaman. I can teach her what we believe.
"Jesus not here," Redbird pointed out. "We children of Earthmaker."
But also, Yellow Hair explained, by pale eyes custom a woman who slept with another woman's husband was a bad woman.