"If I have to carry you in my arms," said White Bear, "I will do that."
Now that she was determined to fight to stay alive, she smiled up at White Bear and pressed herself against him. She was love. The power of a great spirit, perhaps that she-Earthmaker she had once thought of, filled her.
The Turtle, she thought, had said that many would die. But he had also said that a few would live.
She and her husband and her children, they would live.
19
The Band Divided
The setting sun, warming the flat land at the foot of a hill beside the Great River, cast deep shadows in the hollows of Redbird's and Nancy's faces. How thin they were getting to be. Fear for them wriggled snakelike through White Bear's own empty stomach.
Has Earthmaker abandoned his people? No—worse—this is the fate he has chosen for us. He bestows evil as well as good on his children.
Redbird said wearily, "What did the council decide?" She unfastened the sling in which she carried Floating Lily on her back and cradled the baby in her arms, frowning into the tiny brown face. White Bear knew what she was thinking. Floating Lily was too quiet.