White Bear felt knots released in his chest and shoulders. "I was hoping you would see this as I see it."
"I will offer to watch the horses tonight," Iron Knife said. "Come when you are ready, and I will have three picked for you."
Sun Woman said, "If the long knives see you with Yellow Hair and the boy, they will try to shoot you."
White Bear put an arm around her bony shoulders and pulled her to him. "There is danger all around us, Mother. I think those who follow Black Hawk to the north will be safest. Redbird and the children will go that way. I think you should too. Do not try to cross the Great River."
"I have walked enough," said Sun Woman. "My legs ache and my feet are bruised. If I follow Black Hawk, I will end like the old people who sit down by the trail and wait for death."
"I speak as a shaman," White Bear said. "I have a bad feeling about this river crossing."
Sun Woman stood up. "And I speak as a medicine woman. I have seen many kinds of death, and I would rather drown or be shot than die little by little of hunger and weariness."
White Bear hugged his mother again. "I know we will meet again in the West," he said. That, as they both knew, could mean across the river or at the other end of the Trail of Souls.
Sun Woman said, "My son, you have made my heart glad. Every day of your life you have walked your path with courage and honor. May you walk the same way always."
Redbird held Sun Woman and Iron Knife, each in turn, for a long time. And after they had gone, White Bear and Redbird went together into the thick woods along the edge of the Great River.