"No—wait—" Nancy cried. She wanted to tell them not to be afraid, but didn't know how. Redbird was the only one she could talk to. And fear was not a word Redbird had taught her.
A man was standing in front of her. His eyes were empty, his face thin and dirty. He seemed familiar. He held out his hands. He seemed to be saying, "Here I am. Take me."
All at once Nancy recognized Wolf Paw.
His hair had grown out, hanging down in short black strands all around his head. But at last she recognized that noble face that—much though she'd hated him at first—had always reminded her of the engravings she'd seen of Roman statues.
She understood what he was trying to tell her. If she'd come to find the murderer of her father, the man who had kidnapped her, here he was. He was at her mercy.
He seemed to have lost everything else, she thought, but not his courage.
"Is that Injun threatening you, ma'am?" called the sergeant from the shelter of the buggy.
"Not at all," she said, and smiled at Wolf Paw. She felt heartsick to see how the splendid warrior had declined into a shabby spectre.
She tried to tell Wolf Paw, in the mixture of Sauk, English and gesture that she had used with Redbird, that she had not come here to avenge herself on him, that all she wanted was to find Redbird.
But then Redbird was standing before her.