Like Wolf Paw, she had changed so much that for a moment Nancy wasn't sure this was Redbird. She was as thin as a fence rail, and those colorful things Nancy remembered her wearing, the feathers and beads, the dyed quills, the painted figures on her dress, all were gone. She clutched a coarse brown blanket around her shoulders. Her head was bare. Water dripped from the fringe of hair across her forehead and poured from her braids. She wore, not the doeskin clothing Nancy remembered, but a torn gray cotton dress that was too big for her and dirty around the bottom edge. Looking down, Nancy saw that Redbird's feet were bare, her toes sinking into the mud.
Nancy felt warm tears mingling with the cold rain on her face as she saw Redbird smiling at her.
"Redbird, I am glad to see my sister," Nancy said in their special language. "Where is your wickiup?"
Redbird spoke to Wolf Paw in Sauk words too low and rapid for Nancy to follow. He grunted assent and trudged through the mud toward a distant tent. Watching him, Nancy felt pity at his rounded shoulders and old man's shuffle.
Redbird beckoned Nancy to follow her to the tent she'd come from.
"Where you going, ma'am?" the sergeant called.
"I'll be all right," Nancy called over her shoulder, raising her voice over the drumming of the rain. "This is the woman I came to find."
She could see the young soldier shaking his head. Why would a young white woman go into the filthy, disease-ridden tents of these Indians?
May the Lord open his eyes and heart.
At first the inside of the tent seemed black as a moonless night to Nancy, and the smell of damp, unwashed bodies made her stomach churn. She took Redbird's hand and held it for reassurance. Not too tightly; the bones felt delicate.