Her eye fell on the bundle of talking papers White Bear had cherished so, that he said was called something like "The Lost Land of Happiness." There was power in that bundle of words. Gently she laid it on his left side, near the wound. On his right she placed the knife that Yellow Hair had been able to retrieve for her.
Arranging the three medicine bags on the floor, she took pieces of elm bark from the largest one and gave them to Yellow Hair.
"Make a tea for him from this. It will give him strength when he awakens."
She forced herself to turn her back on White Bear and go out of the house. With her she carried the blanket and the medicine bag adorned with the beadwork owl. She crossed the little clearing around the house and entered the woods. Here, where no one could see her, she opened the medicine bag and took out five tiny gray scraps of the magic mushroom. She put them into her mouth and chewed and swallowed slowly.
Then she got down on her hands and knees and spread her blanket. Oak, maple and elm leaves, brown, red and yellow, lay thick on the ground. She scooped leaves into the blanket. When she had gathered a big pile, she bundled them up and went back into the house.
Carefully she spread the leaves on the bed over White Bear's body. She heard the grandfather say something to Yellow Hair.
Yellow Hair spoke quietly to her, saying that the grandfather feared that the leaves were not clean and would make White Bear sicker.
How could the leaves not be clean, Redbird wondered, when they came from the woods, outside any dwelling?
But she answered, "Must do what I know. If seem wrong to him, must do anyway, or can do nothing."
She heard Yellow Hair talking quietly to the grandfather while she settled herself on the floor beside the east side of the bed. She could not understand the words, but she heard acceptance in the old man's sigh.