She began to walk the sunwise circle around White Bear's bed, from the east to the south, White Bear on her right. She passed Yellow Hair, White Bear's grandfather and the old servant. They stood like carved statues, unseeing. She walked around the west side of the bed. The head of the bed was against the north wall of the room, but she simply walked through the wall on one side of the bed, took a few steps along the north side of the cottage, then entered the wall again and continued her circle.
When she had completed her ninth circuit of the bed, she saw a cave mouth in the eastern wall of the bedroom. Unhesitatingly she walked into the black, circular opening.
She could not see where the light in the cave was coming from, but its curving walls were clearly visible to her. Here and there she passed paintings. She had seen them when she made her first journey to the other world, after she buried Floating Lily. She saw the Wolf, the Coyote, the Elk and the Buffalo. Near the floor of the cave she passed paintings of the Trout, the Pike, the Salmon and other fish. She looked up and saw the Owl, her father's guardian spirit.
The passage slanted downward and grew narrower until her head brushed the cave roof and her shoulders touched the walls. Then she rounded a bend and bright blue light greeted her.
The cave opened out high on a hillside. She was looking down at tall yellow grass rolling in waves to distant hills.
A black cloud of crows flapped up out of the grass and flew over her head, laughing raucously.
Then she heard a marvelous singing.
She recognized it at once, the song of her guardian spirit, the Redbird. She saw a blood-colored flash, and then the Bird perched on a branch of blue spruce on the hillside. He had one bright eye cocked at her, ringed in black. His red crest stood up on his head as Wolf Paw's had in better days.
"White Bear is out there on the prairie," the Redbird spirit sang. "He is hunting his uncle."
"Can I heal him?" Redbird asked.