We are Sauk, or we are nothing. White Bear is no longer a Sauk. My husband is dead.
She turned back to Wolf Paw and Eagle Feather. She did not like to see Wolf Paw's hair hanging loose around his head, his slumped shoulders. He had always stood so straight. Before the people at Victor killed Floating Lily.
She put her hand on his back and stroked it with a circular motion, and he straightened his shoulders. As he looked at her a light dawned in his eyes.
She must get him to shave his head again, to put the red crest back in place. The people needed a new leader, a true leader. Black Hawk had been wrong too many times, and He Who Moves Alertly would do whatever the pale eyes told him to do. Wolf Paw would help her heal the people.
How I hated him the night he mocked White Bear, putting a woman's dress on him. But he has suffered much since then, and he is a wiser man now.
Eagle Feather was standing at the rail looking across the purple river at the winter-gray hills on the Ioway shore. Redbird moved to stand behind him and put her hands on his small, square shoulders. He held himself very straight.
Eagle Feather said suddenly, "I wish I could have seen my father one last time." She could barely hear him above the noise of the smoke boat and the rushing water.
She closed her eyes against the pain of that and bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling.
When she was able to speak she said, "I think that one day you will see him again."
But for now Eagle Feather and White Bear must be parted. Because Eagle Feather must grow up as a Sauk. The people would need him, too, in summers and winters to come.