"Hu-hu-hu-u-u-u-u," he wailed, stretching his arms wide and lifting his face up to look at long, faint streaks of cloud that stretched across the sky. "Whu-whu-whu-u-u-u-u."
He tore open his coat and his shirt. Kneeling, he could see only a patch of blue directly overhead, framed by the tassels of the prairie grass that rose up all around him. Staring up into the blue he wailed for the dead for a long time.
He felt something wet running down his chest. He felt the cold grip of fear on his heart. When he had struck his breast before, had he reopened the hole Raoul's bullet made?
He looked down. Beads of dark red were pushing their way through the five claw scars. Further down his chest they ran together as rivulets. Five streams of blood trickled down his stomach.
The sight of flowing blood lifted his heart. It was a sign that the Bear spirit was still with him. He bent forward and put out his hands to grip the land at the roots of the prairie grass. His fingers dug into the ashes of corn stalks and the roots of grass. A bright red spot appeared on the ground between his hands and knees, and then another.
My blood drips into the soil. I give myself to this land.
"I hold this land for the Sauk nation," he said. First he said it in Sauk, then he repeated it again in English.
He pushed himself to his feet and drew from its sheath at his waist the knife Star Arrow had left him long ago.
Standing, he could see over the waving grass. He flourished the knife blade at the vast dome of sky covering the prairie. He faced toward the east, whence came those waves of pale eyes that had driven his people from their homes. Whence, too, had come his father and one of his grandfathers.
The last Sauk shaman this side of the Great River held up his knife so the sun glinted from it.