"With all the raiding and war, I'm not sure I want to be walking along by myself with nothing but a staff and Trader Power. If Heavy Beaver dies suddenly, with his skin shriveling like the stories say will happen to people who molest a Trader, then maybe I'll walk the plains again. For the time being, nothing has happened to Heavy Beaver in spite of his warriors killing a Trader."
"Maybe you could go all the way around the Big River?" Blood Bear asked mildly. "Maybe you could follow it clear down to where it meets the Father Water and follow that down to the salt water?"
Three Rattles smiled wearily. "That, my friend, is a long, long walk. I don't know the people on the Father Water. I've heard stories about them, of course, since the Fire Buffalo People trade robes and dried meat for their old-man fish and turtles and woven grass mats, but I don't know the language or whether they honor the Trader's staff. No, I think I'll go west to the Silver River."
"But will we still have your trade?" Green Horn couldn't help but ask. She'd been rocking from side to side, jostling everyone around her. Her old legs couldn't take the cramp and had gone to sleep under her. Nevertheless, she couldn't force herself to get up and leave—not with the Trader there. First Man alone knew when they might get another.
Three Rattles laughed, wiggling to get out of his coat now that he'd warmed up. "I'll bring my trade to the Red Hand. It's a little out of the way, but I'll come by here. I can tell you now that I can trade for mountain-sheep-horn spoons, dried-root breads, pine-nut paste, and lots of other things. I'll need to see what comes of this trip."
"How will you go?" Never Sweat asked, rubbing at his crooked nose.
Three Rattles settled on his folded coat, extending his moccasins to the fire despite the cramped quarters. As the heat went to work on them, the water steamed off the beaver-fur outers of the tops. The hard-smoked buffalo hide of the soles looked completely soaked.
"Most likely I'll follow the mountain south to the basin. There I'll head west to the Warm Wind valley and up over to the headwaters of the Angry White Water and then west. I don't know where the trails go out there. Green Hammer-stone, my cousin's brother's sister's son, has been going out there, but he won't be back until fall. Maybe I should wait another year and go with him, but I think the time is now."
Blood Bear cleared his throat. "What about this Heavy Beaver? You've met him. What do you think of him?"
Three Rattles frowned as he stared into the fire, choosing his words. "I think he's . . . well, touched by something. But I don't know what kind of Power it is. He's different. He doesn't act like any Dreamer I've ever known. He's not anything like White Calf, who lives with Power and knows its good and bad uses. He's . . . listen, don't think I'm crazy, but I think he made his Power up. Imagined it and it came true." Three Rattles looked up to gauge the impact of his words. "You know, like when you believe a lie for so long you begin to think it really happened—even when you know it didn't."
An uneasy shuffling filled the lodge. Outside of the mention of White Calf—that brought bile to Blood Bear's throat— the speculation on Heavy Beaver struck very close to home. Heavy Beaver was the one who had thrown the Wolf Bundle into the dark to land in the weeds. Perhaps . . .
“Surely someone would see through it," Green Horn snorted. *'Someone would challenge him, use real Power to break him and his hold, if it were all a lie."
Three Rattles lifted his hands, palms up. "I don't know, Grandmother. I thought that a couple of years back after he started Cursing people who opposed him. I thought then that someone would stand up to him, make a liar out of him. No one did and everyone he Cursed died. Maybe he really has Power or maybe they willed themselves to death."
"But the Wise One Above would strike him down!" Ram-shorn insisted, disbelief on his strained face. 'Tower doesn't like to be made a fool of any more than a hunter likes to have someone tell him he brings home winterkill for a trophy!"
"Maybe," Three Rattles agreed. "I don't pretend to know the ways of Power, but I can tell you Heavy Beaver has more control over the plains now than any man I've ever heard of. His warriors run from south of Sand River to north of Big River. When the hunting is poor, they raid the peoples who have what they need."
"They haven't been too keen to raid us," Never Sweat added, staring at a dart point he'd taken from his pouch. "They caught us once, and we learned. They won't do that again. We know the trails. They don't."
Three Rattles pursed his lips, frowning into the coals. Blood Bear placed another chunk of thick sagebrush on the red eye of the hearth.