To have her so close after all this time, to know she was there and to hear nothing but that terrible silence, and yet to sit with his back to that buffalo-hide curtain, all this was a torment for him. The urge to jump up and tear the curtain away pressed against his resolve to hold himself still. He thought he might explode like a barrel of gunpowder. He forced himself to breathe slowly and pretend that he was hidden in shrubbery with a bow and arrow, watching for a deer. After a time--he could not tell how much time--a face was peering into his. Dark and square. The brown eyes brimmed with tears. His eyes opened wider. Sun Woman was kneeling before him. "My son." She reached out to him, and he scrambled to embrace her. When her strong arms held him he felt like a little boy again. He sat back to look at her dear face, wet with tears. Resting beside her on the ground was the familiar basket with blue cloth cover that she used to gather herbs. He looked around for the sun. It was low and red on the western horizon. It had been high when he sat down here. He must have gone on a spirit walk. "I knew it would be like this," Sun Woman said. "It would come one day when I least expected it--my son would be back again." He sighed deeply. "To see my mother makes my heart as big as the prairie." They sat facing each other and she gripped his shoulders. "You are a man now, a very handsome man." She ran her hand along his cheek, and his whole face felt warm. He kept his gaze fixed on her eyes. She said, "You have learned much. You have been hurt. Your face is scarred." She followed the line of the scar with her thumb, leaning forward to peer still more closely at him. "I see sadness in you. Your father is dead. That is why you have come back." She sat back and closed her eyes for a silent moment. Then she began a song for the dead. "Earthmaker, show him the way. Lead him over the bridge of stars and sunbeams, Along the westward Trail of Souls. Take his soul into your heart." After she had finished the song, Sun Woman wiped the tears from her face with her blunt fingers. She reached out and stroked his cheeks as well. He had not realized that he was crying. But grieving for Pierre reminded him to reach into his medicine bag. "I have a gift for you, Mother." He took out the flat silver case with its velvet neck cord, opened it and showed her the pair of spectacles Marchette had brought to him from Victoire. "Do you know these?" "Your father wore circles of glass like these. To see the marks on the talking paper." "Yes. These are the same ones." He closed the case and pressed it into her hand. "Now you have something that was close to Star Arrow." She said, "He was with me for five summers only, but in spirit, ever since. Now I will feel even closer to him." She slipped the ribbon over her head and dropped the case down the front of her doeskin dress.