In the afternoon He Who Sits in Grease, a Fox brave, came to Redbird as she and Sun Woman sat before their doorway plaiting baskets, a short distance from White Bear. The brave was carrying a stout bustard with feathers striped brown, black and white. He hunkered down facing her and laid the bird before her. His thick lips worked nervously. "This is for White Bear," he said. "When he wakes up. It is the fattest of the three that I killed this morning. Tell him that He Who Sits in Grease gives him this gift. I want him to ask Earthmaker to make the animals come to me more willingly when I hunt them." Before Redbird could protest, the brave stood up and backed away, his eyes timidly averted from the figure outside the doorway. _He thinks White Bear is holy!_ The thought made her more angry at White Bear than ever. She wanted to kick him again, but women were watching from a distance, and she knew they would make fun of her. "Get _up_," she said softly to White Bear. "Go _away_," she said, grinding her teeth. She wished Owl Carver would come back from visiting the other camps to put a stop to White Bear's torturing her like this. _But he might force me to accept White Bear as my man._ Amazingly, she felt a lift in her heart at this thought. She herself could never forgive White Bear, but if Owl Carver, her father and the shaman of the British Band, ordered her to, the decision would be made for her. Then, at least, this torment would end. Sun Woman silently picked up the bustard, sat down and began plucking the feathers, piling them in a basket to use for adornments and bedding. To escape from being rubbed raw by White Bear's presence, Redbird went out into the woods along the Ioway River, as Sun Woman had done yesterday, to gather herbs. The medicine plants were at their most powerful now, because they had been gaining strength all summer long. Late in the day the sky darkened rapidly. The purple-gray clouds seemed to hang so low that she could reach up and touch them. She heard the first drops pattering on the branches above her. As the rain started to fall faster, it drummed on her head and shoulders. Sighing at having to give up this comforting work, she put a lid on her basket, stood up and started back for the camp. Her doeskin shirt and skirt kept the rain off her body, but her hair was soaked and her face was streaming by the time she got back to the wickiup. She would build up the fire and dry herself off. Its heat would feel so good. She hoped Eagle Feather and Sun Woman were already inside. She stopped before the silent, sitting figure outside the wickiup. The brown blanket was pulled up over his head. Sun Woman must have done that. The blanket was sodden with rain, and he looked like a rock growing out of the ground. The beating of rain filled her ears. She squatted down and looked into his face. Water ran in rivulets down from the blanket into his half-closed eyes. He did not even blink.