Then he might have had to wait till morning. Or, trying to climb down to it, he might have missed the way and fallen to his death. A cold hollow swelled in his belly. It would be so easy to slip. Enough of what might have been. It was what would be that frightened him now. He might die, not of falling, but of what he found in the cave. Or what found him. Forcing that thought, too, out of his mind, he lowered his body over the edge of the bluff, dug his toes into footholds and carefully climbed sideways and downward. In places, the path along the bluff face widened out and was almost as easy to walk on as a forest trail. But then the crumbling stone would slant steeply, so that he had to grip hard with his buckskin-shod feet, feeling as if he were clinging to nothing at all. A wide ledge spread before the entrance to the sacred cave. He let out a breath of deep relief as his feet stepped firmly on the flat stone. From outside he could see nothing of the cave. But when he entered, he felt a sudden warmth, as if he were walking into a well-sealed lodge with a bright fire going. He could smell old fires--and something else. An animal smell that sent a ripple of cold through his bones. But not a fresh smell. He thanked Earthmaker for that, because he was sure it was the smell of bear. But Owl Carver had been using this cave for his vision quests for winters beyond counting. And he had never spoken of a bear. Gray Cloud stood uncertain in the entryway, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He saw round, gleaming shapes clustered against the back wall, and a motionless figure about as high as a man's waist, with a sharply curved beak and spreading wings. Again, seeing these things, he felt the coldness of fear. Now he saw that the round objects on the floor were skulls, and he knew them for the skulls of ancestors, great men and women of the tribe. Green and white stones that had long ago been necklaces glittered around the jaws of the great dead ones. And the winged figure standing over them was the Owl spirit, who guided the footsteps of the dead along the Trail of Souls. Owl Carver had earned his name by carving this statue of the spirit and setting it here. From a pouch tied to his belt Gray Cloud took a handful of sacred tobacco grains and sprinkled them on the cave floor as an offering. He said, "Give me leave to enter your cave, Fathers and Mothers. You know me. I am your child." He hesitated. Only through his mother, Sun Woman, was he the child of these ancestors who guarded the sacred cave. His father was a pale eyes, and the pale eyes had no ancestors. Would the ancestors reject him?