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know what Running Wolf called her after they went into the woods? Dead Otter.”
    â€œHo!” All the other young women laughed and whirled their ball sticks over their heads. Even Nothing-But-Flowers’s grandmother laughed—although usually she was very dignified. As the matron of the Bear Clan, she was the most powerful woman in the village.
    I felt so ashamed I wished I could die. Running Wolf was the fourth young man who had taken me into the woods without proposing marriage. He had not been cruel to me. But after he emptied his seed into me he had not been tender. He had spent the rest of the time boasting about what a great warrior he would become when war came.
    I often thought about dying, especially during the starving times. My white brother and sister had died in the first starving time after we came to the village. Their Seneca mothers had not liked them very much—
especially my brother, who refused to go hunting in the woods when it was cold. His mother had decided he would never become a warrior and stopped giving him food during the starving time.
    Nothing-But-Flowers became angry at Big Claws for insulting her friend. “You should talk about not getting a husband. You know what the young men call you? Barking Stick.”
    Everyone laughed even harder and Big Claws slunk away like a wounded snake. Not for the first time, my heart flooded with gratitude to Nothing-But-Flowers. Everything about her was beautiful, from her spirit to her body, which was small and perfectly shaped, with curving legs and full breasts and slender arms. Yet she always treated me, with my sharp nose and thin lips and white skin, as her equal, her friend. Obnoxious pride seemed foreign to her soul.
    Before I could thank her for routing Big Claws, a great clamor began at the other end of the village. Young boys came running from all directions, shouting “Ho, ho!” Dogs barked fiercely. Babies, frightened by the noise, began to howl. In a moment through the crowd burst the young warrior Bold Antelope. He had a buck deer slung over his shoulders. He carried it as carelessly as if it were stuffed with feathers. He flung the dead animal at Nothing-But-Flowers’s feet and said: “See what I’ve brought you and your honorable mother and grandmother? I killed it with a single shot at a hundred paces.”
    There was, in fact, only one wound in the animal, a bloody patch behind its ear. Nothing-But-Flowers’s eyes glowed with admiration. Everyone knew Bold Antelope loved her and hoped to marry her. He was from a lesser family of the Wolf Clan. To marry Nothing-But-Flowers would be a great thing for him. He would join the noblest family in the village. But he could only do it by proving himself a future chief, a pine tree around whom warriors would rally.
    Nothing-But-Flowers’s grandmother asked if the village’s other warriors had found game. “Yes!” Bold Antelope said. “So much that their canoes are almost sinking with the loads they are carrying. I took this buck and went ashore to help keep my canoe afloat. They will be here before the sun begins to fall in the sky.”
    â€œHo!” The young women shouted and danced with joy. The starving time was over! When the warriors returned, we would have a feast. There would be many trips to the woods for lovers. There would be marriages before summer began. There would be babies after the next snows.
    â€œI also brought this gift for you and your honorable grandmother,” Bold Antelope said.
    From a deerskin pack on his shoulder he drew a scalp, dried and stretched on a hoop, the edges painted red. The hair was golden yellow. “It is a Frenchman’s scalp,” Bold Antelope said. “We found him and his
friends hunting on our lands. When we ordered them to go they threatened us. We opened fire and I killed this one with a bullet in the heart. The rest ran away.”
    â€œThat was not a wise thing to