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it for Victoria College [Cobourg, Ontario].…”
    Since before time, the sacred Iron Stone had rested on its solitary, pointed hill near the Battle River, overlooking thelong ravines of Iron Creek. From beside it the Plains People could see the complete circle of Earth, could look west and north and east to the endless forests, and south over the scattered coppice of aspen fading into the light of the prairie where they found their daily food. The Blackfoot had dedicated the stone to Old Man Buffalo, guardian spirit of buffalo and protector of everyone who came to pray, and when the Cree moved onto the plains, they too worshipped there, chanting prayers and songs, leaving thank offerings for the gifts given, for the continuing hope of life for themselves and their children.
    Now the Iron Stone was gone. Sweetgrass said bitterly, It’s lying beside McDougall’s church in Victoria. Our Father Lacombe would never have done that.
    Big Bear answered nothing. He loved the older chief as he had loved his father, but he was concerned that Sweetgrass had let Lacombe baptize him. Big Bear could not quite trust any God-man. Until now they had done no real harm and were friendly enough to People, but they were always arguing with one another about an incomprehensible White “God” who was forever enraged about something. Big Bear had no feeling, no intuition, no dream that he should listen to any of them. And this inexplicable theft confirmed his refusal. Here was more proof that Whites respected only their own ways ofhonouring the Creator: the Methodists, who had baptized Maskepetoon and continued to help him promote peace, seemingly felt no shame in stealing the Stone.
    People were stunned by the theft, and the Elders foresaw certain disaster. Disease, starvation, more bitter war must follow such a desecration. Cree Chief Pakan, whose band grew acres of Methodist potatoes east of Victoria, had nothing to say; his People could not live without buffalo either. And for several years the buffalo did continue to come north, though sometimes the tribes were forced to hunt so closely together that several men might be wounded or even killed before the chiefs could negotiate a mutual withdrawal. All the beautiful Young Men, so quick to be shamed and hot-blooded on their swift horses and longing for vengeance, were always so hard to hold in check.
    And more stories arrived from the east. It was said that four or five White tribes had made a treaty and now had one Big Chief and one giant country called Canada. Big Bear rolled the word around in his mouth. In Cree it echoed the word
kanâta,
meaning “the place that is clean,” though he doubted it was. The chief’s name, Macdonald, sounded Methodist.
    In 1870, smallpox found the Cree again. The previous fall Blackfoot had unwittingly stolen infected blankets from a Missouri riverboat, and throughout the winter the diseasespread terror among them. As soon as he heard, Big Bear moved farther north, his band scattering beyond the North Saskatchewan, and so James Simpson with his horses to trade did not find him until late summer.
    The Elders foretold this, Big Bear said sadly. Four years after Methodists stole Old Man Buffalo, we have smallpox.
    Simpson said, Maybe it won’t attack your band if you stay north of the river.
    Maybe we can stay long enough—if your good horses help us fish.
    That evening they drank tea and smoked and remembered Chief Maskepetoon, who that spring had again ridden to the Blackfoot to make peace. In the camp of his Blackfoot father he had been greeted with ceremony and joy. But before they could talk, a Blackfoot named Big Swan, who had fought with Cree near Edmonton just days before, fired a shot and knocked the old man from his horse. In a frenzy of hatred, over the shouts of consternation and grief from the Elders, the warriors dragged Maskepetoon’s body out onto the prairie, hacked it up, and left the pieces to the dogs.
    Big Bear said, He was our peace