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and fire and things of great magic and great evil in it, but it was
only a dream. As her eyes cleared of sleep, so did her mind clear of the dream.
    She was thirsty.
Natina went across the lodge to the water gourds, thinking to herself that she had forgotten to
fill them, the day before. But she was surprised to find the gourds full of sweet, cool water.
Arrow must have filled them, she thought, looking down at the still sleeping figure of her
younger brother.
    She went outside
and sat in the sun which was just beginning to walk across the sky.
    Morning was her
favorite time of day. The camp was coming alive all around her.
    She heard voices
from within her family lodge and knew the others were waking up. Her mother came out, carrying a
cooking pot and a long-handled wooden
spoon. Her mother walked very slowly, as if each step was a great effort. Like Natina, she was
very thin and still weak from the winter.
    Natina sprang up,
took the heavy pot from her hands, and carried it over to the fire hole. Her mother
smiled.
    Suddenly from
within the lodge came an anguished cry. Natina and her mother turned and looked back at the
lodge. Her father came stumbling out, his hands over his eyes. He screamed and staggered out
toward them. He took only a few steps before he tripped and fell.
    At his shouts,
people from the nearby lodges came running out.
    "I am blind!"
cried Elk Dancer, his hands clawing at his unsee­ing eyes. "All is blackness!" He moved blindly
through the camp, the people coming from all around to stare at him.
    Domea, the
medicine man, pushed his way through the people gathered around. "Stand still so that I may look
at you and see this thing," said the shaman.
    Obediently, Elk
Dancer stood still. He was a strong man, but there were tears in the corners of his eyes, tears
of sorrow and self-pity.
    Domea stood before
him, his hands reaching to touch Elk Dancer's face. Gently, his probing fingers brushed across
the un­seeing eyes. He stared deeply into Elk Dancer's dead eyes as if trying in his shaman's way
to see deep into Elk Dancer's spirit-soul. Whatever he saw in Elk Dancer's eyes, it was not the
gift of seeing.
    "The blackness
will not go away. You are blind. Nothing can be done about this thing," proclaimed Domea, with
much sorrow in his voice.
    Elk Dancer sank to
the ground. His worst fears were con­firmed. Without his eyes, his life had no meaning. He could
not provide for his family, could not hunt, could not even defend them from the enemies of his
people.
    Natina ran to her
father and tried to put her arms around him, but he pushed her away. He rose slowly to his feet,
staring at nothing, his back straightening. He called out for his weapons, his bow and arrow and
his war shield. They were brought to him. He armed himself.
    The people moved
away from him now, knowing what he in­tended to do.
    "Point me to the
north, to the country of my enemies," said Elk Dancer. "My life is without meaning. I go to my
death now. It is a good day to die."
    He raised his
weapons to the sky and gave thanks to the Great Spirit for the life he had been given. He raised
his weapons once in each of the four directions and gave thanks for his life which now must come
to an end.
    No one moved to
stop him, for to do so would be wrong and improper. A man had to decide how his life must go, how
it must end; that was the way of the world.
    Without a word,
Natina's mother had returned to the lodge. Once inside, she laid down on the soft earthen floor.
She wrapped a deerskin robe around her head and wept with a broken heart for she loved Elk
Dancer. Elk Dancer was already dead in her woman's heart. He would die this day in battle with
the enemy, with an enemy he could not see. He would not live beyond this day to be a burden to
his people.
    Her father marched
slowly toward the north, the sun on his face his only guide. It told him the direction in which
he must go, but it could not tell