Jodoli did not even go to the other fire to see if his assumptions were correct. Instead he did something that Soldier’s Boy had never seen him do before: attempt to dress himself, fastening his own cloak and hood that was still chilled and damp from his day’s journey. Before Soldier’s Boy could reach for his own garb, several of Dasie’s feeders converged on them. Soldier’s Boy felt he was almost wrestled into his clothing and boots. Olikea came to help them. All of the feeders were weeping as they worked; it did not make them gentler. Never had I seen Specks move so quickly and in such a concerted way. By the time Soldier’s Boy was ready, Dasie’s bundled body had already been reloaded onto the travois. When Soldier’s Boy sought to speak to Jodoli about what would happen next, the Great One sternly shushed him. “Do not distract her with words. Say nothing to draw her attention to us. Whatever anger you feel for me, set it aside. This is not our time. It is hers. Keep silent, and learn how a Great One goes to her tree.”

And so, in the cold and the dark of night, they left the scant shelter of the stony roofed pass and headed once more down to the forest of the ancestor trees. Jodoli led the way. The horse pulled the travois with Dasie’s body. Her two weary feeders who had stayed with her accompanied her again, along with those of her guards and feeders who had been in the cavernous pass. And Soldier’s Boy came last of all.

Jodoli set the pace for the quick-walk and Soldier’s Boy held it. Together they conveyed the funeral party through the night. It was not an easy task for Soldier’s Boy. This was his fifth quick-walk of this route in but a handful of days. I could sense that it was more difficult because they had to move Dasie’s dead body with them, but could not understand why it was harder to do that any more than I could grasp why it was possible to lead a horse on a quick-walk but far more difficult to ride one. Soldier’s Boy was tired, discouraged, and full of sorrow. He was grateful that Jodoli minded the magic of the quick-walk and that all he had to do was help maintain it. His legs seemed made of lead and his back hurt horribly. He kept feeling tiny sharp twinges to either side of his spine. Callously, I pictured for him a suspension bridge with the cables snapping due to overload.

“Leave me alone,” he retorted miserably.

After that, I rode silently.

The short winter day had lightened when we finally reached the valley of the ancestor trees. The day was cold, but not nearly as cold as it had been the night of our attack on the fort. There was a high breeze stirring the tops of the trees. Loosened snow fell in cascades and clumps, but for the most part the air was still under the interlaced canopy of branches, both needled and bare. Once we reached the edge of the valley, Jodoli stopped the quick-walk. Dasie’s feeders took over leading the way and we all trudged in a long chilled procession behind them. No one spoke. There were occasional birdcalls and the crunch of our footsteps on the icy snow and the sounds of Clove dragging the travois. Other than that, the others kept silent and Soldier’s Boy copied them. That battering of his inner thoughts was so loud that he could scarcely have paid any attention to conversation even if he had found the will to say something. Dasie’s feeders moved purposefully through the forest, and he followed.

They came at last to a section of the forest where the canopy was thinner. Several of the older trees were scarred by fire. Between two huge burned-out stumps, a smaller kaembra tree stood. Long ago, lightning had killed and burned two of the great kaembra trees, leaving a hole in the canopy overhead that had permitted enough sunlight to encourage this young tree to sprout between the trunks. A couple of other young trees grew closer to the edge of the clearing. The bark of Dasie’s tree was smooth and gray-green, its trunk only the diameter of a hogshead. A young tree, by Speck standards. Snow had settled deeply around it. Jodoli stood by Dasie’s body as her feeders and guards went to work moving snow. They used their hands and feet, scooping and kicking away the loose white stuff until the frosted layer of fallen leaves and moss that was the forest floor was exposed. Only when a ten-foot-diameter circle had been cleared at the tree’s base did they return to the travois for Dasie’s body.

Jodoli stepped aside and again Soldier’s Boy copied him. Dasie’s feeders worked with efficiency that was still respectful. With a sharp knife, one man cut her clothing from the nape of her neck to the small of her back. Several of her guards stepped forward to help drag her limp weight from the travois to the selected tree. Just before they set her with her back to the tree, one of her feeders ran his knife from the back of her head down her spine to the divide of her buttocks. The slash exposed meat but no blood flowed. With chill efficiency, the man opened the slash wider. Then, as they placed her against the tree, he worked to snug the open wound as firmly as he could against the tree’s bark. Jodoli spoke very softly. “Sometimes, in winter, when the trees sleep deeply, the touch of blood against the bark will waken them. So we hope for Dasie.”

They were binding her against the tree now, strapping her firmly in place with long strips of leather. Her legs were outstretched before her, and her arms tucked close to her body. One feeder secured her legs at the knees and ankles to keep them from spraddling while another finished tying her at throat and brow. When they were finished, they stepped back and waited in silence.

And waited.

There was a subtle tension building in that stillness. I was not sure what they were waiting for, but sensed the gravity of the moment. After an appreciable time had passed, one of her guard stepped forward. He met the eyes of her chief feeder and then offered his bared forearm and, in his other hand, a knife. “Perhaps fresh warm blood would awake—” he began, but in that moment, her other feeder gave a low and welcoming cry.

“There!” he exclaimed in relief. We all stared at Dasie’s body and I saw nothing at all. But a moment later, the corner of Dasie’s mouth twitched. I was not certain I had really seen it, but then her head subtly shifted.

Beside me, Jodoli breathed a sigh of relief. “The tree has welcomed her,” he proclaimed, and there was a flutter of movement among her feeders as they exchanged looks. Tears began to flow again, but they were like the tears shed when a difficult birth still yields a viable child. Anguish gives way to joy, and then to peace. Her feeders went quickly to work again. They shrouded her from head to toe in a woven blanket. This they doused with water from the waterskins and then shaped it to her body. “It will freeze that way,” Jodoli explained, “and seal her against the tree, so that scavengers do not carry off what rightfully belongs to the tree. This has gone better than I expected. I would have liked to see a livelier joining to the tree, but this is enough. Dasie has her tree.”

Her feeders and guards were busy again, now using the snow they had scraped away from around the tree to bury the wrapped body. Jodoli withdrew some little distance and Soldier’s Boy did likewise, but did not follow the Great Man. Instead, he walked to the clearing’s edge. He stared out into the pillared dimness of the forest canopied by the intersecting branches of the kaembra trees overhead. The day seemed darker when he turned his back to the little clearing, and the forest more mysterious. Almost he fancied he heard a soft voice calling him.

“Nevare. Neva-are.” A man’s voice. Soldier’s Boy turned his head rapidly from side to side, scanning the forest. He saw no one.

And then more clearly, “Never, you old sonovabitch, aren’t you going to say hello?”

Buel Hitch. His mocking tone was unmistakable.