She slipped through the gap in the hedgerow, and Pick dropped onto her shoulder with an irritated grunt.
“It’s about time! What took you so long? Midnight’s the appointed time, in case you’ve forgotten! Criminy!”
She kept her eyes directed forward. “Why are you so angry?”
“Angry? I’m not angry! What makes you think I’m angry?”
“You sound angry.”
“I sound the way I always do!”
“Well, you always sound angry. Tonight, especially.” She felt him squirming on her shoulder, leaves and twigs rustling, settling into place. “Tell me something about my father.”
He spit like a cat. “Your father? What are you talking about?”
“I want to know something about my father.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about your father! I’ve told you that! Go ask your grandmother!”
She glanced down at him, riding her shoulder in sullen defiance. “Why is it that no one ever wants to talk about my father?
Why is it that no one ever wants to tell me anything about him?”
Pick kicked at her shoulder, exasperated. “It’s rather hard to talk about someone you don’t know, so that might explain my problem with talking to you about your father! Are you having a problem with your hearing, too?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she broke into a fast trot, jogging swiftly down the service road and past the nearest backstop, then cutting across the ball diamond toward the cliffs and the river. The humid night air whipped past her face as her feet flew across the newly mowed grass. She ran as if she were being chased, arms and legs churning, chest expanding and contracting with deep, regular breaths, blood racing through her in a hot pulse. Pick gave a surprised gasp and hung on to her T-shirt to keep from falling off. Nest could hear him muttering as she ran, his voice swept away by the rush of the air whipping past her ears. She disappeared into herself, into the motion of her arms and legs, into the pounding of her heart. She covered the open ground of the ball fields and the playgrounds, crossed the main roadway, hurdled the chain dividers, and darted into the trees that fronted the burial mounds. She ran with fury and discontent, thinking suddenly that she might not stop, that she might just keep on going, running through the park and beyond, running until there was nowhere left to go.
But she didn’t. She reached the picnic benches across the road from the burial mounds and slowed, winded and shot through with the heat of her exertion, but calm again as well, distanced momentarily from her frustration and doubt. Pick was yapping at her like a small, angry dog, but she ignored him, looking about for Two Bears and the spirits of the dead Sinnissippi. She glanced down at her wristwatch. It was almost midnight, and he was nowhere in sight. The burial mounds were dark and silent against the starry backdrop of the southern horizon where moonlight spilled from the heavens. The park was empty-feeling and still. Nothing moved or showed itself. Even the feeders were nowhere to be seen.
A trace of wood smoke wafted on the still air, pungent and invisible.
“Where is he?” she asked softly, turning slowly in the, humid dark, eyes flicking left and right, heart pounding. “Here, little bird’s Nest,” his familiar voice answered, and she jumped at the sound of it. He was standing right in front of her, so close she might j have reached out to touch him if she had wished to do so. He had materialized out of nowhere, out of the heat and the night, i out of the ether. He was stripped to the waist, to his baggy pants and worn army boots, and he had painted his face, arms, and chest in a series of intricate black stripes. His long hair was still braided, but now a series of feathers hung from it. If he had seemed big to her before, he looked huge now, the coppery skin of his massive chest and arms gleaming behind the bars of paint, his blunt features chiseled by shadows and light.
“So you’ve come,” he said softly, looking down at her with curious eyes. “And you’ve brought your shy little friend.”