The tea water was boiling, now, and the escaping steam a pleasant sound to hear. He made the tea and let it steep for several minutes before he poured. It had a greenish cast to it that was of mint and forest. He rather doubted that he would be able to find the ingredients again. He had never had time to teach others the secret places where the herbs grew and it suddenly struck him, that he had committed a crime against his people by not making the time to teach someone.

But there were so few willing to learn, he reminded himself. There had never been that many who cared to undergo the special training and work that was required of a shaman. So few who saw the value of it, today.

Abruptly, he asked, “Has Annie died?” He knew she had. He also knew what was wrapped in the brown paper. Dalton Johnny hoped he was wrong but knew he was not.

Millie nodded once, slowly, her brown, thoughtful eyes, so much like her grandmother, so much a mirror to her mood, no longer mischievous but deeply saddened. She had no need to say the words.

Dalton Johnny sighed. “Drink some tea, and tell me of her passing.” After a moment, he added, “She was the last.”

Millie sipped for long seconds, before she said, slowly, “Uncle, are there no others?”

He shook his head once. “No, and there can be no more. The last woman who could have guided the young girls to womanhood, died years ago. The whites took Annie and the others away before she died, long ago and very few ever returned. Those that did, many had adopted other ways. Some married Umpqua, others Tillamook or some valley band. They were all thrown together in the reservation and it was very hard, then. Much knowledge was lost. Many died there, never to return.”

They were silent.

After a time, Dalton Johnny sighed and shook his head. He got up from his seat and crossed the small room and picked up the piece of myrtle wood he’d been carving before he returned to his chair. The dark wood in his hands seemed almost to shine with a soft glow, so strangely different in texture and composition from the hands that held it, and shaped it. “Niece, I have nearly finished with this. Indeed, all that needs to be done is to bless it, which should be done by another, anyway.”

He handed it to her. Millie examined it carefully, turning the carving over in her hands, her fingers encountering some places smooth to the touch and others much more rough, almost unfinished. Without looking up from it, she asked, “Uncle, I do not recognize this. What is it?”

“It was to be Annie’s. A simple gift, a child’s toy much like the one I carved for her when she was a still a child. The last time she visited, three, four months ago, she mentioned my gift and retold me how she had lost it when the whites, the moving people, forced her and her mother to the Yachats reservation.”

Millie nodded for long moments, remembering what her grandmother had told her, many times about the toy that she had lost. “I do not recognize the figure, Uncle. Who is it?”

Dalton Johnny shook his head. “There is no reason for you to recognize it, Millie,” he said softly. “Annie told me of a legend she had heard from another tribe, when she was at the reservation. One of the bands from the great river came with the whites to the Yachats reservation. I do not know what people he was from. I do not remember the name they called themselves. But this person told Annie stories of his people and he said it was a great woman chief, one who had eased much suffering of her people. Had done this even though the fourth trickster changed her into a rock, long ago. He said that she still sits on the hill above her tribe, now, and is called Tsagaglalla, She Who Watches.”

Millie cocked her head, considering. “A woman chief?”

Dalton Johnny nodded. “Yes, and of a tribe far east of here, on the great river. I did not know that any that far away allowed women to be leaders. Annie said this woman was the last of them, so perhaps they changed. Annie said it gave her courage.”

“But uncle, did you not carve this figure before she was taken? How could it be the same?”