Dalton Johnny sighed. “In a dream, I saw a wide river, with rolling hills on either side. On the north side of the river were many large stones and I saw a woman’s face carved there. When I awoke, I found a piece of myrtle wood that had fallen in our river, here, and I thought of the face that I had seen and so carved it, before Annie left, thinking it was a simple toy for a much beloved niece.”

Millie nodded once. “She told me of that spirit woman. She used to end that tale with a laugh, because she said Hanis and Miluk women are very rarely chiefs, being too smart.”

Dalton Johnny chuckled. “She was right. They become a shaman instead. And heal people, rather than tell people what they want to hear.”

Millie looked up and out the window, her sight clouded slightly with tears. She missed her grandmother and thought she would never grow accustomed to the hole her passing left. She blinked twice and sat up straighter. “I will bless it myself. And keep it for my daughter’s daughter. I will make a sweat lodge as Annie showed me and bless it there.”

Dalton Johnny leaned back in his chair. Satisfied indeed. Millie got up and made more tea. They talked for some time, recalling Annie Miner Peterson and the life she had led. The people she had met, known, touched and taught over many, many years. Such a life took time to recall.

Several hours passed in the recollection. The sun peeked once through the clouds for a brief few moments, the rays feeble through the mist that covered the entire network of valleys that held the Millacoma watershed. This late in the year, the sun had to be in just the correct spot to reach the valley floor around the cabin and did, bringing a brief smile to Dalton Johnny’s face as he noticed and acknowledged it with a tilt of his head. Millie followed the gesture with her eyes as her great-great-granduncle got up and opened the door to look out.

The sun light began to fade slowly and then, abruptly, winked out. The world outside the cabin became sullen, somber and shadowed and Dalton Johnny stiffened, his head cocked to one side, listening. Millie found herself standing, one hand still holding her empty tea cup and the other resting on the arm of the rocking chair in which she had been sitting.

She heard it, too.

The sound was almost flutelike but sounded more natural, more like the sound of wind in thicket and vine, transformed by something intangible into a weirdly unmelodic tone, with undertones of trampled ferns and grasses. The sort of sound a deer makes in tall grasses and low underbrush when it goes to earth after being grievously wounded. The sound of struggle, dying away forever.

The sound didn’t die, wouldn’t die and even seemed to grow stronger if not louder. Closer yet not nearer. Dalton Johnny looked years older in the wink of an eye though he straightened up fully, his shoulders slowly squaring forward, as if a he had just accepted a final task.

Very softly he chanted something in Miluk Coos which Millie couldn’t understand. She only spoke Hanis Coos and while the two languages were very similar, almost the same, the emphasis and meanings of the two tongues were very different at times. Annie had taught her the Hanis speech, but had never attempted to impart the other to her. She had said that she shouldn’t, since Millie’s mother and all of her grandparents had been Hanis and not Miluk and that she herself did not know enough.

Too late, Millie thought. Far too late now. But I do know what you did teach me, grandmother. I do know that well.

“Uncle, what is it? I know that sound, yet I do not. I should know it, but I don’t know from where.”

Dalton Johnny glanced at her in surprise. He had forgotten that she was there and his eyes brightened when he realized she was. “Aiiee. Niece, I am glad you are here. Quickly, Annie told you of the tricksters?”

Millie joined him in the doorway. She took one hand in hers. “Some. Not all of the legends and stories. She seemed to teach some things to some people and not to others. I don’t know why.”