Annie stood and hurried outside. Although she could see Waaboo, Jenny, and Maria in a far corner of the meadow, Prophet had disappeared. She ran to the edge of the tall grass and wildflowers and called out. Maria turned to her and waved.

“Come back!” Annie cried, gesturing for them to return.

They didn’t come immediately. Waaboo was kneeling and appeared to be intently studying something hidden in the grass. His mother was bent over him. Annie gestured more frantically. Maria said something to her companions, and Waaboo and Jenny finally looked toward Meloux’s cabin. They waved, rose, and began to amble in her direction.

That’s when Annie saw the glint of sunlight reflecting among the pines at the edge of the clearing, a brilliant flash that lasted only a moment before it vanished. She knew there was nothing natural in those woods that would reflect sunlight in that way. She hoped it might be Prophet, but all her sensibilities told her different. She’d been using one arm to gesture. Now she used both arms, stretching them toward the others and drawing them back as if scooping air. She shouted, “Hurry!”

She saw the man step from the trees, a rifle gripped in his hands. He wore a ball cap whose bill shaded his face. Jenny and the others had their backs to him and could not see. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and took aim. Annie screamed, a desperate single drawn-out word, “No-o-o!”

But the man didn’t sight his weapon at Waaboo or the others. The barrel was trained on Annie.

At the same moment the crack of the rifle shot came, she felt herself grabbed from behind and thrown down into the wild grass.

“Lie still,” Meloux said. “He cannot see you if you stay down.”

“But Waaboo,” she said.

“This one did not come for the little rabbit.”

Meloux’s arm lay across her, pinning her to the ground, but Annie rolled from its protection and lifted herself so she could see.

Jenny, Waaboo, and Maria were running for the cabins. Behind them, Annie saw only one figure now, and it was not the man with the ball cap. Prophet stood where the man had been. In his hands was Meloux’s ancient firearm. He looked down at the tall grass at his feet and spoke words Annie couldn’t hear. Then he gestured with his rifle, and a moment later a man slowly rose and raised his hands. He no longer wore his ball cap.

Annie stood up, along with Meloux. The others joined them. Together, they watched as Prophet herded the intruder across the meadow. When the man was near enough that she could make out his face, Annie’s anger exploded. “Lewis,” she said, the word like phlegm spat from her mouth. At that moment, if she’d had a gun, she would have shot him dead.

“Into my cabin,” Meloux said to Prophet, and he led the way as the others followed.

They seated Lewis across the table from the ancient Mide. Blood ran from a knot on the side of his head where, Annie assumed, Prophet had delivered the blow that felled the man, probably with the butt of Meloux’s rifle. The blood dribbled over the shooter’s right ear, which was scarred and misshapen. Lewis glared at the gathering, lingering on Annie with a look of seething hatred. It was she who asked the first and most obvious question: “Why?”

He answered with a single word: “Slut.”

“I’ve done nothing to you.”

“Just got me fired is all.”

“And for that you’d shoot me?”

“And my son?” Jenny said.

Lewis eyed Waaboo. “You the kid sees things?”

“You know he is,” Jenny said, and now she seemed ready to shoot the man.

Prophet held up the rifle he’d taken from Lewis and said to the others, “This isn’t the weapon that fired the shot at Waaboo this morning. That cartridge was a thirty-aught-six. This Winchester is loaded with two-seventies.”

Meloux said quietly to Lewis, “Your heart is a rage of hate. It has been this way for a long time.”

“The hell with you.”

“I wouldn’t speak that way to this man,” Prophet advised.

“What are you going to do about it, shoot me?”

“I’m guessing no one would miss you if I did.”

“I don’t want Waaboo here,” Jenny said.

She put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her off. “I want to stay.”

Meloux said, “Let him see this.”

“Henry…” Jenny began.

“He will learn something important,” Meloux said.

She didn’t seem happy, but she didn’t leave with her son.

“How did you find me?” Annie asked.

Lewis just smiled. He reminded her of a vicious dog baring its teeth.

“Your shoulder bag, Annie,” Prophet said. “May I see it?”

From the chairback where she’d hung it earlier, Annie lifted the embroidered shoulder bag she carried with her everywhere and handed it to Prophet. He spent a minute carefully inspecting it, then brought out an item that had recently become familiar to them all. An AirTag.

“He followed you,” Prophet said.

Annie eyed the little device and thought for a moment. “When I blacked out at Spirit Crossing.” She glared at Lewis. “You put it in my bag then, didn’t you?”

His predatory grin widened.

“How many?” Meloux asked.

“How many what?” Lewis replied in a snarl.

“How many spirits have you sent on the Path of Souls?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, old man.”

“Your heart is ice,” Meloux said.

“Windigo,” Prophet said.

The Mide nodded and said to Lewis, “It is a hunger, this thing inside you.”

“I know about the Windigo,” Waaboo chimed in. “It’s a cannibal giant with a heart of ice, Mishomis. It eats people.”

“It’s just a myth,” Jenny said.