The only news I can think to tell that no one else will bother to write is what happened last week when Many-Doves declared that the corn was dry enough to start the milling. Everyone put down their work and loaded oxcarts and wagons to line up at the scales, but then it was discovered that Charlie LeBlanc had taken down the sluice gate to mend and couldn't recall where he left it. Then when the boys found it finally under a pile of empty sacks, it turned out that he had never repaired it at all. Anybody determined to make a study of cursing would have learned a great deal that day, most especially from old Missus Hindle who can be wonderful angry in five languages. Among other things that dare not be writ down she called Charlie a rot-riddled pompkin head.

Thank you very kindly for the drawings and the tin of chocolate for drinking and the sweets and the carved horses. The tin is already empty, a true mystery says our father, and our mother says I am not to ask for more, for it would be greedy and ill-mannered. She says I may have the empty tin to save my treasures in. I must share it with Annie who has no tin of her own unless you were to send another one. Empty or filled, it is most certainly up to you.

Yesterday the dogs chased a possum up the pine tree with the broken top. I tried to hit it with my bow and arrow and missed, but Sister did not. We had stew for our dinner. She says I have a keen eye and will make a good marksman, which of course I do and will, as I am the son of Nathaniel Bonner and grandson of Daniel Bonner who is still called Hawkeye by all who knew him. This letter has grown too long for the paper and soon cousin Jennet will have a cramp in her hand so I will stop.

Your best loved brother

Gabriel Bonner

Our dearest girl Lily,

There's a rider headed up Montreal way and timely, too, for I have just finished a pair of good stockings to send to you, of lamb's wool bought from Mrs. Ratz that young Annie helped me card and comb and spin. Good heavy stockings, and warm. Mind me now: Canada cold a wily cold, damp and slick. Before you know it that wind will weasel way deep into your lights to start you coughing. So you put on your warmest underclothes and woolen skirts and thickest stockings, every day. Cold feet will be the undoing of you, child, and if you take sick up there your mama or your daddy or your sister or the Lord knows the whole clan will set off to come rescue you from your own folly. I love your people like my own but can't nobody deny, the Bonners run off cockeyed at any chance to get themselves in a fix. I fear it is bred in the bone. So keep warm, child, and for the Lord's sake don't take no advice from them Frenchified doctors and don't let them get near you with those lancets they so fond of. I'm too old to be marching off to Canada to keep you all out of trouble.

Along with the stockings I send you a half-dozen of my best candles, fine bayberry beeswax, just dipped with good strong wicks spun by Many-Doves' Annie in my kitchen. She is a clever child, is Annie. Mind you use these candles, for if you don't look out for your pretty eyes why then they won't look out for you when you need them most.

In your letter you wrote that you have taken up what you call sculpture and to me sound more like carving or working wood, as my husband Galileo may the Lord bless his everlasting good soul was so fond of. If it turn out you got a feel for wood it wouldn't surprise me none, coming up as you did surrounded by trees. What I mean to say, though the words don't seem to want to order themselves on the page, is this: you make good use of whatever they got to teach you up there, so when you come home again you ready to stay put. The truth is plain and won't be hushed. You belong here, Lily Bonner, on the mountain where you came into the world. Montreal may be a big city but it's too small a place for a soul like yours.

writ by her own poor hand your friend good and true Curiosity Freeman

Dear Lily,

This is the first time in more than a year that I have taken up quill and ink. It comes to me with difficulty, but I could not let another packet be sent off to you without at least a few words.

We miss you here at Lake in the Clouds, as you are missed in the village. Wherever I go on my rounds people ask of you and your studies and your life in Montreal. They tell stories of you and bring out the many drawings you have made and given over the years, as they might take out a letter from the president himself, with great respect and admiration.

Most of all I miss talking to you late into the night and waking to find you just across the room. I tell myself that this separation will not be forever, and I tell you the same. When you are come home we will have much to tell each other.

Your loving and devoted sister

Hannah Bonner, also called Walks-Ahead by her mother's people or Walking-Woman by her husband's.

Chapter 10

The morning was half gone when the sky came over dark and Nathaniel first tasted new snow on the wind. He wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve and in one practiced motion slung the doe he had tracked for more than a mile across his shoulders. She was young and there wasn't a lot of fat on her, but fresh venison would be a welcome change from salt cod and dried bear meat stew.

Game was thin this winter. The last few nights he had dreamed of bear and deer and moose on the run, side by side, in a hurry to be gone to the west, looking for a place less honeycombed with the trails made by white men. In his dreams the animals would sometimes bear the faces of the people who were gone from him: his first wife, old friends, the children they had buried. His grandfather Chingachgook, his father, who had walked away ten years ago to find some peace in the west.

He couldn't say for sure if Hawkeye was alive or dead. With every passing year it was a little more likely, of course. And still Nathaniel couldn't make himself believe that his father could be gone for good; he would come back to die here, where his people were buried. Nathaniel told himself this now and then, because he didn't want to think of Hawkeye in a shallow grave on the Great Plains someplace, with no mountains in sight. He might die alone or among strangers, but either way there would be no one there to sing him his death song in his own language.