were scenes of hunting, of village life, of Indians with what she assumed to be American Cavalry, of dancing and feasting, and of . . . well, virtually anything that people could do. These people did not live in the teepees she had expected, nor the pueblos that Karl May had described Winnetou’s tribe as inhabiting—they lived in homes made of earth and wood, round mounds with a square tunnel for an entrance. This was . . . unexpected. In fact, as she flitted from scene to scene, there was a great deal that was unexpected. Finally she just stopped expecting things altogether and merely drank in the scenes as they were presented to her. Once she did that . . . she noticed there was a sort of voice murmuring in the wind, too soft for her to hear properly, but always present.
Then she drifted off into true sleep, but still with that voice murmuring in the back of her mind.
She woke up as she always did, at dawn, and the camp was already stirring. As she lay in her bed, listening to the unfamiliar voices and sounds, she smiled to herself. She thought she was going to get along well with these people. They all sounded amazingly friendly for so early in the morning.
“Clem! Didja make sure the water barrel’s full fer that new liddle gal? The sharpshooter?” a female voice—an older female, Giselle thought—called.
“Right an’ tight, Maisy!” called a nearer, male voice. “Topped her off a liddle bit ago.”
And that was when her sleepy satisfaction turned to astonishment and wide-awakeness. She could understand them!
Quickly, she looked above her, to the shelf where the owl spirit had perched last night, but it was gone. As she continued to listen to the early voices around her, she held her breath, almost unable to believe that what Leading Fox had promised last night had come true!
Then a trumpet or bugle call sounded over the camp, and the sounds of the camp truly coming to life began. It sounded amazingly cheerful. People shouted questions about animals, about costumes or properties, teased each other about being lazy, swore they were going to douse them in cold water to wake them up—
She pulled the bed-curtains aside and hopped down onto the floor of the wagon. Last night she had filled her bucket, kettle and pitcher for the washbasin with the water from the barrel at the tongue of the wagon. Now she put the kettle on the spirit lamp to heat while she considered her clothing. There was her own hunting outfit that she had taken off, brushed out, and set aside last night . . .
But I am supposed to be one of these people, she thought, picking up the skirt and frowning at it. I should start looking like them.
So instead, she selected a skirt that appeared to be made of a gold-colored canvas, a lighter-weight fringed shirt to go with it, and leggings to go under that. The skirt was, by her standards, scandalously short, but she supposed the leggings made it more modest, and like the skirt of her hunting suit, it had been split for riding astride. Both the shirt and the skirt were much softer than she had expected canvas to be, and showed signs of having been altered. She poured some of her heated water into the washbasin, added cold, and gave herself a quick scrub, then put on the new clothing. It was . . . well, surprisingly comfortable.
Dressed, she unbraided her hair, combed it out, and braided it up again. It didn’t seem to be growing as fast. And . . . now that she was here . . . she certainly didn’t feel as tense as she had been since her encounter with the Hauptmann.
And the moment she remembered that, she had to put one hand on the table and the other on her stomach, feeling a little . . . sick. And guilty again. No matter what Tante Gretchen had said, a man was dead, and she was responsible for him being dead. Nothing was going to change that.
But nothing is going to bring him back, either, she reminded herself.
So when the sick feeling passed, she took a deep breath, stood a little straighter and went out to find the mess tent.
The sun had just barely cleared the horizon, the air was fresh and crisp, and the sounds of people and animals echoed from every part of the camp. The camp was