Then she saw John. At first she thought he must be wounded, grievously wounded, for the man who was supporting him was her own husband, Attone. She started to run toward him, but then she checked herself after two paces. There was something odd about the way they walked together, it was not the stumble of a sick man and the load-bearing stride of his helper. They were clinging together as if they were both dizzy, as if they were both drunk. She watched, then she put her hand up to shade her eyes from the evening sun. She heard their voices, they were not talking to each other in low, anxious tones, like men helping one another home, nor exchanging the odd satisfied word, like men returning sated from the hunt. They were saying one word and then another and then they would do a little wandering detour in a circle, like drunkards, legless with laughter.

Suckahanna stepped sharply back into the doorway of her house and dropped the curtain of skins to hide herself. In the darkness she turned and lifted the side of the skin so she could peep out. The men carrying the deer were staking them out for cleaning and skinning, but Attone and John were not going to set to work. Arms around each other’s shoulders, they headed for the sweat lodge with most of the braves, and even as they went Suckahanna could still hear that sudden explosion of giggling.

“Dived in!” she heard, and then a crow of laughter from Tradescant: “But what you don’t know is that I fell on its head!” That was too much for Attone, his knees simply gave way beneath him.

“I saw you. You had no arrows?”

“Why does he need arrows? If he is going to fall on deer to kill them?”

There was another scream and all the braves flung their arms around each other’s shoulders and swayed together, their feet pounding to their bellowing laugh.

A woman came to Suckahanna’s doorway. Suckahanna pushed back the deerskin and came outside.

“What are the men doing tonight?” the woman asked.

Suckahanna shrugged with a smile which said at once, “Men!” and said, “How I love him!” and said, “How impossible he is!”

“How should I know?” she asked.

The half-sacred silence of the sweat lodge calmed them and the exhaustion of the day took its toll. They sat against the walls illuminated by the glowing coals, eyes shut, soaking up the healing heat, sweating out the aches and pains. Every now and then one of the braves would grimace and giggle and then there would be a little ripple of laughter.

They stayed in the heat for a long time until their sinuses were hot and dry, until the very bones of their faces were filled with heat. John could feel the bruise on his head swelling like a maggot and the hoof print on his chest growing dark and tender. He did not care. He cared for nothing but the deep, sensual pleasure of this heat and rest.

After a long, long while, Attone rose to his feet and stretched himself like a cat, every vertebra in his backbone extending. He put out a peremptory hand to John and spoke in Powhatan. “Come, my brother.”

John looked up, saw the proffered hand and reached up his own to clasp it. Attone pulled him to his feet and for a moment the men stood side by side, hand-clasped, looking deep into each other’s eyes with a measuring, honest look of respect and affection.

Attone led the way out of the sweat lodge. “I have a name for you, your tribal name,” Attone said. “You cannot be John Tradescant any more. You are a brave now.”

John took in the full meaning. So he was accepted. “What shall my name be?” he asked.

“Eagle,” Attone announced.

The grandness of the name caused a murmur of admiration from the other braves at the honor being done to John.

“Eagle?”

“Yes. Because you kill a deer by dropping on it from the sky.”

There was a scream of uncontrollable laughter and the men were clinging to each other for support again, John in the center, Attone with his arms around him. “Eagle!” the braves said. “Mighty hunter!” “He who falls like an eagle without warning!”

They turned and ran down to the river together to wash. The women pulled the smaller children out of the way of the laughing, shouting men. They plunged into the river together and splashed like boys before the celebration of huskanaw. Then Attone caught sight of a shadowy tall figure on the riverbank and straightened up and looked serious.

The werowance was watching them. Attone came out of the river and the men of the hunt followed him. They dried themselves and pulled on clean buckskins and then, when they were all ready, the werowance led the way to the dancing circle and the braves stood before him.

“Did the man who wants Suckahanna kill his deer?” the werowance asked in their own language.

There was a moment’s complete consternation.

“We brought three deer home,” Attone said smoothly. “A fine day’s kill, and the man who wants Suckahanna was at my shoulder the whole day. He did not hang back, he did not fail, he did not tire. He planned the hunt and his plan was a good one. It drove the deer to the river and we killed three.”

“Which one did he kill?” the werowance asked.

Attone fell silent.

“We could have killed none without his plan,” one of the other men volunteered. “He saw that we could drive them to the river. He showed us the way.”

The werowance nodded leisurely as if he were prepared to spend all night on this inquisition. “And which did he kill?” he asked. “One of the bucks? The doe?”

John, following this interrogation as well as he could, understood that the hunters could not conceal his failure. He felt a great wave of disappointment wash through him: that the hunt and the laughter and his naming should all come to nothing because an old man, old enough to be his father, should stick to the letter of the law. He thought that the way of a brave would be to acknowledge his failure, like a man, and then walk away from the village and never look back. He stepped forward, he opened his mouth to speak. He took a moment to think of the word which meant defeat in Powhatan and realized that he did not know one. Perhaps there was no word for defeat in Powhatan. He framed a sentence with the words he did know. Something like – “I have not killed. I cannot marry.”

“Yes?” The werowance invited him to speak.

There was a cry from the women at the edge of the dancing circle.

“Whose deer is this?” someone asked.

A woman came toward them. She had hold of the front legs of a deer and was dragging it toward them. From the loll of the head it was clear that the neck was broken.

“That’s my deer!” John exclaimed. He hammered Attone on the shoulder. “That’s my deer!” He ran toward the woman and took the delicate legs from her hands. “This is my deer! My deer!”

“I found it at the river’s edge,” she said. “It had been washed downriver. But it had not been in the water long.”

“The Eagle killed it!” Attone announced. At once there was a ripple of laughter from the braves. The werowance shot a quick sharp look around them.

“Did you kill this deer?” he asked John.

John could feel a bubble of laughter, of joy, rising up in his tight throat. “Yes, sire,” he said. “That is my deer, I killed it. I want Suckahanna.”

“Eagle! Eagle!” The shout went up from the braves.

The werowance looked at Attone. “Do you release your wife to this man, your wife and your firstborn son, and your secondborn child?”

Attone looked straight at John and his hard, dark face creased into an irresistible smile. “He’s a good man,” he said. “He has the determination of a salmon leaping homeward, and the heart of a buffalo. I release Suckahanna to him. He is my brother. He is the Eagle.”

The werowance raised his ornate spear. “Hear this,” he said so quietly that all the women at the edge of the dancing circle craned forward to listen, Suckahanna among them.