Old Bear fastened his hand in the mane of the pony and, with Winona’s help, mounted, sitting straight but frail on the animal’s back.

Winona was careful in helping him not to touch the shield, for a woman must not touch a warrior’s shield.

Old Bear uttered a cry, kicking his heels into the pony’s flanks, and rode down the slope of Medicine Ridge toward the Grand River.

Winona watched him ride down to the river, the blue calico of her dress swept in the wind that moved across the top of Medicine Ridge.

Then she turned and retraced her steps to the cabin.

And so it was that Old Bear, a gaunt and withered brave of the Hunkpapa, with an eagle feather in his hair, rode alone along the north bank of the Grand River, on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

He had ridden in this fashion many Sunday mornings, looking for the sign of the white buffalo.

But he felt that this morning – this medicine day-was different. When he had touched his shield he had felt that. The medicine in the shield had told him that this was not a morning like other mornings.

Perhaps this would be the morning in which he would find the sign of the white buffalo.

Slowly, along the muddy bank of the Grand River, Old Bear rode until the sun was overhead, to his dim eyes a storm of fire in the sky, and the shadow of himself and his mount was a small dark cloud under his pony’s belly.

He was about to turn back when he heard something moving in the brush across the river.

Old Bear strained his eyes to make out what it might be that moved in the brush across that pocketed, muddy belt of water and sand that was the Grand River.

If it were a patrol of Long Knives from Fort Yates, it would not be good to be caught in the forbidden paint. Old Bear was not afraid for his body, but his spirit was afraid, for if they saw that he was old, they might laugh at him, and this would be hard for him.