Chickadee brought out a basket of fine blackberries. They sat on the newly-shaken-out rug and ate. The child's two-finger scoop technique with mush was now highly refined.

Won't You Come Out Toni^it^L43

"Maybe I didn't cause the world," Chickadee said, "but I'm a better cook than Coyote."

The child nodded, stuffing

"I don't know why I made Horse go there," she said, after she had stuffed. "I got just as scared as him when I saw it But now I feel again like I have to go back there. But I want to stay here. With my, with Coyote. I don't understand."

"When we lived together it was all one place," Chickadee said in her slow, soft home-voice. "But now the others, the new people, they live apart And their places are so heavy. They weigh down on our place, they press on it, draw it, suck it, eat it, eat holes in it, crowd it out... Maybe after a while longer there'll only be one place again, their place. And none of us here. I knew Bison, out over the moun­tains. I knew Antelope right here. I knew Grizzly and Grey-wolf, up west there. Gone. All gone. And the salmon you eat at Coyote's house, those are the dream salmon, those are the true food; but in the rivers, how many salmon now? The rivers that were red with them in spring? Who dances, now, when the First Salmon offers himself? Who dances by the river? Oh, you should ask Coyote about all this. She knows more than I do! But she forgets... She's hopeless, worse than Raven, she has to piss on every post, she's a terrible housekeeper..." Chickadee's voice had sharpened. She whistled a note or two, and said no more.

After a while the child asked very softly, "Who is Grandmother?"

"Grandmother," Chickadee said. She looked at the child, and ate several blackberries thoughtfully. She stroked the rug they sat on.