Song-of-Dawn-Rain was a good Christian.  That is to say, she believed herself to be.  She rather had to, if she wished to keep any sort of relationship with the community where she now lived.  Their God was not so very different from the Great Spirit of her childhood, and if perhaps the Pale Faces did not understand the other spirits that resided in all things, Dawn herself did not see it as a conflict.  The were new to this land and did not understand its ways as she did, and it was easier to go along with them than to try too hard to teach those who did not wish to understand.

Still, in her blended vision of spiritual matters, there were indeed creatures of evil, and she knew that was what they now faced.  The land was restless, the bounty of their harvest tainted with rot.  Streaked-with-Lightning hid his face in the fringe of her collar.  He did not like the feeling that lingered by the slaughtered cow, and even had Dawn not trusted her spirit guide implicitly in such things, the sight alone was enough to make her agree with the little rodent.

"If He test, He also give way to overcome," she said aloud as she signed a similar protection from evil, kneeling to inspect the carcass though she did not touch it.  It was the first in their town, but there was news of other towns with similar events, and of communities torn apart from within even as they were attacked from without.  If they were to survive the threat of dark spirits, they would need a defender that likewise inhabited the realm of spirits, for there was only so much a spirit woman could do alone.  If she was to enlist the aid of a more powerful spirit, she would need aid from others, something Dawn knew she would not get.  The Pale Faces did not like her magic, they did not see how all things came from the Great Spirit and returned to Him, even though they said the did.  Magic was evil, they said, and she was forced to pretend she agreed.  She had to hide the dances she did to bring them rains and healthy crops, the small spells she wove into herbs to heal the sick, the wards she placed with the turning of the seasons to discourage the lesser evils that roamed the lands.  They did not know how she had lured the swarming honeybees to that particular fallen long, nor how she coaxed them to part with a portion of their sweet harvest in return for the blessings of bounty she wove for their gathering.  They did not know how she thanked the forest for the trees they used to build their houses, nor how she soothed the restless spirits they disturbed when their footsteps fell too roughly upon the land.  They did not really understand the Great Dance, and perhaps in their old world they did not need to.

And perhaps they did not all need to.  William was a good leader, she thought.  He would understand what was needed to protect his people.  Dawn beckoned him away from the farmer.  "This is work of dark spirits," she said.  "Men can fight, but not as good as other spirits.  God say, He help ones who help already, yes?  Not everyone like ceremony to ask God send spirits of land to drive bad spirits out, so that not work.  But with just me, can ask /one/ spirit, come and fight.  Make offering and ask protection.  Then spirit follow you, and it see dark spirits and work together for fighting."

What Dawn proposed was not in keeping with the strict code of the settlers, but sincerity gleamed in her dark eyes.  She was using the tools she knew to solve their problem, in the way she thought would work best.  The spirits were there whether you liked them or not.  They did not go away simply because it was unchristian to traffic with them.  Indeed, why would the Great Spirit teach them the songs, dances, and rituals to commune with the spirits if He did not wish them to?  But how would William see her idea?

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