Waya seemed suddenly unsure of himself, Timpoochee thought.
The cocky young man of just moments ago appeared to wither right before Timpoochee’s eyes.
“I asked a question,” he said, staring into Waya’s eyes.
The others in the party sat silently, perhaps scooching a bit back from the fire, from Timpoochee and Waya.
“I know you are Ulagu,” Waya said sheepishly after some silence. “I know why we are here, what we must do.”
Timpoochee reached across the short distance to his young ward, tipped his finger up under the young man’s chin and lifted it up. Waya opened his eyes, met Timpoochee’s eyes.
“Do you know the story, the medicine of Cornstalk?” Timpoochee asked.
Waya brightened.
“Yes, of course I do,” he replied. “You taught us first when we were boys. Cornstalk, your brother, son of Yufala like you but not like you at the same time; the one who disappeared with Tecumthe into the sky.”
“And how do we know he disappeared into the sky?” Timpoochee asked.
“It is knowledge of the medicine that we know,” Waya replied. “It is the medicine you taught us.”
“The medicine can change, become altered through time, by time,” Timpoochee said plainly, without emotion. “The medicine is never fixed. Like the world itself we are constantly changing within it.”
“I don’t understand,” Waya said.
“Cornstalk,” Timpoochee said. “He is there.”
He raised his arm and pointed his hand, unfurling his forefinger toward the Yonega settlement.