a broken rib, another nursing a smashed leg, had ridden into the village and brought word that Keenta the Beaver had killed the English hunter, Burliegh of Wadboo. Almayne's order was that Keenta the Beaver, the moment he returned, be sent a captive to Charles Town to pay the death penalty. Failing this, Almayne had said, the white troopers would come and burn the town.
Two hours before dawn, when clouds had obscured the moon, Ahowhe realized suddefily that the chuck-will's-widow sang with a new note. No one saw her when she went out into the darkness. No one saw her when she returned. No one saw her when she went out a second time.
Nor was Ahowhe ever seen in that village again; and Keenta the Beaver, Ahowhe's warrior, was seen there no more. Years afterwards, a young man of that village, returning from a mission to Moytoy of Tellequo, Emperor of the Nations, said that he had met Keenta and Ahowhe in a town of the Cherokees beyond the mountains, and that with them was a young boy, their son. His mother called the boy Black Bull of Ahowhe; but Keenta called him Yanasa, the Very Great Bull, the Master of the Herds.
