After the midday meal, Chaska pulled five long green reeds from the soaking trough behind the basket-weaver’s bench and bound their ends together with twine into a wide, springy loop. From a tin pan under the eaves she fetched a handful of flat river pebbles that the camp children had dabbed with red, yellow, and white clay paint.
“Come here, stone-eater,” she called, dropping onto her knees on a patch of beaten earth beside the drying racks. “Don’t eat these. They’re for throwing.”
Pip came out from under the trestle table, where it had been watching Osha mend a torn page in her father’s small notebook with flour paste. It sniffed the painted pebbles in Chaska’s palm. Because the clay paint was thin and mixed with tallow to keep the rain off, it smelled greasy rather than appetizing. Pip pulled its head back and sneezed once.
“Good,” Chaska said. She handed two peeled willow sticks to a lanky camp mule-handler named Bren, who was resting an ankle wrapped in comfrey leaves, and gave three red-spotted stones to Osha. “Here’s how it works. Bren holds the reed loop on the dirt with the sticks. Every time someone slides a stone, he pushes or pulls the sides to change the shape—narrow like a boat, wide like a kettle, crooked round his boot. You get three stones inside the reed before it closes on you, you win the round.”
