Derailment: Day 5

Word Count: 30,019

Summary of Events:
Fox Paw's half brother Mouse Leg died of the illness and was cremated as his mother, while Fox Paw felt greatly disturbed. Matthew continued journeying and talked with Adonikam about quite a few things that Adonikam didn't follow. Fox Paw's half sister Fish Mouth also died — making two deaths in one day — and Fox Paw went off on her own to try and sort through her feelings. Matthew set up camp for the night near to a native settlement, although he hoped to go unnoticed being as he was to their west. However, he did not go unnoticed; Fox Paw noticed him, and crept closer to investigate out of great curiosity . . .

Excerpt of the Day:
"Now she could see the fire, and she could see the boy clearly, along with most of the man — for now she could tell it was a man. The boy was young, no more than five winters, with a thick head of dark hair, and he had light eyes, which unnerved Fox Paw, as she'd only ever seen people with dark eyes.
The man was sitting with his legs crossed, and he was clothed in leather; was he one of their people? But then why did he have this great contraption, and a child with light eyes with him?
He picked up something and he opened it like one separated bark from a sapling — but it was no sapling, it was black, and Fox Paw didn't have a word to describe its shape — he turned layers of something marked with dark markings on it, and then began to speak.
Fox Paw understood some of the words; her father had sometimes spoken in that language and she'd learned a bit of it — although her father had never spoken to her in the language — she didn't know what the language was, other than that it wasn't her language.
The man then closed the thing and got to his feet. He set it in something else that Fox Paw couldn't begin to describe, which he picked up and carried into his small home that didn't look to be of skins.
Soon the boy followed him. After some time the man came out again and poured water over what little remained of his fire to put it out with much hissing before returning into his home.
Quickly Fox Paw leapt to her feet and hurried away to the sweat lodge; she had to tell this to her father, he would know who this man was, and what should be done about him and his son.
Her father and the medicine man startled when she dashed into the sweat lodge. Her father's surprise faded to a distinctly upset expression after he realized who had come to them.
Before either one of them could say anything Fox Paw quickly told them all that she had seen, describing the contraption and some of the other things with great difficulty — occasionally being questioned by her father and the medicine man during her descriptions.
As she spoke she noticed an alarm growing on her father's face, which made her feel quite uncomfortable: what had she found? Once she had described all she could remember she fell silent to let her father and the medicine man think.
"You have seen a white man," her father said before there had been much pause. "He is a learned white man, for he has books — I have seen them — he is travelling through here to someplace."
"But he wears skins," Fox Paw said.
"Some white men do, for they have realized the advantages of our dress," her father replied. "He must know much about medicine, and especially of white man's sicknesses — for these are the sicknesses that plague us — we must get him to heal Weasel Nose.""