He gives me a prayer tie to take with me— a bundle of tobacco wrapped in red cloth, an offering for the child I have lost. I go alone to the top of the mound, this place where his Tuscarora ancestors were buried near Goose Creek. January's pallid light lies curled beneath the single tree, its roots like hardened seams in the earth’s skin. As I fasten my offering to a branch, he comes to present me with his totem: a small bear, carved from stone.