The winter is an especially difficult one, and many people are ill. In February, Mark and Jim are able to go out on patrol. When they pass Calamity Bill’s float, they notice there is no smoke coming from his house and decide to check on him. They find that Bill has slid off of his roof and dragged himself inside. Before he dies, Mark promises Bill that he’ll scatter his ashes in the spring at a spot he has marked on a map.

Marta tells Mark that Keetah is returning to the village by choice, and she arrives in March. He observes that she has become a young woman, and notices that she is avoiding him. Mark realizes that she and the rest of the village are unsure if he will approve of her return. He finds her in the church one day, and she explains that Caleb had helped her and how everyone had been kind, although the white woman she lodged with was suspicious of her at first and spoke to her like a child. However, she describes suffering being away from the village: “The world swallowed me, and I knew I could not stay there because my village is the only place I know myself” (138).