The day after the hurricane, Omishto worries about her family’s welfare back in town, but the roads are closed, and the phone lines are down, so she can’t contact them. Isolated from society, Ama and Omishto track the wounded deer through the swampy, storm-ravished landscape. Omishto feels compelled to follow Ama despite her fear and confusion at the purpose of their journey, for which Ama has brought rope, a burlap sack, and a rifle. Time falls away; Omishto does not know how long or far they have traveled, but she feels that they are getting closer and closer to their ancestors and the past. They finally arrive at a place called “Taiga Birthplace” at the edge of tribal land, believed to be the place where their ancestor Sisa, the panther, entered this world from a parallel one. As night falls, they discover the pawprint of an endangered golden panther in the ground. Omishto realizes that Ama has been tracking a panther all along, not the deer.

They continue to track the panther until they find it drinking water under the moonlight. Omishto thinks that it is beautiful, “all animal and lean muscle” (63), and hopes that Ama is not going to kill it.