Tahince-Iheya ran quickly to the shelter of the birch tree. The thunder people cannot hit these trees. While the boy stood, thunder voices rattled, the beating of the wings of Wakinyan, until his ears were bursting. When the voices ceased, Tahince-Iheya indeed saw Wakinyan standing by a pine tree. Suddenly this tree dropped into the earth, smoking.

Wakinyan now spoke to the boy. “Go back to the village,” he said, “and see where is now that wicked woman, your sister.”

So the boy returned, and lo, the village was burned, and its people were destroyed. Only the smoky tepee of the old woman had escaped.

Dreams and Thunder: Stories, Poems, and the Sun Dance Opera, p. 59