shadow experienced a dizzying moment of double vision : he saw the grizzled man facing him , squeezing his shoulder , but he saw something else : so many winters , hundreds and hundreds of winters , and a gray man in a broad-brimmed hat walking from settlement to settlement , leaning on his staff , staring in through windows at the firelight and a joy and a burning life he would never be able to touch , never even be able to feel ... `` go , '' said wednesday , his voice a reassuring growl .