Savage Beloved (12 page)

“We are here,” Two Eagles said thickly. He stopped and turned to Candy. “I have brought you for this last visit with my uncle because of your feelings for him and because of his for you. It is only right that you have a chance to say a final good-bye before his burial rites begin.”

“Burial rites?” Candy gasped, paling, her heart turning cold with dread. “Oh, no. Please don’t tell me . . .”

“Come,” Two Eagles said, gently taking her hand. “It is right that you are here. He would want it this way.”

Tears fell from Candy’s eyes as she stepped into the tepee. It smelled of medicinal herbs and of cottonwood burning slowly in the fire pit.

The sun’s glow shone through the smoke hole overhead, casting its soft light on the wall behind where Short Robe lay. It illuminated the stillness of the elderly man’s body.

Candy could hardly bear to look at this wonderful old man who would never speak again, or laugh.

And it was all because of her father!

Oh, Lord, she felt such guilt in her heart because
she was the daughter of someone who had heartlessly tortured an innocent, elderly man.

She fell suddenly to her knees beside Short Robe. She bowed her head as she sobbed out her grief beside him.

Two Eagles was stunned by the way she was reacting to his uncle’s death. Her grief was deeply heartfelt.

Ho
, he had brought her there for a purpose, to see her reaction when she learned his uncle was dead.

What he was witnessing proved the sort of person she was. Just as his uncle had said, she was good-hearted, kind, and oh, so much more.

She truly did have feelings for Short Robe.

Two Eagles was feeling his own guilt heavy in his heart now. He wished he had not made Candy wear the irons. He gazed down and saw the dried blood on her ankles and wrists.

He hoped he could find a way to make all of this up to her.

He knew that if he did, his uncle would look down at him from the heavens and smile upon him.

He bent low next to Candy and twined an arm around her waist. “
Hiyu-wo
, come,” he said.

Candy looked up at him through her tears, nodded, then left with him.

She was surprised when he did not return her to the lodge where she had been held captive, but to a much larger one which she guessed was his.

It was not far from his uncle’s, so they’d been able to easily come and go when one or the other had needed to talk.

She noticed how neat and clean his lodge was even though he never had a wife. The women of the village surely took turns caring for him.

The tepee was large, the floor slightly more egg-shaped than circular. It was supported by slender poles arranged and lashed together in a cone-shaped framework. At the top was a smoke hole with directional flaps, and at the bottom edge the only door, facing east.

Inside the tepee were many skins and furs of mountain lions, bears, and deer. At one side she saw a bed with a mattress made of slender willow rods and coverings of buffalo hide.

Hanging down in front of the bed was a long curtain of buffalo hide, which she could tell could be raised or lowered at will. The half-lowered hide seemed to be painted with war scenes.

Farther back were Two Eagles’s weapons.

She was drawn from her thoughts when Two Eagles suddenly spoke.

“Sit beside my fire,” he said, gesturing toward a thick, plush pelt that was spread over the rush mats on the floor. “The sun is lowering. Soon the air will be cool again and the heat of the fire will feel good against your skin.”

“Thank you,” Candy murmured.

She smiled at him as she sat down, welcoming the softness after being in the garden the entire day. She was not used to such manual labor, and every bone in her body seemed to be aching.

For a moment, nothing was said between Candy and Two Eagles. She didn’t turn to watch what he
was doing, but when he came with a wooden basin of water, in which was a soft cloth, she questioned him with her eyes.

She was then taken, heart and soul, by his gesture of kindness when he began washing the dried blood from around her ankles and wrists, as she had from his uncle’s.

The feeling was magical as he softly bathed her.

Then suddenly he stopped and left the tepee.

She was full of wonder over his change of heart toward her, yet understood it since his uncle had spoken the truth. She wondered where Two Eagles had gone.

But she was no longer afraid of what might happen next. She thrilled at the very thought of how gentle he had been as he washed the blood from her flesh.

And the way he had looked into her eyes made a sensual thrill ride her spine.

There were many things that she hoped she had interpreted correctly. Only in time would she know.

She looked quickly at the entrance flap as it was shoved aside and the shaman came into the tepee with his bag of cures. Two Eagles entered behind him.

Candy scarcely breathed as Crying Wolf medicated the wounds caused by the irons. All the while Two Eagles stood back, only watching.

Soon Candy and Two Eagles were alone again.

She started to thank him for his change of heart toward her, but stopped when he reached for her hands and drew her to her feet before him. He gently
took her into his arms, their gazes meeting and holding.

“I have wanted to hold you in my arms since the first time I saw you,” he said thickly.

When she stiffened, he wondered if she was misinterpreting his behavior toward her.

Did she feel threatened?

“Are you afraid?” he asked. “Should I not have done that?”

Candy gazed into his eyes. “No, you . . . should . . . not have done that,” she replied, for she was suddenly thrown back in time. She recalled the screams overhead when she was hiding in the tunnel beneath the ground at the fort, and then the unbearable silence which meant that the slaughter was complete. Not only were her father and Malvina dead, but also everyone else who was stationed at Fort Hope!

How could she forget for one moment that this man who held her in his arms was the one who had done these horrible things?

How could she have ever wondered what it would be like to be loved by him?

How could she have ever allowed herself to feel something besides loathing for him?

She yanked herself away from him and lowered her eyes. “I am your enemy,” she said, her voice breaking.

She then gazed into his eyes. “And you . . . are . . . mine,” she murmured. “You might as well place me in captivity again, for I will never want anything from you except . . . except my freedom.”

Torn between her need to hate him and her want of him, Candy quickly turned her back to him.

Two Eagles was momentarily stunned silent by Candy’s sudden change in behavior. He hated the fact that she believed he and his warriors had killed those she knew. Two Eagles placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her slowly to face him.

“You are wrong,” he said, causing Candy’s eyes to waver. “It was not me nor my warriors who attacked the fort. It was the Sioux. They killed, rode away, and then we came and saw the slaughter. So you see, you are wrong to condemn me. I only want to be the one to protect you, now and forevermore, since your father is no longer alive to do it.”

He drew her closer in his arms. “Will you allow me to protect you?” he asked thickly, his eyes searching hers. “Will you allow me to love you, for I do. My heart beats only for you.”

She was so glad to know that he had not done the horrible deed. And she was so glad that he had just confessed to her how much he loved her, for she loved him just as much.

It was hard to believe that she was now free to love him, but she was, and she did!

“Just . . . please . . . kiss me,” she murmured, finding it, oh, so natural to twine her arms around his neck.

He did not have to be asked twice. He drew Candy tightly against him, her lips sweet against his as he kissed her.

Candy couldn’t understand how she could be doing this. All of her life she had heard horrible tales about what savages did to white women.

Yet even then she’d known that the true savages were the soldiers, among them her father, who so openly mistreated the Indians.

Oh, yes, she did care for Two Eagles. She knew that she had, almost from the moment she was alone with him and knew the gentleness of his touch and voice.

She just hadn’t allowed herself to show anything but loathing for him because she thought he had killed everyone at Fort Hope.

Even now that she knew the truth, she was afraid of loving him. He was an Indian, someone taboo to a white woman.

And she had never been with a man, sexually, before.

She had never loved before.

She was afraid to love . . . and to . . . make love.

She slipped away from him. “Things are moving too quickly between us,” she said, searching his eyes. “Please understand that this is all so new to me . . . living among your people, learning to trust them, and especially finding myself caring in this way for their young chief.”

His eyes brightened at those words. “I have loved you from the moment I saw you, although I needed to take you captive to avenge what had been done to my uncle,” he said. “In time you can tell me that you love me. Your body will let you know when you are ready to share the ultimate pleasure with me.”

He stepped away from her. “I have the duties of a chief and of a nephew to tend to now,” he said, his voice breaking. “I must tell my people of my uncle’s
passing and arrange the funeral rites. I alone will be the one to prepare my uncle’s body for burial.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Candy asked. She had grown to care for the elderly man so much, yet she knew before Two Eagles answered her that it was not her place to mingle with the Wichita people at such a sad time.

“Just rest. Stay in my lodge. I will return when I am free to do so,” Two Eagles said, stepping close to her again and sweeping his arms around her.

They gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment, then kissed passionately.

And then he was gone, leaving Candy in awe of the wonders of this man, his kiss, his gentleness!

Sighing, she sat down beside the fire and gazed into the flames. Life was complicated, but perhaps it would finally be good again!

But could she . . . should she . . . trust this easily?

Hawk Woman stood at the side of Two Eagles’s lodge, stunned by what she had witnessed only moments ago. She had watched, mortified, as Two Eagles went into the garden and removed the white woman’s bonds. Then he had taken her to Short Robe’s lodge. Hawk Woman knew now the old man was dead. But she would not announce it to anyone, for she knew it was Two Eagles’s place to do so.

Hawk Woman saw the gentle way Two Eagles was now treating Candy. As Hawk Woman had walked past Two Eagles’s lodge a moment ago, she had seen through a tiny space at the side of his entrance
flap how he had been holding Candy in a tender embrace.

She had even seen them kissing.

She realized now that she had no hope of getting Two Eagles to love her, not while this Candy person was still alive.

Hate seething inside her, she went to her own lodge and began plotting ways to rid Two Eagles of the other woman!

O, cunning Love! With tears
thou keep’st me blind.

Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul
faults should find.
—William Shakespeare

The next day the air was filled with the steady throb of the
esadadnes
, the drums that were being played for Short Robe. Everyone in the village had stopped their normal activities to mourn the passing of one of their most beloved men.

Candy was alone in Two Eagles’s tepee. It was still hard to believe how things had turned around for her, and it was all because of that blessed old man who had found the breath and strength to speak in her behalf before he died.

Little had he known how much those few words he spoke would change her life. Not only had she gained her freedom, but now she also had a man in her life to love.

Two Eagles’s tenderness toward her, his gentleness, and ah, the love in his eyes when he looked at her, had made all the wrongs in her life right.

He had given her his love. And she had given him hers. But she had not actually told him that she loved him.

Her fear of loving him, or any man for that matter, made her hesitant to declare her feelings. She had seen the cruelty of men . . . such as her father and his soldiers.

But she ached to feel Two Eagles’s arms around her again, to be kissed by him. Those longings were all the proof she needed to know that she did love him with all her heart and soul. He was not like any of those men of her past who killed and mocked innocent people.

Two Eagles had a deep caring for humanity.

Even if he had been the one who attacked Fort Hope, she would have seen him as a caring man, for his need to fight the men at Fort Hope was understandable.

But she was so glad it hadn’t been Two Eagles who had claimed so many lives at the fort. Even though she loved him, she was afraid she might have relived the horrors of that day every time she gazed into Two Eagles’s eyes.

Now all she saw was an adoration of her that made her melt inside.

Yes, she would tell Two Eagles that she loved him when his duties to his uncle were over.

But for now, she was restless for another reason.
She could not get Shadow off her mind. Her wolf had been gone for far too long this time.

Candy had accepted Shadow’s need to rejoin the wild wolves every once in a while, but this time it was different. Her wolf was not all that strong. If she needed to, she probably could not defend herself.

“I can’t wait any longer,” Candy whispered to herself as she scrambled to her feet.

Yes, she must go and search for Shadow. And she must do it alone. She could not ask for help from Two Eagles, or anyone else.

No one would want to think about a mere wolf while mourning the loss of a great, wronged man.

Now that there was an understanding between herself and Two Eagles, he had left her alone without sentries posted outside the entrance flap. She could leave and search for Shadow. No one would even notice her departure because all were preoccupied by their sadness, crying and wailing mournfully while the drums continued thumping.