Savage Beloved (13 page)

Candy knew that Two Eagles was preoccupied, too, especially today, for he was preparing his uncle’s body for burial.

Wearing the soft doeskin dress and moccasins, Candy crept from the lodge. She stopped and looked toward the huge council house where everyone had gathered.

There was no one in sight. They were all inside, sharing the mourning.

Even the sentries had been pulled from their posts so that they could join the gathering.

Eager to begin her search for Shadow, Candy left
the village. She did not go on a horse because she was afraid that if she took one from Two Eagles’s corral, he might think she’d left to return to the white community.

If she went by foot, Two Eagles would know she hadn’t planned to go far.

She knew that most white people would find it odd that she didn’t want to leave the Wichita and find someone who would help her get her life back in order among her own people.

They would be shocked to know that she wanted to be a part of Two Eagles’s life, for he was Indian . . . taboo.

They would be utterly stunned to know that without him she would be nothing. Without him, she felt she would be alone in the world.

Smiling as she slipped away without being seen, she walked farther and farther from the village. She stopped suddenly in alarm when a red racer snake slithered across the ground in front of her. Fortunately, it went on its way without even noticing her.

Sighing heavily with relief, Candy walked onward, hoping that Shadow would somehow sense that she was there, searching for her, and come out of hiding.

She halted abruptly again when she saw something else that was a danger to her. A little ways off, three stray buffalo were facing down a pair of grizzly bears.

She was stunned when the three buffalo attacked the bears, striking them over and over with their hooves and eventually killing the grizzlies.

She stared at the bears, still finding it unbelievable that the buffalo had actually overpowered the massive animals, then hurried onward herself.

When she was a good distance from the village, she began shouting Shadow’s name, cringing in fear when she heard the howling of wolves not far from where she was walking.

She only now realized the mistake she’d made in coming this far from the village weaponless, into wolves’ territory.

To them she was a threat, because she was too close to their home.

If they chose to, they could come and . . .

No. There was no point in terrifying herself. She was thankful when the wolves went quiet.

Now realizing just how foolish it was to be so far from the village alone, Candy started to turn around, but realized that there was no clear path back to the village.

She had lost her way!

With fear like a cold poker in her belly, she stared up at the lowering sun.

Soon it would be dark.

Surely Two Eagles would return to his tepee and discover her missing. Yet he was so busy with duties to his dead uncle, he might not return to his lodge until long after dark.

A chill rode her spine at the thought of spending time alone in the dark. At any moment she could become food for some wild animal.

Frantically she looked around her. She had to find something she recognized, some landmark that could
help lead her back the way she’d come. Yet nothing looked familiar to her.

Nothing!

Near tears, Candy fell to her knees beside a stream.

She splashed water on her face, then flinched when she heard the snapping of a twig behind her.

Frozen with fear, she turned her head slowly. She almost fainted when she saw an Indian that she knew wasn’t one of Two Eagles’s warriors.

He was like something from a nightmare, grotesque in appearance. His bare head was badly scarred, and she could see that a part of his scalp was gone.

His only weapon was a sheathed knife and he wasn’t threatening her with it, only resting his hand on it as he silently studied her.

Candy slowly stood up. She tried to hide her fear as she held her chin bravely high.

She jumped with alarm when he finally spoke to her, but felt slightly reassured when he used English as good as Two Eagles and his people spoke.

“My name is Spotted Bear,” he said slowly, as if it had been a long time since he had spoken. “I am Wichita, a warrior banished by my tribe.”

Hearing that he was Wichita, not Sioux, who were the fiercest Indians in the area, gave Candy some hope.

Surely if this man was Wichita, he knew Two Eagles.

Yet could it have been Two Eagles who had banished him from the tribe?

If so, why?

Had he done something deplorable which caused his banishment?

But no matter why he was no longer able to be with his people, she knew that she must try to get on his good side.

“My name is Candy,” she murmured, purposely not telling him her last name. The name Creighton was anathema to those who knew her father and of his evil doings against redskins.

She saw the same puzzled reaction that always came from those who heard her name for the first time.

“Are you one of the Eagle band?” she blurted out. “Do you by chance know Two Eagles?”

The look in his eyes told Candy that he did recognize the name, and he soon confirmed it.

“Two Eagles was from my band, but we have not seen one another for some time,” he said. “I am not welcome among my people any longer, for I am known now to all red men as a Ghost, one who is no longer seen as a living man.”

“What?” Candy gasped, surprised that he would tell her something so personal. She was relieved that he was being kind, not threatening, to her.

“Why are you called a Ghost?” she quickly added. “Did you do something wrong that caused your people to banish you? Is that why you are called a Ghost?”

She was beginning to fear that this man might be dangerous, especially if his own people had just cause to turn their backs on him.

“I did the same as all the warriors who rode with
me on that fateful day of the Sioux ambush,” Spotted Bear said, his voice tense. “But I was the only Wichita warrior who was downed by a Sioux, scalped, and left for dead.”

She gazed at his head again and now understood why he was so disfigured.

She was stunned that he had survived such a thing as a scalping!

The more she knew about him, and the longer she was with him, the less afraid she felt.

She listened intently as he told her his story.

“I was scalped and left to die,” he said, looking humbly at the ground. Then he raised his head quickly and gazed into her eyes. “But I managed to live and treat my wounds with herbs. Since I was too weak to hunt, I survived by eating berries. Now I am healed, and strong enough to hunt again. But even now I cannot return home. I am now a man without a people, without a friend. I am to walk this earth alone, forever.”

“But why?” Candy asked, pitying this man whose heart seemed broken because he’d been abandoned by those he loved.

She could not imagine Two Eagles being so heartless.

There had to be a misunderstanding here.

“All Indian warriors who survive a scalping such as I did are feared,” he said. “We are called the Living Dead. I have always been a man of peace and have never been an energetic fighter. That is why the Sioux got the best of me and scalped me. I have lived alone ever since.”

His gaze moved slowly over her. When he noticed that she was dressed in the clothes of his people, he looked more closely into her eyes. “Tell me about yourself,” he said softly. “Tell me why you are not with your own people and why you are dressed in the clothes of the Wichita.”

She told him about her father’s death and the massacre at Fort Hope, and how she had thought it was the Wichita who had done this horrible thing. She told him that she and her pet wolf were the sole survivors of the massacre, and that Two Eagles took her in, first as his captive, and now . . .

She paused and then blushed as she confessed that she was something more now than a captive to Two Eagles.

“I am free to come and go as I please,” she said. “When my pet wolf went off, as she is wont to do now that she is grown, I set out on my own to find her. I am afraid that the wolves might see how weak she is now and possibly kill her.”

She looked over her shoulder, still disoriented and unsure as to which way to go to get back to the village.

Then she looked again at Spotted Bear. “I had to search for my wolf alone because Two Eagles could not go with me,” she said. “He is mourning his uncle’s death.”

“Short Robe is dead?” Spotted Bear said, his eyes revealing his sadness. “It is wrong that I am not there to mourn him, too, along with my people.”

“I am sad for you,” Candy said, truly feeling sorrow for this man whose world had been torn asunder
by the Sioux, just as her own had been. She was more fortunate than Spotted Bear, though. The Sioux had unknowingly fulfilled two destinies when they attacked Fort Hope: hers and Two Eagles’s.

Thinking of Two Eagles brought her back to her current predicament. She slowly shook her head back and forth. “I am lost,” she said, her voice breaking. She looked again into Spotted Bear’s dark eyes. “I can’t find my way back to the village. If you aren’t allowed there, you can’t take me back, but can you at least point me in the right direction?”

Spotted Bear looked at the sky and then at Candy. “You should not leave now to find the village,” he said. “Soon it will be dark. It is not safe to travel during the night hours. Come to my camp with me. Eat. Rest. Sleep. Tomorrow I will lead you back to the village, or if you prefer, I can take you near a white person’s home.”

Candy didn’t have to think twice about where she would rather be taken. “I prefer going back to Two Eagles’s village to be a part of his life,” she said, seeing the shocked look on his face.

Candy blushed when she realized what she had just said about being a part of Two Eagles’s life. That was vastly different from saying that she wanted to be a part of the Wichita’s lives.

By singling out Two Eagles she had practically admitted her feelings for Two Eagles to this banished warrior.

She felt suddenly uneasy over her openness with this man, who might disapprove of any relationship between a white woman and a red man.

She watched closely for his reaction, relieved when he didn’t seem perturbed by what he had just learned.

For his part, Spotted Bear was surprised to learn that this woman was in love with Two Eagles, which was taboo. But that did not concern him. Her safety did, for if she was so open about her feelings for Two Eagles, surely he cared as much for her.

“Will you come with me?” he asked, searching her eyes. “Will you trust me as much as you do Two Eagles, or is that asking too much? You have not been with me long enough to know if you can trust me.” He lowered his eyes. “Knowing that I am a Ghost, banished by my people, you may see me in the same light as they.”

Truly not feeling threatened by this man, in fact feeling sorry for what had happened to him, Candy nodded. “I will go with you,” she murmured, feeling that was the best way to answer his question. “I truly appreciate your kindness.”

She saw how her trust in him brought a smile to his face. Surely she was the first person to be kind to him since the day of his scalping.

He nodded toward his left. “Come, and I will show you my home,” he said. “You will be the first to sit with me by my fire.”

She smiled at him, then walked beside him for a short distance to a tepee in the shelter of some trees.

She stepped inside with him where a fire burned within a circle of rocks. Meat was browning on a spit over the flames.

They both sat down, and soon Candy was eating
with him; she had not realized just how ravenous she had been until now.

“It is good to have someone with me who does not see me as a Living Dead,” Spotted Bear said, his voice breaking. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for your kindness toward me,” Candy said. The food was soon eaten and her stomach was comfortably full, but she grew a little anxious inside when he handed her a blanket. Had she been wrong to trust this man, especially since he had obviously been without a woman since his banishment?

Had his kindness toward her been only to make her relax so he could rape her?

“I will sleep outside beneath the stars so you can have privacy,” he said, lifting another blanket into his arms and quickly dispelling any doubts about him that she had.

“Again, thank you,” she murmured and watched him leave.

Candy stretched out beside the fire, and, worn out by her long day’s travel on foot, she was soon fast asleep.

She was not aware of a hand shoving the entrance flap quietly aside, or eyes that watched her as she slept so soundly . . . so trustingly. . . .

Awed by a thousand tender fears,
I would approach, but dare not move;
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
—George Lytleton

His heart aching, his sadness deeply felt, Two Eagles stood over his uncle, who was now wrapped in what had been his favorite robe.

Two Eagles had sat vigil at his dead uncle’s side for some time after preparing him for burial. He had chanted and prayed the entire day, the only one there for these final hours before Short Robe’s burial tomorrow.

Needing to return home, not only to rest but to see how Candy had managed all by herself for the whole, long day, Two Eagles stepped outside into the darkness of evening. He found Hawk Woman standing there, a strange look on her face.

“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice a little
harsh. “Everyone else has returned to their homes to prepare themselves for the burial tomorrow.”

“Candy is gone,” Hawk Woman said, trying to keep from smiling.

She was hoping that Candy had taken this opportunity to escape and return to the white world. If she had, it would prove that she had toyed with Two Eagles’s affection in order to gain his trust and the opportunity to escape.

“She . . . is . . . gone?” Two Eagles asked, looking quickly at his lodge. His insides tightened when he saw in the moon’s light no smoke spiraling from his smoke hole. No one was there.