Savage Skies (7 page)

“What is your name?” Speckled Fawn asked softly. “Surely you will share at least that with me, for I am here as a friend, and the only other white person in the village.”

Still Shirleen said nothing, yet she was thinking of the Indian name she had been given by the shaman. It had a beautiful sound to it.

Tiny Flames.

Yes, if she had to be called something while she was in this village, she wished to be known as Tiny Flames.

But Shirleen wasn't ready to share even that much with this white woman, not until she knew whether her friendly overtures were genuine.

Speckled Fawn got to her feet. “If you don't want to tell me your name, that's fine and dandy,” she said, shrugging. “But please come with me to sort through the clothes.”

Shirleen quickly shook her head, refusing to do anything this woman asked her to do.

“I understand,” Speckled Fawn said softly. “Well, by gum, if you won't go with me, I'll bring some clothes to you.”

Speckled Fawn left and soon returned with a huge bag.

Shirleen's eyes widened as the woman dumped the clothes out on the mats that covered the earthen floor.

She gasped when she saw that many of the clothes had belonged to her and her daughter. Her eyes lingered on one of Megan's dresses, which Shirleen had made only recently. Each stitch had been taken with the deepest love. When Megan had put it on, she'd been so delighted by the embroidered flowers on the collar, she had swirled around and around, giggling. It was a special moment between mother and daughter that was their very own.

She suddenly thought of the sweater she had
put on Megan this morning. Megan had even tried to put a few stitches of embroidery on the front herself, since Shirleen was sewing baby chickens on it. She'd wanted to make it extra special for her daughter since Megan loved baby chickens so much.

Recalling the sight of Megan rushing outside with the sweater on to play with the baby chicks, Shirleen felt tears prick her eyes. She hoped it would keep Megan warm at night wherever she was.

She swallowed hard as she fought her doubts that Megan was even still alive.

“May I be alone?” Shirleen suddenly asked, picking up Megan's tiny dress and holding it to her breast. “Please?”

“Yes, I'll leave,” Speckled Fawn said, already turning to walk toward the entrance.

She stopped and turned and gazed into Shirleen's eyes again. “But while I am gone, please choose the clothes you want to keep, for the rest will be divided among the women of this village.”

Shirleen nodded and waited breathlessly to again be totally alone. She needed this time to think of a way to discover the whereabouts of her daughter.

But . . . how . . . ?

There is nothing held so dear as love,
If only it be hard to win.

—Ingelow

Deep in thought about what she had just experienced with the stranger who had been brought into the village, Speckled Fawn stepped into the tepee she shared with her Indian husband.

She stopped before going farther, her mind struck by something that had just transpired in the other tepee.

It was the woman's reaction to seeing a child's dress.

It was the reaction of a mother who longed for her child!

Did the woman's reaction mean that the dress belonged to her daughter? But if so, where was she?

And why wouldn't the woman share even her name with Speckled Fawn? Surely she had seen that Speckled Fawn had come to visit her as a friend.

But still . . . the woman had only spoken when Speckled Fawn had first arrived at the tepee. Otherwise she had remained silent, except at the last, when she'd plucked the child's dress from the other clothes.

Yes, the tiny dress had prompted the woman to react, surely evoking memories that pained her.

Yet no one had said anything about a small child, a girl, being among those who had been killed by the renegades.

Was the woman's daughter even now at the mercy of Big Nose and the evil men who had managed to flee the ambush by Blue Thunder and his warriors?

Realizing that eyes were on her, Speckled Fawn looked quickly down at her husband, who sat beside the fire, a blanket wrapped around his thin, slumped shoulders.

When he smiled somewhat blankly at her, Speckled Fawn's heart felt a warmth and depth of love she had never known she could feel for a man. Especially a man who was elderly, and who no longer had the ability to speak.

He now sat, day in and day out, awaiting his time to die, so that he could join his beloved ancestors in the sky.

But until then, Speckled Fawn did everything humanly possible to make him happy.

She believed that he was still alive only because she was there to love and care for him.

She just wished that he could talk, and still had the capacity to reason, because she badly wished to talk to him about the white woman, and especially her reaction to the tiny dress. She would love to know his opinion on the situation.

But as it was, she could only tell him of her feelings, which she often did in order to make him feel that he was still involved in life. She spoke even though she knew that he could never talk back to her.

“My husband, I've returned home to sit with you, to talk and make you happy,” Speckled Fawn said to Dancing Shadow. At one time, when he was younger and had his full faculties, he had been his people's shaman.

Speckled Fawn noticed that, as usual, her words had not registered, for his eyes had already turned away from her and he was again only watching the leaping flames of the fire in the firepit.

Used to this reaction, but never liking it any more than the last time she had tried to break through his terrible silence, Speckled Fawn sighed heavily.

She sat down beside him and took one of his bony hands in hers. She held it, feeling its coldness even though he was sitting close to the warmth of the fire.

Too often of late he felt cold when she touched him, especially when she bathed him each morning.

His chest, which was now strangely caved in
so that his ribs were prominent, held no warmth whatsoever, nor did his lips when she kissed him.

It was like kissing a dead fish. . . .

That thought made her shudder. She no longer wanted to kiss him because of how his lips felt against hers, but she hoped that perhaps a kiss might reach his consciousness, so she did it as often as she could.

“My husband, our chief returned today from his journey to find and kill Big Nose and his renegade friends,” Speckled Fawn murmured. Her words would reach the fire, the walls of the tepee, the mats on the floor, even the pot of food cooking slowly over the fire, but not her husband's mind.

But still, she talked, for she knew that it was important not to leave her husband in total silence.

She kept hoping for some sort of breakthrough.

If he would say one word, it would cause her heart to leap with pure joy!

“Sad to say, though, Big Nose once again eluded death,” Speckled Fawn said, herself now gazing into the fire. It had a way of almost hypnotizing a person, so she turned her eyes back to her husband. “He even eluded Blue Thunder. But most of Big Nose's men were killed. At least in that, your nephew can be proud.”

She looked over her shoulder at the closed
entrance flap when she heard voices as someone walked past.

They were women, surely discussing the events that had happened today in their village, the most shocking being the arrival of the other white woman.

Many of these women had accepted Speckled Fawn's presence, but there were those who still resented her, especially since one of their most precious elders had taken her as his wife.

Dancing Shadow had chosen Speckled Fawn as his wife soon after she had been brought into the village.

At that time he had still had his senses about him.

He had even given her her Indian name.

Some days after their marriage vows had been spoken, her husband had fallen into his strange life of silence.

They had never shared intimacy of the sort husbands and wives normally shared.

But he had had a few nights of just being able to enjoy the warmth of his wife next to him in bed.

He had never once touched her intimate parts. Nor had he even gazed at her when she was undressed. He had given her all the privacy she could have wished for.

That pleased Speckled Fawn, for after what she had gone through the weeks and months before her rescue by Blue Thunder, she felt nothing but loathing for men!

She was so glad she did not feel that way any longer. While among these Assiniboine people, no man among them had looked at her with lust, or treated her unjustly.

She was the wife of a wonderful old man.

She was treated with respect because of who her husband was, and had been.

“Husband, I am no longer the only white woman in our village,” Speckled Fawn confided. “There was a horrible massacre of white people by Big Nose and his men. All the white people who were attacked died except one. It was a woman. She was brought to our village. Her wound has been treated by Morning Thunder, and she now sits in a tepee that Blue Thunder assigned her. She is not a true captive, though. When she is well enough to travel, she will leave us.”

She reached a hand to her husband's chin and slowly turned his face toward her, but still there was no recognition of her, or of anything that she had just told him.

She let go of his face so that he could look into the fire again.

She often wondered what he saw.

Did he see some of his past flickering before his eyes as the flames danced and popped and zigzagged along the pile of wood?

Or did he truly see nothing at all?

“Husband, the woman seems so lost, so deeply hurt inside her heart over what has happened to her at the hands of the renegades,” Speckled Fawn went on. Despite his
lack of response, she believed that somehow these moments with her were important to her husband.

Otherwise he would be alone, totally alone, in his silent world.

Feeling blessed to have been chosen by him to be his wife, knowing how powerful he had once been, Speckled Fawn was happy to give her husband all the respect and love that were due him.

She would remain by his side until the end. Once he took his last breath, he would finally be among those he surely thought of all day, even though he was no longer able to express what, or whom, he was thinking about.

It was those brief moments when he gave Speckled Fawn a fleeting smile that made her certain he somehow did hear her when she spoke to him, and fully appreciated her nearness.

“My husband, something just happened while I was with the white woman to make me think she might have a daughter,” Speckled Fawn said softly. “It was the way she held a tiny dress taken from the white settlement that was attacked. But where is the child? Who might she be with?”

She swallowed hard. “I so fear she is with Big Nose,” she said tightly. “He might have separated her from the others and taken her away before Blue Thunder's attack. Oh, God be with her if she is with that demon.”

She slid her hand from his and brushed a
fallen lock of his hair back from his brow. “I wish the woman would confide in me,” she said thickly. “As it is, she doesn't trust me. I imagine it's because I am white and living among your people and am dressed like your women. I would have had the same reaction five years ago had I found a white woman among your people when I was brought here.”

She saw that a corner of her husband's blanket had slid from his shoulder.

She leaned closer to him and repositioned the blanket so that it would warm his aged, wrinkled flesh.

“My husband, I want to go and meet with Blue Thunder, to tell him about the white woman's reaction to the tiny dress, but I'm not sure if he will agree to meet with me,” she said, her voice catching. “Although I have never done anything to cause Blue Thunder to despise me, he still seems to. I am aware that he has never approved of my being here. He never wanted me to marry you, his people's shaman, and also his uncle. But since I am your wife, I have been tolerated by not only him, but also by the men of our village. Thank goodness I have made friends with most of the women.”

When Dancing Shadow slowly turned his gaze to her, he looked deep into her eyes. Since he usually looked at her blankly, she sensed that this time he had understood at least a portion of what she had just said.

She frowned, thinking that if he understood there were some who still did not appreciate
her living among them, the knowledge would hurt his heart. She had to be more careful about what she said, just in case he did understand but could not speak his mind to react to what he heard.

When he turned his eyes away from her and hung his head, quickly falling asleep where he sat, Speckled Fawn reached out for him and helped him down onto his pallet of blankets and furs beside the fire.

She positioned a rich pelt from a red fox beneath his head, his long hair spreading over it like a gray halo, then slowly covered him.

“My husband, oh, my husband, I so wish there was something I could do for you that you would feel and know,” she whispered. She brushed a soft kiss across his leathery brow. “I love you. Oh, at least please know how much I love and adore you. You have given me such peace inside my heart. I will be lost without you when you are taken from me.”

She leaned away from him, filled with gratitude for this elderly man. Without his attention toward her, who could say where she might be now, or with whom?

She had no idea whether or not Blue Thunder would have asked her to stay with his people if she were not Dancing Shadow's wife.

But she was, and she knew that even if her husband passed on to the other side, she would still live among the Assiniboine, for she would be the widow of one of the most powerful shamans in Assiniboine history.

At least that was what she had been told.

Stubborn by nature, and unable to get the white woman off her mind, Speckled Fawn decided to go back and talk some more to her.