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I ran into the bedroom, tears of joy streaming down my face.
"They're coming home!" I cried, throwing my arms around Shadow's neck. "Cloud Walker's free and they're catching the next train home."
Disentangling himself from my grasp, Shadow took the wire from my hand. Harvey Castrell had changed his story at the last minute. He had seen the whole thing, and Cloud Walker had killed Frank Smythe in self-defense. Cloud Walker had been acquitted. Castrell's sentence had been carried out the next day.
Mary and Cloud Walker arrived on a sunny afternoon four days later. Shadow wasn't supposed to be out of bed yet, but he refused to stay home, and our whole family was there to welcome Mary and Cloud Walker home. Tears of joy flowed freely as we embraced each other. The whole ugly incident was over at last and mary was back home where she belonged.
Mary and Cloud Walker immediately began making plans to build a home of their own. They chose a piece of land near our place and decided to get started on the building right away. Fred Brown and Porter Sprague and several of our other neighbors offered to help, and they began the following Saturday.
The house was about half done when Shadow had recovered enough to help. Daily I thanked God that my husband was his old self again. His face, that handsome rugged face I loved so well, healed without a scar. The lacerations and abrasions on his arms, legs, back, and chest left several long white scars, but I didn't care. He was alive and that was all that mattered.
With life back to normal, I had more time to dwell on my pregnancy. I was cross a good deal of the time, but Shadow was unfailingly patient and supportive. I had not planned to have another child. Much as I had always wanted a large family, I had always had trouble getting pregnant. I had assumed that Blackie would be my last child, and though I had hoped for more children when I was younger, I had resigned myself to three and been grateful that they were all healthy and happy.
Blackie and Shadow continued to humor me when I was cross and out of sorts. They took over many of my chores so I could rest, and that made me even more irritable. I wasn't an invalid, I was just pregnant. Pregnant and fat and unattractive.
Shadow found me crying in our room one day. He quickly came to my side, his eyes dark with worry at the sight of my tear-streaked face.
"What is it?" he asked anxiously.
"Nothing," I wailed. "Leave me alone."
"Hannah, what is wrong?"
"I'm fat. I look like a pregnant heifer. How can you stand the sight of me?"
Shadow chuckled, and the sound of his amusement angered me. He could laugh! He wasn't the one who was pregnant. He didn't have morning sickness. He hadn't lost his shape. The smell of cooking meat didn't make his stomach turn.
"Go away," I said petulantly. "Go away and leave me alone. This is all your fault."
"Hannah."
I was instantly contrite. His voice was filled with such love and compassion, how could I stay mad at him?
"I'm sorry," I mumbled.
"You are not fat," Shadow said quietly. "You are pregnant with my son. Our son. Are you sorry?"
"No, of course not."
"You know that I love you?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you unhappy?"
I shrugged my shoulders, ashamed to look at him because I had been acting like a spoiled child.
"We have been blessed, you and I," Shadow said, stroking my hair. "You have often said you wished for more children, and I have always longed for another son." Shadow smiled at me, his eyes dancing merrily. "Or even a daughter."
"I know. But I didn't want to be having children when I was too old to take care of them."
Shadow laughed, and I laughed with him. We had been blessed, and I put the blues behind me where they belonged and instead thanked God for the new life growing beneath my heart.
In October we received a letter from Rebecca. She was doing well. Her daughter, Beth, was expecting again. Twins, the doctor said. Rebecca sent her love to each of us and talked about a visit, perhaps in the spring.
When Thanksgiving came, our family had much to be grateful for. We were all happy and healthy, surrounded by those we held dear.
As I gazed at the people sitting around our table, I felt my heart swell with joy. Hawk was busily trying to get Jacob and Jason to eat the food on their plates, but the twins, now four years old, were more interested in throwing it at each other. They were handsome boys, full of mischief. Victoria shook her head at the twins, leaving them to Hawk while she nursed Amanda Marie.
Blackie only grew more handsome as time went on. He was a good boy, dependable, level-headed, witty, and ambitious. We all expected big things from Blackie.
And Shadow . . . he was cradling Mary's son in his arm, his dark eyes glowing with pride as he glanced around the table.
Our eyes met and held, and then we smiled at each other. Truly, we had been blessed.
A month later, on the day before Christmas, our son was born. Mary and Victoria were there to help me, but I wanted only Shadow beside me.
"I'm too old to be having a baby," I gasped as a contraction knifed through me. "I'm a grandmother!"
Shadow laughed softly as he squeezed my hand. "You will never be old. Having a baby in the house will keep us young."
"Easy for you to say," I wailed. "You don't have to give birth, or get up in the middle of the night to take care of it. Oh, God, it hurts."
The laughter left Shadow's eyes and his brow grew lined with concern. "I would bear the pain for you if I could," he said in a ragged voice.
"I know you would." My nails raked his arms as the contractions came closer together. "Talk to me. It doesn't hurt so bad when you talk to me. Tell me about you."
"You know all there is to know," Shadow chided softly. "You have lived most of my life with me."
"Tell me," I begged.
He could not refuse, so he began to tell me of the day we had first met, of how he had felt when he saw me near Rabbit's Head Rock.
"You were just a child," Shadow said, his voice as soothing and gentle as sweet summer rain. "Just a skinny little girl child with a handful of wildflowers and a scared look on your face. You stood up to me, though," he said, smiling. "You even offered me a cookie."
"I offered you one," I panted. "And you ate them all."
"They were very good. Looking at you that day, I knew you would become a beautiful woman. It was hard for me to stop seeing you, but I had to learn the ways of a warrior, and so I went back to my people when the time came, determined to put you out of my heart and my mind forever." Shadow smiled. "Almost, I succeeded. I spent all my time learning how to be a Cheyenne warrior, and as I came of age I began to court a maiden in our village. You remember Bright Star? I think I might have married her if I had not ridden to the river crossing one warm summer day and seen you there. You were just fifteen at the time, but more lovely than any woman I have ever seen before or since. I went often to the river crossing after that, hoping to find you alone, but you were always with Orin. Or Joshua."
Shadow's voice grew hard and his eyes grew angry when he mentioned Joshua Berdeen's name.
"I knew you were too young to marry," Shadow went on, "so I went away with my people to our winter camp, determined to make you mine when I returned the following spring."
I smiled as Shadow paused in his story. How well I remembered those wonderful days before the Indian wars, when Shadow and I had courted and loved and laughed. There had been no misery or unhappiness for us then, no fears for the future, only our love and our hope for a long and happy life together.
I groaned as another contraction knifed through me. Shadow squeezed my hands, his eyes filled with empathy.
"Hang onto me," he urged.
I nodded, my nails raking his arms as the pains came closer and harder.
I drew blood, but Shadow did not seem to feel the pain. He had always been so brave. I wished I had some of his strength, some of his courage, to buoy me up now. He had suffere
d so much pain in his lifetime, so much heartache, yet he had never turned bitter or cruel.
I remembered the abuse he had suffered at the hands of the men who had dragged him from town to town back East, billing Shadow as "Two Hawks Flying, the Last Fighting Chief of the Plains." Shadow had been mocked and whipped and humiliated. Joshua had left him in the wilderness to die of exposure or starvation, whichever came first. He had been wounded in battle many times, knifed and left for dead by settlers. Many times he had taken revenge on those who had caused him harm, many times he had killed those who had caused me pain, yet underneath it all he remained a man who was kind and gentle, filled with love for his family, for all of life.
I could not hold back a cry as the worst pain of all tore through me.
"Push, Hannah," Shadow urged softly, and within minutes, our son made his way into the world, and into Shadow's capable hands.
Reverently Shadow gazed at his son, then held the baby up for me to see. Our son was wrinkled and red and beautiful. My eyes filled with tears of joy as our son squirmed and began to cry.
Mary and Victoria came in then. Shadow cut the cord, Mary bathed and dressed the baby, and Vickie helped me expel the afterbirth, then helped me into a clean nightgown and changed the sheets on the bed.
When I was presentable, Hawk and Cloud Walker brought the twins in to see the baby. Everyone remarked on how adorable he was, how tiny, how perfect.
Blackie looked at me and grinned. "Thanks, nahkoa," he said, chuckling. "I always wanted a little brother." His chuckle turned to full-fledged laughter. "Will you give me a little sister next year?"
"Scoot," Mary said, shooing Blackie out of the room. "Don't even think such a thing."
Later, when Shadow and I were alone, he sat beside me while I nursed the baby. I basked in the love shining in my husband's eyes.
"What shall we name him?" I asked.
"You decide."
"I've always liked the name Daniel," I mused. "What would you think of Daniel Blue Hawk?"
Shadow grinned at me. "It is a fine name."
Our eyes met and held, and though Shadow did not speak, I could hear his voice whispering in my heart.
"Long life and happiness, Hannah," I could hear him say. "That is what the hawks have promised."
And I knew it was true.
EPILOGUE
Hannah and Shadow lived a long and happy life, just as the hawks had promised. They lived to see the automobile replace the horse, to see airplanes take to the sky, to see movies with sound. Many changes took place in their lifetime, but their love for one another never changed and never grew old.
Hawk and Victoria had four sons and three daughters. Hawk was elected sheriff of Bear Valley when Bill Lancaster resigned, and he spent the rest of his life upholding law and order. Hawk was a fair and compassionate lawman, for he had seen a prison cell from the inside and he knew that no matter how guilty a man appeared, there was always a chance that he was innocent.
Victoria was active in the women's rights movement and was the first woman in Bear Valley to vote in an election.
Mary and Cloud Walker had seven sons and two daughters. They never left Bear Valley, but spent their lives together raising blooded Appaloosa horses and beautiful dark-eyed children.
Blackie's love and concern for people and animals never faltered, and he went to college and became a veterinarian, just as he had always dreamed of doing.
Daniel Blue Hawk became a writer. His first novel chronicled the lives of his parents as related to him by his mother.
The story began: ''I was nine years old the first time I saw the Cheyenne warrior who would one day be known as Two Hawks Flying . . ."
I never intended to be a published author, so it's always a thrill to see one of my books on the shelf. When I started writing, it was for my own pleasure. Had it not been for a friend, I might still be writing in longhand and storing my manuscripts under the bed!
I've loved Indians forever. I think my first crush was Eddie Little Sky from Disneyland, whom I saw when I was 12. As I grew older, I developed a deep admiration for Native American customs and beliefs. Crazy Horse and Cochise were my idols, so it seemed natural that my heroes would be warriors who were tall, dark, handsome, courageous, gentle, tender, strong and sexy.
I love when my readers ask if I'm Native American. For me, that's the highest compliment!
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