“Captive?” Dawnmarie asked, eyes wide. She glanced over her shoulder at the cage, then paled as she looked at Kaylene. “Do not tell me that you were also placed in . . . in . . . that thing.”
Kaylene smiled. “Yes, I know the miseries of that hellish cage,” she said softly.
“Yet, you are still going to marry Fire Thunder?” Dawnmarie asked incredulously.
“My hate, my rage, for him, turned into something more, something beautiful,” Kaylene said, opening the door to Fire Thunder’s cabin. “We fell in love. I am here now, because I wish to be.”
Dawnmarie entered the lodge first. Kaylene and Little Sparrow followed, along with Midnight.
Midnight went and sprawled out before the roaring fire in the fireplace, on the blanket he had claimed as his own.
Kaylene offered Dawnmarie a chair, then sat down opposite her, while Little Sparrow lay down on the blanket with Midnight, soon cuddling against him, asleep.
“Now, Dawnmarie, please tell me about yourself, how you met White Wolf, and how you adjusted to life with Indians,” Kaylene began. She slipped her feet beneath her, so glad that her dress and hair were finally dry after the drenching in the rainstorm.
“My life before I met White Wolf was pleasant enough because my Kickapoo mother was so dear and sweet to me,” Dawnmarie said. “My father, until he took to drinking, was kind and gentle. He was a trapper. Then he became the owner of a trading post. It was there that I became acquainted with the different tribes of Indians that lived in the Wisconsin area. White Wolf stole my heart the moment I saw him. He has had it ever since.”
“And you married him,” Kaylene said, raking her fingers through her hair, drawing it back across her shoulders. “Did his people accept you quickly?”
“I fit in like a hand snuggled into a tight glove,” Dawnmarie said, laughing softly. Then her laughter faded. “But for a time now, I have been too troubled about things to enjoy being a wife to my husband, as I have, in the past.”
“And why is that?” Kaylene pressed. “If you don’t mind telling me, that is.”
“It has been this constant need to find my true people,” Dawnmarie said, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “It has been so long now since the first time my mother told me that I must seek out my people. But life kept getting in the way. I now wish that I hadn’t waited so long. I could have had a lifetime of getting to know them. Now it will be only brief, for I see the importance of returning to my children, to enjoy them, and my grandchildren. Life is sometimes cut off way before one is ready. One must set things right as soon as possible, or perhaps never get the chance.”
She paused, reached over and placed a hand on Kaylene’s arm. “I was one of the lucky ones,” she said softly. “Although I waited so long to come to Mexico, to be with my true people, it could have been different. I might have waited too long.”
“I am sure that Fire Thunder’s people, your people, are glad that you are here,” Kaylene said as Dawnmarie eased her hand away and rested it on her lap. “And perhaps you have told me enough for me to know what I must do. Only recently have I discovered that the man out in that cage is not my true father. I have been living a lie. That man out there abducted me when I was a child too small to even remember my real parents. Now I must go and find them. What you have told me has helped my decision. Have I made the right decision? Should I seek the full truths about my parents?”
“I encourage you to,” Dawnmarie said. “Please don’t wait as long as I waited. Look at what I have missed by not knowing my people. The years, the love, the bond! Yes, follow your heart. Find those who unwillingly gave you up.”
“But what if Fire Thunder gets impatient with my search and falls out of love with me by thinking that I care more for people I have never known than him,” Kaylene said, her voice breaking.
“I saw the love that man has for you,” Dawnmarie reassured her. “It matches the feelings my husband has for me. It is an eternal, deep love. He will stand by your decision, no matter the inconvenience it might bring him.”
Kaylene left her chair and went to Dawnmarie. She knelt before her and reached her arms up. Dawnmarie leaned down and welcomed Kaylene’s warm hug.
Kaylene then gazed intently into Dawnmarie’s eyes. “I have failed to tell you how often I am puzzled by feelings that I belong to this way of life, as though I, in part, am Indian,” she murmured. “Can it be because of a past life? Was I an Indian maiden in my past life?”
“Perhaps so,” Dawnmarie said, gently smoothing a lock of hair back from Kaylene’s brow. “I believe in reincarnation. I feel that I, too, have lived before. I wish I knew when, where, and who I was.”
Then, when Kaylene heard the braying of a burro outside as it passed by, she thought of Running Fawn. This might be her returning. She jumped to her feet. She knew for almost certain now that Running Fawn had been with her gentleman friend. She wanted to warn Running Fawn that her father had not returned from the hunt just yet, and that it would be best if she hurry to her lodge in case he arrived soon. Although she felt that she was involving herself in some sort of conspiracy, she felt too much for Running Fawn now, and the depth of their friendship, to ignore her as she knew Fire Thunder wanted her to.
“Dawnmarie, will you excuse me for just one moment?” she said softly. “There’s someone I must see.”
“Go right ahead,” Dawnmarie said, stretching her arms, yawning. “I will catch a moment of sleep before our men come back to us. The journey has been long. I am bone weary.”
“Why not go and stretch out on the bed?” Kaylene said, nodding toward Fire Thunder’s bedroom. “You will be much more comfortable than sleeping in the chair.”
“I have learned to sleep while even riding on the horse,” Dawnmarie said, laughing softly. “I can surely rest quite comfortably while sitting straight up in this comfortable chair.”
Kaylene gave her a hug, then rushed from the lodge. When she stepped outside, she stopped and looked at Running Fawn as she slid from the burro’s back, staring at John Shelton in the cage.
Then Kaylene rushed to Running Fawn’s side. “Where have you been?” she whispered harshly. “Running Fawn, are you trying to get exiled? Or perhaps be placed in this cage? Where have you been? So much has happened.”
“My father?” Running Fawn whispered. “Has he returned from the hunt?”
“No, but you know as well as I that he could at any moment,” Kaylene said. “Why do you do these things, Running Fawn? It is as though you want to be caught.”
“I love Pedro, that is why I go to him,” Running Fawn said, leaning close into Kaylene’s face. “As you love Fire Thunder, I love Pedro Rocendo!”
She turned slow eyes to John, then looked past him and paled when she saw the activity in the village: how some wounded people still lay outside their lodges, being nursed.
She implored Kaylene with wide eyes. “What has happened here?” she whispered, yet knowing, and dying a slow death inside over having been too cowardly to come home and warn her people of an attack after seeing the armed men.
“This man in the cage, who claimed to be my father throughout the years, came and attacked your village,” Kaylene said solemnly. “He is the only one that was captured. The others got away.”
Feeling sick inside for having failed her people, Running Fawn lowered her eyes. She sobbed. She grabbed Kaylene’s hand. “I . . . am . . . responsible,” she softly cried. She looked desperately up at Kaylene. “I saw them approaching with their firearms. Pedro encouraged me not to come and warn my people.”
“You knew and still you did not tell?” Kaylene gasped out, paling. She stepped back from Running Fawn. “I doubt I shall ever understand you.”
“Please do not tell my father or Fire Thunder,” Running Fawn pleaded, suddenly clutching Kaylene’s hands. “I had to tell someone. We are friends. I felt I could safely tell you. I had to get the burden out from inside me.”
“Secrets like this are hideous,” Kaylene said, shuddering uncon
trollably.
Running Fawn pulled Kaylene into the dark shadows of the lodges. “Please swear to me that you will not tell!” she cried. “You are like a sister to me. Sisters look after each other. They confide. I have confided in you the worst of what I have done. Please promise that you will keep my secret.”
Seeing how upset Running Fawn was, and how she seemed truly sorry for not having warned her people, Kaylene felt sympathy for this friend who seemed to have trouble knowing right from wrong. Kaylene drew Running Fawn into her arms and comforted her.
“I won’t tell,” she whispered, stroking her fingers through Running Fawn’s thick hair.
“I wish I had met you sooner,” Running Fawn murmured. “Friends like you are rare.”
“I am your friend,” Kaylene said. “But, please, Running Fawn, try to change your ways. No man is worth losing everything over, is he?”
“Would you give up Fire Thunder for any reason?” Running Fawn asked, leaning away from Kaylene, their eyes locking. “You love him heart and soul, do you not?”
“He is my world,” Kaylene conceded.
“And so Pedro is the world to me,” Running Fawn said.
Running Fawn turned with a start when she heard horses entering the village. She swallowed hard when she recognized her father in the lead. Horses dragged many travois behind them, heavy laden with meat.
“Father!” Running Fawn gasped.
Without another word, she turned and fled into the darkness.
Kaylene took a last look at John, then turned, and walked back toward Fire Thunder’s lodge. Just as she got there, a woman arrived, carrying two pots of food into the cabin.
Kaylene went inside. She thanked the woman as she waddled past her, to leave.
Absently, Kaylene peered into the pots. Venison ribs filled one of them. Purple corn the other.
And even though it had been a while since she had eaten, she felt no hunger.
There were too many things on her mind. Most prominent of all, her wish that Fire Thunder loved her enough to understand her need to find answers to the questions that were eating away at her insides.
“He has to understand,” she whispered. “God above, if not, what shall I do? I can’t bear the thought of possibly losing him! Yet, how can I forget what Dawnmarie told me about not waiting too long? One never knows if they will see tomorrow!”
When Fire Thunder entered the lodge with White Wolf, she gazed at him with a sadness she did not want to feel.
When he came and embraced her, it was sheer heaven. No, she could never do anything that might cause her to lose him.
And yes, she understood Running Fawn’s reason for risking all by meeting the man she loved!
Chapter 21
The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me.
—ROBERT CAMERON ROGERS
It was now the fourth day of the Kickapoo’s New Year Clan Festival. Fire Thunder and his people felt uniquely blessed this year, for a heavy rain, with much lightning, fell over the village on the first day of the festival. This signified that the thunderers had taken special pains to notify them. It was as though they themselves had come to tell the people the festival could begin.
As soon as the lightning from the four directions had been seen, the warriors, following Fire Thunder’s lead, had gone into the monte to chant and offer Indian tobacco to the thunderers, thanking them for the message that the New Year had arrived.
On this fourth day of the festival, everyone was gathered in the Thunder Bundle House, a building made of split logs, with a tree-bark roof. The music from many drums and gourd rattles was rhythmically soft. The people sat around a great fire in the firepit, quiet and meditative.
Kaylene was proud to be among them. She wore a low-swept cotton blouse and fully gathered skirt that Running Fawn had loaned her for the special occasion. She wore flowers in her hair.
Kaylene gazed at Fire Thunder as he sat with the other warriors, and saw how handsome he was today—even more so than usual. He wore a spanking-new buckskin outfit and beautifully beaded moccasins that a distant cousin had made for him for this special occasion.
Kaylene sat with Dawnmarie on a bench. Little Sparrow sat with the children, all eyes, as she watched the continuing activity of the New Year festival.
Kaylene looked slowly around the group of people, her heart sinking when she realized that Running Fawn wasn’t there. To add insult to injury, as far as her people were concerned, she had slipped out and was not observing the special ceremonies.
It was apparent to Kaylene that Running Fawn had felt that her father would be too involved in the festival to notice her absence.
Thus far, Kaylene felt that perhaps Running Fawn had been right. At this moment Black Hair seemed all absorbed in the rituals of the day.
“I find this all so wonderfully interesting,” Dawnmarie whispered as she leaned closer to Kaylene. “It is wonderful to be among my people in this way.”
“Do you understand the meaning behind what the warriors are doing?” Kaylene whispered back to her.
“Some,” Dawnmarie said, gazing at Kaylene. “My mother told me much about my people when I was growing up. She hoped that I would one day be among them. She felt it important that I know as much about their customs as possible.”
“It is a miracle that you happened to arrive at such an important time,” Kaylene murmured, silently admiring Dawnmarie’s snow-white doeskin dress embellished with lovely beadwork.
And she could not help but be taken by the color of Dawnmarie’s eyes. She understood why White Wolf called her Violet Eyes. Never had Kaylene seen eyes so violet in color.
“It was the work of Kitzhiat, the Kickapoo great spirit, that led me and my husband here at this moment in time,” Dawnmarie said, smiling warmly at Kaylene.
“I hope to understand everything about your people one day,” Kaylene said. “One thing in particular has been on my mind that I would like to know.”
“What is it?” Dawnmarie said softly.
“I have seen Fire Thunder praying, and during his prayers, he calls out to ‘Grandfather.’ To whom is he referring?”
“The four corners, or directions, the four winds, and the sky that watches from the heavens, are all manitou, and are called grandfather,” Dawnmarie explained.
“How interesting,” Kaylene said, now looking at Fire Thunder again, and at what he was doing. He had told her earlier that all the fires in the village would be extinguished. Now the large lodge fire was being covered with dirt, to extinguish it. He was responsible for making a new fire with his bow drill in the Thunder Bundle House, and then he would be the one who would distribute fire to all of the homes of the village.
Several young men came and took away the dead ash. Fresh wood was placed in the firepit. Everyone was quiet as Fire Thunder started the new fire with his bow drill.
When the new flames leaped high in the fire pit, Fire Thunder lifted many pieces of the burning wood with tongs and placed them in large copper tubs that young braves brought to him.
Once the tubs were filled with burning wood, warriors carried them from the council house. Fire Thunder accompanied them. He would go inside each lodge and place one of the burning pieces of lumber in the fireplaces. The new fire meant a new beginning.
Kaylene watched several women come forth. They placed large trays of food around the lodge fire. Everything smelled delicious.
Sassafras tea was brought in large wooden pitchers, as well as many wooden cups.
But Kaylene’s thoughts strayed from the food. She thought of John Shelton. Although she knew that he deserved to be punished, she was glad that Fire Thunder had taken him from the cage, out of view of his people and herself. She was glad to have him where she couldn’t see him every time she went outside. Just the sight of him sent her mind into a tailspin of despair and doubt.
This man who had claimed to be her father was now being kept a prisoner in a lodge at the far
edge of the village. She was not sure yet what his fate would be.
But as for herself, she was greatly disappointed that he had not yet told her her true birthright. The smirk on his face each time she asked him proved to her, over and over again, that she was right about him, that he most definitely was not her father.
Again she thought of Running Fawn to whom she had vowed secrecy. Although Running Fawn was a friend, Kaylene could not help but regret having become her confidante. She feared Running Fawn’s final fate. She might one day be raped, or she might be killed by a jealous suitor!
Or, she might be banished by the tribe.
Kaylene felt helpless to help her. As long as Running Fawn would not listen to reason, and continued to be disobedient to her father and chief, and her people, there was nothing Kaylene could do to help her.
“We are having our own New Year’s Festival,” Running Fawn said, laughing softly as she poured herself another glass of tequila.
She would not allow herself to recall how it affected her the other times, especially that one time she had fainted and had awakened to find herself at the edge of the village. Had her father found her in a drunken stupor, that would have been the end for her.
Her three girlfriends sat with their young lovers, laughing, giggling, and drinking tequila. Pedro sat beside Running Fawn, frowning.
“It was· not wise to meet today,” he grumbled, his dark eyes flashing angrily into Running Fawn’s. “Had I known your people were celebrating their New Year festival, I would have never come. It is dangerous. Should you be missed, Running Fawn, it could be the end for all of us.”
“Will you stop worrying?” Running Fawn said, snuggling close to him as they sat beneath the shade of a tree. “Father is thinking of nothing else but the festival and his part in it. A daughter is the farthest thing from his mind.”
Running Fawn set her empty glass aside. She moved to her knees before Pedro. She framed his dark face between her hands. “Do you not remember why you came today?” she said, her eyes dancing. “My sweet Mexican lover, you did not come only to see me. You are to get a tattoo on your leg to match the one I have on mine. Will that not truly bond us as lovers?”
Wild Whispers Page 22
