by Jenna Kernan
Except she had saved his life. Did she truly understand what that meant?
He had vowed to remain single until his recovery. And he had promised to make Beautiful Meadow his first wife as soon as he was well. If he was ever well. So why did he now want to pull the robe over them both and explore her body? He reached and laid a hand on her hip.
Her smile faltered. Chaste, he decided, her reaction confirming his belief.
“How do you feel?” she asked, her spine stiffening. She lifted a hand and brushed his forelock from his face.
A Crow warrior wore his forelock cut to only a few inches in length and used wax and tallow to make it stand up stiff and tall as the tail of a deer. But with the night and the storm, his hairstyle had fallen with his spirits and the rain had swept away the grease, leaving his hair soft as a woman’s. She toyed with his bangs a moment longer and then retreated. His dog appeared from behind Skylark and stretched, then trotted off, nose to the ground.
Skylark lifted on one elbow to stare at him and that was when he saw it. He startled up, throwing the robe aside.
The sudden change from reclining to sitting made Storm’s head spin, but he was not deterred from his intention. Night Storm captured her chin in his hand and turned her face so he could study the blue-and-purple bruise on her cheek.
“Did I do that?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“You did not mean to.”
“But I did. I struck a woman.” The shame of this caused him to sag.
She moved to kneel beside him, wrapping an arm about his shoulders. “I am all right,” she said.
But he covered his face in his hands. First he could not ride and now he had attacked a woman. What had he become?
“I had another falling time,” he said into his hands.
“Yes. During the storm.”
“And I hit you.”
“No, I got too close and you were thrashing. You did not hit me. I promise.”
He felt he could breathe again. Frost returned and nudged at his arm and licked at his hands. He stroked Frost’s head and found the strength to meet the gaze of this woman who was not like any he had ever known. Why hadn’t she run away in the night?
“I do not know what I do, and when I wake my mind is in pieces like a shattered pot.”
“Does your head ache?”
He nodded.
“I will fix you something. Stay here.”
She set out with Frost trotting beside her, but his dog returned to him when it became obvious that Night Storm was not going along. Night Storm had time only to relieve himself, pray and wash in the lake before she returned. Her face was wet and her hair neatly braided. He was weaker than he cared to admit and that frightened him.
As she approached, she searched the web of tree branches, looking up into the leafy canopy.
Finally she met his curious stare.
“I heard my father last night and I think I saw him. I told him to take what food he needed and I see someone raided our supplies.”
Now Night Storm was looking into the tree limbs with her.
“Where is he? He is welcome in our camp.”
“Which is likely why he will not approach. Now if he were unwelcome...” She let the rest go and rummaged in her collecting bag. “I have Snakeweed for headache and dizziness. Also Trade Cloth Flower. The roots make a good tea to stop trembling and thrashing. I will show you how to make this medicine.”
“Should we look for him?”
“We will not find him unless he wishes to be found.” She gathered the green plants she needed.
“How fast do they work?”
“The headache will be gone very fast. But for the rest, I need to find which plant best suits you. There are many. Finding the right combination will be challenging.”
“But you have only one more day.”
She dropped the contact of their gazes. “Yes.”
“It will not be enough.”
“I will teach you what plants to try. We could find many right here.” She motioned about her to the wide world.
“And which parts to use? And how to prepare them? And how much to take?” he asked.
Her shoulders slumped at the impossibility of it all.
“It is not enough time,” she said, echoing his words.
They stared a long moment in silence.
“You do not think I am haunted?”
“I think you are wounded. The head injury has brought on the falling times. It may heal naturally, but I believe the correct medicines will bring on a faster cure. But the owls...”
“Yes?”
“You saw them before the falling. I wonder if they point you to some purpose.”
“Death.”
“No. A purpose here among the living.”
“I am a warrior.” He did not like the stubborn quality of his voice. “There is no other path for me.”
“You are what you are. We do not choose our life path. It is chosen for us.”
“What else can I be?”
“Now you ask the correct question.”
“This is not my path,” he said, pointing to the weeds she held in her hand. “I know my course, it is just—I have fallen. I must return to the warrior’s way.”
She stared at him with deep, thoughtful eyes, but she did not argue further.
“Do you really think you can help me?” he asked.
She did not glance away or hesitate. “Yes.”
But did she mean to help him become a warrior or help him lose everything he was?
He drew a lungful of the sweet, moist air and let it go. Storm knew that to trust her required a different kind of courage, the kind that came from giving away the control he had always taken for granted. The command of his life he had achieved when he became a man. Now it melted away like snow in the thaw.
“Then you must stay with me.”
Sky’s muscles stiffened and she drew away. “I must return to my people.”
“I will return you to them in time.”
“You are promised to another woman.”
“Yes.”
“I cannot go with you.”
“You have saved my life,” he said, reminding her of her obligation. He knew it was unfair, but he was a desperate man. And a warrior fights with what is at hand.
Skylark cocked her head to stare at him. Something had changed. She felt afraid again, afraid of this man and the owls that followed him. His stare was too intense, his features too appealing, his body too hard. What exactly did he want from her now?
Night Storm was strong, but he was also weak. He needed help and had asked her. She cast a glance about for some other path, a way to return to her tribe. She looked a long time toward the east, in the direction they had traveled. She thought of the warriors who treated her with respect but never as an object of desire. Of her aunt and uncle, who had welcomed her into their lodge though she was well past the age to have built a home of her own. To the father who showed her people what path to take by doing the very opposite yet needed reminders to eat.
She had heard him cry last night. She was certain.
Skylark looked at Night Storm and saw desire and hope.
“Sky?” he said.
Why was her heart beating so fast? It made her ears ring and made his voice seem miles away. There was no future for them. But there was her promise to help him.
“You said it could not be done in a day. You need more time.”
“Just because we shared a buffalo robe does not mean... Nothing happened,” she insisted.
“Something happened.”
She shook her head in wild denial.
“You saved me, again. If you wanted me to die, that was your chance. All
you needed to do was leave me to drown in the rain and my own blood.” His tongue ran the inside of his cheek. Was he feeling the gash he had torn there with his teeth?
“You do not wish to go with me. But you also do not wish me to walk the spirit road. You must choose one or the other.”
“I have to go home.”
He said nothing, just waited for her to recognize what he already knew. She had a duty to him now.
“No,” she whispered, still clinging to her resistance even as it crumbled like unfired clay.
“You will come with me.”
“Please,” she said, her words whispered, weak now, for she already knew what must be done. He was like one still drowning. She did not know if he could be saved, but she knew she must try. She did not wish to fail again, as she had done with her mother.
She wanted to scream at him, thrash and cry like a child. Instead, she sat on her heels in perfect stillness as the truth of his words settled in her heart. You will come with me.
She would.
Skylark bowed her head. Her shoulders sagged and defeat settled on her like a heavy blanket. “Yes. But...”
She lifted her head in time to see his smile fade.
“But?” he repeated.
“How will you explain me to your tribe and to your woman, Beautiful Meadow?”
This time he was the one who hesitated. Then, with slow deliberation, he extended his open hands, palm up. “I have a lodge and I will trade skins for a cooking pot that will be yours. I have many horses. You may have your pick for your family. And from this day, I will protect you and provide for you.”
Skylark’s heart began hammering like a woodpecker on a rotted tree. Did she misunderstand him? For she did not trust what she had heard.
His words were so similar to the promise spoken by a groom to his bride that she gaped at him. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Was he offering to marry her?
Chapter Eight
The prospect of marriage to Night Storm both thrilled and terrified. Skylark knew he was promised to another woman. Would he set that woman aside for her? And what if she did not succeed? What if he gave up this woman he had chosen and she failed to restore him?
“What are you saying?” She wanted to know exactly what he expected from her.
His gaze was earnest. “When I first saw you here, I wanted you. It was the wanting that comes from here.” He placed a hand low over his stomach.
Yes, she knew that kind of wanting. The ache of need unfulfilled. She knew this, for she now felt this desire for him.
“But now I also need you here,” he said, and pressed his fingers against his forehead, lightly tapping the scar that sliced through his eyebrow.
His groin and his head, she realized. This was where he needed her. His hands fell back to his sides, never touching his heart. No, he did not need her there. That place was for Beautiful Meadow. The pain of that hurt more than she cared to admit.
Well, what did she expect—love?
He was speaking again. She forced herself to listen.
“I know there is something wrong in my head. I know I need help. It is something I have never needed before. So I am asking you to come with me to the village of the Black Lodges. I do not wish any of my people to know of my weakness, so I cannot bring you to them as a healer.”
She waited, her heart pounding with a strange combination of hope and dread.
“So I will bring you as my wife.”
She blinked at the words that brought sweet hope and also terror. “But we are strangers.”
“No more. I know much about you. I know you are the kind of woman who helps a man who falls. I know you help your aunt run her home. I know you work hard collecting medicines to heal your people, and I know you have compassion, because you come alone into the woods to find your father and bring him home. And I know you are brave, because you chase owls with sticks.”
She looked at him, recognizing that she wanted him in every way a woman wants a man. And believing she could grow to want him with her heart in time, knowing they would never have that time.
Time. Time to heal him. Fall in love with him. Lose him to his ghosts or this other woman. Time for her to give in to her need and become heavy with child.
Her mother said that a woman needs children but she does not need a man. Was that true? Could she be happy returning to her people with only this man’s child?
No. That would break her heart.
She did not think she could speak. Her throat ached as she battled tears. She had dreamed of this moment since she became a woman and now it had come as a deception.
She shook her head, fearing how much she wished to go with him, be his, even as a lie.
“There must be another way.”
“What way? Do you have some explanation for your presence? I would hear it.”
“I could pose as your intended.” Even as she suggested it, the notion fell flat. A man never promised himself to two women at once.
“Do you have relatives among the Black Lodges?”
She shook her head, seeing her idea crumble like drying mud.
“Such a woman would not leave her parents’ home. I would court you at the gathering. But I might not live that long.”
There it was again. Her obligation to the life she had saved. She did not regret helping him. But the bonds that tied them now seemed to have pulled tight as drying rawhide. She could not escape.
“But, my family... This is a time of gathering for winter. Without my help, they will have less tubers and dried berries.”
“But more meat. If I live, I will hunt for them as I will hunt for you.”
One elk could provide more nourishment than a basket of dried berries. She considered his offer. His eyes dared her to challenge his prowess to provide. But his inadequacy hung between them like rotting flesh. He could not ride—he fell, and his ability to fulfill the duties of a husband were uncertain.
But somehow she believed he could do it. He would provide for her or die trying.
“You cannot provide for my family and for Beautiful Meadow’s. She is Wind Basin and I am Low River.”
“Her father is chief of Wind Basin. He needs none to hunt for him. And you are my first wife. I go to your people. Beautiful Meadow will leave her tribe when she becomes my second wife.”
The same situation as had happened to her mother. A woman should not have to choose between her husband and her family. It was different for a man. They were expected to leave their tribe.
“Your wife? she asked.
“A wife?”
“My first wife.”
Then Beautiful Meadow and, if his brother fell in battle, Night Storm would be obligated to take his brother’s wife and child, as well, for that was a sacred duty. Somehow she found herself in the exact spot she had promised to never be, one of two or more wives.
“You do this, all to protect your secret?”
He nodded. “I would do anything to protect it.”
Hope flared. “Anything? Will you set aside this woman you have promised to marry?”
He looked shocked that she would ask this of him and she felt ashamed.
“I have given her my promise.”
And he was an honorable man.
“I will not be a second wife.”
“You will be my first wife.”
She shook her head. He had chosen another woman to make his home. She had no doubt that whoever she was, she was accomplished and beautiful. She was also the niece of the shaman of the Black Lodges and daughter of the chief of the Wind River people. Sky had no desire to leave her aunt and uncle and father and go to the tribe of her husband’s other wife as her mother had done. It was one of the things that made her mother most miserable, lo
sing everyone she knew and loved for a man who had given her little attention when she did not bear him a child.
“I will not share a husband with another. While I am with you, you will not marry her.”
“But why?”
She shook her head. “My mother’s life taught me that there is nothing more miserable than a second wife.”
“Then I will not marry her until after you are settled. After I am well.”
“If you are well, you will not need me.”
“But I will still provide for you.”
“And if I cannot cure this?”
“I will bring you home.”
So, he wanted her only for her healing skills. He was like the men of her tribe, only he was more desperate.
“No.”
“Skylark, I have promised to marry Beautiful Meadow. If you will not allow me to marry her, then you must promise to break our marriage when I return you to your people at the winter camp. Any children would be yours, of course. You could take my lodge and all inside when you return to your tribe. Surely it is a fair bargain.”
It was all any woman need do to dissolve a match, say publicly that the marriage was done and place her husband’s possessions outside the tepee. Then he would return to his tribe and she would remain, with her children, in hers.
“Yes, but...” How did she tell him that she wanted a husband who loved her enough to make her his only wife? That she was tired of being valued for her skills and avoided for the same reason? The daughter of the heyoka. The odd one who wandered instead of tending the fires and helping her aunt keep their lodge. She flushed as full understanding came to her. She knew why he had kept his secret even when faced with death. The pain of an outsider was worse.
Still, she wanted to help him if she could. She had saved his life and she had a duty to him now.
“I will go with you. I will pose as your wife, if you will return me to my tribe before the Winter Camp Moon whether we succeed or not.”
“Until the gathering?”
That left her what remained of the Hunting Moon and all of the War Moon before the Winter Camp Moon rose and signaled the tribes to gather. The four tribes of the Crow people would remain together for three to four moons, breaking apart when the Empty Belly Moon gave way to the Fast Water Moon once more.
