Jolena sat on a blanket close to the fire. She was trying to join in with the laughing and joking as the other members of the expedition sat around sipping coffee from tin cups. But her thoughts kept wandering to Spotted Eagle. If his father's health was bad enough to draw him back to his village, then it might be bad enough to cause Spotted Eagle to stay there to look after him.
Because she missed Spotted Eagle so much, the excitement of the search for the rare butterfly had waned.
Jolena sat her empty cup on the ground and drew her knees to her chest, encircling her legs with her arms. She felt strangely empty, and she knew that was not only because Spotted Eagle wasn't there. It was also because she had not learned anything about her heritage yet. She was angry at herself for not having come right out and asked Spotted Eagle when she had been given the chance.
Sighing heavily, she stretched her legs out before her and placed one of her hands inside her skirt pocket. Her fingers circled the buffalo rock. Bringing it out, she gazed down at it as she turned it around within the palm of her right hand, wondering if she would ever have the chance to give it back to Spotted Eagle so that his next buffalo hunt would be blessed by the rock.
Strange, how everything that had transpired between them now seemed only an illusion… a savage illusion.
"Are you all right, sis?" Kirk asked, scooting closer to her. "You've barely said a word since we made camp." He glanced down at the rock in her hand, then moved his eyes slowly up again, giving her an angry stare. "What're you doing with that thing? Throw it away. It's a useless rock."
Jolena slipped it back inside her pocket. "To you it's useless," she said someberly, eluding his steady stare. "But to the Blackfoot, and now to me, it has much meaning." "Like what?" Kirk asked, sarcasm thick in his words.
"The I- nis-kim is strong medicine to the Blackfoot," Two Ridges said as he knelt down on his haunches on Jolena's other side. He gazed around Jolena at Kirk. "So it is not wise to make mockery of it."
"I wasn't mocking it," Kirk said irritably. "In fact, if you want to know, I don't care a damn about it." He gave Two Ridges a look of annoyance. "Can my sister and I have a little privacy here? Or do you feel you have the right to interfere in anyone's conversation just because you are the only guide left to take us through this godawful land?"
Two Ridges glared at Kirk, then jumped to his feet and stamped away. He squatted down onto his haunches in the thickening shadows of dusk and watched Kirk until Kirk left to find refuge behind bushes to relieve himself before retiring for the night in his tent.
Two Ridges saw this as his chance to make his first advances to Jolena. He jumped to his feet and took a few steps, then stopped and stared as Jolena quickly went to her tent after seeing him walking toward her.
Knowing that she was purposely evading him, Two Ridges doubled his hands into tight fists at his sides. Looking slowly around him and noting how close everyone else's tent had been pitched to Jolena's, he knew that this night he would not approach her with his skills of drawing a woman into wanting him. He would have to wait another full night and day before the opportunity would arise again.
And that would be the last chance he would get, for Spotted Eagle would have had time by then to reach his village and return to the expedition after discovering that his father's health was no worse than the last time he had seen him.
Disappointment lay heavily on his heart. Two Ridges had thought endlessly of Jolena the whole day, his images of being with her building at each beat of his heart. He had believed that his desires would be quenched tonight while holding her in his arms and making love to her.
Grumbling to himself, Two Ridges turned and marched away from the camp.
Hoping to find escape from her loneliness and despair, Jolena settled herself down on a blanket, stretching out on her right side as she drew another blanket atop her. Clutching the buffalo rock, Jolena sighed and drifted off into a restless sleep.
Suddenly her sleep was filled with images. It was the same dream that had visited her most nights in Saint Louis. She was dressed in a soft fringed doeskin dress, beaded moccasins, and a headband about her head to hold her long and flowing dark hair in place as the wind blew briskly around her.
On each side of her were colorfully painted tepees, yet outside the dwellings she saw no people until suddenly before her was the hand- some warrior whom she now knew as Spotted Eagle!
Her insides melted as he approached her, for never had she seen such a handsome, proud man, and as his eyes locked with hers, she could feel him silently bidding her to come to him.
Following this bidding, Jolena began walking slowly toward him, then broke into a mad run. Yet she never seemed to get closer.
The faster she ran, the more distant he became.
She reached her hands out to him, crying his name as she tossed, turned, and sweated in her sleep.
Then, finally, she reached him.
Sobbing with joy, she flung herself into his arms, and when his lips bore down upon hers, tears flowed from her eyes from the thankful bliss of the moment.
A strange sound drew Jolena quickly away from Spotted Eagle. She stepped aside and turned to see what was making the strange swishing noise.
Wild- eyed, she realized that it was an arrow!
Her heart sank as she turned and watched this arrow pierce her lover's heart!
A scream lodged in her throat, awakening her in a cold sweat. Her pulse racing, Jolena sat up quickly and stared wild-eyed around her.
Oh, Lord, the dream had seemed so real!
She placed her fingertips to her mouth, still feeling Spotted Eagle's lips warming hers. She put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes, still able to hear the eerie sound of the arrow as it whizzed through the air.
She groaned and moved her head back and forth, trying not to remember how it had sounded when the arrow had pierced her lover's body.
''Jolena?" Kirk said, from outside her tent. "Sis? Are you all right? Moments ago it sounded as though you were choking. Tell me. Are you all right?"
Trying to compose herself so that her voice would have its natural sound, Jolena swallowed over and over again and willed her heart to stop its pounding. Then she crawled to the tent entrance and drew the flap aside.
"I'm fine," she murmured. "I… I just had a nightmare, that's all."
"It must've been some nightmare," Kirk said, frowning at her, seeing the perspiration-dampness of her hair as it clung to her brow.
Then he reached a hand inside and touched her cool, clammy cheek. "Are you going to be all right?" he asked with brotherly affection.
"Yes, I'll be fine," Jolena said, then leaned out and gave him a soft kiss on his cheek. "Sorry I awakened you."
"You didn't awaken me," Kirk said, taking her hand. "So far this expedition has been nothing but trouble. I'll be glad when it's over and we can r
eturn to some sort of natural life back in Saint Louis."
Jolena gave him a wistful stare, thinking that nothing would ever be the same againnot since she had arrived at her homeland, and had experienced how it felt to be totally, mindlessly in love.
"Jolena?" Kirk said, leaning closer. "You are going to return with me to Saint Louis, aren't you? You aren't going to allow your heart to be swayed into staying to search out your Indian heritage? If that happens, I'll curse the day I agreed to accompany you on this expedition."
"Kirk, don't blame yourself for anything that might happen," Jolena said softly. "Don't you know, dear brother, that sooner or later I would have come to the Montana Territory anyhow, to find answers to questions that have plagued me since I realized there was a difference between me and my white playmates? I must find answers, Kirk."
Kirk gazed at her silently for a moment longer, then placed his arms around her shoulders and drew her against him. He stroked her long, dark hair, understanding the yearnings in her heart.
He knew that if it were he, it would be no different.
The mountains in the distance were shrouded beneath the purple cloak of night. The moon was dappling the land that stretched out before Spotted Eagle with a silver sheen as he rode hard toward his village, feeling no less torn now than when he had cast that last look upon the woman he loved. He wished he were two persons so that he could be in two places at oncewith his woman and with his father.
Until he made Jolena totally his with a commitment of marriage, he had to accept these times when he would be separated from her.
In his mind's eye he was acting out their sensual moments together, and how it had felt to cradle her close while they had made passionate love.
His body craved to be with her now as then.
He wished to taste her lips.
He wished to feel the magnificent softness of her breasts again within the palm of his hands.
He quavered at the thought of flicking his tongue over one of her nipples, feeling how this would make Jolena moan with pleasure.
Sweat beading his brow, these thoughts were the last thing that he should be thinking about at such a grievous time, when his father might be spending his last moments on earth. Spotted Eagle forced himself only to concern himself about his father.
He frowned and his jaw tightened as he remembered exactly what White Mole had said, trying to determine whether or not Spotted Eagle, the son of the powerful Blackfoot chief, Chief Gray Bear, might have overreacted to the news brought to him.
It was strange that it was White Mole who delivered the message to him. Strange that it was not…
A sudden realization stopped him in mid- thought, as though a bolt of lightning had struck him. If his father was ailing, no warrior from his village would send the message by way of someone not of his village, Spotted Eagle thought, suddenly drawing his horse to a halt. If his father was truly ailing, a warrior of his village would have searched until he found him, to give him the message firsthand. Depending on others was not the way of his people. The Blackfoot of his village were a close-knit people whose hearts beat in the same rhythm.
Something was not right about this message that had been brought to him.
Especially the messenger.
All that he could come up with was that his deep concern for his father had prevented him from thinking clearly. He knew that his father did not have many days left on this earth. Perhaps one more winter, surely no more than two. He even felt guilty for leaving the village for any length of time, fearing his father might need his decision on this or that.
Yet if Spotted Eagle stayed behind because of this, he knew that it would take his father's self-esteem away, especially if his father guessed why his son would not leave him for more than a sunrise at a time. His taking on the duties of a guide had given his father more time to feel important and needed.
Spotted Eagle's eyes narrowed, realizing that someone had duped him, yet wondering whoand why?
What did anyone gain by his absence from the wagon train of butterfly-seekers?
His breath caught in his throat when he came up with an answer to his questions that seemed logical.
"Jolena's brother," Spotted Eagle hissed, his heart pounding angrily at the thought of her brother being this deceitful.
Before the wagon train left Fort Chance, Kirk must have sought out White Mole and paid him many horses to do this trickery. Spotted Eagle remembered how easily White Mole had lied.
He felt a desperate need to get back to Jolena. He would show her brother that no ploy his white man's mind might conjure up would keep Jolena and Spotted Eagle apart!
He gazed down at his horse. He was a powerful stallion that could endure hard travel, but Spotted Eagle did not want to push his horse to the limits of its endurance.
Spotted Eagle gave the river at his right side a lingering stare, then slapped his stallion's rump and gently nudged it with his heels, easing his mount into the shallow river.
After his horse had drunk his fill and seemed rested enough, Spotted Eagle turned his stallion around, left the river in a great splash, and rode in a hard gallop across land that he had just traveled. He knew that by the time the sun hung directly overhead in the sky tomorrow, he would be gazing into his woman's eyes again.
Words would not be needed between them.
In their eyes would be the excitement of being together again.
Chapter Twelve
In the slight breeze of the day came the scent of blossoms and a hum of bees. After a clear blue sky all morning, during which the crispness of the air was sapped away, the clear calls of birds faded to a deadness in the droning, sticky air. Noon found the forest in which the expedition was traveling shimmering with a layer of hot haze above the dark-green canopy of trees.
But it was a day that Jolena had been waiting for.
It was a day of butterflies!
They seemed everywhereall colors, all sizes, all kinds flitting everywhere!
A thrilling excitement filled Jolena as she ran through the forest with her butterfly net, Kirk following her with jars that were equipped with cotton soaked with alcohol which would quickly numb, then kill the butterflies before they were able to destroy their wings by flapping them against the insides of the jars.
To Jolena it was good to think about something else besides Spotted Eagle and her quest to find her true people. Presently, all that she could think about was collecting butterflies to take back to her father in Saint Louis, hoping that among these hundreds of butterflies that she was seeing today would be that one which was the most elusive of all.
"Slow down, sis," Kirk shouted as Jolena ran around, swinging her net in the air as she spotted another specimen
of butterfly that she had not yet caught. "You've got the rest of the afternoon."
"Perhaps not," Jolena said, breathless. "They will probably disappear as quickly as they appeared."
Casting all thoughts aside now except for catching the butterflies to take back to Saint Louis, not only for her father, but for others to see and study and record in their journals, Jolena continued her hunt. As she worked, her long skirt sometimes threatened to trip her. Her white, long-sleeved blouse became spotted and soiled with dirt and stains from scraping against trees and from the humid moisture dripping from the leaves overhead. Her long hair bounced on her shoulders, her face was flushed with a mixture of heat and excitement, and beads of sweat pearled on her copper brow. "Oh, look and see, Kirk," Jolena said, her eyes wide as she spotted a group of "painted lady" or thistle butterflies. "Follow me. I must catch at least one of them!"
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