Nervously running his long, lean fingers through his hair, Spotted Eagle gazed down at Jolena. "You turned from me earlier when I was ready to reveal all truths to you," he said. "Now you are pleading with me for these answers? Why is that?"
"It is only because I could not understand why you didn't tell me the moment you discovered who my true parents were," Jolena responded. "I… thought you were playing some sort of game with me. Now I can tell it is more than that. Until now, something has kept you from revealing the truth to me. What has changed your mind?"
"The commitment that is building between us," Spotted Eagle said, reaching for her hands and holding them lovingly with his. "There should be no secrets between a man and woman who are contemplating marriage."
"Are we?" Jolena said, her voice soft. "Are we truly contemplating marriage?"
"It is my deep desire to have you as my nit-o-kemanmy wife," Spotted Eagle said, drawing her into his embrace. "Let me care for you. Let us share in everything we do, and it is my solemn promise to you that there will be no more secrets between us." "There is only one more thing in life that I want as badly as I want to marry you," Jolena said, swallowing hard as she leaned back enough to be able to look into his dark eyes. "Spotted Eagle, you mentioned my parents' names. You have known them. I know my mother is dead. But what of my true father?"
"Your true father, Brown Elk, is well and soon I will take you to him," Spotted Eagle said. "I will do it tomorrow at the early sun's rising, if you so wish."
Jolena eased from his arms and began a slow pacing, her eyes troubled. She was eager to see her true father and feel the embrace of her true people, yet… yet she had another father, one with whom her life had been shared!
Already she had chosen, by accepting Spotted Eagle's proposal of marriage, not to live with him anymore.
How would be understand any of this, especially that she would forget her loyalties to him after he had given her everything in life that was good?
She stopped and turned toward Spotted Eagle, knowing what she must do, even though delaying meeting with her true father was eating away at her. "No," she said, her voice almost failing her because her emotions were running so sharply through her. "I must continue searching for the elusive, rare butterfly. Once I find it and can send it back to my father in Saint Louis with Kirk, along with the other specimens that I have caught for my father's collection, then I will feel that I have in part repaid my white father for being so good to me."
She paused and her eyes beamed up into Spotted Eagle's. "Then I will feel free to go to my true father and reveal my identity to him," she murmured. "It will be a day of miracles, Spotted Eagle, that after all these years, I will finally be able to embrace my true father and my true people."
Then she became solemn again. "You have not yet told me how you knew who I was," she said softly. "Does someone else know? Did they point me out to you, saying that I was the daughter of Brown Elk?"
Then her eyes widened and she spoke again before Spotted Eagle had the chance to answer. "Am I Blackfoot like you?" she asked, her voice anxious.
"Very much so," Spotted Eagle said, drawing her close and hugging her tightly.
"That is wonderful," Jolena sighed, clinging to him. "Now, darling, tell me how you knew who I was?"
She could feel Spotted Eagle stiffen somewhat and could feel the sudden hammering of his heart against her cheek.
She now feared the answer, more than wanting to hear it!
"How?" Spotted Eagle eased her from his arms and took her hands, leading her down onto the softness of a layer of moss that lined the riverbank. "As I said, there will be no more secrets between us. I will tell you everything." He began his tale, beginning when he was nine and his infatuation for an older woman had begun. Except for having shared this with Two Ridges, he had kept his secret hidden within the depths of his heart. He told Jolena of his feelings for Sweet Dove and how he had felt when word had been received of her death and that her child had been taken from her by an unknown person.
He told Jolena about having gone to his favorite private spot where he had prayed to fires of the sun for Sweet Dove's child, praying that those who took the child would give her much love.
He told Jolena how long he had mourned the loss of Sweet Dove, how in the past he had experienced a strange sort of sinking feeling when he saw her in his mind's eye, so beautiful and alive, so sweet.
"You no longer get that sinking feeling when you think of my mother?" Jolena asked softly. "Why, Spotted Eagle?"
Spotted Eagle looked away from her, then gazed into her eyes again. "Why?" he repeated, placing a gentle hand on her cheek. "Because of you. When you entered my life, many things changed for me."
"Oh, I see, II took the place of my mother in your heart," Jolena said, blinking her eyes up at him.
"More than that," Spotted Eagle said, his eyes again shifting away from her.
"Oh, Lord," Jolena said softly, her voice drawn. "Now I think I know why you knew who I was. When you look at me, you see my mother! That's it, isn't it, Spotted Eagle? In your eyes and heart I am my mother!"
"That is not so," Spotted Eagle said quickly as he turned around to face her. "My feelings for you are different in every way. My feelings for your mother were those of an adolescent. It was merely an infatuation. My feelings for you are those of a man, true and deep."
"But you can't help seeing my mother when you look at me," Jolena said, her voice breaking. "I want to be loved for myself, not because I am the mirror image of someone else."
"It is true that at first, when I looked at you, my feelings were the same as that young boy whose heart ached for an older woman," Spotted Eagle tried to explain. "But as I grew to know you, someone different from your mother in so many ways, it was you who moved me into a man's feelings. Your mother is now a pleasant memory. You are here, quite real, and wonderful."
"When we have been making love, have you ever wished it were my mother instead of me?" Jolena could not resist asking. "Have you ever pretended I was she?"
Spotted Eagle's jaw tightened and his eyes flared with a sudden anger. "I have not loved a memory while I held you in my arms," he said tersely. "Never will I. I love you. Forever and ever, I shall love only you."
"It would break my heart if it were otherwise," Jolena said, flinging herself into his arms. As she laid her cheek against his powerful chest, she began her own confessions. "Darling, I knew you before we met, also."
"And how is that possible?" he asked, stroking her thick, long hair.
"I do not understand how that could be possible," she murmured. "But it is true that when I saw you I was stunned because I had seen your face beforein dreams."
He placed his fingers to her shoulders and eased her back from him so that their eyes met and held. "You say you dreamed of me?" he said wonderingly. "You sa
w my exact facial features in your dreams?"
"Yes, many times," she murmured. "And yet I still do not see how that can be so."
Spotted Eagle smiled softly down at her. "There are ways," he said, nodding. "You are Blackfoot. Many things are foretold in the dreams of the Blackfoot!"
"Truly?" she asked, her eyes wide. "Please tell me how. I have had many dreams, foretelling many things. Sometimes it has frightened me to have such… such abilities."
"You should not be frightened by a gift that has been handed down from generation to generation of Blackfoot," he said, drawing her into his embrace once again. He held her close, breathing in the sweet fragrance of her hair as he placed his cheek against it. "Our people, the Blackfoot, are firm believers in dreams. These, it is said, are sent by the Sun to enable us to look ahead, to tell what is going to happen. A dream, especially if it is a strong onethat is, if the dream is very clear and vividis almost always obeyed."
He paused, then continued, "An animal or object which appears to a boy or man who is trying to dream for power is, it has been said, regarded thereafter as his secret helper, his medicine, and is usually called his vision dream Nits-o-kan."
"I have obeyed the commands of my midnight dream," Jolena said, clinging to him. "I have followed its bidding and have found you, my darling."
Then a silent panic seized her, recalling the dream in which Spotted Eagle died, fearing that it might come true also. She leaned into his arms and held him much more tightly, wanting never to let him go.
The night was wrapped in shadows, with shreds of mist clinging to the trees overhead, as Jolena and Spotted Eagle began walking back toward their campsite. Spotted Eagle stopped when the moonlight revealed something that lay in their path. Jolena followed Spotted Eagle's eyes to a feather that had surely fallen from the wing of an eagle. It was perhaps the largest one that she had ever seen, and its colors were a beautiful soft gray, touched by streaks of white.
Spotted Eagle stopped and picked up the feather, then handed it to Jolena. "Have I told you before that the wing of a bird is a symbol of thoughts that fly very high?" he said softly.
"Whether or not you have, I could hear it over and over again," Jolena said softly. "That's a beautiful saying." She held the feather to her heart and walked leisurely along with Spotted Eagle again, the campfire throwing its golden light through a break in the trees a short distance away.
Jolena leaned closer to Spotted Eagle, not wanting these special moments to end.
Chapter Seventeen
The next day, the wagons continued onward. Jolena was filled with an anticipation she had never known before.
And why shouldn't she be feeling this way? she argued to herself. She was perhaps only days away from meeting her true father.
Oh, but how simple it would be to abandon this expedition and hurry onward with the rest of her life instead of waiting until she completed her mission for her ailing white father.
It was hard to sit on the wagon beside Kirk as though nothing had happened, while at the same moment her heart was beating out each and every minute of the day, bringing her closer to that time when she would say an awkward farewell to him.
He would not leave her all that easily, she knew. He would try to fill her mind with doubts about the life that lay ahead of her in an Indian village.
And she knew that most of his arguments would be valid ones. In her lifetime, she had known only luxuries. She knew that living in a tepee had to be far from luxurious and comfortable.
Being with Spotted Eagle would make up for everything else, but she dreaded trying to convince her brother of this. Often he was even more stubborn than she…
''You're more quiet than usual," Kirk said, allowing the reins to go somewhat slack in his hands as he gave Jolena a studious stare. "Why is that? What's on your mind?"
His lips curved into an angry pout when she smiled weakly at him, offering him no explanation. "How foolish of me to have asked," he said heatedly. "I already know the answer, don't I?"
He turned his gaze ahead, focusing on the straight back of Spotted Eagle as he rode his magnificent stallion only a few feet ahead of the wagon, then turned angry eyes at his sister again.
" He's the cause of your strange behavior," he said in a low hiss. "You've allowed yourself to fall in love with him, haven't you?"
"Kirk, I don't think you want to continue with this debate," Jolena finally said, her voice strained. "Just concentrate on getting the wagon through the forest. I'd like to find that elusive butterfly today so that I" She caught herself before saying what her heart was feeling.
"So that you can what?" Kirk said, forking an eyebrow.
Jolena flipped her hair back from her shoulders. "Kirk, stop prodding me with questions," she said, giving him an annoyed stare. "You may cause us not to see the two special butterflies we seek."
"Two special butterflies?" Kirk said, once again looking straight ahead. He flicked the reins, snapping them along the backs of the two mules attached to his wagon. "Now you are looking especially for two, not just the euphaedra?"
"I am intrigued by the nymphalid, as well," Jolena said, scoffing now at Spotted Eagle's warnings that the nymphalid was bad luck.
It was true that she had fallen over the cliff while chasing the butterfly. But to actually believe that it had teased her over the cliff purposely had to be ridiculous.
She wanted the nymphalid now more than ever.
While her father admired it, Kirk could be telling him the special story about it…
Yet, on second thought, she doubted that her brother would tell her father about the incident. Kirk had not attempted to save her. He would not want to give the credit to Spotted Eagle, who would by that time have become Kirk's archenemy for having stolen Jolena away from him and his father.
"I think it's best that you concentrate on something besides that damn nymphalid," Kirk grum- bled. "I'll never forget that it is the cause for your having fallen over the cliff."
He cast her a sheepish look. "I should've tried to save you," he said, his voice drawn. "But my feet would not carry me to the edge of the cliff. And my heart was beating so hard, I felt dizzy. I… surely would have fallen over the side also, had I leaned even that one inch over it. And you know my fear of heights, sis."
Jolena hesitated a moment, feeling that no excuse would ever make up for his not having attempted to save her.
Yet she was not one to hold a grudge.
She patted Kirk's knee. "Yes, I know," she murmured. "Let's not speak of it anymore. I'm alive. That is all that should matter."
Kirk swallowed hard, nodded, then silence fell between him and Jolena as the wagon lumbered on beneath the trees.
Although the sun was nearly at its mid-point in the sky, there was a deceptive sil�
�very light in the air. The sunshine weaved through the thick foliage overhead, melting into the gray, steaming mist that gave body to shadow and made phantoms of solid objects.
As the forest was left behind and the wagons and their two Blackfoot guides on horseback moved out into open land, the mist began clearing. Jolena caught glimpses of the blue sky overhead.
Jolena sighed, enjoying the changes around her. The valley in which she was now traveling was refreshed from the last night's heavy dew, the grass glistening as if in the first flush of spring. The air seemed washed clean and sparkling clear with crystalline sharpness. Birds soared overhead, giving off their strange calls, their wings casting shadows across the land beneath them.
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