She truly had never thought the sight of him would be welcome to her, but she had to admit to herself that he was a lifeline of sorts now that her father was disabled.
“I’ll get a fire goin’ in no time flat,” Tiny said, dropping the wood to the floor in front of the fireplace. He laughed to himself when the sudden noise and movement made Mia’s bird flap frantically around in her cage.
“You frightened her,” Mia said, hurrying to Georgina’s rescue. She picked the cage up and brought it close to her face. “Sweetie, calm down. Nothing is going to happen to you. Not while I’m here to protect you.”
Mia’s soothing voice calmed the bird, but across the room, stacking wood in the fireplace, Tiny gave the bird an evil glare over his shoulder.
He could hardly wait to open the door of that cage and watch the bird fly out of it.
He could hardly wait to see Mia’s face when she saw that it was gone.
These thoughts made his work seem effortless as he got a huge fire going in the fireplace, and then also in the potbellied stove.
“Ready for the cook here,” Tiny said, stepping aside so that Mia could get started with the evening meal, which would be made from the canned goods she had brought into the cabin.
He just wasn’t ready to go hunting for meat tonight.
He’d take this time to relax and wait for just the right moment to make this pretty little thing’s world turn upside down. He was going to release her bird as soon as Mia was fast asleep tonight.
“I wonder what’s in those other cabins out there?” he asked idly, sitting on a rickety chair that stood beside a faded old oak table. He shrugged. “Probably nothin’ worth lookin’ at, or takin’.”
Mia stirred the tomato soup.
The tantalizing aroma awakened Mia’s father.
He sat up, then lay back down when he felt an unaccustomed dizziness.
He didn’t complain to Mia about it. She had enough worries on those pretty, tiny shoulders of hers.
Mia was aware of mosquitoes buzzing around in the room. She eyed her father. If he got malaria from mosquito bites, that would be the last of him.
She stepped away from the stove and went looking inside the wooden cabinets that lined half of one wall opposite the fireplace.
She smiled when she found some folded mosquito netting. No doubt mosquitoes were always a problem there beside the river.
She unfolded the netting and stretched it over her father, even covering his head, securing it so that he had enough room between his face and the netting to breathe.
She wondered if she should awaken him for supper?
But yes, she knew that she should. Her father would not want to pass up an opportunity to eat his wife’s home cooking!
She went back to the stove and continued stirring the soup, the delicious aroma from it now spiraling slowly into the air. She was eager to eat, too, for the soup was a dear reminder of her mother.
She glanced at Tiny, who sat a few feet away on the floor before the fire in the fireplace, playing cards with a pretend partner.
She stiffened when she heard the distant baying of a wolf. Suddenly she felt very, very vulnerable!
Chapter Five
One word is too often profound
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Wolf Hawk had just returned home from the secluded spot where he always went to speak his private early evening prayers, when he heard a woman’s voice outside his tepee.
He recognized the voice.
It was Dancing Fire, the mother of twin braves who were the age of thirteen winters.
Wolf Hawk was always ready to open his home and heart to Dancing Fire, for she had been widowed not so long ago. Her husband, Short Bow, had died in the river when his canoe capsized during a storm.
Wolf Hawk sensed that something was not right with Dancing Fire, for there was distress in her voice when she spoke his name.
Normally she had the soft voice of fresh, new breezes that came to this land in early spring.
She was as dear and sweet as those winds, and when he realized that something was causing her distress, he always did what he could to ease it.
He hurried to his entrance flap and shoved it aside. He looked out on a woman of beauty, yet one whose face was lined now with wrinkles that had appeared after she’d lost her true love in the river.
In her dark eyes was a renewal of that distress.
“What is it?” Wolf Hawk asked, searching her eyes. “Why do you come to me with such worry, not only in your voice, but also your eyes?”
“My sons,” Dancing Fire said, nervously wringing her hands. “Neither has returned from their hunt. They have been gone for far too long now. I fear something bad has happened to them. Oh, Wolf Hawk, were I to lose them, too…”
“Do not think such a thing,” Wolf Hawk said, gently interrupting her. He reached out and took her hands in his in an effort to calm her. “You said they left to hunt. How long ago?”
“Early this morning,” Dancing Fire murmured, lowering her eyes in shame that she had waited so long to come to her chief for help.
But she had not wanted to embarrass her sons should they appear only moments later in their lodge.
“They took no provisions with them,” she blurted out as she looked quickly up at Wolf Hawk. “They wanted to prove they could care for themselves without carrying provisions from home to ensure their comfort. It was just another way to prove to their mother that they were brave like their father. They are brave, but there are so many things that could harm them while they are away from the safety of our village.”
She swallowed hard, then said, “My chief, they are so young,” she said softly. “They long to walk in the moccasins of a warrior when they are, in truth, only young braves.”
“You should not lose trust in the abilities that were taught them by their father. They know how to survive away from the safety of their lodge and people,” Wolf Hawk said. He lowered his hands from hers. “They probably were enjoying their hunt so much that they decided not to return home as soon as they had initially planned. I am certain you are just allowing a mother’s fears to consume you needlessly. The young braves will surely arrive home anytime now.”
“Although I know that you are speaking what you think is truth, in my heart I feel a strange disconnection, as though my sons no longer have breath to connect them to me,” Dancing Fire said, tears filling her eyes. “Please listen to what my heart is telling me. Go find them and guide them back to safety.”
Only now, as she persisted in asking him to do something he had already said was probably not needed, did Wolf Hawk understand the depth of her fear. Usually, when he spoke comforting words to a mother, she accepted them and went back to her home and sometime later discovered that he was right, and she was wrong.
But this time he saw that he might be the one who was wrong. He could not take the chance that the two braves might be in trouble.
“Say no more,” Wolf Hawk replied. He reached for her and drew her into his gentle, comforting embrace. “I will gather together several warriors and we will go and find your sons. We will tell them how they have worried their mother. We will bring them home to you. Soon.”
She clung to him. Sobs wracked her body. “Thank you, my chief,” she cried. “Oh, wa-do, thank you. You must find them. They must be safe. They are all that I have left in this world.”
“No, you are wrong about that,” Chief Wolf Hawk said. He stepped back a little so that he could look down into her eyes. “You have your chief and all of your Bird Clan, who are of your extended family. We are all as one. If you are afraid, so is every one of our people afraid. If you laugh, we all follow you in laughter. Today when we bring your sons home to you, we will all celebrate their safe return with you. Remember this, Dancing Fire. You are never, never alone.”
“Ho, yes, I do kno
w that,” Dancing Fire murmured. She swallowed hard. “It is just that my lodge is so empty without my family to fill it with love and laughter. I have lost one voice, my husband’s. I cannot lose two more.”
“You go to your home and do your beadwork while I gather warriors to find Eagle Bear and Little Bull,” he said.
He stroked his fingers through her long black hair. “Time passes quickly,” he softly encouraged. “Soon you will be embracing your sons. It will be up to you whether or not to scold them for staying away longer than is usual from the safety of their village.”
“I will forbid them to hunt for several days,” Dancing Fire said. She wiped fresh tears from her eyes. “But they love the hunt so much, as did their father.”
“And that is why you always have fresh meat on your table, just as you will today when they return from their hunt successful,” he said, drawing his hand away. “They are the sons of their father, are they not? Did he not always bring meat home for his family? Your sons are taking his place so that you will be proud.”
“I am so very proud already,” Dancing Fire said, then straightened her back and tightened her jaw. “I shall do as you say. I have much work awaiting me in my lodge. I have two pairs of moccasins to bead for my sons, as well as vests to complete for them.”
“Then go in good spirit and sit by your fire and do your beading,” Wolf Hawk said. He patted her shoulder again. “Go now. I will return home soon with your sons.”
“May our Earthmaker be with you,” Dancing Fire said, then swung around and walked away from Wolf Hawk, her long, beaded dress swaying as her full hips moved beautifully with each step.
Wolf Hawk admired her, not only for her courage, but for her beauty. He hoped that one day a warrior of her age would step forward and offer her a horse as a bride price.
She needed a man in her life again.
It was not good to center her entire world around sons, for they would soon take wives, which would leave Dancing Fire totally alone in her lodge.
But it would be hard for her to find a husband, just as it would be hard for her sons to find women they could marry, for they could not marry within their own clan, and the other clans were far from their village. Many had already been confined to the horrors of reservation life.
Even he had begun to be concerned about how he might find a woman he could offer a bride price to. He did not want to chance leaving his people for the amount of time it would take to find another Winnebago clan, and he certainly did not dare go anywhere near a reservation to find a woman.
That might lead the white soldiers back to where he had made a safe haven for his people.
For now, for today, he would place his duties to his people, to this mother, ahead of the hungers of the flesh that had begun to plague him.
Perhaps he would never marry. That thought brought a strange ache at the pit of his stomach, for he hungered to have a woman to share his bed and his life.
He wanted sons!
Putting his own needs from his mind, and centering his thoughts on the matter at hand, Wolf Hawk went from lodge to lodge until he had enough warriors to ride with him.
As they rode through the fresh, new grass of spring, enjoying the scent of apple blossoms wafting through the air, Wolf Hawk and his warriors kept an eye out for any movement in the forest.
First they saw a deer feasting on grass, and then a fox meandering through the brush, confident that the red men with bows and arrows were not there for his hide.
Soon after came a female fox with her small kits, scrambling to catch up with the father.
Although fox fur was one of the most desirable of all for winter hats and clothes, today the animals were not pursued.
Wolf Hawk had been touched by the sight of the tiny kits, their fur not yet as red as their parents’. Their innocent play and ignorance of danger made him wish he did not have to kill in order to have warmth and food, but that was the way it was. That was the circle of life.
And he had to make certain that his people lived their own circle of life with enough food and pelts to make their lives comfortable. Always he feared that white people would come and take it all away from them.
He thought of the white eyes he had seen on the river in their many types of vessels. Thus far, none of them had stopped or become a threat to his people.
They all seemed to have a faraway destination in mind and he always wondered where it might be, and what was calling them there?
He shrugged and centered his full attention again on the search. He and his warriors had now traveled quite a distance, much farther than the usual hunting grounds of the young braves.
They had been taught that to go farther was to tempt fate. And he was beginning to wonder if that was exactly what those two braves had done. If not, why had Wolf Hawk and his warriors not found them yet?
Suddenly his horse neighed nervously and shook its mane. Wolf Hawk saw something up ahead beneath a tall old oak that made him gasp in horror.
He heard the same gasp all around him and knew that his warriors had also seen the scene of death that broke Wolf Hawk’s heart.
He and his warriors had found the young braves, and the news that they must take back to their mother would destroy her, for her sons were both caught in a white hunter’s claws of steel.
They lay in a pool of their own blood, blood that had come from the wounds on their ankles, where the trap had severed the skin and arteries.
“They could not have died instantly,” one of the warriors said as he sidled his horse next to Wolf Hawk’s.
“Ho, it is evident that they slowly bled to death, for they could not free themselves of the white man’s traps,” Wolf Hawk said, his voice tight with emotion.
He knew what must be done, but he hated the thought of taking the fallen sons back to their mother. Still worse would be telling her of the horrible way they had died.
That was something no mother should have to be told.
Wolf Hawk rode somberly onward until he came close to the fallen youths. He dismounted and knelt beside them.
He bowed his head and said a silent prayer, then looked slowly around for any sign of who might have caused the deaths.
Of course, he knew that it was the work of whites. But where were they?
Had they come to see what they had done? Had they fled the wrath of the Winnebago, which they must have known would fall on them?
He saw the youths’ bows nearby their bodies. Their quivers were still on their backs.
But he saw no game. Apparently they had caught none before they had stepped into the jaws of death.
The poor boys must have lain there, afraid and filled with pain, as death slowly consumed them.
Then he noticed something that made his insides tighten. Little Bull’s hunting amulet was gone from his neck, yet his brother’s was still in place. The white hunters who had set the traps must have come upon the dead youths.
Fearing that their own lives would be forfeit once the bodies were discovered, they had fled, leaving the two young braves lying in their own blood. But apparently before they left, one of those hunters had yanked the amulet from around Little Bull’s neck.
Wolf Hawk now knew that whoever wore that amulet carried the proof of his guilt in taking two young lives.
“Help me free them from the traps,” Wolf Hawk said tightly. He felt an urgent need to start tracking down the killers. But that had to wait.
A mother was waiting for the delivery of her sons and he would not assign that duty to anyone else. He had promised her that he would bring them home to her.
He had just never imagined it would be in this way.
He’d truly thought he would find them, scold them, then send them home to their mother and let her decide what their punishment should be for having caused her such distress. Now that distress would be unending.
Once the boys were freed of the traps, blankets were taken from the bags of two warriors and wrapped gently around the bodies.
Wolf Hawk carried one of the bundles to his horse and carefully draped it over the back of his steed, while one of his warriors did the same with the other.
“With great sorrow in our hearts we must take the young braves home to their mother,” Wolf Hawk said, mounting his horse, a black stallion with a white star design painted on each side of its body.
Slowly they turned back in the direction of their village.
Filled with a need for vengeance such as he had never felt before, Wolf Hawk headed for home, followed by his warriors.
Wolf Hawk dreaded to be the one to carry such terrible news back to a mother who adored her sons.
But he was the chief of his Bird Clan. He must fulfill his duties to his people, even this most painful one.
Dancing Fire would be totally alone in the world now, except for her Winnebago people who would always embrace her with their love. But despite his reassurances earlier, Wolf Hawk knew that that sort of love just would not be enough today.
He anticipated Dancing Fire’s remorse, for he felt it, too, as though these two young braves were of his own flesh and blood…his sons. He felt the same about all of the young braves of his village.
Chapter Six
Her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak when I have nothing to say.
—Samuel Beckett
All was quiet at the fort except for an owl that sat on the roof of the cabin where Mia and her father now slept. Tiny sat watching them as a slow fire burned in the fireplace.
The owl’s hoot-hooting set Tiny’s nerves on edge, as though he sensed the creature’s strange song so early in the evening was an omen of some kind. It was indeed a haunting sound, causing goose bumps to rise on Tiny’s flesh.
But nothing was going to dissuade him from what he had planned. Exhausted, Mia and her father had fallen asleep before it was fully dark, and that suited him fine. He had a task that required secrecy.
With a cold, wicked gleam in his eyes, where the fire’s glow reflected like the flames of hell, Tiny turned his gaze to the covered cage sitting on the table.
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