“My heart no longer belongs solely to my people,” he whispered back. “It is yours, too, forever and ever.”
She looked into his eyes, stunned that this was truly happening!
Chapter 15
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought.
—William Shakespeare
Marsha was just pulling an apple pie from her oven when she heard a scream that almost made her drop the pie pan. She quickly placed her pie on the windowsill to cool, then rushed to the door and opened it.
A part of her was afraid to go on outside, for it was a woman’s scream that she had heard.
She yanked off her apron, tossed it over her shoulder, and then walked outside just in time to see Bright Moon rushing to Soft Wind’s cabin.
“Soft Wind . . .” she gasped, her eyes widening when she now saw Swift Horse hurrying into the cabin that sat beside his own.
Marsha ran and joined the crowd that had gathered. She edged closer to another woman that she had become acquainted with and who was one of Soft Wind’s best friends.
“What’s wrong?” Marsha asked as she gazed questioningly into Red Flower’s dark eyes. “What happened?”
“Some young braves did not go to where they are supposed to go when they practice shooting their arrows,” Red Flower murmured. “Instead they were in the forest just behind Soft Wind’s lodge. An arrow . . . it . . . came through one of Soft Wind’s open windows.”
“You say an arrow came through a window?” Marsha gasped. “Does that mean that . . . that . . . Soft Wind was injured by that arrow?”
Red Flower’s eyes lowered, then rose again, tears streaming from them. “Yes, that is what I found too hard to say,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Lord, no,” Marsha said, turning when she heard footsteps coming up behind her in a hard run.
When she saw that it was Edward James, she reached a hand out for him, but he wasn’t even aware that she was there. His eyes were on Soft Wind’s open front door.
He rushed inside just as Bright Moon stepped outside and faced everyone. What the shaman held made gasps ripple through the crowd, for it was two halves of an arrow, both dripping with blood.
Marsha felt instantly ill to her stomach at the sight, for she knew that he had taken that arrow from Soft Wind’s body! Flashes of that day when her parents were murdered by deadly arrows came to Marsha, making her feel suddenly dizzy.
Red Flower saw Marsha weave back and forth, and grabbed for her, placing an arm around Marsha’s waist as they listened to what the village shaman had to say.
“I know that you are eager to know Soft Wind’s condition,” he said to the people. “A young brave’s arrow went astray, flew through Soft Wind’s open window, and sank into her left shoulder. It is not a mortal wound, but one that will require much attention and time for healing. But she is going to be all right. The wound has been medicated. Now all she needs is rest.”
He looked slowly around the crowd. “Return to your homes,” he suggested. “Now that you know that all will be well with Soft Wind, you can go about your daily activities.”
Marsha saw the shaman’s brow furrow into an angry scowl as a young brave was ushered through the crowd and stopped before him.
“My son Four Leaves,” Sharp Nose said, holding the young brave by an arm. “He has come to apologize for not having gone to the practice range where he should have been.”
Bright Moon sighed heavily, and being a man of good nature and forgiveness, he placed a gentle hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Young brave, you have something to say?” he asked blandly.
Four Leaves’s eyes lifted and wavered as he looked into Bright Moon’s. “I am sorry,” he gulped out. “I did not follow my father’s teachings. I am sorry that my arrow went astray and . . . and . . . harmed Soft Wind.”
Bright Moon stepped aside and gestured toward the door. “I accept your apology, but someone else needs it, too. Soft Wind is waiting for you,” he said thickly. “Apologize, then go to your home and say prayers that will bring comfort into your own heart.”
The child nodded, then ran inside. Everyone waited for him to come out again, and when he did, he was smiling broadly. “She forgave me,” he said, gazing up at Bright Moon. Four Leaves then looked slowly over at his father, who was still angry at his son for the wrong that he had done. “Father, she . . . forgave . . . me,” he gulped out. “Bright Moon forgave me. Do . . . you . . . ?”
Sharp Nose scowled for a moment longer, then bent to his knees and grabbed Four Leaves into his arms. “Yes, I forgive you, but you must never disobey again,” he said thickly.
“I never shall,” Four Leaves sobbed. “I promise, ahte, father. I promise.”
Sharp Nose lifted his son into his arms, and with his chin held proudly high, walked through the crowd toward his cabin. Then all attention turned to Swift Horse as he emerged from the cabin.
“My sister will be well soon,” he reassured. “But her wedding has to be postponed due to her injury.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd, for everyone knew of Soft Wind’s upcoming nuptials and had approved of them, for all approved of Edward James being her husband.
Edward James stepped outside and came to Marsha, interrupting her thoughts. “Marsha, Soft Wind is asking for you,” he said thickly. “She wants you to sit with her while I return to my work at the store and her brother goes into council with his warriors.”
“Me?” Marsha asked, her eyes widening. “She . . . wants . . . me? She asked for me?”
“Yes, you,” Edward James said, smiling. “Will you come? Will you sit with her?”
Marsha recalled the food she had left cooking on her stove, and the pie that she had left on the windowsill to cool, then smiled back at her brother. “Yes, I would love to,” she murmured. “But, Edward James, will you take the food off the stove for me and the pie from the windowsill? Will you bring both here? We shall share our dinner with Soft Wind and Swift Horse. You know that I always make enough for an army.”
Then she grew solemn. “But perhaps she is too ill to eat,” she said, her voice breaking.
“She needs rest, but she also needs nourishment that will help her health improve, so no, she is not too ill to eat, and will even welcome it,” Edward James said. He turned to Swift Horse. “I will bring food back for all of us.”
Swift Horse nodded and smiled, then turned to Bright Moon. “Will you stay?” he asked softly.
“I have much to do, so, no, I had best not delay any longer,” he said. He placed a hand on Swift Horse’s shoulder. “Your sister is fortunate. The arrow could have inflicted a mortal wound.”
“I know,” Swift Horse said, nodding, not seeing how Marsha’s color left her face at the news.
Bright Moon gave Swift Horse a quick embrace, then turned and walked away.
“It was that close?” Marsha asked, searching Swift Horse’s eyes. “She could have died?”
“Yes, it was that close,” Swift Horse said solemnly.
“I’m so sorry,” Marsha murmured, then walked inside with Swift Horse.
She went to Soft Wind’s bedroom, where a soft fire burned low on the grate of a stone fireplace. Seeing Soft Wind so pale and how the wound on her shoulder was covered with some sort of white, pasty medicine made Marsha’s heart go out to her. She knelt down beside Soft Wind’s thick pallet of furs and blankets and placed a soft hand on her brow.
“You will be all right,” she reassured.
“My shaman reassured me of that,” Soft Wind said softly.
“I’m sorry that you have to postpone the wedding,” Marsha said, reaching a hand for one of Soft Wind’s, and taking it. “Truly I am.”
“I know,” Soft Wind said, nodding. “It will not have to be too long a wait, but I would like for the wound to be healed before I spend the first night in my new husband’s bed.”
&nb
sp; Marsha blushed at those words, knowing the meaning behind them, then turned her eyes quickly to the door when Edward James came into the room with a young brave. Edward James carried the pot of stew and the child carried the pie.
“I shall get the eating utensils,” Swift Horse said, hurrying from the room.
Edward James sat the pot on the table and took the pie and placed it there, too, then thanked the young brave, who hurried from the cabin. He knelt on the other side of Soft Wind’s bed. “Do you feel like eating?” he asked softly, gently stroking her brow with a hand.
“How can I not when it all smells so good?” Soft Wind said, giggling.
Soon they were all eating. Edward James fed Soft Wind, who was propped up onto soft wrappings of doeskin. She ate only a few bites, then closed her eyes. “Enough,” she said, her voice failing. “Sleep. I . . . need . . . sleep.”
Edward James looked quickly at Swift Horse.
“Bright Moon fed her an elixir that would make her sleep,” he said. “We must leave her now.”
“Edward James, I know that you have work to do, as do you, my brother,” Soft Wind said as her eyes just barely opened. She looked from her brother to the man she loved. “Go. Marsha will sit with me as I sleep.” She turned slow eyes to Marsha. “Will you sit with me?”
“Yes, for as long as you want me to,” Marsha said, touched that the woman would ask this of her. She truly felt that she and Soft Wind were friends now. Perhaps they might even be best friends one day.
“We shall go then,” Swift Horse said, rising.
Edward James bent low and brushed a soft kiss across Soft Wind’s brow as Marsha stood and walked Swift Horse to the door in the living room.
“Again, I am so sorry about Soft Wind, that something like this happened,” she murmured.
“It is because of the foolishness of a young brave who now knows the meaning of being careless,” Swift Horse said.
He looked quickly over his shoulder and saw that Edward James was lingering a moment longer beside his sister’s bed. He took that opportunity to sweep his arms around Marsha’s waist and bring her up against him.
“My woman, thank you for caring,” he said, gazing into her eyes.
“It is not hard to care for your sister or you,” Marsha murmured.
Swift Horse glanced over his shoulder again, and seeing that Edward James was still lingering at Soft Wind’s bedside, he gazed again into Marsha’s violet eyes.
“Show me how much you care,” he said huskily.
Almost dizzied by her feelings for this man, she leaned up and twined her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his. Soon they were kissing passionately, their bodies straining together, until they heard someone clearing his voice behind them.
Startled that her brother had caught her being this intimate with Swift Horse, Marsha blushed and stepped quickly away from the Creek chief.
“Perhaps your marriage should take the place of mine that has to be postponed,” Edward James teased, his eyes dancing as he looked from his sister to Swift Horse.
“Perhaps . . .” Swift Horse said, bringing Marsha’s eyes quickly to him.
For a moment there was a complete silence, then Edward James broke the spell as he stepped up past Swift Horse and Marsha. “I must get back to work,” he said, smiling devilishly at them as he left the cabin.
Swift Horse again drew Marsha into his arms. “It is something to think about,” he said thickly. “A marriage soon between us.” Then he stepped away from her and left, leaving her absolutely stunned and in awe of what had just happened.
She touched her lips with her fingers where Swift Horse’s lips had just been. “Did this truly happen?” she whispered, stepping quickly to the door to watch Swift Horse walk toward the huge council house where he was to meet with his warriors again in council.
She felt strangely weak in the knees and she could not get past the fact that he might truly be serious about marrying her.
“Can this truly happen?” she whispered.
Chapter 16
Come slowly, Eden!
Lips unused to thee,
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee.
—Emily Dickinson
The day was exceptionally warm for the month of October. The wind blew softly through the window beside the bed where Soft Wind lay in a soft, peaceful sleep.
“It is still Indian summer,” Marsha whispered to herself as she rocked slowly in a chair beside Soft Wind’s bed, crocheting. She paused with her work to gaze at Soft Wind. Marsha was taking turns with the other women of the village sitting with Soft Wind until she was able to leave her bed.
“Sleep sweetly,” Marsha whispered, reaching over to smooth a fallen lock of Soft Wind’s hair back from her eyes.
“She sleeps, I see.” A voice now so familiar to Marsha spoke up behind her.
She turned and smiled at Swift Horse as he came into the bedroom in his fringed buckskins, his hair long and loose today, with its usual lone feather hanging from a coil of the hair.
“Yes, she is sleeping,” Marsha said, laying her sewing on the bedside table.
She wasn’t quite used to how her heart could change so rapidly from beating its normal rate inside her chest to something erratic and thumping, which always happened when she first saw Swift Horse again after not having seen him for several hours.
She smiled and rose from the chair as he came to stand over the bed beside her.
“My sister’s wound will soon be well and she can resume her plans for marriage,” he said, reaching down and placing his palm on Soft Wind’s brow. “Good. She still has no fever. That means that her body is strong enough to fight back the heat that I felt around her wound last night.”
“Yes, I, too, thought she might have an infection,” Marsha murmured, standing so close to Swift Horse now, she felt as though her entire being was one huge throb, her excitement to be with him again was so intense.
“I have brought Pretty Doe to sit with my sister so that you can leave,” Swift Horse said, turning to Marsha.
She looked over her shoulder and saw the lovely maiden standing in the living room, waiting, a basket of beading materials in her right hand. Then she smiled up at Swift Horse. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I guess I should go home to the chores that await me. I still haven’t made the bread that I had planned to make two days ago.”
“Can it wait one more day?” he asked, searching her eyes with his. “I have some spare time on my hands. I would like to spend that time with you.”
“You . . . would . . . ?” Marsha asked, her eyes widening as she gazed more intensely into his.
“It is a good day for a ride,” he said. “Can you spare the time to share a ride with me?”
“I would love to go with you,” Marsha said, grabbing up her crochet work and placing it in her sewing basket. “It has been a while since I have gone riding for relaxation. Since my arrival here, I have had other things on my mind.”
“I believe riding for pleasure will help lift some of that burden from your heart,” Swift Horse said, leaving the bedroom with her. He turned to Pretty Doe. “When my sister awakens she will be ready to eat. You will find food warming on the stove in the kitchen.”
Pretty Doe smiled and nodded, then went into Soft Wind’s bedroom.
Marsha stepped outside into the warmth of the day with Swift Horse. “I shall be only a moment,” she murmured as she walked with Swift Horse toward his cabin. “I will go and tell Edward James our plans, then I shall meet you here shortly on my horse.”
White as the puffiest cloud one could see on a summer’s day, White Cloud was grazing in Marsha’s brother’s corral to the right of where she had established a clothesline for use on wash day.
“Do you need help in saddling your steed?” Swift Horse asked, not certain just how much she knew about riding horses or preparing them for riding.
“I will do fine,” she murmured, then smiling, walked awa
y from him. She knew that he doubted she knew much about horses. She would be glad to prove how wrong he was.
And it was wonderfully exciting to even think about being on a horse again simply for enjoyment. When her parents had died, so much of her spirit had died with them, and she was glad to feel it reviving within her. It was very exciting for her to think about being on White Cloud again.
She hurried home, and after telling her brother about her plans and seeing his approval in his smiling eyes, she ran to the corral, saddled White Cloud, and began her ride alongside Swift Horse.
She laughed softly when some of the tangled webs of autumn got caught in her hair as they rode from the village.
“Sometimes, of late, it seems the world is one huge cobweb,” she said, gazing over at Swift Horse just as he brushed some of those same webs from his long, sleek black hair.
“It is one of the mysteries of life,” he said, smiling. His gaze lingered on her and how she sat so straight in her saddle, her feet resting comfortably in the stirrups.
She held the reins masterfully and steadily, and he saw how occasionally she would stroke the horse’s neck, as though it were a special friend to her.
“Her name is White Cloud,” Marsha said, having caught him seeing her stroking her mare so lovingly. “She has been my horse since she came into the world. I am so glad to have been able to bring her to Kentucky with me after we had to sell off so many other horses before setting out on our journey.”
“Yes, I can see how familiar you are with the horse, and how much you care for it,” Swift Horse said, pleased to learn something else about her.
“Back in Georgia, my family had so many horses, sometimes I would lose count,” Marsha said, lost in thought. “Many of my friends raced horses. I didn’t choose to. I thought it cruel, how they pushed the horses beyond their limit in an effort to win this race or that.”
“Your love for the horse is very evident,” Swift Horse said, nodding. “And I feel your sense of pride in how you talk of it. I admire you for not having gone the route of the others, for I, too, do not push any horse too hard unless forced to.”
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