by Jenna Kernan
“Yes. And you will not take a second wife until you are well or the time of the gathering. If you do, then I will set out your things and return to my people.”
“I will be yours alone until you speak the words that end our union or the gathering comes,” he said. “Then I will marry Beautiful Meadow.”
“Is it a bargain?” he asked.
“Yes.”
It was settled. She stared at this man who was now her husband and could barely breathe past the panic of what she had done. His face was serious, with no hint of joy or relief. Her stomach hurt.
She had imagined wearing a dress chalked white with clay and swinging with fringe for her wedding day. She had pictured his hand clasping hers as their wrists were symbolically tied together to signify their union.
Most marriages included a joining ceremony, a bride’s dowry, a celebration of feasting and dancing. But that was not always the way. For many reasons, some duos just disappeared and returned as a couple. All that was necessary was that they agreed to be wed. And marriages could be broken just as swiftly.
Sky looked up at her husband.
She told herself she was strong, but she feared she was not strong enough to live with this man until the gathering and not fall in love with him. Still, that was what she must do.
* * *
Skylark rode the chestnut he called Gallop and he led the red roan he called Hunt. He had left his warhorse, Battle, with his brother’s herd. Gallop was a good horse, strong and sleek, and she knew she had never ridden such a fine animal. It saddened her that he walked, however.
They had come days toward his camp and should arrive at his home before sunset. The day was still hot, so Storm wore only his loincloth and the quiver and bow crisscrossed over his back. He was a beautiful sight, but her gaze kept flicking to the trail before them, well-worn now.
With each step her nervousness grew toward panic. What would happen when they met Beautiful Meadow and her uncle, the shaman of the Black Lodges?
Sky glanced back across the wide stretch of open ground looking vainly for some sign of her father. Did he follow or had he turned back to their tribe? Would he be all right without her until the gathering?
Storm had spoken to Skylark in the evening when they made camp, but now, as they walked along, he was silent. She knew he watched for signs of the enemy Sioux who had been raiding earlier than usual this year. Likely her husband also hunted game so she remained quiet, but her nervousness got the best of her on more than one occasion. Frost seemed relaxed today, trotting happily at his master’s side and then darting off after some sound or smell. As long as Frost was calm, she knew that Storm’s mind was quiet.
But how did his dog know?
Frost dashed back to the trail they followed and touched Night Storm’s hand with his nose. Storm scratched his head and Frost dashed off again. No danger, she realized. At least not for Night Storm.
As they rode, Skylark watched him carefully for any signs of illness or the falling sickness. She saw none. If she had not seen him fall twice, she would never believe there was any flaw in this powerful warrior. He moved with a steady, tireless gait while she admired the long muscles in his back contract and release with each step. He was perfection in motion and she found herself falling into her own kind of stupor, a mix of admiration and longing. His russet skin was smooth over the lean muscles of his shoulders and arms. His calves were firm. As he wore only the small breechclout on this hot afternoon, she had ample time to admire his form. Meanwhile, as his skin glowed with health and exertion, she perspired in her two-skin dress. She had made the dress with the help of her aunt, Winter Moon, from two buckskins. One draped over her arms, with a center cut for her head. The other formed the skirts. They were nicely tanned and smoked to make her garment resistant to rain. She had fringed the skirt but left the arms simple to keep the fringe from hampering her digging for roots. Now she wished she had taken the time to dye the garment green or red or sew a few shiny white elk teeth on the front seam. She had not even dressed her hair properly. As the sweat rolled down her back in the hot afternoon, she wondered why she had used simple cording to secure her braids instead of mink sheaths or red trade cloth, like the other women in her village. She fingered the strand of beads, her only adornment beyond her quilled skinning sheath. Her husband had given them to her.
Her eyes lingered on Night Storm. Her husband, she realized. He was her husband. Even if it were only a ruse she had a husband. She would make his meals and share a lodge. She would likely see him without his loincloth and he might catch a glimpse of her without her dress. Her heart beat so hard it drowned out the sound of the horse’s tread.
He glanced back at her. “Are you thirsty?”
She nodded and he stopped to offer her a drink from a water skin, taking none himself.
“You are staring at me,” he said.
How did he know? Of course she’d been staring at him for much of the afternoon.
“I am still trying to grasp that you are my husband.”
There was a glimmer of a smile before he turned and returned the water skin to the packhorse.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
His smile vanished and his face went hard. “Do not ask me that. If I have signs, I will tell you.”
He took up the reins and continued along, his horse following behind.
Night Storm walked tirelessly, watching the trail ahead for any traces of the enemy Lakota and for any opportunity to hunt. Frost flushed several birds and harried ground squirrels, but nothing worthy of him drawing his bow.
He could still feel her eyes upon him, and when he glanced back it was to see her quickly look away. What did she think of him? Did she see only his weakness or could she also see his strength?
His wife. She was his until she spoke the words to break their bond. And she would speak them. He felt sure. Why had he not taken Beautiful Meadow before this? She wished to have her family with her for their joining ceremony, but he thought he could have convinced her. Now he would have to explain or try to explain why he returned from his hunting trip with a wife.
She would be furious, of course. Beautiful Meadow was generally sweet, but she had a temper. Perhaps if he had seen Sky before seeing Beautiful Meadow, he would have thought to marry her instead. His lightning woman. It had been his intention upon first sight to take her, seduce her and...he had not thought past that part. In fact, he had not thought at all. When he saw her alone, beautiful and distracted by her work, something inside him had broken loose. He always thought of what to do, but somehow this woman had made him forget his promise to Beautiful Meadow and the control of a warrior. He had thought only with his lower half.
How strange that his fate was now in her small hands. Was she right? Should he tell all of his tribe of his falling disease and let his medicine man attempt to sing away the ghost that possessed him?
He had seen Thunder Horse sing away many illnesses. But he had also seen him tell their chief, Broken Horn, that a warrior could not be saved. That the spirits had marked him for death. Thunder Horse sang many men to their graves and Night Storm did not trust him. And Beautiful Meadow was his niece. If she knew of his weakness, he did not trust her not to tell her uncle. After his injury, that belief had kept him from speaking the words to make her his wife. She had been content to wait for her family and the gathering.
Now he did not know what would happen. But he thought it would be safer to meet an injured puma than tell Beautiful Meadow he had taken a wife.
Frost began barking. Before he could turn, Skylark was off her horse and at his side. He cast her an odd look and then went after his dog. He found Frost with his forelegs on a sturdy Lodgepole pine. Above him sat a porcupine.
“Good thing he treed him or his face would be full of quills,” said Night Storm. “Hold him.” He waited un
til Skylark had a firm grip on Frost. Then he notched an arrow and smoothly brought down the huge rodent. It was dead before hitting the ground.
No man ever turned away from a porcupine, for the quills were prized by the women for quillwork. Even one porcupine might keep a woman’s hands busy all winter.
Frost barked as Night Storm used a bit of rawhide to lift the creature from the ground and carry it back to the horses. He gutted the carcass and let Frost have what he liked of the entrails. When he’d finished tying the spiny prize to the pack he found her staring again.
“What?”
Skylark looked away from Frost.
“Frost seems calm,” she said.
He wrinkled his brow. “Do you do quillwork?”
She stiffened at his question. “Why do you think I do quillwork?”
Many women did such work, but to do the kind of work that she wore on her tall moccasins required a depth of skill rare among women. Such talent took much time and practice. He thought that might be why she had taken no husband, for he knew that women who specialized in such work sometimes did not marry or they lived with other women who quilled.
“Why, I said.”
In answer, he pointed at her moccasins.
“My mother made these.”
“Ah. Well, they are very beautiful.”
“I cannot quill as well as she did.”
“No matter. I have two sisters who would take all the quills I can bring. Bright Shawl and Fills a Kettle can teach you.”
“I do not wish to quill.”
He tried to understand her, but the anger in her voice made no sense to him. “That is fine. I do not need decorative clothing. And you do not seem to wish it, either,” he said, motioning to her plain dress.
This made her scowl deepen. “Not all women spend their time making pretty pieces. Some prefer to search for medicines to make people well.”
He had obviously stumbled on some sensitive spot and, like a man discovering himself sinking in mud, he retreated. “It is a good purpose. I need no quilled adornments. I will throw it away, if you wish.”
She hesitated, her scowl easing in slow degrees. “That would be wrong.”
“No more wrong than making my wife unhappy.”
She blinked at this. Had she forgotten she was his wife? She had said they were strangers and he never felt this was true so much as at this moment.
“I am sorry,” she said. Her flushed face only made her more appealing. “My mother spent much time on her quillwork.”
And had little time for her, he guessed.
He recalled that she mentioned that her mother had walked the spirit road. He wished to ask, but it was impolite to speak of the dead. He knew that she worked quills and that she had been an unhappy second wife. But that was all.
“This knife and sheath were hers and these moccasins,” said Skylark.
He tried to understand her and made a guess. “She was a second wife to your father?”
“Yes and no. My mother was married to a warrior who had a wife who was Low River. Then, after marrying my mother, he also wed his first wife’s sister. My mother told me the sisters wanted his younger wife to gather all the wood and set the lodge. My mother said from that time onward she did all the hardest work. Also, neither had any children and her husband hoped my mother might bring him children but she did not. My mother left him and made herself a lodge.”
“She did not move back to her tribe?”
“Her parents had not approved of her decision to marry, and my mother was too proud to return to their lodge.”
He nodded. She believed Night Storm understood such pride quite well.
“It was not until after she left her husband that I was born. My father, Falling Otter, could not marry my mother because he is heyoka and must do the opposite. I remember a man came to my mother’s lodge. He played the flute but my mother would not listen. Our shaman’s wife, Starlight Woman, taught my mother how to quill so she could support us.”
“She was talented,” he said.
“Yes. When my grandmother grew weak, she joined us in my mother’s lodge.”
“Your mother’s mother?”
“No. This was Falling Otter’s mother. Also the mother of my aunt, Winter Moon. We lived beside my grandmother at every camp. We all worked hard. My uncle, Wood Duck, brought us meat. My grandmother taught me much about healing plants and many came to her for cures, but she left us in my sixteenth winter. When I reached my seventieth winter my mother grew ill. I tried, but I could not save her, either.”
“So you moved in with your father’s sister?”
“After a time. I had my mother’s lodge, but my auntie did not approve. She said I was getting too thin and asked me to join her in their lodge.”
This was what she must return to? A life with her aunt and uncle? Why had she not married? Surely others could see her beauty and her skill.
He waited for her to say more, but she did not. Frost finished his meal and returned to them, sitting beside Storm and panting with what seemed a wide grin on his face. Skylark was studying his dog again.
When she lifted her gaze to him, she must have read his question on his face.
“Frost has not been walking with you.”
“He often dashes off after game,” he said.
“But not the day you found me.”
He cocked his head, wondering what direction her thoughts took.
“Or the night of the storm. Those days he walked so close he nearly trod on your foot.”
That was so.
“What about the day of the sun dance?”
“I do not know. The dogs wander here and there.”
“Think,” she insisted.
He did. He recalled blowing his whistle and the sound of the drums. Had Frost been howling? He thought he recalled his sister saying so.
“Fills a Kettle said something about him.” Storm had collapsed and had to be carried from the sacred circle. When he woke he remembered the dog. “Frost was with me when I woke, lying right beside me. My sister said he had to be tied during the ceremony because he kept charging into the circle.”
“That is because your dog knows when you are going to fall.”
Chapter Nine
It had taken some convincing, but Sky thought Night Storm now believed her. Frost knew when he would fall. She did not understand it, but there were just too many signs for this to be chance.
“That means you might be able to ride again,” she said.
Sky had dismounted to stretch her legs and so the horses could drink in a stream that was a short distance from his village.
“Ride?” The hope in his expression made her heart squeeze in joy. Clearly riding was important to every man. But for Storm, it seemed a mark of who he was.
“Yes. If you keep Frost close and pay attention to him, then you might be safe. If he starts to bark at you instead of at game, or if he howls or whines for no reason, you must not shush him. Get off your horse and lie on your side. Prop your back against a tree.”
“I might still choke.”
She knew that was so.
“Then take me with you.”
He scoffed. “A man does not hunt with a woman.”
“But I am your new wife. It is natural for us to want to be alone.”
His brow quirked in speculation and her face went hot with the brightness of his gaze.
“Perhaps.”
“And you could say that I am a healer, that I need to collect medicines and you do not wish me to go by myself.”
“You could go with other women.”
“I have tried that. I walk all day over rough ground. They cannot keep up.”
He was staring at her legs now.
/> “What?” she asked.
“It explains why your legs are so strong.”
She felt self-conscious. “Is that a bad thing?”
“I like a strong woman and I like your legs.”
Now even her ears felt hot. Why had she asked? Everything he said, every look he cast her, seemed to make her skin heat and her muscles thrum. Even her fingers tingled with the desire to touch him. But she could not. He wanted her and he needed her. But he did not love her. She must remember that.
“Your face is pink,” he said.
She placed her hands on her hips and he laughed.
“So fierce,” he said, and then stroked her cheek with one knuckle. “My fierce, strong wife. Come, we are nearly home.”
Without asking her permission, he took hold of her waist and swung her up onto his saddle. Then he leaped up behind her. His chest pressed to her back as he took up the reins and her bottom molded against the fold of his waist. It took all her restraint not to sag back against the firm, muscular body that enfolded her. She breathed in his masculine scent and found he smelled of smoked leather and sage. Then she glanced at Frost, who watched with an alert curiosity but no concern.
Night Storm pressed his heels into his horse’s sides and set them in motion. She heard him draw a breath and sigh, as if this was finally where he wanted to be.
Was she right? Was it safe for him to ride?
“Your body is trembling,” he said, his words coming with a warm breath that brushed her ear.
“I am worried that I am wrong. What if Frost does not know when you will fall?”
“Then you will have to catch me.” He chuckled at that and they said no more.
Shortly, they splashed across the stream and into a wide-open bank of an unfamiliar river. Before them stretched the tribe’s herd of horses. The herd grazed with slow determination, tugging hanks of yellowing grass as their tails swept back and forth in constant motion, doing battle with the ever-present biting flies. Here and there, boys sat on horseback watching over the tribe’s herd. The village dogs spotted them first, raising the alarm with loud barking that brought cries of welcome from the young guardians. Several boys urged their mounts forward to greet Night Storm. He sent one tall boy back to the village to alert his family of his approach.