''Daughter?" Brown Elk said as he came to Jolena out of the darkness, his face still painted black with mourning. "You wait for your father in the cold?" He came to her and placed a hand to her elbow, ushering her away from Spotted Eagle's dwelling to his own.
Jolena expected to find his tepee cold and without the fragrance of food, but someone had kept the fire burning and had made sure food awaited his return from his long hours of mourning. She expected the one who was so thoughtful and kind was Moon Flower. Her kindness was spread around, it seemed, to everyone who needed it. Even while she mourned for Two Ridges, she was putting her feelings second to others who mourned even more deeply.
Brown Elk nodded toward his couch, which was cushioned with many plush furs. "Sit," he said, helping her down onto it. "We will talk after I remove the mourning paint from my face."
"You must be starved," Jolena said, watching him as he poured water from a jug into a wooden basin, then began splashing his face with the water. "The stew smells delicious. While you wash your face, I will dip some stew into a bowl."
"Dip stew into two bowls," Brown Elk said, scrubbing his face with his hands, watching the water turn black with the discarded paint. "Am I right to think you have not eaten enough to keep your strength? Your heart is troubled too much to enjoy the taste of food on your tongue?"
"Yes, something like that," Jolena said, marveling over how he could measure her mood so well. She ladled stew into two bowls and set them aside until he came and sat down beside her.
She didn't hesitate to eat once he began, not having realized that she was so hungry until she got that first bite between her lips. She ate ravenously, then set her bowl aside as he scraped the last morsel of carrot from his bowl with his fingers.
Brown Elk then set his bowl aside and turned his dark eyes to Jolena. "It is written on your face that too much worries you," he said. He placed a gentle hand to her shoulder. "Do not fret over your white brother. Spotted Eagle will return him to you. And do not worry over Spotted Eagle. He is brave but cautious, and he has strong medicine. Some say that he is related to the ghosts and that they help him."
"Truly?" Jolena said, her eyes wide.
Brown Elk dropped his hand to his lap. "You see, my daughter?" he said, chuckling. "This wizened old man knows what to say to draw a daughter out of herself." His eyes twinkled into hers. "The mere mention of Spotted Eagle did not do it, but the wonder of what I said about him is what helped draw your thoughts away from that which torments you."
"Do people truly say that he is related to ghosts and that they help him?" Jolena asked, her eyes still filled with wonder.
"Perhaps," Brown Elk said, shrugging. "It was just something that came to me that I thought might draw your attention. it worked, did it not?"
Jolena laughed softly, now realizing that what he said was not at all true, but it had seemed something that might be. Spotted Eagle seemed the sort to be able to do anything and to be anything he desired.
"Yes, it worked," she murmured. "And I appreciate it. I am concerned over Spotted Eagle and my brother's welfare. Both are precious to me."
"Then I was right earlier to assume your feelings for Spotted Eagle are those that a woman feels for a man when she wishes to speak vows of forever with him?" Brown Elk said, leaning over to push another limb into the flesh-warming fire.
"Yes, I have many wonderful feelings for Spotted Eagle," Jolena said, finding it easy to talk with this man who until a few days ago had been a stranger to her. She was so glad that the Blackfoot of this village had associated enough with white people that they could speak her language. If not, she would have felt like a stranger in a foreign country!
"And I approve," Brown Elk said, settling back down onto his couch again. He folded his arms comfortably across his chest. "He need not pay me a large bride price for you, for I can see that he already has you locked within his heart, as he is locked within yours."
Jolena moved from the couch onto to her knees before Brown Elk. "Father, it is so strange how it happened," she murmured, her eyes sparkling into his. "I saw Spotted Eagle in my dreams before I ever met him face to face! When I told Spotted Eagle this, he explained the importance of dreams to the Blackfoot. I feel so blessed, Father, to be Blackfoot and to be here to learn everything that a Blackfoot woman should know."
"You will learn easily," Brown Elk said, smiling at her. "Already you know much."
"And how do you feel about my dreams?" Jolena said anxiously. "And that they for the most part come true?"
Brown Elk framed her delicate, copper face between his hands. "I, too, am gifted with dreaming," he said, his voice low and comforting. "You see, my daughter, I dreamed of you often before you came to me in the flesh."
"You did?" Jolena said, gasping. "Truly you did?" "It is true that I did," Brown Elk said. "But you see, my daughter, until you came to the village and showed yourself to me, when I dreamed of you I thought the dreams were of your mother! Now I know they were, in truth, of you!"
He drew her to him and cradled her close. "This father missed you," he said, his voice breaking. "You are so like your mother, my beautiful bride, my reason for breathing. But you are real and dear to me, forevermore, Ni-tun, as my daughter. Your mother is just a sweet memory that I have tucked away now inside my heart."
"Would you mind terribly telling me about my mother?" Jolena asked, easing from his arms. "If you would rather not, I would understand. You have just a short while ago left your place of mourning, where you mourned a son. I would understand if it is too soon to talk of someone else for whom you have sung your mourning songs."
"It would please me to acquaint you with your mother," Brown Elk said, his voice trailing off into silence as he gazed into the flames of the fire.
Jolena crept back onto her couch, feeling awkward in this silence. She stole a glance at her father's face and noticed again its texture, then noticed something new since he had lost a sonthe sagging lower lids of his level, assured eyes. Yet nothing had changed about his uncompromising, self-willed mouth.
After a long moment of peaceful silence, Brown Elk began to talk. "There are many winters in this old man," he said. "But once I was young, and I had a young wife. Her name was Sweet Dove, the most beautiful woman of the Blackfoot, Cree, Crow, and Snake tribes of the Montana Territory. When she agreed to become my wife, I gave a celebration that lasted for many days and nights."
He swallowed hard. "We spent many nights sharing blanket warmth, and then she told me she was with child," he said, giving Jolena a proud smile. "Never was a Blackfoot warrior as happy as when that announcement was made to me. I pampered my woman, and every night I spoke to my child through the walls of my wife's stomach. I told my child that this father already loved her very much."
He looked quickly away as te
ars began silvering his eyes. "Yes, even then I saw the child as a daughter," he said, his voice trailing away. "And then came the day for this child to be born. Foolishly I allowed my wife to go from this village to have the child alone, as Blackfoot wives do. Never did the life of my child seem threatened, nor that of my wife. Sweet Dove was healthy and strong. But not strong enough, it seems."
Brown Elk rested his face in his hands and began shaking his head back and forth mournfully. "She must have suffered much before she released the child from her womb," he said, his voice drawn. "The blood… there was so much blood when she was found…"
Jolena moved to her father and took his hands from his face and leaned into his arms. "No more," she cried. "Please don't say any more. It isn't fair of me to ask you to go through this again, as though it were today instead of eighteen summers ago. Please say no more, Father."
In her mind's eye, Jolena was trying desperately to block out the sight of her mother lying in a pool of her life's blood without feeling to blame, even though she had been a mere babe, innocent of everything as she had lain beside her dying mother, who had given her life to give birth to her. She was so glad that her Blackfoot father did not see her as the cause of his wife's death.
Jolena clenched her eyelids closed, having learned something from this experience. She knew that whenever she was heavy with child, she would most definitely break away from the old tradition of going from the village to give birth to the child alone! She would want her beloved Spotted Eagle at her side during her time of labor and birthing. She would not let history repeat itself.
Her eyes fluttered open, realizing where her thoughts had just taken her! She was marveling at how she could think that far ahead and consider children with Spotted Eagle when she wasn't even yet his wife!
Someone crying just outside the tepee drew Jolena and Brown Elk apart. They both rushed to their feet and went to the entrance. Jolena watched anxiously as her father lifted the flap, gasping when she found Moon Flower there, trembling and crying.
"I have been banished from my parents' lodge," Moon Flower said, sobbing as she gazed from Jolena to Brown Elk. "Where can I go? What am I to do? My parents disown me."
Brown Elk reached quickly to Moon Flower. He placed an arm around her waist and drew her into the tepee. "Tell us what has happened to cause such trouble between yourself and your parents," he said, helping her down onto the couch cushioned with many pelts.
Jolena followed and sat down on one side of Moon Flower as her father sat down on the other side of the distraught young woman.
Moon Flower buried her face in her hands, her whole body shaking as she continued crying. "I told my parents that I was with child!" she cried. "I asked for their pity and… told them that a child born to me now would be born of a daughter still unmarried!"
"You are with child?" Jolena said, trying to keep the alarm that she was feeling from her voice. She knew of Moon Flower's love for Two Ridges. The child could be none other than his!
"Yes, and I am proud, not ashamed!" Moon Flower said, giving Jolena a defiant look. "Had Two Ridges not died, he would have married me! I… had not found the courage yet to tell him about the… child."
She lowered her eyes and wept again. "And never shall I be able to!" she wailed.
"You did not have the courage also to tell your parents until now?" Brown Elk said, reaching a hand to Moon Flower's brow, smoothing some fallen dark locks of hair back into place.
"I did not want to tell them until I had exchanged vows with Two Ridges and then the pregnancy would be legitimate in the eyes of my parents and my people," Moon Flower said, sniffling as she wiped her nose with the back of a hand. "I had thought to run away after his burial and stay away until I had the child. I did not think my parents could turn their backs on a daughter who was offering a tiny child to its grandparents for loving and understanding. But today I could not bear the thought of leaving, nor could I bear the thought of carrying this burden within my heart any longer. I revealed the truth of my condition to my mother and father, and neither embraced the knowing. Both are ashamed and they pointed to the door and ordered me to leave."
Knowing that Two Ridges had never had any true feelings for Moon Flower, Jolena was torn in her feelings about knowing that the child Moon Flower was carrying was his.
Now a part of this horrible man would be alive forever!
Yet she could not shun this woman whose life had been altered forever by Two Ridges' need to conquer as many women as he could to prove his prowess.
This woman had not been as lucky as Jolenato find a man who was honorable in every way!
Also, this unborn child was in part related to Jolena! She would be the child's aunt!
She glanced at her father, seeing how he wore this knowledge heavy in the depths of his eyesto know that a son had fathered a child and had not wed the woman first!
She could see a mixture of alarm and shame in his expression and was glad when he opened his arms to Moon Flower, surely ready to accept this woman into his life as he would his grandchild once it was born.
"You need go no farther than my tepee," Brown Elk said, embracing Moon Flower as she clung desperately to him. "I shall take over the duties of my son. You will live with me. The child will have a place to live. Your child will be dearly loved."
"Oh, thank you, thank you," Moon Flower sobbed. "I promise that I will find many ways to repay your kindness."
"You need not worry about repayment," Brown Elk said, patting her back. "That you were honest enough to reveal the truth to me, the unborn child's grandparent, is payment enough. Should you have left the village, never would I have been given the chance to hold my grandchild, nor to give it the love it deserves from a grandparent."
He paused, then said, "Your mother and father will envy this grandparent when they see he holds the child up on the day of its birth for all to see!"
Jolena wiped tears from her eyes, thankful to have been a witness to her father's deep emotions and compassion tonight.
This made it easier not to be so torn between loyalties where fathers were concerned!
She now understood the depths of his hurt when she had been denied him those eighteen summers ago and all the years since.
She had so much to make up to him.
And she wouldin many lovely ways.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Although he had hoped that warring wouldn't be required to rescue Kirk, Spotted Eagle feared nothing and was always ready to fight.
He had put on a necklace of bear claws, a belt of bear fur, and around his head a band of fur. He was now ready for whatever the night hours brought him.
The moon was high in the sky, casting its silver light down upon many glittering lances and brightly polished weapons as Spotted Eagle and his warriors moved with the precisio
n of clockwork and the pride of veterans through the hills and ravines so that they could not be seen.
Spotted Eagle had sent Double Runner far ahead to check on the Cree camp where Kirk was being held captive. When Spotted Eagle spied Double Runner up ahead, returning, he sank his heels into the flanks of his powerful steed and broke away from the others, riding to meet Double Runner's approach.
Each man reined his horse to a stop alongside the other.
''What news have you brought back to me?" Spotted Eagle asked, wary when he saw that his scout was wearing a frown instead of the look of excited wariness that always came into Double Runner's eyes before going into an enemy's village.
"I found the camping place of the Cree war party deserted," Double Runner said in a low rumble of a voice.
Spotted Eagle's spine stiffened. "And what of Jolena's white brother?" he said, his eyes lit with a sudden, angry fire at the possibility that he had been duped by his enemy!
Savage Illusions Page 28