Again she was plagued by the same nightmare that had troubled her almost every night since the rape.
She cried out in her sleep, then awakened with a start, wet with sweat. As she sat up, she realized that eyes were on her.
She had forgotten to lower the blanket that gave her privacy while she slept. She looked quickly over to where High Hawk stood just inside the entranceway. He must have only now arrived back home.
High Hawk came quickly to her.
He knelt down beside her. “What has caused you to cry out in your sleep?” he asked, searching her eyes.
Her heart pounding, she turned her eyes away. There was no way on God’s earth that she would tell him about the rape.
Oh, Lord, she had to escape before she got much larger, for she did not want this lovely man to know what she had endured at Mole’s hands. It was something she did not ever want to say aloud to anyone.
She just wanted to have the child, hand it over to a preacher, then get on with her life. Until then, she had to continue guarding her secret in every way possible.
“Food is being brought for us,” High Hawk said quietly, seeing that Joylynn didn’t want to talk about what had disturbed her so.
He would take one day at a time and hope that she would be more open with him soon. He cared so much for her. He wanted to be the one who helped her get past her hidden fears, if she would only allow it.
Then a terrible thought came to him. What if her troubled dreams were caused by his having abducted her?
What if her fear was of him?
His thoughts were interrupted when a woman’s voice spoke outside the tepee. “I bring food for you and the white woman.”
He lifted the entrance flap and nodded a quiet welcome to the woman, who came into the lodge carrying a platter piled high with an assortment of meats and vegetables.
He took the platter from her, thanked her, then, as she left, placed the food on a mat beside the lodge fire.
Still without saying anything more to Joylynn, he got two wooden plates and nodded toward them. “Come and sit by the fire with me,” he said. “The night has turned chilly. The fire will feel good.”
Joylynn gazed up through the smoke hole and noted that day had turned into night. She could feel the breeze as it came through the spaces where the bottom edges of the tepee had been rolled up.
She watched as High Hawk went and closed them, then came back and again nodded toward the food.
“Eat with me and then you can rest again, if you wish,” he said thickly. “My mother told me that you worked hard today and that you must be as bone-weary as she.”
Joylynn felt guilty about the older woman’s tiredness, for it was surely because she had done some of Joylynn’s work.
She swallowed hard, then went and sat down beside High Hawk. She realized how hungry she was when the aroma of the cooked venison and corn wafted to her nose.
“Thank you,” she murmured when he gave her a plate filled with food. “I am quite famished.”
He ate in silence beside her. He watched how hungrily she ate, but his mind kept drifting. He had searched for his father today and had not found him.
His mother even now sat crying beside her lodge fire, fearing the worst.
High Hawk would not give in to those same fears. He continued to believe that his father would be home soon with an explanation for his delay.
“Has your father returned home yet?” Joylynn asked, as though she had read his thoughts.
All he could do was shake his head, his eyes revealing the despair he was feeling.
“I’m sorry,” Joylynn murmured. “Truly I am.”
“I believe you,” High Hawk said. “I have been with you long enough now to know that you are not only a woman of strength and fire, but also compassion. Your compassion is appreciated.”
“Are you going to search for him again?” Joylynn asked, thinking that the more often he left, the more likely it was she would find a way to escape.
But she felt guilty for thinking of herself when she could tell that he was so worried about his father.
“We will continue searching until we find him,” High Hawk said tightly. “But I am certain he will come home soon on his own.”
Her stomach comfortably full, and her eyes feeling tired again, Joylynn shoved her empty plate aside. “I truly must retire to my bed,” she murmured. “May I?”
“You do not have to ask permission for such as that,” High Hawk said. He nodded toward her bed of blankets, then followed her there.
For a moment she thought that he might be planning to go to bed with her, but he had only followed her in order to drop the blanket down, to give her privacy while she slept.
She climbed onto the blankets, once again grateful that he treated her with respect. She no longer felt threatened by him. She knew that if he had been going to take her, he would have done it already.
She snuggled onto her side on the blankets and fell into another deep sleep, but this time she dreamed sweet things . . . like riding Swiftie through a meadow of flowers with High Hawk at her side.
They were carefree and happy.
They were laughing.
And then a hawk suddenly swept down from the sky, searching for snakes and rodents, and spooked her horse.
She cried out in her sleep as she fell from Swiftie in her dream, then awakened in a sweat.
No matter that the blanket was there between them, when High Hawk heard her cry out in her sleep again, he could not help going to her to see if she needed comfort.
He hurried to the blanket and held it aside, his heart going out to Joylynn when he saw her leaning on an elbow, tears streaming from her eyes.
“You dreamed bad things again,” he said gently.
“Yes, partly . . .” Joylynn said. The beginning of the dream had been so wonderful. She only wished that it could be true, that she could be with High Hawk, happy and carefree.
But it was never to be.
They had met only because he needed a captive.
She had been in the right place at the right time for him to capture.
High Hawk wondered what she meant by “partly,” but he did not ask her. She was already lying down again, her eyes closed so she could go back to sleep.
He knelt beside her for a moment and watched her. Then he looked up through the smoke hole and saw the full moon gazing back at him. Again he was filled with concern for his father.
Where . . . could . . . he be?
Tomorrow the search for him would widen, but High Hawk could not go himself. He had duties to his people that kept him home, for while his ahte was gone for so long, he had to take over his father’s duties as chief.
Ho, tomorrow he would send out his most skilled scouts, who best knew the art of tracking and searching.
If they did not find his father, then High Hawk would truly be worried that his ahte might never be home again among his people.
He dropped the blanket down, hiding Joylynn from his sight, but he would not leave her during the night hours.
He would guard her, not because he feared she might flee, but because he did not want someone to come in the night and take her away!
If white eyes knew, somehow, that she was missing, they might already be searching for her.
His jaw tightened. He would not lose this woman to anyone!
She . . . was . . . his!
CHAPTER TEN
Alone, having eaten the morning meal by herself, Joylynn found herself restless, but she was reluctant to go outside and discover what would be required of her today.
Blanket Woman seemed intent on making her work.
Joylynn was afraid that one of these days, while mingling with the other women, one of them would notice her belly and realize that she was with child.
Of course she knew that it would have to happen eventually, for as each day passed, the child grew within her womb.
But she had hoped to keep that knowledge to herself until she
found a way to escape. Then nobody but herself would ever need know.
“Escape,” she whispered as she shoved the empty wooden plate away from her.
She gazed over at the rolled-up blankets at one side of the tepee, knowing they were used for High Hawk’s bed.
She crawled to them and ran a hand slowly over the bundle, then leaned low and smelled them.
A sensual craving that was unfamiliar to her swept through her at the scent of the man she should loathe, but now knew she secretly loved.
Everything about him spoke of gentleness and kindness, even caring.
He had never threatened her in any way, only treated her with respect.
She sighed and sat down by the fire, enjoying its warmth, for the nights and days had suddenly become cooler. She wished she could feel free to love that man, and he her. But the way they had come together was anything but normal, or right.
She was his captive.
He was her captor.
Such relationships should create hate, not infatuation.
But . . . she knew he felt something for her, too. Often she would catch him looking at her, so tenderly and, yes, so lovingly. She believed he regretted having taken her as his captive, yet if he had not, they never would have met. Like High Hawk, she truly believed now that it had been their destiny to meet.
Yet she was ready to turn her back on that destiny . . . on him. It just wasn’t forgivable for a man to take a woman forcefully. She had rights, and they had been taken from her, not once, but twice.
Well, she would take them back.
“I have no choice but to find a way to leave,” she whispered, tears suddenly in her eyes. “If only . . .”
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a soft voice, a child’s, coming from outside the tepee. The child was singing what sounded to Joylynn like a lullaby.
She leaned her ear closer to the entranceway and listened more intently.
The child was singing, “A-ho, I-lo, A-ho,” and other Pawnee words unknown to Joylynn.
To her, those Pawnee words had no meaning, but as the child continued to sing, the lullaby seemed to take on a special significance, somewhat like “Hush-A-Bye” in the English language.
“Is she singing a lullaby in Pawnee, and if so, is she singing to a baby, perhaps her brother or sister?” Joylynn whispered.
Too curious to sit there any longer, she rose to her feet and lifted the entrance flap slowly so she could see the child.
The little girl, perhaps seven years of age, sat beneath the low-hanging branches of a cottonwood tree, a few feet from High Hawk’s tepee.
Joylynn’s eyes widened in wonder when she saw what appeared to be a doll, made from dried husks of corn, in the girl’s arms.
As she sang, she slowly rocked her doll back and forth in her arms.
Recognizing maternal love in this little girl’s tender song to her make-believe child, Joylynn slid her hand to her stomach.
She only now realized that although this was a child of rape within her womb, she could not help having feelings for it.
It was a part of her, wasn’t it?
How could she not have feelings for it?
Tears filled her eyes again. What should she do when the time came for her to decide the fate of this baby? She knew that she should not want to keep the child, yet . . . yet . . . could she truly give it away? Once she held it in her arms, as this little girl was holding her pretend baby, could Joylynn turn her back on the tiny, defenseless creature?
Feeling someone’s eyes on her, the child stopped singing and stared at Joylynn. Then she smiled the sweetest smile Joylynn had ever seen.
The little girl laid her doll aside and came to Joylynn. “Why do you have tears in your eyes?” she asked in perfect English. It seemed most of the people in this village could speak English. “Are you sad?”
“Not really,” Joylynn murmured, wiping the tears away.
“Then why are you crying?” the child asked. “Are you lonely? You look lonely.”
“Yes, I am lonely,” Joylynn said, slowly smiling. “But now that you are here, talking with me, I don’t feel so alone any longer.”
To Joylynn’s surprise, the girl took her by one hand and yanked on it. “Come with me,” she said. “You can play house with me.”
“Play . . . house?” Joylynn said, walking with the little girl back to where she had been sitting beneath the tree. “Yes, I would love to play house with you . . . that is, if your mother wouldn’t mind.”
“Ina is busy grinding meal for tonight’s supper, so she will not know what we are doing,” the little girl said, softly giggling. She let go of Joylynn’s hand and gazed up at her. “I know your name but you do not know mine, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Joylynn murmured. “But I would like to, especially if we are going to play house together.”
“I am called by the name Singing In Water,” the child said, smiling widely. “I like your name. Do you like mine?”
“It’s as pretty as you are,” Joylynn said, her eyes moving slowly over the little girl. She was petite and pretty with big brown eyes, a round, copper face, and hair hanging in two braids down her back to her waist. She was dressed in buckskin, ornamented with beautiful beaded designs. She wore moccasins that went up to her knees, also beautifully beaded.
“Sit,” Singing In Water said as she spread a blanket out for Joylynn. “Watch. I will show you how to play house.”
Feeling lighthearted and gay for the first time in months, Joylynn plopped down on the blanket and watched what Singing In Water did next.
“You do this first,” Singing In Water said. She scurried around beneath the tree and picked up some forked limbs that had fallen to the ground. “You stick these in the ground like this, and then watch what I do.”
Joylynn saw how she pushed the limbs into the ground in the shape of a tepee, then disappeared momentarily inside her parents’ tepee and came back with a small, old buffalo hide that she placed over the sticks, so that it looked like a small tepee.
“This is our home,” Singing In Water said. “It is just big enough for us to go inside and sit. Will you sit with me?”
“If I can fit in,” Joylynn said, laughing softly.
She crawled inside but had to keep her shoulders hunched over so that she would not push her way through the roof.
Singing In Water came in after her, carrying her pretend baby.
She sat down close to Joylynn, so close that Joylynn could smell the sweetness of the child’s skin and clothes, like rainwater.
“On days when a lot of my friends play with me, we make a much larger house, and boys play with us,” Singing In Water said. She placed a braid that had come over her shoulder behind her, so that it hung alongside the other down her back.
“You pretend to be families?” Joylynn asked, beginning to feel cramped in the small space. Her stomach was uncomfortable in her hunched position.
“Ho, and the boys go to their mothers to get a buffalo tongue that has been cooked, or some pemmican,” Singing In Water said, slowly rocking her pretend baby back and forth in her arms. “We girls then spread clean grass on the floor of our home and put the food on it. We feast on the food, the boys on one side of the imaginary fire pit, the girls on the other.”
“It sounds like so much fun,” Joylynn murmured. She had never had any close friends to play with when she was a child because the farms the families lived on were too far apart.
“It is fun,” Singing In Water said, then she handed the doll over to Joylynn. “Would you like to hold my baby?”
Joylynn was taken aback by the suggestion.
She stared at the strange-looking thing the girl called her baby, then did as she had seen the child do.
She slowly rocked it back and forth in her arms, seeing that this pleased Singing In Water. The child smiled even more broadly than before.
“Sometimes our dolls are made of rushes; oftentimes they are made by our grandmothers in
the summer from mud,” Singing In Water said. She shrugged. “I like all dolls. I love to think of when I will have a real baby of my own.”
Singing In Water lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you not have a baby of your own?” she asked matter-of-factly. “You are of the age when you should, are you not? Do not white women have babies very often?”
That question took Joylynn aback. She could feel the heat of a blush rush to her cheeks, for how could she answer such a question? Here she was, holding a fake baby, while inside her belly lay a true one!
“Joylynn, where are you?”
The familiar, dreaded voice of High Hawk’s mother penetrated the small tepee, but this time it was welcome. Joylynn was finding the little girl’s questions uncomfortable.
“Oh, no,” Singing In Water said, sighing. “High Hawk’s ina is wanting you. She will probably put you to work again today. Do you mind working alongside the other women?”
“Joylynn!”
Blanket Woman’s voice was more insistent, more shrill.
“I must go,” Joylynn said, placing the doll in Singing In Water’s arms. She leaned over and brushed a kiss across the child’s brow. “Thank you. I’ve had fun.”
“Me, too,” Singing In Water said, crawling outside with Joylynn.
“There you are,” Blanket Woman huffed. In her arms was a lovely white doeskin dress. Between her fingers she held a pair of beautiful moccasins. “Come back to my son’s lodge. I have clothes for you.”
Joylynn gazed at the clothes and then into Blanket Woman’s eyes. “I have enough of my own dresses to wear, thank you,” she said tightly.
“You will wear them no more,” Blanket Woman said, going to Joylynn and thrusting the dress into her arms. “Come. I will bring the moccasins in for you. You will wear them, too, instead of your sort of shoes, which are ugly.”
Joylynn gave Blanket Woman an angry stare, then, feeling the eyes of other women on her, she sighed and hurried to High Hawk’s tepee with Blanket Woman on her heels.
Once inside, Joylynn turned and faced Blanket Woman. She shoved the dress back into the older woman’s arms. “I refuse to wear this,” she said tightly. “Why should I? I am not Pawnee.”
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