“Sleeping Wolf!” High Hawk cried. He shouted at the warrior. “Stop! My brother. He is gone!”
The horse that was transporting the travois stopped, as did all the others ahead of him.
The horror in High Hawk’s voice had caused everyone to stop and gaze at him, alarm on their faces.
Having heard, Joylynn rode quickly back to join High Hawk.
When she reached him, she dismounted and stood with him as he looked back in the direction they had traveled.
“He must have fallen off,” Joylynn said, pale at the thought of what might have happened.
She looked quickly at Blanket Woman as two warriors escorted her there, one on each side of her, steadying her as they gripped her elbows.
“My son!” Blanket Woman cried as she stared at the empty travois, then looked in desperation at High Hawk. “He . . . is . . . gone. Where, High Hawk? Where is he?”
High Hawk went to his mother and embraced her as the two warriors stepped away from her. “Somewhere behind us,” he said thickly. “He must have rolled off. We shall go and find him and bring him back.”
“But if he fell off, why did he not cry out and alert someone?” Blanket Woman said, kneeling down beside the travois and running a hand across the indention of her son’s body in the blankets.
Then she looked quickly up at High Hawk again. “He must have been injured by his fall from the travois,” she said, tears spilling from her eyes. “He must have been knocked unconscious, or he would have alerted us that something had happened to him.”
“Ina, the fall off the travois would not be far enough to knock my brother unconscious,” he said gently. “Probably, he did not want to cause any more problems after he slipped from the travois, so he decided to just lie there until someone discovered he was gone.”
“But why?” Blanket Woman asked, pleading with her eyes. “Why would he feel he could not let anyone know he’d fallen off the travois?”
“Ina, I do not have any answers, and as long as we stand here talking about it, he is still back there, alone,” High Hawk said. “Ina, I will go now. I will find and bring my brother back.”
He shouted at several of his warriors, then mounted his steed as Joylynn mounted her own. They rode off down the trail, back over the land they had just traveled, but no matter how far they rode, they did not find any trace of Sleeping Wolf.
Joylynn sidled her steed over closer to High Hawk’s. “I’m afraid to say what might have happened,” she said, her voice drawn.
“Say it,” High Hawk said, looking intently into her eyes.
“Back where the path was so narrow, where we rode beside a steep drop-off, he might have fallen to his death far below,” Joylynn said, her voice breaking. “I fear that is what happened, High Hawk.”
“But he surely would have cried out as he fell,” High Hawk said, kneading his brow in frustration. “Someone, especially the warrior who was transporting him, would have heard.”
Joylynn swallowed hard. “Do you think he did not want to be heard?” she asked guardedly. “He has been so despondent of late. Could he have . . . ?”
“Suicide is a sin unforgiven by Tirawahut, so I do not believe my brother would risk that,” High Hawk said softly.
They rode onward, to where the land dropped off steeply at their right.
But this part of the journey had been long; they would have to travel a full day to retrace their steps beside the drop-off.
High Hawk decided to turn back and carry the news of his brother to his mother. He was almost certain Sleeping Wolf had perished by falling over the cliff.
He rode silently beside Joylynn, followed by the other warriors, and when they reached those who awaited news of Sleeping Wolf, his eyes went straight to his mother. He knew that she must have guessed the news was not good, or he would have had Sleeping Wolf with him.
Seeing the absence of her elder son, Blanket Woman began wailing and pulling at her hair, while others joined her in crying and praying aloud.
High Hawk dismounted and went to his mother, gathering her gently into his arms. “We could not find him,” he said thickly, only now thinking about the mountain lions who might have been the cause of his brother’s disappearance.
He would not speak of that possibility to his mother.
He would keep that thought to himself. He prayed that his brother had not been killed by a hungry mountain lion.
“Why can you not find him?” Blanket Woman cried, pulling away from High Hawk’s arms. She glared at him. “You did not look hard enough. He is alive, High Hawk. He . . . has . . . to be alive!”
He gently gripped her shoulders. “Ina, we searched everywhere and found no traces of him,” he said. “Please try not to let this make you ill. We have a distance to go before we reach our new home. You must be strong in order to endure the days and nights ahead.”
“How can I feel anything but this terrible emptiness?” Blanket Woman said, again pulling free of her son’s grip.
She glared at Joylynn, who was dismounting from Swiftie. She went to Joylynn and spoke into her face. “All the sadness that has entered my life in recent weeks is your fault,” she said through clenched teeth. She doubled her fists at her sides. “Until you came into our lives, all was well. I believe that the very night my son brought you among the Pawnee people was the night my husband died. You are a jinx . . . taboo! You are responsible for uprooting my people from their homes . . . and also now for my elder son’s death.” She opened one fist and gestured toward Joylynn. “Go away! Leave us be! You are bad for the Pawnee, especially for my family. One by one, my family has been taken from me since you arrived at our village. You are bewitched. Leave! Go back where you belong, and that is not among people with red skin.”
Joylynn’s face drained of color under the assault from High Hawk’s mother. For a while, back at the village, she had thought she had finally made peace with the woman.
But now she seemed to hate her more than ever. It was evident that Blanket Woman blamed all her people’s recent misfortunes on Joylynn.
High Hawk stood stunned by his mother’s fury. Not one word of it was truth. Joylynn had been stolen away in the night and taken to his village. She most certainly had not gone there of her own choosing.
What happened after that had had nothing to do with her. She was innocent of all the things Blanket Woman was accusing her of. He hoped that his people understood that, and realized that his mother was speaking out of grief.
He turned from his mother and reached out for Joylynn. She went to him and, sobbing, flung herself into his embrace. “I’m so sorry about everything,” she said between wrenching sobs. “But I am not to blame. Please make your mother . . . your people . . . know that I am not to blame for any of it. Oh, please make them understand.”
High Hawk held Joylynn tenderly close in his arms. He fixed his mother with a firm stare as he looked over Joylynn’s shoulder at her. “Ina, you have said much today that should not have been said,” he chided. “I understand your grieving, but I cannot understand why you seem intent on blaming everything on my woman.”
Blanket Woman grabbed at her throat as she gasped and took a shaky step away from High Hawk. “Your woman?” she demanded in an almost strangled voice. “After all of this, you . . . still . . . plan to take her as your wife?”
“She will be my wife as soon as we arrive at our new home,” High Hawk said, challenging his mother with his eyes for the first time ever. He had always showed her full respect. But her time to be respected seemed to be running out.
Blanket Woman covered her mouth with a hand and turned to fall upon Sleeping Wolf’s blankets on the travois. She wrapped herself in the blankets, sobbing out Sleeping Wolf’s name. “Where are you?” she cried. “Why did you leave me? Why?”
Joylynn clung to High Hawk as everyone stood quiet now. The wailing and praying had stopped after everyone saw Blanket Woman’s grief and heard how she felt about the future bride of their chief.
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br /> It was apparent that the others in the band did not agree with Blanket Woman, for Joylynn had proven to them that she was a woman of heart, someone vastly different from any white people they had ever known before her.
Suddenly several bald-headed eagles swept down from the heavens. They flew above High Hawk and his people for a while, then soared away again, soon lost to view behind a fluffy white cloud.
“I feel my brother among them,” High Hawk suddenly said, causing Joylynn to ease from his arms and look into his eyes.
“You felt him among the eagles?” Joylynn asked, searching High Hawk’s eyes.
“When eagles come together like that in such a great number, they bring a message from Tirawahut,” High Hawk said, searching the sky. He wanted to see the eagles again, but there was no trace of them.
“And that message is?” Joylynn murmured.
“A message of love and reassurance,” High Hawk said thickly. “My brother’s love.”
Joylynn was astonished at how High Hawk received such comfort in the mere appearance of eagles. She hoped that in time she could believe as he did, for she saw such peace in his eyes.
She gazed down at his mother. The older woman still wept as she clung to the blankets upon which her eldest son had lain.
Joylynn wanted to go to the elderly woman and pull her into her embrace, but she knew better. Blanket Woman blamed Joylynn for all the recent misfortunes that had befallen the tribe.
Joylynn wondered how she could ever change Blanket Woman’s mind now. She truly doubted that it was possible.
And if not, would Blanket Woman make Joylynn’s marriage to High Hawk miserable?
She set her jaw, knowing that she would not allow anyone to stand in the way of her happiness with High Hawk. She had waited a lifetime for a man such as he, and she would never give him up. Never.
A chill coursed through her veins when she found Blanket Woman gazing at her with utter contempt.
She knew now that Blanket Woman would not stop at anything to keep her only remaining son free of this white woman she despised with every fiber of her being!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Having no choice but to resume their journey without Sleeping Wolf, the Pawnee continued on the frighteningly steep path up the mountainside.
Joylynn turned to prayer to find the courage to keep climbing, and to cope with her deep sadness over Sleeping Wolf’s death.
Feeling that another tragedy could happen at any moment, especially since the soldiers might be closer than anyone thought, Joylynn had hung the binoculars around her neck in order to take an occasional look far below. She dreaded seeing any movement by men who might be searching for High Hawk and his people.
As Swiftie climbed slowly up the mountain pass, Joylynn clung to the reins with one hand and looked through the binoculars with the other. She slowly scanned the land far below her, able to make out objects despite the distance.
Her heart seemed to leap into her throat when she spotted something. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw soldiers advancing on the mountain; they had almost reached the foot of it.
Even more astonishing was who she saw riding with the soldiers. The cigarillo glow first drew her attention, and then she looked intently at the one who smoked it. It was none other than the man she’d thought had died during the ambush on the outlaws and soldiers.
It . . . was . . . Mole!
“Mole,” she whispered, growing cold at the sight.
But he had been among the casualties on the day of the attack.
“How could it be?” she whispered, trying to see the man more closely as he continued to ride with the cavalry. His size, his bearing, his mannerisms made her certain that it was he.
But how on earth could it be Mole? They had left him for dead! Blood had almost totally covered him as he lay lifeless on the ground among his outlaw friends.
No doubt most of the blood on him had come from men who had died beside him. His own wounds, if any, could not have been fatal.
Lowering the binoculars from her eyes, she looked ahead at High Hawk, who rode in front of her along the narrow path; they had thought it best to ride in single file. She hated having to tell him that not only had she seen soldiers advancing on the mountain, but the cold-blooded murderer of High Hawk’s father had once again cheated death!
“High Hawk,” Joylynn called, drawing his attention quickly to her. He looked over his shoulder. “I hate to tell you this, but . . . but . . . a number of cavalrymen are advancing quickly on the mountain, and not only that, but . . . Mole . . . is with them.”
She saw the incredulous look that flashed in High Hawk’s dark eyes, how his lips parted in a gasp, as the realization of what she had said hit home.
“It cannot be Mole,” he said, carefully turning his horse to face Joylynn’s. “He died. We saw him die. We saw the blood. My warriors checked on him to be sure he was dead.”
“I remember that they only rode up to him and gazed down at him, assuming he was dead because of his stillness, and . . . and . . . all of the blood. They did not actually check him for a pulse beat,” Joylynn said. “I, too, thought we were finally rid of that horrible outlaw. But I know that the person I saw through the binoculars, riding with the soldiers, is none other than the man we all hate.”
Moving Swiftie forward cautiously, Joylynn rode up next to High Hawk. She lifted the binocular strap over her head and handed them to High Hawk.
“Place these before your eyes and look through the lenses,” she said tightly. “You, too, will see the soldiers and the one civilian with them. Mole.”
High Hawk lifted the binoculars to his eyes.
Joylynn saw him stiffen when he, too, saw Mole, as well as the soldiers who were advancing on the mountain.
They were out for blood!
The blood of High Hawk’s Pawnee people!
“It does seem to be he,” High Hawk said tightly, then lowered the binoculars and handed them back to Joylynn. “That means only one thing.”
“What?” Joylynn asked fearfully as she slipped the leather strap about her neck again so that the binoculars now nestled against her breast.
“We must stop him. We must stop them all,” he said harshly. “Now. Today. We cannot allow them, especially that mole-faced man, to get any closer to where we are traveling. My people deserve peace in their lives, and they cannot have it as long as the pony soldiers and that evil man, pursue us. They have but one goal on their minds . . . the death of the Pawnee.”
His eyes softened. “And you,” he said, reaching over and gently touching her face. “They also want you to die along with us.”
“Ho, it does seem so,” Joylynn said softly. “It was not enough for Mole to rape me and try to strangle me; he will not stop until he knows I am dead. He must have seen me with you the day of the attack. He knew then that he would not rest until I was dead.”
She reached for his hand. “But what can you do now?” she asked, her voice drawn. “We are halfway up the mountain. They are far down below us.”
“They are not far enough away to escape me,” High Hawk said stiffly.
“So what are you going to do?” Joylynn asked, truly afraid to hear his answer. She just wished they could go on and forget the men who were down below them. But she knew that was impossible.
Those soldiers, and Mole especially, would never stop until they found the Wolf band of Pawnee and made certain its members, including her, never walked the face of the earth again.
“We must finish what we started,” High Hawk said with determination. “We must make certain they are stopped.”
Joylynn and High Hawk were too involved in what they were saying and what was happening down below to have noticed High Hawk’s mother approaching them to see what was causing the delay.
Blanket Woman was just now stepping up beside High Hawk’s horse, drawing his and Joylynn’s attention to her.
“What is wrong?” Blanket Woman asked, looking slowly from
High Hawk to Joylynn, and then back to High Hawk. “Why have you stopped while the others are going onward? Why did you not send word for everyone to stop?”
High Hawk and Joylynn gave each other questioning glances, and then High Hawk dismounted and placed his hands gently on his mother’s shoulders. “Ina, you are very astute,” he commented. “While others have not noticed that I stopped to talk with Joylynn, you did.”
“Are you saying that you wish I had not noticed?” Blanket Woman said, giving Joylynn an ugly glare, then again looking into her son’s midnight-dark eyes.
“Everyone will soon know why I have done this,” High Hawk said, sighing. “Ina, the soldiers are advancing on the mountain down below. They must be stopped.”
Blanket Woman’s eyes widened and her lips parted in a soft gasp. “How can you do that?” she asked, her voice trembling. “We are so far into our journey to our new home. If you stop and battle with the white-eyed pony soldiers, will that not threaten everything you had planned for your people? My son, why do you not just forget about those soldiers? They will never find us.”
“But there is one man with them who will not rest until he does find us,” High Hawk said, easing his hands from his mother’s shoulders. “That man is the one who killed your husband.”
“But you said he was dead,” Blanket Woman gasped, her old eyes filled with a sudden uneasy fear.
“We thought he was, because he managed to fool us into thinking he was dead,” High Hawk said as Joylynn dismounted and stood at his side.
“Ina, you are to go on with the rest of our people to our new home while I and some warriors will backtrack and do what we must to stop the soldiers,” High Hawk said, searching his mother’s eyes when he heard her gasp again with fear.
“Ina, this is the only way it can be done,” High Hawk continued, still trying to make her understand how it must be. He was chief. His word was final. “As I was telling Joylynn, I will take some warriors with me and backtrack until we come to a place where we can shoot down at the soldiers. You and the rest of our people will move quickly onward toward our new home. It will be a safe haven, where no soldiers will be able to find you.”
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