by Lenore Wolfe
That night he never let her go.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Mandy woke, Hawk was gone, and Two Stars was setting breakfast in front of the fire.
“Hihani washday—good morning. Your man went hunting with the others.”
Mandy nodded and thanked her, then went out and bathed in the creek. When she returned, she ate with Two Stars.
“We will gather berries today,” the young woman told her.
Mandy nodded absentmindedly. She could sometimes hear the Grandmothers here. The Grandmothers had not been happy that she had come here, and neither had her teachers. They had not been happy she had tried to spurn Hawk. They had warned her that she must return in all possible haste. But first, they said she must marry in the true circle.
But Mandy couldn’t imagine that they still thought her future, her path, lay with him.
They gathered berries in the morning and sat beading all afternoon. It felt good to sit with her friends again. “I have missed you, my friend.”
“You will visit more often?”
Laughing, Mandy nodded. “I will visit more often.”
Late that afternoon, Hawk sat behind the tent and played a flute. Her Lakota friend giggled shyly. But the tempo sent Mandy’s heart thundering out of control. It was sweet and lulled her. She repeatedly had to tell her heart it was over, finished, he’d lied to her.
Two Stars laughed. “Your man weaves a love spell around you.”
Mandy made a face at her. “It doesn’t move my heart at all,” she denied.
The young woman leaned forward to put more buffalo chips on the fire. “I think you lie to yourself.”
Mandy scowled. Seeing it, Two Stars giggled.
A young Indian brave also played a love song. He told Hawk that she had thrown his belongings out of the tent. That she was free to marry someone else. Embarrassed, Mandy looked at Hawk for help, chewing on her lip.
“She was angry,” Hawk growled. “It comes from the whites to let emotions rule your head. She has not divorced me.” He looked at Mandy. “Have you?”
Mandy’s eyes flashed with anger. She was stuck. He knew it—and she knew it. If she didn’t go along with him, she would have this other brave laying claim to her.
Only Hawk’s reputation with the people saved her now. He was highly respected. If she caused any more waves, she would pay the price. Reluctantly, she relented. “It is as he has said; I lost my temper last night. It is why the people call me Eyes that Flash with Fire.” She saw Hawk grin at this piece of news and made a face at him. “But I am deeply honored you would look at me favorably,” she told the brave.
Hawk scowled, and that made Mandy want to grin.
Mandy could see the young brave was disappointed. She lowered her eyes with the guilt she felt over starting this. She should have known it would lead to this. If she had been a captive, the first warrior who claimed her would have owned her, and Hawk would have had to fight to the death to have her. With her Lakota family, who were there to protect her, Mandy was free to choose her husband. As far as they were concerned, she had chosen Hawk. Still, she would have every brave who chose to court her coming over here if she disclaimed Hawk.
She didn’t want that.
She should do it, just to irritate him, but it would cause her much grief with the young braves. She couldn’t toy with them in such a manner. After all, she still was Hawk’s wife, no matter how she sliced the pie. In the white man’s eyes, she couldn’t just throw out his possessions and say be gone.
She looked up now to find Hawk’s green eyes burning into hers. Involuntarily, she flinched. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the one who lied.”
“Didn’t you?” His eyes bore into hers a moment more, and then he was gone.
“Did I?” She muttered. She thought of the many times she had lied. The many times she made promises to him and broken them.
That didn’t give him the right to trick her.
She thought about what he’d said in the very beginning, not to ask what his part in this fight was, or he’d be gone. Technically, he had never lied.
“Don’t go feeling sorry for him,” she muttered. He’d left out the fact that he was McCandle’s son. She realized what he’d meant, just now, when he’d asked her if she had lied. She had married him, for better or for worse. The worse being that he was her most hated enemy’s son. She knew better than to think he loved his father—or his brother.
His brother.
She just couldn’t get over the simple fact Ashley was Hawk’s brother—even if it was only half-brother. How could two brothers be so different?
She stood, suddenly, in surprise. “Star Flower!” She raced through the village until she spotted Hawk, and then, as calmly as she could, she stood quietly and waited for him to notice her.
He came to her within seconds, which pleased her immensely.
“Star Flower?” She questioned, “Is she...?”
Hawk closed his eyes and nodded.
“Oh my—that’s why she followed you out of the room.”
He waited.
“She’s in extreme danger, Hawk. Don’t you know that?”
“I know.” His jaw flexed. “But she wouldn’t listen—anymore than you will.”
That stung. Mandy turned and went back to her beading.
She fixed his dinner that evening, and they sat silently eating. They didn’t observe the Lakota tradition with the meal—of her serving and him eating. She had started to, but he indicated for her to sit, so she sat and ate.
Mandy lay down on the buffalo furs, toward the sides of the tipi. Her stomach was tied up in knots.
Would he make love to her again tonight? How long could she hold out in her anger? It wasn’t even anger anymore. And it wasn’t hurt. She was simply disillusioned. Her heart was reaching for him, and her reasons for holding out were fast crumbling.
He stood and held his hand out to her.
Trembling she placed her smaller hand in his, and he gently pulled her to her feet. He placed his palm on her face. “I’m going to give you time to think.”
She nearly shook her head no.
“I won’t let you go,” he growled. “But I want you to be happy. You need time to think everything through.”
She looked up into his green eyes and swallowed. Watching him leave, she almost cried out in pain. She lay down and curled up in a ball.
Hawk entered the sweat lodge the next morning; he felt he needed this. He had to figure out what to do about Mandy, and he had to have a clear mind to do it. The sweat lodge was just the place to do that.
The sweat lodge cleansed both the body and mind. He breathed in deeply, knowing every detail of the sweat lodge reflected something. The dome stood for the universe. It was usually made of bent willow, which stood for birth and renewal—and it was covered with buffalo hides. A hole was dug into the center, where they placed hot stones. Dirt was strewn across as a sacred path, leading to the fire, symbolizing the sun where stones were heated.
Within the dark interior, the sweat lodge stood for the womb from which all were born.
Hawk sat naked upon pads of sweet-smelling sage with the other warriors. The hot stones were brought in, and they offered prayers and chanted. Water was sprinkled on the hot stones, filling the lodge with steam. A pipe was lit, and passed. Someone cried out mitak oays’ in—all my relations—a kinship to all creatures. And they did it all again—and again.
Early the next morning, the Crow raced down the hill. Their faces, bodies and horses were painted for war. They screamed their vengeance, and Mandy realized this was an aspect of the life of the Lakota she had never missed.
The Lakota warriors were caught unawares, many still sleeping. Shaking the sleep from their eyes, they grabbed their weapons and went out to meet their hated enemies. Women and children raced in every direction, screaming—wailing when they saw their loved ones struck down. Mandy picked up a rifle and shot first one Crow warrior, then another.
She didn’t back down and didn’t flinch, until a bullet spun her around.
Hawk saw it, raced to pick her up and hauled her into the trees to where some of the women and children were hiding.
He had to get back out there. They were holding their own, but he had to help make sure it remained that way. He asked the women to take care of her and went back to fight, knowing he would die if anything happened to her.
When it was over, they stared at the destruction left behind by their enemy. The women wailed their grief for their lost loved ones. Once more, an enemy had wrought destruction upon their lives, and with the ever-present danger of the encroaching white man, they were finding little peace. They would mourn their dead, then leave this place.
They sent scouts out to find the buffalo. It was again time for a great hunt.
Hawk had other plans at the moment. He walked over and drew back his fist. The Crow they’d captured took the brunt of his temper in a brutal punch. Hawk felt the man’s nose break and only received a little relief for the terror he’d felt. He realized then that he’d let his emotions rule him—one of the few times in his life—and drew back sharply. He swore viciously and swung around, heading for Mandy.
When he located her, he was relieved to learn the bullet had only grazed her arm. The women had her bandaged up, and they were all working diligently to pull up camp.
They pulled down the tipis and loaded the horses. They would look for the buffalo.
Once there were thousands of them, roaming as far as the eye could see. But now, the buffalo hunters dropped hundreds of them at a time, and their numbers were dwindling. The people were going hungry.
Hawk rode out with some of the other warriors and scouted for signs of the buffalo. What they found turned his stomach. He was sickened by the sight of buffalo, dropped dead in a wide swath by buffalo hunters—sickened by the sight of the buffalo calves left behind. The buffalo hunters had killed the buffalo only for their hides and their tongues; the rest was left to rot. Enough meat was left to rot that it would have fed several tribes through the entire winter. There was anger and hatred in the warrior’s eyes, and Hawk knew they looked forward to a bloody war. One they could not win.
It made him sick.
There were tears in the eyes of the women, and Mandy was no exception. The beasts were beautiful, huge animals. How could anyone abide by such waste?
They rode along silently for several days, and when the buffalo were spotted they set up the tipis and the celebration began. The drumbeats filled the air, the tempo of Mandy’s heart matching the rhythm. The bodies of the men glistened in the firelight. Their chanting and singing joined the throb of the drums.
They painted a silhouette of a speared buffalo on the grass and danced around it—because of its importance and strength, its spirit was praised before every hunt.
The warriors readied for the hunt, taking special care of their horses. The horse he chose for this hunt was treated with high regard. Even a mortally wounded bull could run a good distance before dropping.
Hawk wore only his breech-cloth and moccasins with only a knife in his belt. He also carried a short bow and quiver of arrows. His horse had a leather thong around his neck in case Hawk fell from his horse and needed it to remount.
Once the deadly ride started, Hawk moved in behind a huge bull, using his knees to guide his horse. The sheer size of the animal was an impressive sight. A bull could weigh up to two thousand pounds. And he wasn’t to be messed with when angry. The bull thundered along with the others. Hawk aimed for a spot behind the bull’s last ribs, hoping to puncture the diaphragm and collapse the lungs.
His second aim was true, and the huge bull dropped.
Hawk moved off toward another.
Thirty minutes later, the hunt was over. They finished off the wounded buffalo and claimed their unbroken arrows.
The women moved in with their cutting tools. Each woman claimed the meat she wanted, and the hides from the animals brought down by her man. But then, they shared the rest of the meat with the poor—especially the women with no men to hunt for them.
There would be a great celebration for the success of the hunt.
They were relaxed and well-fed. Mandy could have stayed this way forever. But the wonderful feeling, the full bellies, the laughter and the celebrations—could never last.
“I am going with some of the warriors for a few days,” Hawk told her, almost as though he knew her thoughts.
Mandy looked up sharply. “You’re going after the Crow.” It wasn’t a question, and panic thrummed through her. They’d just had a successful hunt, and she knew the proud Lakota would not let their hated enemy get away with what they had done.
“Jake was right. You’re very quick. Yes, we go after the Crow.”
She hugged him to her, afraid to let go. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“A week-maybe more, maybe less. I know we should return, Mandy, but I have to do this.” His gold-green eyes pleaded with her for understanding. “Jake will run our ranch like his own. I know he’d understand.”
“I know, Hawk.” She hugged him. “Hurry back.”
There were tears in her eyes when he left her early the next morning. When he was gone, she went back into the tipi and lying down, she cried herself back to sleep.
Mandy and Two Stars sat and sliced the buffalo meat thin, and then set it on racks to dry. When it was done, they made Wasna, pemmican, which would keep forever. A wintering band could survive weeks on Wasna and dried buffalo meat or jerky. But it wasn’t as good as fresh meat, and hunters often went looking for fresh meat.
They laughed and told stories as they worked, teasing one another whenever a young brave came by to smile or court one of the girls.
The next few days were spent on the buffalo hides. Mandy and her friends were about to spend as much as ten days preparing a hide. The hides were scraped clean. They immersed them into a solution made from ashes and water to loosen the hair so it could easily be pulled.
Two Stars prepared a tanning mixture of buffalo brains and other things. She wanted one of the hides to be white, so the bones were pulverized and the oil extracted and added, which they worked into the skin for hours.
They folded the hides and left them overnight so the mixture would penetrate. The next morning they stretched them back out and worked them over with elk horn, then smoked them to make them pliant.
Mandy set aside hair to stuff for a pillow for each of them. One of the things Mandy liked about the people was they didn’t take anything for granted.
They made use of all they could and didn’t waste things, like the white eyes.
The horns were carved into cups, or boiled and shaped into spoons or ladles or used for glue. It took a dozen or so hides to make a tipi, but once done it belonged to the woman. If she divorced, she took her tipi with her. White women always lost everything to their husbands, and never stood a chance of keeping their homes.
Mandy walked through the village. A bed of grass carpeted the ground, the scent of pine and cooking fires filled the air. Warm sunshine, and the laughter of children, surrounded her. She sighed peacefully. She could stay here forever.
Here, away from the ever-present danger of Ashley McCandle.
But peace was only an illusion among the people. The long-knives, or as they also called them, White eyes, made peace impossible. From what she had heard, broken treaties were like broken glass—impossible to mend, and razor sharp. Her sigh was tinged with sharp regret now. It would be a sad day, indeed, to watch these proud people forced to knuckle under to the white man’s laws.
And for what?
Why did they have to live the white eyes’ way? Why did the treaties have to be broken? These people would have lived in peace if promises had been kept.
She had reached the edge of the camp and reached to pluck a wild flower. Twirling it between her thumb and forefinger, she held it under her nose to smell.
Hawk came up behind her
and pulled her into his embrace. She knew it was him, instantly, with her awareness—a powerful woman’s intuition. She fought not to lean into him, and lost. He was home, and he was unharmed. It was just too easy to feel safe in his arms. They were a safe haven from all that was wrong in the world.
“Are you okay?” His voice was husky.
She nodded and, for some unexplainable reason, broke into tears.
Hawk held her close. “Ceye Sni yo—don’t cry.”
When she had sobbed her heart out, he dug out a bandanna and dried her tears. She tried for a lighthearted joke. “A hundred uses for a bandanna.”
“Do you carry my son?”
She went still as death. All the color left her skin.
“I see the possibility hadn’t occurred to you.”
She shook her head, too shocked to speak.
“When was the last time you bled?” he persisted.
She swallowed hard, trying to think. But it was nearly impossible to think through the haze that had dropped over her head.
“Two weeks before we married,” she finally got out
That makes you about two weeks late.” He looked down at her, an unnamed emotion shining in his eyes. “We have to return home. This Indian summer won’t last, then it will be impossible to return through the deep snows.”
She nodded mutely.
He rested his forehead against hers, relieved as hell she wasn’t fighting him. She was letting him take her home. That was a great start in his book. He could deal with anything as long as he knew he stood a chance of righting things. He’d spend the rest of his life making it up to her, as long as she gave him the chance. He rained kisses all over her face and down her neck.
Later, when Hawk was called away to play some games with the warriors, Mandy sat and watched the children play, remembering when she and her friends had played these same games when she was young.