"Do you need to visit and use the outside before I leave?"
She looked away from him and sighed, "I do." But she'd said it without signing the words. He, however, understood what she said anyway.
"Then, let us do this before I leave," he signed and spoke his words in Blackfeet. "But, I have a gift for you. It is one I think you might like very much."
"Really? You have a gift for me?"
"I do," he signed. "Stay where you are," he commanded, as though it had skipped his notice she could not get up and leave. But, he hoped she would like his gift and that it would help her attend to private matters with a little more ease.
Scooting toward the entrance of their shelter, he reached a hand outside and brought in the gift. As he brushed the snow off of it, he realized its purpose would soon alert her to a possibility of more freedom. It was truly a gift from him, for he had whittled this for her the last time he had gone outside.
"Is it a weapon?" she asked with sign. But then, as he watched her glance more carefully at it, he heard her exclaim, "It's a cane! Oh, let me see it and let me try to walk with it!"
Scooting toward her, for the shelter was not tall enough to stand upright, he presented her with the handcrafted object.
"Can I try it?" she asked in sign.
"Áa, please do," he answered.
"I can't stand up, but let me attempt to crawl to the entrance and then see if I can." She tried, but wasn't able to scoot all the way to the shelter's opening, since she was handicapped by an injured leg and a broken arm.
Seeing she had given up, he asked, "Shall I pick you up and bring you outside where you might see if this helps you to walk?"
She nodded.
He scooped her up in his arms then and, ducking through the small entrance, set her on her feet in the snow, allowing her to use the cane to hobble and hop toward the place set aside for the purpose so necessary to every living being.
Snow was falling around them silently as she admonished, "Don't you look!"
She didn't translate her words, but he didn't need the gestures of sign to understand her, and he turned his back to give her a little privacy. Luckily, she was finished quickly.
"I'm done," she said. "Shall I try to walk on my own back to the shelter?"
He turned around and nodded at her, following along behind her. He was happy to see she was, indeed, able to walk, even though her movements were slow and she hobbled on her left foot. But, before she began the ordeal of kneeling down in order to enter the shelter, she turned around and threw herself against him. His arms came around her instinctively. Snow was still falling, the wind whirling the flakes around them, and he closed his eyes, pulling her in closely toward him. And, for a moment, he imagined she was truly his by her own will and that he had the right to hold her.
When she said "Thank you, thank you, Eagle Heart. What am I to do? For I am falling too much in love with you, and I dare not do it," he didn't confess to her how quickly he was learning English and that he was beginning to be able to piece together what she said.
But, when she reached up toward his face and placed a kiss upon his cheek, he couldn't resist turning his head such a small, little distance to turn what was meant as a "thank-you-peck-on-the-cheek" into a kiss, lips to lips.
He was surprised when she kissed him back, placing her good arm around his neck and opening her mouth to his demand. And, he kissed her hungrily, as one lover might do with his sweetheart, as though he had every right to take her gift. However, his body was responding with all the fervor of a man in love. And worse, he could do nothing about it.
Yet, the kiss went on and on until he gathered enough of his wits about him to end the caress. But, he didn't let her go. Instead, he drew her closer into his arms, and, placing his chin on the top of her head, tried in vain to smother the passion he could little control.
At last, with the snow sticking to and wetting her hair, her robe and also his, he said, "Kitsii ká komimmo,I love you," secure in the knowledge that she had not yet mastered his language.
****
THE NIGHT HAD COMEearly this day and he had found that the darkness lent a disturbing edge to the storm, as though he should fear the Cold Maker. But, he was not alarmed by this being and so had continued his work on his last chore—the shelter—until he was satisfied it would hold up for several more days. Their survival depended on it.
Entering the small hut on his hands and knees, he was greeted with darkness, and he crawled toward the center of their abode where the fire was still lit, though it was low. Throwing a few branches on the embers of the fire, it kicked up and lent a soft light to their tiny space.
Glancing toward the woman he was beginning to know asIkamo'si-niistówa-siitámssin—Steals-my-breath—he was comforted to see this beautiful woman sleeping soundly. It was good, for he recognized her resting as being one of recovery, not one fraught with pain.
It was warm in their shelter, for the embers of the fire, along with the deep snow blanketing the many robes thrown over several large pine boughs (which composed the walls of their tiny lodge), kept the heat within. As she slept, he picked up the stick he had whittled into a cane for her, which had earned him a kiss.
At the top of the cane, he had fashioned a handle in the shape of a rose. A rose: it reminded him of her, so beautiful in its innocence.
Taking out his knife, he began to correct his errors in creating the shape of the flower. And, as he worked over it, his thoughts went back to their talk earlier in the day.
