Gray Falcon answered by a quick nod.
Eagle Heart watched as Curly Mustache, the coward and weakling who was the man Steals-my-breath was to marry, dismounted and stepped toward Steals-my-breath and her father. As Eagle Heart looked on, he felt sick to his stomach, seeing the yellow-bellied man give this fine, beautiful woman a hug and a kiss.
It was at this moment the desire to leave this place blossomed big within his heart. But, he would not back down; he would stand his ground until the white men left.
Steals-my-breath's father separated himself out from the others and trod toward Eagle Heart, the sound of his boots loud over the solid ground. Briefly, he stopped directly in front of him. His eyes, as he squinted, were a green color, much like his daughter's. But, there the resemblance ended. The man's hair was brown, without Steals-my-breath's characteristic golden color; it was also long and slightly unkempt. He gazed slightly upward, for Eagle Heart was the taller of the two.
His voice was hard and angry as he spit out, "If I find you have done harm to her, I will hunt you down and kill you. You know what I mean by harm, Injun?"
Eagle Heart did. Yet, he said nothing and did nothing but meet McIntosh's angry stare with as little emotion as possible. He didn't nod to McIntosh. He didn't acknowledge the man in any way. Nor did he back away from him. Confronting the man and his threat face-to-face and eye-to-eye was enough.
"Damned Injun ya are, I say." And, being the first to look away, McIntosh spit over the ground. Bending over, he stomped on the place where he had spit and said, "This is what I'll do to you if you have harmed her."
Eagle Heart didn't speak nor did he withdraw his stare at the man. He met the threat issued to him with a man-to-man glare, doing nothing, saying nothing. At last, Steals-my-breath's father turned on one foot and stomped back to the others.
The entire party left then. Eagle Heart watched Steals-my-breath go. Once, before they had all moved too far away, she looked over her shoulder and glanced back at him. It was easy for him to recognize the conflicting emotions reflected in her eyes: happiness to be amongst her own people, yes. But, also, there within her gaze was a great sadness which he well understood. They might never see each other again.
And, yet, they loved one another. Indeed, he could see now their separate futures might be filled with loss and grief, unless some happening caused them to reach out for one another again.
His eyes teared, yet he didn't look away; he would face his grief as a man. He was still young, he had a future ahead of him, but he also knew the time yet to come would never be as bright as it might have been were he to have been able to call Steals-my-breath “nit-o-ké-man,my woman."
But, he was not without understanding her or why she had made this choice. In many ways, it had to be.
CHAPTER TEN
––––––––
"WHY DOEShenever come to the trading room anymore?"
Laylah's sister, Amelia, gave her a look of great sympathy as Amelia said, "I have seen the tortured looks you give the door of this room, Laylah, whenever Mr. Eagle Heart's friend, Gray Falcon, comes here to trade. So, I asked Gray Falcon about Mr. Eagle Heart and why he never appears here to visit with you. He told me his friend, Mr. Eagle Heart, is not currently in residence at the fort. He left this part of the country on the same day when you returned here. He has gone away to try to locate his brother and rescue him, if needed. This appears to be the only reason Mr. Eagle Heart came to our post originally: to find his brother and escort him home.
"Gray Falcon has also told me," Amelia continued, "that both he and Mr. Eagle Heart will work together to find Chief Chases-the-enemy. As soon as Gray Falcon concludes his business with Fort Union, he says he will leave here to meet up with Mr. Eagle Heart, for his friend will be blazing a trail Gray Falcon can follow."
"Mr. Gray Falcon said all that?"
"Yes, he did."
"Well, I am glad to see you have become a friend of Mr. Gray Falcon, for I believe he is a good and honorable man. But, what does it mean to blaze a trail?"
"I am sure I don't know."
"I suppose it might be a way of finding a trail in the wilderness."
Amelia shrugged. "You miss him, don't you?"
Laylah shut her eyes against the tears that too quickly sprang into her eyes. It had been a week since she and Eagle Heart had parted. And, in all this time, she had missed him. In truth, so greatly did she miss him, she was beginning to wonder if she had made a terrible mistake.
Was her life to be one of heartache without Eagle Heart? Surely not, and yet, she couldn't stop thinking of him and wishing she could be with him again, talk to him again.
She squared back her shoulders, realizing she had best ignore this brief glimpse into what the future might hold if she had, indeed, made an error in judgment. Surely, she had done the right thing. Hadn't she?
After all, she was acting as she was expected to do and as she was honor-bound to do. Truly, how could she have done anything else but leave Eagle Heart?
She couldn't have and still kept hold of her principles.
Yet, she had found herself once again making excuses as to why she couldn't marry Thomas right away. And, every day her father reminded her of her duty to the family to marry him, as though she had forgotten it.
What her father didn't know was this: if she hadn't realized her duty to him, to her family and to Thomas, and, if she hadn't observed Eagle Heart's good example by keeping his word, she might not have returned at all. She had been that close to running away.
