"Good," returned Strikes Fast. "Go to the fire and keep it alive. At the side of the fire is a bag full of dried meat. Eat it to your fill."
Together they reentered the lodge, and, as Strikes Fast took his place beside his wife, he reached out for her hand, placed it in his own and spoke to her in the English he had learned. He told her of his love for her and of his admiration of her for saving the boy as well as protecting his own life because of her insistence he shield his soul against harm. He alternated this with singing his medicine song, accompanied by the heartbeat rhythm of his drum.
He didn't sleep. He might never sleep again until she at last awakened.
****
Day after day passed, and still his wife hadn't awakened. Worse, she was now hot to the touch…too hot. And, she coughed, a deep cough, one he knew was coming from her lungs. However, even throughout this, she never awakened.
At last, he admitted the obvious to himself. His medicine was not bringing her back from the brink of death. Though he was doing all he knew to awaken her, it wasn't enough; he was failing her.
He remembered back to a time in his youth when he had healed an elder of the tribe by the means of a simple ceremony. Under the care of his mentor, the wise old medicine man, Strikes Fast had gone on to heal others, also. It had been easy for him.
But, this was in his past now. He hadn't even attempted to minister to anyone in all these intervening years. He knew he couldn't because he had abandoned the true medicine path.
Were his wife's words true? Had his doing the will of the dark spirits pushed him to the edge so that he was using his power for evil instead of good? Had he become little more than an evil magician?
No, he hadn't; even in his grief all those years ago, he had never dwelt within the dark side of magic. At least he had this: he hadn't used the power of his medicine to kill. His fights with the enemy had been fairly fought. True, they had been fights to the death, but this was his and his enemy's custom.
Indeed, from the first moment when he had killed a man, he had never looked back at what he had once hoped to attain for his people as a medicine man. But, now he wished he had the power he'd once possessed as a boy.
He glanced at the orphan boy. Outside of the observation that the boy was Lakota, Strikes Fast didn't know why he was here in these mountains alone. But, even now, Strikes Fast knew he dare not use these precious moments to do anything but try to bring his wife back into this world.
He never left her. In truth, he was afraid to. He didn't sleep. Instead, he merely rested, always alert to any change in her breathing. And, he drummed the rhythms and sang his beaver medicine songs. But, so far, it was for naught.
Perhaps it was his failure that caused him to confront, at last, what he must do. After all, he was not the Creator. He was merely the means by which Sun could work to restore others back to health. All his magic, all his medicines and his songs and drums would not bring her back unless the Creator willed it.
It was dark when he, at last, recognized what he had to do. Perhaps he should have known this from the start. But he hadn't.
Crawling toward the boy, Strikes Fast awakened the youngster and, with signs, asked him to watch over his wife. The boy agreed, and quickly Strikes Fast showed him how to cleanse his wife's wounds and to cool the fever in her forehead by means of a cool cloth. He even added, "Hold her hand. Talk to her. Tell her how much she is loved and needed."
The boy nodded and, reaching out, took her hand into his own.
