CHAPTER NINE
"How could you, Frederic? How rude of you! And, you, my brother!"
Briella turned away, but was pulled back by Frederic. "Do not make a scene."
"I? I made no scene. You did!"
"You are to stay here with me and dance as though you are enjoying it. Only then may you leave."
Briella made a sound that might have been a laugh, but it wasn't. It sounded more like snort.
Throwing herself backward and out of Frederic's reach, she turned away and fled from the dance floor and out onto the patio as she had seen Red Fox do. But, she didn't see Red Fox. Where was he?
Looking around the plains that lay between her and the buttes, she couldn't espy him anywhere. She stamped her foot, as though the action might make Red Fox appear. But, it was not to be.
Tears formed in her eyes. What a mess she was in. What a mess she was making. She had not known what to do and so had tried to placate Red Fox, but in the end, she feared she had been a part of insulting him…this man she loved so greatly and was even now married to by Pikuni tradition.
It would be terrible, indeed, if all this trouble she was in had been her own doing, but it wasn't. At least not fully. And, now Red Fox was gone.
Or was he gone?
Listening as Red Fox had taught her to do, faintly, very faintly, she could hear the sound of drumming. Where was it coming from?
She closed her eyes and listened. It took a moment, but at last she knew where he was. He had gone into the hills to where he would have left the wolf and his pony.
She would go to him. At this moment, she cared nothing for most of the people who were in the ballroom. The one man whom she loved with all her heart was up there somewhere. She would find him.
Unmindful of the pink silk gown she wore and the high-heeled slippers she had on her feet, she began running across the prairie, certain she knew where he would have gone. As Briella climbed up the slope of the hill, she looked down at the dirt clinging to the bottom of her dress, and, although she gasped—because this was her best gown—she shrugged. Nothing, not even the cost of this beautiful gown, was more important than finding Red Fox.
She followed the sound of the drumming and soon began to hear the song: it was one she recognized. It was a Pikuni love song, one sung often in camp.
She at last climbed up to the ledge where only a few days previously she and Red Fox had shot at Assiniboine warriors. Here, she saw Red Fox sitting down upon a short tuft of grass, his drum and mallet in hand. The love song had a slower beat to it than most of the songs meant for dancing. It had no words, but the ache in the melody communicated, more than words could have, what was in his heart.
Making some slight noise so he would know she was there, she walked up to him and sat down facing him, unmindful of the grass possibly staining her dress. Instead, she brought her dress into a circle around her.
When the song was finished and he, at last, gave her his full attention, she murmured, "Sing another song, and I shall dance for you."
"I will do as you ask. However, my song is not as pretty as the music down there at your father's ranch. However, it comes from my heart."
Briella closed her eyes. "Don't you know, my love? Your song means more to me than all the beautiful waltzes in the world. There is nothing prettier to my heart than your Pikuni love song. Won't you sing it again?"
"If you desire it, I will."
"I wish it very much."
Nodding, he began the song again. It was in a minor key, but his song, although it had no words, touched her heart as no song had ever done. Rising, she began to move to the music and the slow beat of Red Fox's drum, up and down, as she had often seen the Pikuni women do when only the men were dancing. And then, filled with inspiration, she began to twirl around and around, raising her arms into the air as the beat of his drum filled her soul. Twirling and swirling this way and that as she danced around the ledge, she had no thought as to how it might look when a girl in pink silk mimicked the steps she had seen the men of the tribe dance at different celebrations. She bent over at the waist, as she had so often seen them do, and taking her gun out of its holster, she held it up as she had witnessed others—the men—do.
The moon was almost full this night, and as it shone down on the pink silk of her dress, she danced and danced as though she were a warrior true, reenacting how a man might have raided another tribe to obtain several ponies. When at last Red Fox ended the song, she stepped toward him and sat down on the ledge; again she faced him.
She said, "I love you, Red Fox. I will love you all my life and perhaps even beyond."
"As I love you. I have never seen a woman dance like this."
"I meant no disrespect."
"Saa, there was no disrespect. Only beauty. There you were, dancing and wearing the fancy clothing of your culture, yet moving to the beat of my drum in imitation of a Pikuni warrior. If I sing, will you dance for me again?"
"I will," she whispered.
