“I have.”
“Ah, I see.” Another pause, then, “Well, I must say it is a pleasure meeting you, Mister Hawk. A pleasure, indeed.”
He returned her nod, and Angelia spun away from the man. Just as lively as that, she was gone.
Chapter
Five
In this delightful Cantonment (Fort Leavenworth) there are generally stationed six or seven companies of infantry, and ten or fifteen officers; several of whom have their wives and daughters with them, forming a very pleasant little community, who are almost continually together in social enjoyment of the peculiar amusements and pleasures of this wild country. Of these pastimes they have many, such as riding on horseback or in carriages over the beautiful green fields of the prairies, picking strawberries and wild plums—deer chasing—grouse shooting—horse-racing, and other amusements of the garrison, in which they are almost constantly engaged; enjoying life to a very high degree.
—GEORGE CATLIN,LETTERS AND NOTES ON THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Swift Hawk watched the white woman walk away, following her with his eyes until she rounded a corner and was gone. Even then he gazed long and hard at the spot where she had stood just a few moments earlier.
Mixed emotions swept over him.
Delight, gladness, longing—sensations he’d thought were long dead in him—soared to life. For he believed he had found the woman he was seeking, the woman from his vision.
Even as he stood, he was aware his feet could have been raised off the ground, so light did he feel. Moreover, a marked sense of rightness swept over him, a feeling of being in the rightplace at the right time.
Yet, conversely, his mind spun. For, as correct as this felt to him, it was also all wrong.Shewas all wrong.
Could a vision, one who should be an image of perfection, scold her own brother? Could a vision hold no place in her heart for the Indian ideal of correct manners?
Shaking his head, he scowled.
“Na-vesene, my friend, she is the one you seek?”
Swift Hawk glanced over his shoulder, realizing for the first time how caught up he had been in his own troubles, for he had not heard his friend Red Fox come upon him. It was a grave error for a scout.
“I believe she is the one I seek. Although I must admit I have some misgivings about her.” Swift Hawk frowned. “She is not the same as I had envisioned she would be.”
Red Fox nodded and placed his hand firmly over his friend’s shoulder. “Yet she is the image of the one you have described.”
“Haa’he, that she is,” admitted Swift Hawk. “In looks perhaps.”
“Saaaa, in looks alone?Na-vesene, my friend, what are these doubts?”
Swift Hawk shook his head. “Perhaps I should not voice them.”
“Hova’ahane, no, it is better to have them out.”
“Is it?” Pausing, Swift Hawk frowned deeply. “It is my belief that the woman I seek should be perfect in all the ways that matter. The woman is, after all, she from my vision.”
“I understand. But perfect? In all ways that matter?”
“Haa’he, yes. Should not the woman of my vision honor those traits most admired in our own people?”
“In our own people?” It was Red Fox’s turn to pause. “Butna-vesene, she is white.”
“Should that make a difference? Should not the womanfrom my vision be adept in all the skills necessary for Indian life? Should she not be efficient, yet quietly so? Should there not be gentleness in her speech? No scolding, and certainly no words of argument should ever appear upon her lips.”
“Think you so?”
“I do.”
“Yet in all the world,” said Red Fox, “there is no single perfect human being.”
