Swift Hawk came up onto his feet and placed his hands on Red Hawk’s shoulders. “You are a good friend. Your counsel is always wise, and I am lucky that you have chosen to help me. With you here, I am not alone.”
Red Fox nodded, he too taking Swift Hawk by the shoulders.
At that moment, the wind rushed into Swift Hawk’s face, reminding him that a storm, one that looked to be deadly, was headed this way. “Perhaps we have lingered here too long. The storm is coming quickly, and you can see the signs as well as I. It is a bad one.”
“Haa’he.” Red Fox whistled for his pony and stuck out his hand to receive it. “Let us separate that we might finish our work as fast as the winds that chase us. I will ride to the north and finish cutting the meat there. If we work swiftly enough, it will be done.”
“Haa’he,” said Swift Hawk. With nothing more to be said atthe moment, Red Fox, with a final nod, set his mount off toward the north.
Swift Hawk worked with all due speed, until at last it was done, and the meat was ready to take to the wagon train. Having loaded the meat onto a pack horse, Swift Hawk stepped sprightly to his pony, and jumping up to his seat, reined the animal in the direction toward Red Fox.
The heavens overhead growled, their voice a challenge.
Swift Hawk responded to that challenge, and clutching spear in hand, he thrust his right arm up to the sky, shouting, “Thunderer, are you a woman, that you fear to meet me man to man? I grow as tired of these petty games as I grow tired of fighting an enemy I cannot see. I would free my people if you will only let me have an enemy that I can feel beneath my lance. Then, Thunderer, we will see who is the better warrior. Then we will see.”
The thunder rolled again, the dark clouds parted, but no answering challenge came.
“Humph!” Swift Hawk swore in frustration. Yet, before he left to find Red Fox, Swift Hawk turned back to face the Thunderer one more time.
It was then that it happened.
There in the clouds came an image, an image of a man, a white man. With black boots, black mustache, black hat, red plaid shirt and buckskin trousers, he looked as though he were as rugged a man as any of the white men connected with the wagon train. However, there was yet another image…another white man, this one shorter, fatter than the other. He was a man, also, with little hair.
And there was more. A vision of his enslaved people, stationed on the open prairie—standing free, smiling. They were crowded around him, happy for him. For he was free, his people were free. Swift Hawk had accomplished his task.
As quickly as it had come, it was gone.
Sitting atop his pony, Swift Hawk stared upward, hopingthat the clouds might part again, might show him more, that he could understand this better. But it was not to be.
What did this mean? Who was this new enemy?
Show kindness to an enemy. Help him.The words from long ago came back, as though to haunt him, causing him to realize that Angelia and her brother were no enemy, had never been so. Further, because of this, they werenotthe key to breaking the spell.
And yet they were a part of it. But what part?
Briefly, the wind rushed in his face, blowing back his hair and stinging his eyes, as if it would grab his attention, as if it had something to say to him. He shut his eyes, and there before him was a memory. A memory of Angelia, of that day beneath the tree—that one morning.
It was a beautiful memory—one he would keep with him always.
That was it. Like a shot of lightning, he realized that it didn’t matter if she was the angel to end his curse or not. She was his own personal destiny.
He would aid her in any way that he could, he would help her brother as well, and he would come back for her when the spell was broken. Perhaps, if he were lucky, he might discover what he needed to do that she might call him by what he really was to her, her husband.
But first, he figured he needed to get himself back into her good graces.
So it was to this end that Swift Hawk whipped his pony in a direction to the north, there to meet Red Fox where they would load and run this meat back to camp.
It meant he would see her again. Soon.
For a moment, the realization stopped him, his breath catching in his throat.Haa’he, he would see her again.
Despite his earlier thoughts on the matter, despite thinking there was no hope for them, his spirits lifted.
Under howling and gusting winds,and an ever-blackening sky, Swift Hawk and Red Fox led their ponies—which were laden with buffalo meat—into camp. Wind whipped at the two men, severely blowing their hair and their clothes. Bits of dust and tufts of grass flew through the air, while an occasional bush broke off from the rest, only to sail through the atmosphere.
From the west, little whirlwinds were kicking up dust as they sprinted across the prairie. Swift Hawk, as well as Red Fox, had tied a strip of leather over the lower part of the face for protection. But there was nothing to shield their eyes from the debris, nor their ears from the noise.
Yet, as the wind whipped around him, Swift Hawk stood stock-still, bewildered. Stunned, Swift Hawk could barely believe his eyes.
