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“What?” Dorey cried as her wrists were secured by the leather thongs. “You are leaving me here, helpless?”
“You will be alright,” Deer Shadow said. “We will leave the torch lit for you, and you will sleep beneath the netting to keep snakes and mosquitoes from getting to you. There is food that we are certain you will enjoy. Though your hands are tied, they are tied in front of you so that you can eat the food.”
“You are insane,” Dorey cried, trying hard to loosen the thongs at her wrists; those at her ankles were too tight for her to move at all. “Oh, surely I will die before you can get back here tomorrow. Nothing can protect me from the night creatures of the Everglades. Surely you know that.”
They ignored her.
“If I do manage to stay alive, I will kill both of you at my first opportunity,” Dorey screamed at them.
“You speak bravely, but we know girls cannot kill,” Running Bear said, smiling. “Girls were not born to kill.”
“We will return early tomorrow,” Deer Shadow said, already making his way down the ladder that had been built for access to the tree house. “Come, brother. Mother will be worrying about us. So will our chief.”
Dorey was suddenly alone.
As the sun began setting slowly on the horizon, everything was eerily quiet except for a strange bird call.
And then the more frightening screech of a panther filled the night air with its threat.
Dorey had heard about the white panther that roamed the Everglades.
Oh, what if it found her in the tree house?
Or what if snakes came into the house? The shield of netting would be useless to truly protect her!
She tried desperately to get her wrists free, knowing that her life surely depended on it!
Chapter Ten
That is happiness; to be
Dissolved into something
Complete and great.
—Willa Cather
Dusk was falling upon Mystic Island, painting orange across the treetops as the sunset glowed along the western horizon.
The usual huge outdoor fire that was lit each evening in the Wind Clan’s village burned brightly into the heavens. It had been built to keep night creatures from stalking the sleeping Seminole.
Wolf Dancer had stepped from his home just in time to see Running Bear and Deer Shadow return from their outing.
He knew their mother had become alarmed that they had not yet returned home, and Wolf Dancer was also concerned for them. He had seen their mother, Moon Beam, step from her hut more than once to look toward the spot where the Wind Clan’s pirogues were always beached.
For most of the day, Moon Beam had been busy in the communal garden and had not seemed to notice her children’s lengthy absence.
But when she had returned home and they stillwere not there, Wolf Dancer knew she was concerned, as was he. The swamp held much danger in its midst. Two young braves could disappear within it and never be found.
Moon Beam rushed outside and embraced both of her sons at the same time, clutching them near to her heart.
Wolf Dancer went to them just as the young braves’ mother asked her sons where they had been for so long. They had done this more than once of late, she scolded.
When neither boy seemed ready to explain their strange behavior, Wolf Dancer placed a hand on each child’s shoulder.
“Give your mother an answer,” Wolf Dancer said, frowning from one brave to the other as the moon slid slowly up into the sky. At this moment he was taking on the duty of their father, who was no longer with them due to a lethal snakebite one moon ago.
The huge outdoor fire now cast a soft glow over the village. The smell of the food that had been cooked over the lodge fires was fading. The evening meal had long since passed, without the two young braves to participate in it. That alone had been cause for alarm, for they always were home for the evening meal.
