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“Those who wish to come with us, can, and those who wish to go elsewhere, can also do that,” Wolf Dancer said. He went to her and framed her face between his hands. “Will all of this be acceptable to you?”
“You will not tell me what you plan to do with Hiram,” she said hesitantly.
Her husband had loved the mansion. She hadnever felt the same. To her, it was just a home, a place for her to raise Dorey with much love.
“It is up to Hiram,” Wolf Dancer said. Then he looked toward the closed door as he heard the laughter of the children approaching.
“They are home,” Wolf Dancer said. He again looked into her eyes. “Are you going to be alright with everything?”
“I will be fine,” Lavinia said. She smiled weakly at him. “It is…just so much…to accept so quickly.” “Once we are back home, after doing what must be done you will forget all that happened at the place where you never found true happiness,” he said. He touched her cheek. “You were never happy there, were you?”
“No,” she said, smiling slowly at him.
“Then let us go outside and see what the children have brought home from their venture this morning,” he said, taking her hand.
They walked outside together, hand in hand.
“Mama, see?” Dorey cried excitedly, running up to her. “We have brought home a deerskin full of honey.” She giggled. “And there was only one bee sting.” She nodded over at Twila. “Twila, show them your bee sting.”
Twila held out her hand.
“I removed the stinger myself,” Dorey said, smiling proudly.
“Does it hurt, Twila?” Lavinia asked. She stepped away from Wolf Dancer and took the child’s hand in hers. There was only a small bump.
“Running Bear found medicine in the forest,” Twila said, glancing over at him. “It was some sort of plant. He rubbed the sting with it, and suddenly the hurt was gone.”
“How kind,” Lavinia said, glancing at Running Bear, and then at Dorey, who was standing near him.
Lavinia felt it was good that the children had become friends, and that Dorey had forgiven the young braves so quickly. But she was aware that her daughter and Running Bear seemed to have formed a special bond. She knew that her daughter was infatuated with this young boy.
Lavinia’s eyes met Running Bear’s. She smiled at him gently, hoping that he wouldn’t take advantage of her daughter, then reminded herself that he, too, was only a child.
“Now let us see that honey,” Wolf Dancer said, sensing Lavinia’s uneasiness at her daughter and Running Bear’s interest in one another.
He knew that it was natural for a young boy and girl to have these sorts of infatuations, and knew that it would probably be short-lived, as had his own infatuations with young girls in years past.
He took the deerskin and opened it, gasping at how much honey had been collected.
And then a bee buzzed out from the bag, making a quick escape.
They all laughed, but even though Lavinia was laughing, her mind went back to what she and Wolf Dancer had been discussing.
She was almost afraid for night to fall; with it would come a test of her true feelings for WolfDancer and the life he was offering her. If she could stand by and watch the mansion burn, and accept its destruction without feeling much about it, then she would know that those savage fires had burned away the past, leaving her life clear for a new future.
Chapter Thirty
A great flame follows
A little spark.
—Dante Alighieri
Lavinia felt many things when she arrived at the Price Plantation, mostly sadness over the loss of her husband.
The moon was high above her as she stepped from the canoe, with Wolf Dancer’s help. As she stood beside him on the riverbank, she stared at the huge mansion, while Joshua and the warriors that had accompanied them on their mission stepped from their canoes.
Wearing a heavier buckskin dress than she usually wore, Lavinia trembled, not so much from the cold as from knowing what would soon transpire. The plans were to burn the mansion to the ground, after finding Hiram and removing him from it.
