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Two Eagles stepped back inside the lodge and watched the reunion of the wolf and the woman, stunned at the sight.
He went and knelt beside them.
“This is my wolf,” Candy murmured as she gently inspected Shadow’s singed fur and sore paws. “Oh, Two Eagles, she escaped both the arrows and the fire! She is alive!”
“You call the wolf by the name Shadow?” Two Eagles said softly, touched by the love between the woman and the animal.
He saw that the animal was of the red wolf family. They were generally brown and buff-colored, whereas most wolves in this area, except for the lone white wolf he occasionally saw, were gray.
“Yes, Shadow,” Candy said, feeling happy that one part of her former life had survived the terrible massacre. “A few years ago my father found a pup abandoned and afraid. He brought her home to me.”
She paused, then said, “I thought she was so beautiful with the reddish tint of her fur behind the ears, on her muzzle, and on the back of her legs. She was like no wolf I had ever seen.”
She gave Shadow a hug, then continued, “I nursed the sweet thing to health, fed her, and named her. I called her Shadow because the wolf became my shadow, following me everywhere I went. Only recently have we been separated when she occasionally started heeding the call of the wild, going to join her own kind for several days at a time. But she always came back to me.”
Candy wiped tears from her eyes. “Just . . . as . . . she found me today,” she murmured.
Suddenly she recalled what Two Eagles had been doing just prior to Shadow’s arrival. She looked at the knife, and then glanced into the young chief’s midnight-black eyes.
Chapter Nine
Which masters Time indeed, and is
Eternal, separate from fears.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Witnessing Candy’s love for the wolf, and the wolf’s love for her, Two Eagles was almost convinced of her goodness. He had always seen wolves as mystical, wise animals.
Yet he could not allow anything to get in the way of the vengeance he could achieve by holding her captive.
For now, however, he would not interrupt the reunion of animal and woman.
He slid his nezik, his knife, back inside its sheath and knelt down beside Candy.
Candy clung to Shadow, then looked up at Two Eagles. She glanced at the knife he had sheathed.
“My wolf’s paws need medicine,” she said softly. “Can . . . will . . . you do something for her?”
She hoped that Two Eagles could be distracted from what he had been about to do. She hoped that the longer she lived, the more he would doubt his decision to take her life in such a terrible way.
Never wanting to see an animal in pain, Two Eagles nodded, then left the lodge.
“I think he’s going to help you,” Candy murmured, gently hugging Shadow. “I’m so sorry, Shadow, for what happened to you. But . . . but . . . there was nothing I could do for you. I wasn’t even sure where you were.”
Shadow placed a paw on Candy’s arm as though she knew what Candy had said, whined softly, then turned her head and let out a low growl when an elderly Indian man came into the tepee with a large buckskin bag at his side. Two Eagles was right behind him.
“I have brought my people’s shaman,” Two Eagles said. “His name is Crying Wolf. He will treat your wolf’s paws.”
Hearing the shaman’s name, Candy wondered if he had some sort of affinity for wolves. If so, Candy hoped that this old man with the long, flowing, gray hair would treat her wolf gently and give her the best care he could.
“Thank you,” Candy murmured to Two Eagles. She didn’t take her eyes off the shaman as he took a vial from his bag.
She quietly watched Crying Wolf as he placed a creamy substance on Shadow’s paws, then wrapped soft doeskin around them.
Crying Wolf gazed into Candy’s eyes. “Your wolf will be well soon,” he said in the same perfect English that the other Wichita people had used.
Shadow crawled onto Candy’s lap, snuggled against her, and was soon fast asleep.
