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And she also wondered why Hawk Woman’s golden hair had not been cut as Candy’s had been.
She paused and looked at the women who labored so hard in the garden, thinking about how she had been ignored every time she had tried to strike up a conversation with any of them.
She again tried to talk to the one kneeling in the next row, smoothing dirt around a tall stalk of corn.
If only she could get even one woman on her side who might give her some answers.
But again she saw that she had no ally in any of the women. The only response she got was an icy stare.
Sighing, Candy gave up trying.
She grimaced when she stood, the chains pulling on her ankles and wrists with each of her movements.
She then went slowly onward until she found more weeds and eased to her knees once again. She proceeded to pluck the plants from the earth.
Candy found herself looking over her shoulder now in the direction of the village. She kept hoping that Two Eagles would take mercy on her and realize that she had had enough hard work for one day. It was more difficult for her to work than for the other women because she had the encumbrance of her chains to deal with.
Oh, surely Two Eagles realized how tiring this was—how painful.
Even now she felt trickles of blood around the bonds at her wrists and ankles, but refused to look at them and complain.
She would prove to these women that she was strong, even perhaps stronger than they.
Surely they could not withstand such pain for as long as she had been forced to endure it today!
Besides the pain, she was also worried about her wolf. When she had awakened this morning, Shadow was gone.
Candy cringed when she recalled the howling of the wolves last night.
She hoped that Shadow did not stay away for long, for her wolf made her feel safe. She was such a comfort to Candy at a time when she had lost everything, even her dignity!
Chapter Thirteen
Two Eagles sat with his uncle, who was finally awake.
Short Robe’s condition was not encouraging. He was finding it hard to breathe, and he had refused food, even the thin gruel that Two Eagles had just tried to spoon-feed him.
Two Eagles feared that his uncle’s time on this earth was now short.
It had been too long since Short Robe had taken nourishment into his body; he was even refusing water.
It was as though he were wishing death on himself, his tired old body having taken all that it could withstand.
Two Eagles set the bowl aside and took one of his uncle’s hands in his.
Short Robe gazed into Two Eagles’s eyes. “I have not long to live, but it is long enough to tell you my feelings about the white woman,” he said softly. “Two Eagles, the white woman that you have taken captive is a woman of pure kindness. While . . . I . . . was captive at the fort, she came and . . . and . . . gave me water . . . and nourishing food. She . . . she even washed my bloody feet.”
Those words struck at Two Eagles’s heart, for had not the woman said that she had done such favors for his uncle? Yet Two Eagles had ignored her, thinking she would say anything to spare herself the torture of having to wear the irons and chains.
One thing did puzzle him, though. Why had his uncle said earlier that he had only been fed weevil-infested food and stringy, rotten meat?
But he was reminded that of late his uncle’s mind came and went, sometimes remembering things distinctly, and sometimes not remembering things at all.
Two Eagles had to believe now, after hearing his uncle’s words, that Candy had tried to help his uncle!
And that she had truly washed his bloody feet was remarkable. A white woman stooping to the ground and actually soiling her hands by washing an old red man’s bloody feet?
The burgeoning feelings he had for Candy grew stronger. He no longer felt guilty for being attracted to a woman of a different people.
