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She had become a woman with the heart of an Indian the moment she had chosen to be so kind to an ailing elder of the Wichita tribe!
“Two Eagles, do you hear me?” Short Robe asked, squeezing his nephew’s hand to draw his attention back to him.
Two Eagles looked quickly into his uncle’s watchful eyes and realized that his own thoughts had strayed too far from him.
“Ho, I heard you,” Two Eagles said thickly. “You said favorable things about my captive. You told me of kindness that one would not expect from a white person.”
“What . . . I . . . said is true,” Short Robe gasped, his voice weaker now. He blinked his eyes nervously as Two Eagles seemed to be fading away.
Short Robe pulled his shaky hand from Two Eagles and patted his nephew on the arm. “Nephew, the woman . . . deserves . . . to be treasured as one treasures a newly carved bow,” he said. “Go now. Do not delay any longer about making things right for her. Before you perform duties for anyone else today, first tend to your duties toward a woman you have sorely wronged.”
His uncle was using what might be his last breaths of life to defend Candy. Two Eagles realized that she was like no woman he had ever known before.
Ho, Two Eagles was touched deeply by what had just transpired between himself and his dying uncle. Because he knew the goodness of his uncle’s heart, he was convinced of Candy’s goodness, too.
“I will go for her now,” Two Eagles said.
He leaned low over Short Robe and embraced him, then stiffened when he heard his uncle take one last gulp of air. Short Robe then lay perfectly still, his old eyes staring into space, lifeless.
His uncle had practically died with Candy’s name on his lips. Two Eagles would never forget that.
Tears filled Two Eagles’s eyes as he again embraced his uncle, knowing that his life would be terribly empty without him. His uncle had filled many voids in Two Eagles’s life. Short Robe had taught him to take his first step, showed him how to make his first bow.
Two Eagles’s chieftain father had been too occupied by his duties to his people to do these things. His mother had been too immersed in her obligations as a proud chief’s wife to take the time for her son.
Ho, Two Eagles’s uncle had become his second father, especially since Short Robe never married or had a family of his own. To Short Robe, Two Eagles was his family.
“I will miss you so,” Two Eagles whispered against his uncle’s ashen cheek. “And I will listen to your last words and obey them.”
He gently closed Short Robe’s eyes, then fought the urge to cry as he stood over him and gazed lovingly down, knowing that soon he would be preparing him for burial. His uncle had told him oh, so long ago that brave little boys did not cry when they were hurt. When he had become a strong warrior, his uncle had said warriors did not cry.
It was hard not to now, when his heart hurt so much at the loss of his beloved uncle. But as he had listened to everything else his uncle had taught him, this, too, he obeyed.
There would be no tears, only a lingering love inside his heart for this old man who was everything to his nephew.
Two Eagles glanced over his shoulder at the closed entrance flap.
He knew that he had something else to do before readying his uncle for his long journey to the hereafter.
It was his uncle’s last wish, so it would be done, and immediately!
He went outside and looked all around him. In a matter of moments he must tell his people the sad news of his uncle’s passing. He would tell them that it had been a peaceful transition from life to death for Short Robe.
But now, before he got further immersed in his duties as nephew, he must take care of one important matter that his uncle had requested of him.
He turned and gazed at the communal garden and at the many women working there.
With his eyes, he found Candy and saw how she dutifully worked with the other women.
She was on her knees, pulling weeds, even though he knew what a struggle it had to be with the irons at her wrists, the chains pulling at them.
He would put a stop to that.
Now!
With determination in his steps and a tight jaw, he went into the garden and directly to Candy.
As the women stopped to stare in disbelief, Two Eagles removed the shackles from Candy’s wrists and ankles, then stood before the freed woman as she pushed herself up from the ground. Their eyes met.
