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She saw how her trust in him brought a smile to his face. Surely she was the first person to be kind to him since the day of his scalping.
He nodded toward his left. “Come, and I will show you my home,” he said. “You will be the first to sit with me by my fire.”
She smiled at him, then walked beside him for a short distance to a tepee in the shelter of some trees.
She stepped inside with him where a fire burned within a circle of rocks. Meat was browning on a spit over the flames.
They both sat down, and soon Candy was eating with him; she had not realized just how ravenous she had been until now.
“It is good to have someone with me who does not see me as a Living Dead,” Spotted Bear said, his voice breaking. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for your kindness toward me,” Candy said. The food was soon eaten and her stomach was comfortably full, but she grew a little anxious inside when he handed her a blanket. Had she been wrong to trust this man, especially since he had obviously been without a woman since his banishment?
Had his kindness toward her been only to make her relax so he could rape her?
“I will sleep outside beneath the stars so you can have privacy,” he said, lifting another blanket into his arms and quickly dispelling any doubts about him that she had.
“Again, thank you,” she murmured and watched him leave.
Candy stretched out beside the fire, and, worn out by her long day’s travel on foot, she was soon fast asleep.
She was not aware of a hand shoving the entrance flap quietly aside, or eyes that watched her as she slept so soundly . . . so trustingly. . . .
Chapter Sixteen
Awed by a thousand tender fears,
I would approach, but dare not move;
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
—George Lytleton
His heart aching, his sadness deeply felt, Two Eagles stood over his uncle, who was now wrapped in what had been his favorite robe.
Two Eagles had sat vigil at his dead uncle’s side for some time after preparing him for burial. He had chanted and prayed the entire day, the only one there for these final hours before Short Robe’s burial tomorrow.
Needing to return home, not only to rest but to see how Candy had managed all by herself for the whole, long day, Two Eagles stepped outside into the darkness of evening. He found Hawk Woman standing there, a strange look on her face.
“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice a little harsh. “Everyone else has returned to their homes to prepare themselves for the burial tomorrow.”
“Candy is gone,” Hawk Woman said, trying to keep from smiling.
She was hoping that Candy had taken this opportunity to escape and return to the white world. If she had, it would prove that she had toyed with Two Eagles’s affection in order to gain his trust and the opportunity to escape.
“She . . . is . . . gone?” Two Eagles asked, looking quickly at his lodge. His insides tightened when he saw in the moon’s light no smoke spiraling from his smoke hole. No one was there.
He looked quickly into Hawk Woman’s eyes and placed his hands on her shoulders. “How long has she been gone, and why did you not alert me to her disappearance before now?” he demanded, trying to control his anger with the woman.
“I have no idea how long she has been gone, and I did not disturb you because you were spending many hours with your uncle,” Hawk Woman said, stunned that Two Eagles would be so upset over Candy’s disappearance.
Panic filled Two Eagles as he ran to his tepee, where he had last seen Candy. When he did not find her there, he went to the tepee where she had been confined upon first arriving in the village.
She was not there either!
He hurried outside to his corral and checked his horses to see if any were missing.
None were.
