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“Stay here,” he said as he gently placed his hands on her shoulders. “Let none of the white people see you. You know the dangers.”
“Yes, I know,” Candy said, yet she felt strange hiding from her own people.
“I must go and see what brings the white eyes among my Wichita people,” Two Eagles said, placing a hand on Candy’s cheek. “I will send them away quickly,” he said, only pausing long enough to brush a comforting kiss across her lips before he left.
Candy knew she must not be seen, but she longed to hear what had brought the strangers into the village. She stepped to the closed flap and leaned an ear close to it.
Two Eagles stood just outside the entrance flap, his arms folded across his bare chest, as the wagon drew closer and closer.
He stiffened when he saw a white man at the reins, and several children, boys and girls of various ages, in the back of the wagon. He quickly counted nine children and noted that they were poorly dressed. Their cheeks were gaunt and pale, their eyes anxious as the wagon came close enough for Two Eagles to look into them.
What confused him was that there were so many children, but no woman with them.
Did they have no mother?
His eyes narrowed as the wagon stopped a few feet from him and the white man gave Two Eagles a look that he recognized too well. It was a look of superiority, as though this man saw himself as better than someone whose skin was of a different color.
The children aroused pity in Two Eagles’s heart. But he felt deep hatred for this white man whose eyes spoke of his unfriendliness.
“What do you want of me and my people?” Two Eagles asked, his arms folded defiantly across his muscled chest.
“Food,” the man said icily. “I have seen your corn crops. I know that this was a good year for you. I had a good crop, too, but it was not harvested before the grasshoppers came and ate it. My children are hungry. I have come to demand that you give me some of your corn, and other vegetables that you have harvested. I know you have enough to spare.”
Two Eagles frowned. This man had no right to demand anything of a proud Wichita chief or his people.
Two Eagles glared at the man. Then his eyes went to the children again, and he knew that he could not deny them food just because their father was crude and unthinking.
Two Eagles started to respond, to tell the white man that he would give them some of his stored food, but before he had the chance to say it, the impatient white man drew his gun and aimed it at Two Eagles.
When Candy heard a pistol being cocked, she went cold inside. In a matter of moments she could lose the man she loved, for she knew it had to be the white man who had cocked the gun; Two Eagles was standing outside weaponless.
She looked over her shoulder at the cache of weapons in the teepee.
Her heart pounding, she rushed to it and grabbed up a rifle, saw that it was ready for firing, then went back to the entrance flap.
She had just started to step outside when she heard Two Eagles talking. He was still trying to handle this situation peacefully, and she felt it was not her place to interfere, not yet anyhow.
But if she was needed, she would step outside and show that rude man a thing or two!
Trembling, she leaned her ear close and listened again to what Two Eagles was saying, admiring his bravery and patience.
“White man, threatening a powerful Wichita chief with a firearm is not wise,” Two Eagles said flatly. “Ask in a civilized manner for food and it will be given to you, but demand it at gunpoint and your request will be ignored. No one forces Chief Two Eagles to do anything he does not want to do.”
“Must I remind you that I am the one with the gun?” the man snarled, still holding the pistol steadily aimed at Two Eagles’s gut.
“Look behind you, wasichu,” Two Eagles said, slowly smiling when he saw how those words made the man flinch. The white man looked behind him and saw the many warriors standing there, their arrows notched on their bowstrings.
“Ho, yes, you might succeed at killing Chief Two Eagles, but then you will die at the hands of my warriors,” Two Eagles said, again slowly smiling when he saw the white man grow pale as he lowered his pistol.
“Lay the firearm aside,” Two Eagles said, standing his ground.
The man nodded and placed the pistol on the seat beside him, then once again looked at the many arrows pointed at him.
“Now what?” he gulped out. “Are you going to allow me to leave? Or . . . are . . . you going to take me as a captive?” He looked over his shoulder at his children, then into Two Eagles’s eyes. “And . . . what . . . of my children?”
“They are going to be given food enough to last for many sunrises,” Two Eagles said. He nodded at two of his warriors. “Go. Take food from where it is stored for the winter. Bring enough for these children. Place it in the wagon with them.”
Two Eagles gazed into the man’s eyes again. “My people had an abundant harvest this year before the locusts arrived,” he said. “There is enough to share with your children.”
