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His fever was gone now, and each day he was stronger.
She smiled as she thought about the food she would prepare over the fire for Two Eagles. She would take some to Spotted Bear as well. His people had worked together to erect a tepee for him. The women were kind to him, taking him food both morning and night, as well as water from the river.
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Some warriors had taken Spotted Bear their buckskin clothes, so that he would not have to return to his home in the woods for his own.
That gesture of kindness proved just how glad the warriors were that one of their men had returned home, even though he had been scalped and left for dead.
He was no longer seen as a Ghost. He was Spotted Bear again.
Suddenly hearing Two Eagles’s warnings about leaving the village alone, Candy stopped when she found a thick bunch of delicious-looking greens.
She set her basket down and fell to her knees to begin gathering handfuls of the greens. When she felt she had enough of those, she began plucking herbs and placing them in the basket with the greens.
The aroma of flowers wafted to her, drawing her eyes to some wild roses climbing up the trunk of a huge oak tree. They were pink, tiny, and beautiful. She would have flowers awaiting her beloved’s return, as well as a good pot of food.
After gathering enough herbs, she went to the rose vine. It seemed a miracle that this part of the forest had been spared the terrible scourge of the locusts. It must have been the thick foliage on the trees that had saved the roses from the ravages of the insects.
She did see a dead locust here and there, and even an occasional one alive on a low tree limb, its round, beady eyes seeming to look through Candy.
She ignored the insects and was now contentedly plucking stems of roses, wincing when she pricked her fingers now and then with the thorns.
A movement nearby, the sound of a snapping twig, made Candy stop what she was doing. Had she grown too confident, maybe even careless?
Her heart thumping inside her chest, she slowly turned toward the sound.
Her heart seemed to fall to her feet when she saw the shadow of someone hiding behind a tree not far from where she stood frozen on the forest floor.
Searching inside herself for a measure of strength, she turned, and then began running.
Chapter Thirty-four
O breathe a word or two of fire.
Smile as if those words should burn me.
—John Keats
She knew she wouldn’t get far, but she couldn’t just stand there making it easy for whoever had come upon her in the forest. She could already hear the pounding of feet behind her on the hard earth and knew that the man was gaining on her.
Her insides froze when she felt strong arms grabbing her around her waist. In the next moment she was shoved painfully to the ground.
She was yanked around so that she now lay on her back with a full view of the one accosting her.
She didn’t recognize the man, but the moment he spoke, the voice gave him away. It was the man who had come and demanded corn and other vegetables after the locust attack.
She started to scream, but he was quicker. He clasped one hand over her mouth, while his other held her wrists together above her head, his knees straddling her.
She felt sickened by the leer on his face because she knew that this man intended to rape her.
“I got a glimpse of you just before you hurried into the tepee when I came for food at the savages’ village,” he said, laughing throatily, his piercing green eyes seeming to bore holes through her.
He wore a thick red beard, and his hair was stringy and greasy as it fell down past his thin shoulders.
He had a bulbous nose, with wide nostrils that flared each time he breathed.
His teeth were uneven and yellow. His lips were a strange purplish color. “When I glimpsed the golden hair, I thought I’d finally found the lady that escaped me sometime ago,” he said.
