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“Tomorrow I become a bride” were Candy’s last words before falling into a deep, sweet sleep, with Two Eagles nestled close.
“Yes, nahosah, tomorrow,” he said, drifting off to sleep himself with one arm draped across his woman.
Chapter Forty-one
I love your arms when the warm, white flesh
Touches mine in a fond embrace.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Many years later
January, the moon of Difficulty
It was a crisp, clear night. A group of wolves stood among soft shadows thrown by the three-quarter moon of this brand-new year.
Sitting by the warm fire in the tepee, Candy smiled at the sound of the wolves. She knew that Shadow was among them, a part of the pack now, as were the offspring she’d borne over the years.
Ho, yes, it was a new year, and Candy was thrown back in time to the New Year celebrations of her past at forts where her father had been stationed.
Last night, at the Wichita village, there had been no celebration as December turned into January, bringing with it the new year.
But she needed nothing else to celebrate when she had everything she had ever wanted. She had a wonderful marriage of eight years, and two beautiful children.
Both of their children had their father’s skin color, and their seven-year-old son, Leaping Deer, even had Two Eagles’s midnight-black eyes and hair.
But their daughter, Gentle Rose, had Candy’s blue eyes, which were beautifully set off by the copper of her skin and the darkness of her hair which she wore in two long braids.
Candy’s hair was long again, and like her daughter, she wore it in two long braids down her back.
Spotted Bear was a big part of the Wichita’s lives; no one even noticed his disfigurement any longer. His happiness made Candy so proud because she had helped make it possible.
Her thoughts drifted to something else. She could not help smiling as she thought about the tattoo on her right breast. Although she had the same three concentric circles around one nipple that were required of all Wichita women, she had one more tattoo.
To pay homage to the name Painted Wings, which everyone now called her, she had requested a tattoo in the shape of a butterfly on one of her ankles. It was very tiny and beautiful, one she proudly displayed as her chieftain husband’s wife.
And then there was Shadow. Candy did not get to see her wolf as often as she would like, but enough to keep track of her and her various litters; she had now given birth to twelve pups. One of these, a male, was as white as the whitest snows of winter, with its father’s mysterious blue eyes.
It was that wolf, who was the oldest of them all, having been born several minutes before the others of the same litter, that seemed to be in charge of the rest. Like his father, he seemed born to lead.
At this moment, both of Candy’s children were out in the snow, sometimes sledding, sometimes skating on the frozen ice in the nearby lake, or having snowball fights.
All of those things kept them coming and going from the tepee to change into dry clothes.
She didn’t mind their changing clothes so often. She was an expert seamstress now and enjoyed making clothes, especially dresses for herself and her daughter. She had learned the art of beading, and all of the family’s clothing was beautifully decorated with beadwork.
She was sitting beside a cozy fire, stringing beads on a length of thread.
She loved the dizzying array of colors, which would grace the matching dresses she had planned for her daughter and herself.
When she dropped a bead and it rolled toward the fire, Two Eagles came into the tepee just in time to rescue it.
Candy smiled up at him, seeing how his copper cheeks had a rosy tint to them from the cold. “Thank you,” she said, taking the bead as he gave it to her.
She gazed at his moccasins, which had snow caked on them. He quickly removed them and set them close to the fire, replacing them with dry ones.
“How are the children?” she asked, maneuvering the lost bead onto her string. “Do you think they have been out there long enough? The wind has picked up. Hear how it is howling around the lodge?”
