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The moon was high in the sky. Stars sprinkled the heavens like twinkling sequins. The air was caressingly warm and smelled of wisteria from the vines that were thick with their purple flowers on a trellis at White Fire’s right side.
As he secured his horse’s reins next to the many other horses at a hitching rail, White Fire glanced up at Colonel Russell’s personal residence. It brought so much to mind that was melancholy for him. He had visited often with Colonel Snelling and his family in this house.
He looked up at the second-story windows, seeing soft lamplight wafting from each of them. He was familiar with each and every room, for when he had not been talking and chatting with either Josiah Snelling in his upstairs study, or with Josiah and his wife, Abigail, in their fancy parlor, he was in the children’s rooms, often reading them stories at bedtime.
Yes, before he had had a child of his own, he had enjoyed Josiah and Abigail’s, realizing then what fathering a child would mean to him.
“I will get my son back,” he whispered to himself.
In his memory he saw his son dressed in velvet, with curls like a girl lying across his shoulders, and he shuddered and brushed it from his mind. He could hardly stand to know that his son was being treated more like a girl than a young man, who, if he lived among Indians, would be a young brave, practicing and learning the ways of a warrior.
Although White Fire had not had the opportunity to live among Indians growing up, learning the ways of braves and warriors, himself, the one year that he had spent with the Chippewa had shown him how it was done among their boys.
And although he had chosen to live apart from the Indian side of his heritage now, he would take his son to Chief Gray Feather’s village often and allow him to learn the ways of the young men his same age. There, among the Chippewa, his son would learn what would make him a man.
“Soon,” he whispered. “I must get him back with me soon.”
He waited before going inside the house. He cringed every time he thought about someone else living there, when he felt it should still belong only to the Snellings.
Yet there was someone there that he did wish to see. She, alone, had lured him here tonight.
Hesitant at going where he had not been invited, White Fire listened to the laughter and the tinkle of glasses drifting from the ballroom to mingle with the sigh of the leaves of the forest, and the cry of a distant loon.
White Fire gazed at the front door of the house, where people were busily coming and going. Although he had only been held captive for three years, he did not recognize anyone. It seemed that when Colonel Snelling was sent to another post, those who had been under his command had left with him.
He looked at how the men were dressed in their fancy black frock coats, with diamonds sparkling in the folds of their ascots.
He then glanced down at himself. Today, while at the commissary, he had decided against buying stiff, uncomfortable clothes, which he had quit wearing after leaving St. Louis to travel. As he had dropped his name Samuel, which identified that white part of his heritage, he had decided against wearing the clothes of a white man.
As now, he wore a fringed buckskin outfit and moccasins. He had acquired a new outfit just prior to being abducted. This would be the first time he could wear it.
Soft, flirting laughter brought his eyes up again. His heart skipped a beat, his thoughts again on his reason for him being there in his new outfit—a girl named Flame!
He sorted through the women standing on the porch, clustered around the door, giggling and chatting amongst themselves, the skirts of their lovely dresses blowing gently in the night breeze.
He saw that Flame was not among them. None had hair that shone like a brilliant sunset. He waited until everyone had gone inside the mansion, then sauntered toward the porch.
When he heard the music begin again inside the house, White Fire stopped on the porch and listened. He could hear the notes of a piano, joined by violins. The lilting music reminded him of the many parties hosted by Josiah and Abigail, who had often invited him to the mansion. His friends had been such gracious hosts, always careful to be sure each guest felt at home with them.
He smiled as he thought back to those times when the Snellings had given their lavish parties. Abigail always made sure the silver was shined and the furniture polished. She directed the servants to empty out the parlor so it could be used for dancing, while the dining table practically groaned under the weight of the platters of food served to guests. And, of course, there was punch or champagne for the ladies and stronger spirits for the gentlemen. White Fire had such happy memories of those warm, lively gatherings.
Soft laughter drifted from the door, causing White Fire to once again think about Flame. He would never forget her laughter, her flirting smile, the softness of her flesh.
These thoughts, the hunger to see her again, hurried his steps on into the spacious hall of the house. He made a right turn and entered the parlor and mingled with the crowd of onlookers watching the dancers whirling around and around on the floor in time to the music.
Having not been invited to the dance, and realizing that he stood out like a sore thumb among the fancily dressed people, White Fire stayed hidden in the shadows. His eyes searched for Flame among the onlookers.
Not finding her, he looked seriously at the dancers. The women were beautiful in their dresses, which seemed as light as a breeze. Some wore full and floating organza; others wore silks and satins, their feet skimming the floor, their skirts twirling.
White Fire’s pulse quickened when he finally saw Flame as she made a graceful, wide whirl on the floor only a short distance from where he stood.
He had never seen anyone as ravishingly beautiful as Flame. His heart raced as he watched at how radiantly she smiled as she gazed up at the man with whom she was dancing. In her white organdy dress with its petallike sleeves, the deliciously feminine skirt bouncing around her ankles as she danced, revealing a glimpse of the sheer lace at the hem of her petticoat, she was a vision to behold.
White Fire smiled a secret smile when he saw that she was wearing the ivory satin shoes he had used as a way of starting their conversation this afternoon.
Then his gaze shifted upward again, at how she wore her hair. White silk flowers pinned above each ear contrasted beautifully against the brilliant red of her hair, which lay in long, lustrous waves across her shoulders, and down her back. Her face was flushed pink with the excitement of the evening, her perfectly shaped, lusciously red lips parted often in soft, gay laughter.
But it was her eyes that held White Fire’s gaze. They were suddenly on him. Between laughter and small talk with her dance partner, White Fire had seen her searching the crowd as she made her way around the dance floor. It was as though she had been searching for him, for once she found him, she looked nowhere else.
