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Sobbing, she ran up to Chief Gray Feather and flung herself into his arms. “You came! I am no longer gee-tay-bee-bee-nah, captive!”
Chief Gray Feather, with black war paint smeared across his thin face, clung to Song Sparrow. “Gee-dah-niss, daughter, we have searched for days until we found the Sioux encampment,” he said thickly. “Had they harmed you—”
She leaned away and stopped him from saying the words that she knew it pained him to speak. “I am fine, gee-bah-bah,” she murmured. “They have treated me with the respect due a chief’s daughter. It is just that they wanted to use me as a bargaining tool with you. Soon they planned to come and offer an exchange. They have traveled too far from their true home. They do not have much food. Most of their warriors have come down ill with a strange sickness. They have been too ill to hunt. They planned to exchange me for food and supplies.”
“Ah-neen-eh-szheh-yi, on-non-gum, how are you?” Chief Gray Feather asked, sliding a hand over the delicate features of his daughter’s copper face. “You have not come down with the strange ailment?”
“Gah-ween, no, nor has White Fire become ill,” Song Sparrow said, a sudden excitement lighting up her dark eyes.
“White Fire . . . ?” Chief Gray Feather said, forking an eyebrow. “Why would you mention White Fire? He has been gone three winters now. He was thought to have been killed by a bear or something or someone. All that was found of him when we searched day and night were his clothes.”
“That is because the Sioux abducted him and forced him to change into a breechclout,” Song Sparrow said, excitedly clutching her father’s arm. “Gee-dah-dah, he is here. He has been held captive by the Sioux these past three summers.”
Chief Gray Feather’s eyes widened with excitement and his heart thumped wildly when White Fire stepped from a tepee, a breechcloth his only attire. “Nee-gee, friend!” he cried, welcoming White Fire into his arms with a fond embrace. “You are bee-mah-dee-zee, alive!”
White Fire clung to the Chippewa chief. He had hoped that once the Sioux ventured this far north from their true home, with the lure of the thick pelts too much for them to ignore, that they would let down their guard and he could return to his wife and family at Fort Snelling.
But even when the warriors became ill, he was watched both day and night. He had hardly been allowed to breathe, the watch on him had been so intense.
Even when the Sioux became hungry and needed someone to hunt for them, they had not allowed him to hunt, knowing that he would take that opportunity to escape.
“Ay-uh, yes, I am alive,” White Fire said. He was hardly able to believe that his old friend Chief Gray Feather was there, again, to save him.
When White Fire had first arrived in the Minnesota Territory, he had become a victim of a trapper’s steel-jawed trap. His left ankle was still scarred from the dreadful teeth. Chief Gray Feather had found and released him. He had taken White Fire to his village.
There the young man had stayed, not only until he was well enough to travel again, but for a solid year. He had acquired a profound understanding of the Chippewas’ customs and psychology. He had come to know and have a deep respect for them. Not only had he learned their ways, he had shared their food and hardships.
During this time, he had grown close to Gray Feather, a closeness a son feels for a father. But when White Fire had learned about the fort that was being built downriver from their village, he had left the Chippewa to become a part of the excitement. There he had met Colonel Josiah Snelling, the commandant in charge of the fort, with whom he had also become fast friends. White Fire had been placed in charge of building the roads that radiated out from the fort.
In time, he became acquainted with Colonel Snelling’s niece, Mary, whose marriage to an abusive husband had torn her confidence in herself. Her French voyager husband had died when his canoe capsized in the river, and she was free to marry again. White Fire had been drawn to her gentleness and sweetness. Their love for one another had never been a passionate one. It was a comfortable relationship. And when they finally married, to them was born a son . . . Michael.
His son had been three when White Fire had been captured by the Sioux while out in the forest mapping out a new roadway. He had been taken far downriver and held captive for three years.
Only recently had the Sioux set up camp closer to the fort, to gather many beaver pelts before returning again to their home. Their mistake, their downfall, was to capture a Chippewa maiden.
“Mah-bee-szhon, go with me to my village and again be a part of my people’s lives,” Chief Gray Feather said, as he stepped away from White Fire. His old brown eyes gazed pleadingly up at White Fire who stood a head taller than him. “It was a mistake for you to leave and join the white world. Your place is with the Chippewa. It is the Chippewa who saved you from the Sioux, not the white-eyed pony soldiers from Fort Snelling. It is the Chippewa, this old chief, who truly loves you as though you are one with us.”
All around them, the healthy Sioux were being gathered and tied. They would be held at the Chippewa village for a while, then escorted back to their home at their main village. Those who were too ill to travel anywhere, would be brought medicine and food. When they were strong enough to travel, they, also, would be escorted back to their home. Gray Feather did not seek war with them. Only the return of his daughter, and now, also, his friend.
White Fire could feel Song Sparrow’s gaze on him. During their captivity, she had told him about how her husband had recently died of a bear mauling, and how she was so saddened by having been separated from her three-year-old daughter.
She had also told White Fire how she still felt about him. S
he had wanted him for a husband way before he had decided to return to the life of a white man. She had only married one of her own kind because she had given up on having him.
But during their time at the Sioux encampment, she had pleaded with him to marry her when they were set free. She had told him that she had never stopped loving him. And she saw him as someone who would be such a good father to her daughter.
White Fire told her time and again that he was married and had a son. Even so, she had not stopped pleading with him to forget his white wife and child. Be Chippewa! she urged.
Pulled by both Song Sparrow and Chief Gray Feather, and feeling that he again owed the chief a debt for having saved his life a second time, White Fire was not sure how he could refuse Gray Feather without turning him into a bitter enemy. But he had no choice. He had a wife and son who surely by now thought he was dead. They were his first responsibility.
White Fire placed a gentle hand on Gray Feather’s lean, bare shoulder. “My nee-gee, friend, I am touched deeply by your words and declaration of love for me,” he said thickly. “I am touched to have so good a man as you for my nee-gee. I feel the same about you. I feel blessed to have such a bond with you and your people. But I have a wife and son. I must hurry home to them. They have been denied my presence long enough. As did you, when your search failed to find me those long three winters ago, I am certain my family has given up on ever seeing me again.”
Song Sparrow stood by her father. In her eyes was a deep hurt and rejection. She turned her eyes to the ground when White Fire looked at her.
“I understand commitment to family,” Chief Gray Feather said solemnly, drawing White Fire’s eyes back to him. He placed a soft hand on White Fire’s shoulder. “I will see to your safe return home.”
Gray Feather commanded one of his warriors to bring one of the Sioux horses to White Fire. He mounted bareback as Gray Feather mounted his powerful black stallion.
