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Colonel Hawkins ignored him; then his eyes widened and he drew rein when he looked down at something familiar on the ground.
He dismounted, picked it up, and looked at it closely.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “See this? It belonged to Colonel Whaley’s wife. Shoshana apparently took it with her when she fled in the night away from the fort.”
“That dress?” the lieutenant said, his eyebrows forking.
“Yes. And were it not for a stone having fallen down over it, it would’ve blown away and I’d have never found it,” Colonel Hawkins said, gazing intently at the gauzy dress. “Mighty pretty it was on that woman, too.”
“You saw Shoshana in the dress?” the lieutenant asked.
“No, her mother,” Colonel Hawkins said. “You see, I went to Missouri to meet with Colonel Whaley way before his wife died. I asked him then to come to Arizona and help search for the damnable scalp hunter. That one night, when I came downstairs at their mansion to dine with them, and I saw this beautiful, petite woman in this dress, I could have sworn I’d never seen anyone as beautiful. It was for certain I’d never forget the dress. I’d never seen any like it before or since.”
“And so you know this is that dress, huh?” the lieutenant said, idly scratching his brow.
“There’s no doubt,” Colonel Hawkins said, then looked north. “Damn it all to hell, those savages went to Canada. They fled America and went to Canada, for there could be nowhere left in America for them to hide.”
“Are you going after him?”
“Nope. I have no jurisdiction there,” Colonel Hawkins said, shrugging. He wheeled his horse around. “Come on. Let’s head back. We’ve been gone from the fort way too long.”
“Yeah, it’ll be good to get back to civilization,” the lieutenant said, sighing with relief.
Colonel Hawkins tossed the dress over his shoulder to the ground. He did not see how it suddenly seemed to take wing and begin fluttering through the air in the steady breeze, northward.
“A daughter,” Shoshana sighed as she placed the tiny newborn child to her breast.
Storm knelt beside the bed. He ran a hand softly over the child’s copper head, as the baby’s two brothers stood watching. “You have a sister,” he said, gazing from son to son. He smiled at Dancing Willow, who stood behind the children, then gave his wife a smile. “We are a complete family now. I have never been as proud of anyone as I am proud of you, wife.”
“I am prouder of you for having given me our daughter,” Shoshana said, smiling sweetly at her husband. “Thank you, Storm. I so love you.”
Outside, where the wind was a soft, cool breeze, a huge golden eagle swept and soared over the cabin, its golden eyes ever watching.
