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—BARRY CORNWALL
“Then you will allow Running Fawn to return from exile?” Kaylene asked, looking anxiously at Fire Thunder.
She had just told him about having found Running Fawn, and her son. She had pleaded Running Fawn’s case and now awaited his response.
“You said that you told her about her father,” Fire Thunder said, turning to look down at the flames stroking the logs in the fireplace.
Everything was quiet in the lodge. Midnight was sleeping on the hearth, close to the warmth of the fire.
&n
bsp; Both of Kaylene and Fire Thunder’s children were asleep in the bedroom they shared with Little Sparrow.
Little Sparrow was away from the village, riding horseback with her betrothed.
“Yes, I told her, and she became very distraught,” Kaylene said as Fire Thunder turned slowly to face her again. “It’s cruel to leave her there alone, not only because of her torment over having lost a father, but also because of little Pedro. He needs to know more people than his mother to grow up and be a normal child.”
“She could have gone into San Carlos long ago and made a life for herself,” Fire Thunder argued. “No one was there stopping her.”
“But she was doing as you told her to do,” Kaylene murmured, keeping to herself the secret that Running Fawn had gone into San Carlos, if only that one time. “You forbade her to see Pedro again. If she had gone into San Carlos to live, she would have seen him.”
“Yes, I forbade her to see him again, and here you are asking me not to only allow her to return to her people, but also to go to the very man who took part in turning her away from what was right for her, a Kickapoo,” Fire Thunder said.
Then he drew Kaylene into his arms. “Yet, I do see the need for the boy to be raised around people,” he said thickly. “And, yes, he does need his father, a man we both know has never married because of his love for Running Fawn.”
When Kaylene realized that Fire Thunder was weakening in his decision about Running Fawn, her heart began to pound with an excitement she had to keep from him, until he gave her the answer she so badly wanted.
“What are you saying?” Kaylene asked softly, leaning away from him, looking up at him.
“I have something to do,” Fire Thunder said as he broke away from her. “I will be only a minute.”
Kaylene nodded and watched him leave.
Sighing, she began to pace back and forth. She started to clasp her hands nervously behind her back but the cuts from cattailing pained her, and she quickly drew them apart again.
She turned and stared at Fire Thunder as he came back into the lodge.
“Where did you go?” she asked warily.
“I sent a warrior to San Carlos with the news about Running Fawn,” he said, gently framing Kaylene’s face between his hands. He bent a soft kiss to her lips, then smiled into her eyes. “And I asked Anna if she would mind coming to babysit for a while, while you and I go and get Running Fawn and her child.”
So excited, so happy, so relieved, Kaylene flung herself into his arms. “I knew that you would!” she cried. She gave him frenzied kisses across his lips. “Thank you, darling. Oh, thank you, thank you.”
When Anna came into the cabin, Kaylene gave her a quick embrace, and even though she was bone tired from the days of gathering cattail leaves, and from the long journey down the mountainside, Kaylene had renewed energy at the thought of making things right for Running Fawn and little Pedro.
Hand in hand she left the cabin with Fire Thunder.
Two horses were waiting for them. Fire Thunder lifted Kaylene into her saddle on her mare, then swung himself into his own saddle. They rode off as the sun crept lower in the sky. They left the village and made their way up a narrow path on the mountainside.
“The route I took from cattailing took me by the burial grounds of your people,” Kaylene said, giving Fire Thunder a glance. “That is the only way I will know how to find Running Fawn’s cabin again.”
They swung their horses right and moved onward. When the burial grounds came into sight, Kaylene gasped and gave Fire Thunder a quick look.
“She’s there at her father’s grave,” she said in a rush of words. “That’s Running Fawn kneeling over her father’s grave. She came and found it.”
“I did not think she would stay long at her cabin once she knew her father was dead,” Fire Thunder said, looking satisfied. “She is Kickapoo after all, for no Kickapoo could ever not want to see the grave of their dearly beloved departed.”
His gaze shifted just as little Pedro stepped from behind his mother and knelt beside her over Black Hair’s grave. “And so there is Black Hair’s grandson,” Fire Thunder said, his eyes devouring the child, making him feel as though in the child, he might have a part of his friend back again. “We will wait until she is finished praying and then go to her and tell her that all is forgiven,” Fire Thunder said thickly.
