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She scooted her empty wooden platter aside, confused anew about these feelings which would suddenly come upon her like a mighty embrace. She reached over and took Fire Thunder’s hand.
Fire Thunder looked at her and saw something new in the shadows of Kaylene’s eyes. “What is it?” he asked, placing his own empty bowl aside. “There is something mystical about the way you are looking at me.”
Kaylene was distracted for a moment by Dawnmarie’s quiet, sweet laughter as she sat amidst the other Kickapoo women. She glanced over at her, seeing the radiance that seemed to glow around her in her happiness to be there with her true people.
Kaylene glanced then at White Wolf, as he sat by his wife, watching her. She could see the adoration he felt for her, and hoped that Fire Thunder would still love her as much, after they had been married for many years.
“Kaylene?” Fire Thunder said, placing a finger to her chin, bringing her eyes back around to meet the question in his. “Moments ago you seemed filled with laughter. Now? I sense there is something troubling you.”
“I . . .” Kaylene began, as she felt it would be good to inform him of her sudden strange feelings, but stopped when a commotion outside the lodge drew her eyes to the door.
Running Fawn suddenly appeared, her eyes fearful, her face flushed with color. Kaylene’s insides turned cold. Something had to be terribly wrong for Running Fawn to just suddenly appear like that, and let everyone know that she had not been among them all along, enjoying the festivities. Until now, no one had questioned her absence. Now, everyone would.
Kaylene started to rise to her feet, but Fire Thunder’s firm grip was too quickly around her wrist, stopping her.
She turned questioning eyes to Fire Thunder.
His response was a sullen glare and a slow shake of his head.
Swallowing hard, Kaylene nodded and stayed beside him as Black Hair rose and went to his daughter.
Cold with fear, Running Fawn gazed up at her father. She could see his anger by the way his jaw was so tightly set and by the way his eyes seemed to brim with fire. She wanted to retreat to the forest, to hide, but Miguel’s voice behind her, urging her onward, caused her to grab her father’s hand.
“Father, please come outside with me,” she asked softly. She looked past him and felt the eyes of everyone on her. Her presence had even stopped the soft thumping of the drum, and the rhythmic s
hake of the rattles.
Everything seemed stopped in time, except her rapid heartbeat and the fear that was building inside her.
Black Hair didn’t budge. He doubled his hands into tight fists at his sides as he looked past her and saw the other three Kickapoo women, and then the young Mexican men, one of them carrying General Rocendo’s son, Pedro.
He then glared down at Running Fawn. “You are a disgrace,” he hissed out. He ignored Pedro’s groan as it wafted through the air toward him. He flailed a frustrated hand in the air as he leaned his face down into his daughter’s. “Where have you been? Did you not know that you were expected to be here as we brought the New Year in for our people? You and your friends were, instead, with Mexicans?”
Running Fawn lowered her eyes. “Yes, and I am sorry, Father,” she whispered. Then she lifted fearful eyes up to him again. “But, Father, now is not the time to scold me.” She turned to Pedro, wincing when she saw how his face was now so swollen, his eyes hidden in the deep folds.
She turned back to her father. “Pedro is ill,” she blurted out. “Please let our shaman see to him. If you do not, I fear Pedro will die.”
“Let him die,” Black Hair growled. “He has sinned with you. He deserves not to live!”
Having heard everything, and deciding that it was not best after all to let Black Hair handle this awkward situation that had become a show for all of his people to view, Fire Thunder rose quickly to his feet and hurried to Black Hair’s side.
Worried about Running Fawn, and her father’s anger, Kaylene hurried after Fire Thunder and stood at his side as he intervened.
Kaylene gave Running Fawn a sympathetic look. Although she knew that Running Fawn had been wrong to go against her father’s wishes, she saw that her fears were confirmed about Running Fawn’s trysts bringing her trouble. Kaylene looked outside and saw the young man being held in the arms of another young Mexican man. His face was swollen grotesquely. He lay limp and unconscious in the arms of his friend, perhaps near death.
Panic seized Kaylene at the thought of the young man dying. Running Fawn would not only be in trouble with her people, but also with the Mexicans.
Things had gone beyond trysts. Way beyond.
“Black Hair, let us deal with your daughter later,” Fire Thunder interceded. “Look at the young man. He is in trouble. Our shaman must take a look at him.”
Black Hair gave Fire Thunder a sullen stare, then nodded. He went to Bull Shield, who sat quietly among the other men.
After hearing about Pedro, Bull Shield left the lodge with them to take a look at Pedro.
“What happened to send the young man into an unconscious state?” Bull Shield asked, looking from one young Mexican man to the other, then glaring at the girls who stood there, their eyes downcast.
“Poison ivy, I believe!” Running Fawn cried. “I . . . I . . . made a tattoo on his leg with poison ivy. Soon after he became ill.”
