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“And so do you think our wives can do without us for a while?” White Wolf said, clasping a gentle hand on Fire Thunder’s right shoulder.
“I think they would not mind if we leave for a while as I show you my longhorn cattle, and the land that I am so proud of in this beautiful mountain valley,” Fire Thunder said, smiling at Kaylene. “I believe my woman wants time alone with your wife, anyway. They have good-byes of their own to say.”
“Please do go on,” Kaylene murmured. “Dawnmarie and I do have much to say before she leaves tomorrow.”
“And you, Violet Eyes?” White Wolf asked as he dropped his hand from Fire Thunder’s shoulder, to take his wife’s hands in his. “Do you mind?”
“It is not as though we won’t be together day and night these next several weeks as we travel back to our Wisconsin homeland,” she said, laughing softly. She stood on tiptoe and gave White Wolf a kiss on his cheek. “Go on, darling. Enjoy.”
Kaylene and Dawnmarie stood back and watched their men ride off on their horses. Kaylene sighed.
“Aren’t they both so handsome?” she murmured.
“Yes, and my husband is as handsome as the day I first laid eyes on him at my father’s trading post those many years ago,” Dawnmarie said, for a moment going back in time.
She fondly recalled that day when she had stood at the doorway of the trading post, so bashful, so in love, as she had watched White Wolf walk up the path toward her from the river.
When their eyes had met and held, she had felt such a strange, wondrous melting at the pit of her stomach.
Dawnmarie had loved White Wolf instantly. Completely.
And now it was so many years later and she still loved him as much.
“It shows,” Kaylene said, placing a gentle hand to Dawnmarie’s cheek.
“What shows?” Dawnmarie said, her eyes gleaming with wonderful memories.
“How much you love him,” Kaylene murmured.
“As I see it in the way you look at Fire Thunder how much you love him,” Dawnmarie said, drawing Kaylene into her arms, gently hugging her.
“He may hate me after what I do today,” Kaylene said, her voice breaking. “Yet I feel I must, to help you.”
Dawnmarie stepped away from Kaylene. “You do not have to go into her lodge,” she murmured. “I shall encourage her to step outside. We can talk as well there, as inside.”
“But if I am seen outside with Moon Glow, even that might enrage Fire Thunder enough into thinking that he can’t trust me,” Kaylene demurred.
“Then I encourage you not to go with me,” Dawnmarie said softly. “I want to do nothing that might cause a strain between you and Fire Thunder.”
“Perhaps I had best wait for you in Fire Thunder’s cabin,” Kaylene said, never wanting to do anything to upset Fire Thunder. The Kickapoo rules were rigidly obeyed. If she broke just one of their rules now, she might lose Fire Thunder forever.
“I won’t be long,” Dawnmarie said, lifting the skirt of her white doeskin dress and walking away.
Kaylene watched, then turned and walked toward Fire Thunder’s cabin. She smiled when she saw Little Sparrow standing in the door with Midnight at her side.
She ran to them. She knelt and embraced Little Sparrow, then Midnight.
Then she leaned away from them both and spoke in the sign language that she was learning to use more skillfully each day, and told Little Sparrow that she had missed her during the ceremony.
Little Sparrow told her that soon she would be old enough to participate in all the activities of their people. A soft color of pink flooded her cheeks when she told Kaylene that she now had a boyfriend. He even overlooked her inability to speak. She was teaching him her sign language. He enjoyed learning.
Kaylene told her that she was glad, then hugged Little Sparrow again as her thoughts were filled with how Moon Glow would react to Dawnmarie’s question, a question spoken from the depths of Dawnmarie’s heart.
“Moon Glow,” Dawnmarie said, as she stood just outside the Trotter’s small wigwam. “It is I, Dawnmarie. Please come out and talk with me. I am leaving tomorrow. I have something to ask you.”
She waited patiently in the deep, dark shadows of the trees that surrounded Moon Glow’s lodge. The coolness of the forest interior wafted by and touched Dawnmarie’s cheeks. She felt a chill run slowly up and down her spine the longer she waited. She hugged herself, her eyes wavering, thinking that Moon Glow did not want to see her.
She started to turn and leave when suddenly the entrance flap was swept aside and Moon Glow was there, a cat in the crook of her left arm, the others slinking around her ankles, looking up at Dawnmarie with their luminous eyes.
