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When she tried to move him away from the travois, Spotted Eagle defied his dear mother for the first time in his life, refusing to budge.
He had not taken a long enough, final look at Sweet Dove before she was prepared for burial.
No one, not even his mother, could deny him that! And still, there was the wonder of the child. "Mother, please tell me," he pleaded, his eyes dark and wide as he gazed up at her. "Where is the child?"
His chieftain father came to Spotted Eagle's side and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. " No-ko-i, my son, the child was gone," Chief Gray Bear said sadly. "Someone took the child before Brown Elk and our warriors found Sweet Dove. They have searched far and wide. The child is nowhere. They searched even as far as the river. There were many wagon, hoof, and footprints there, but no people. Those people were surely many miles away by then, down the river. Those who boarded the large white river raft might have seen the childmight have even taken the child from her mother."
The thought of white people having a child borne of a Blackfoot woman, especially Sweet Dove, caused an intense pain to circle Spotted Eagle's heart.
He could not envision a white woman caring for the child that was meant to feed from Sweet Dove's breast!
And no one would ever know now whether the child was a boy or girl.
Wanting to flee to the hills to say his private prayers for Sweet Dove, Spotted Eagle spoke no more, only gazed sadly down at the woman whose hand had been soft in his and whose voice had spoken to his heart as though he were her brave, and she his woman.
She had never known the depth of his feelings. Only now she might, when his prayers lifted high into the heavens, where she would be starting her long journey to the land of the hereafter. He would speak to her, as well as to the fires of the sun.
She would hear!
He knew that she would hear!
And she would protect their secret well until one day he joined her in death in the Sand Hills, the ghost place of the Blackfoot.
His eyes heavy, his muscles tight, he gazed with a longing now denied him at this woman whose death had touched him so deeply. Even in death she radiated a natural beauty, with her hair blacker than charcoal, her eyes browner than the bark of the tallest fir tree.
Spotted Eagle's heart bled when, for the last time ever, he was able to look at her exquisite facial features, so perfect that surely there could be no one that could compare to her.
Not able to contain his feelings much longer, Spotted Eagle turned and pushed his way through the wailing people and ran from the village. His heart pounded, and tears flooded his eyes as he sought to find that highest peak, hoping to one day find the child borne of the woman of his childhood dreams.
Blinded by tears, he ran onward until finally he was high above the forest, his village in the distance hidden to him by the thick covering of trees that reached up to this bluff on which he now sat on bended knee.
Spotted Eagle became conscious of a drum- mingthe double beat of Indian tom-toms, so far away that it was like the throb of the pulse in his ear. The drums were vibrating and speaking to the spirits.
The wailing of his Blackfoot people reached Spotted Eagle's heart with a renewed despair.
He lifted his eyes to the heavens and began pleading with the fires of the sun to give him strength to accept this horrible thing that had happened to his people, the death of someone so cherished, someone that everyone would sorely miss.
"Pity me now, oh Sun!" he cried. "Help me, Oh Great Above, Medicine Power!"
There was a strange silence, and then Spotted Eagle's eyes widened and his heartbeat momentarily wavered in its beats when he heard something that seemed unreal, yet wonderful!
" A- wah-hehtake courage, my son!"
Those words, the strength of the voice, startled Spotted Eagle. He looked quickly around and saw no one, then looked slowly up at the sky again, smiling. He knew that Old Man, the chief god of the Blackfoot, their creator Napi, had heard his heart's sadness, his prayer, and had spoken to him. The Sun and Old Man knew his feelings, even though perhaps it had been wrong to love a woman twice his age.
He smiled as tears rushed from his eyes, knowing now that, yes, they understood.
They would lift the burden of sadness from his heart, for he must look to the future. They, as well as he, knew that he would one day be chief of his people. To learn the ways of a powerful chief, one must prepare oneself for it.
And a part of that preparation was learning how to accept death…
As the tom-tom droned song upon song, Spotted Eagle lifted his thoughts to the heaven again. "Oh, hear now, Sun! Wo-ka-hit, listen to my pleas. Help lift my burdens. Send them away from me, like an eagle in flight. Hai-yah, my heart cries out to you to let me acc
ept my loss. Send my words into the heart of Sweet Dove as she walks the road of the hereafter. Touch her heart with a song that will stay with her until I, too, become one of the stars in the sky, twinkling down upon those I have been forced to leave behind."
He prayed until night fell like a black cloak around him. He peered into the depths of the stars, watching the aurora as the death dance of the spirits began. He searched slowly for that special star, that which twinkled the brightest, and when he found it, he knew that Sweet Dove was there, looking down upon him with a smile, understanding a child's heart and a child's despair.
There was no wind.
