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"But you can't help seeing my mother when you look at me," Jolena said, her voice breaking. "I want to be loved for myself, not because I am the mirror image of someone else."
"It is true that at first, when I looked at you, my feelings were the same as that young boy whose heart ached for an older woman," Spotted Eagle tried to explain. "But as I grew to know you, someone different from your mother in so many ways, it was you who moved me into a man's feelings. Your mother is now a pleasant memory. You are here, quite real, and wonderful."
"When we have been making love, have you ever wished it were my mother instead of me?" Jolena could not resist asking. "Have you ever pretended I was she?"
Spotted Eagle's jaw tightened and his eyes flared with a sudden anger. "I have not loved a memory while I held you in my arms," he said tersely. "Never will I. I love you. Forever and ever, I shall love only you."
"It would break my heart if it were otherwise," Jolena said, flinging herself into his arms. As she laid her cheek against his powerful chest, she began her own confessions. "Darling, I knew you before we met, also."
"And how is that possible?" he asked, stroking her thick, long hair.
"I do not understand how that could be possible," she murmured. "But it is true that when I saw you I was stunned because I had seen your face beforein dreams."
He placed his fingers to her shoulders and eased her back from him so that their eyes met and held. "You say you dreamed of me?" he said wonderingly. "You sa
w my exact facial features in your dreams?"
"Yes, many times," she murmured. "And yet I still do not see how that can be so."
Spotted Eagle smiled softly down at her. "There are ways," he said, nodding. "You are Blackfoot. Many things are foretold in the dreams of the Blackfoot!"
"Truly?" she asked, her eyes wide. "Please tell me how. I have had many dreams, foretelling many things. Sometimes it has frightened me to have such… such abilities."
"You should not be frightened by a gift that has been handed down from generation to generation of Blackfoot," he said, drawing her into his embrace once again. He held her close, breathing in the sweet fragrance of her hair as he placed his cheek against it. "Our people, the Blackfoot, are firm believers in dreams. These, it is said, are sent by the Sun to enable us to look ahead, to tell what is going to happen. A dream, especially if it is a strong onethat is, if the dream is very clear and vividis almost always obeyed."
He paused, then continued, "An animal or object which appears to a boy or man who is trying to dream for power is, it has been said, regarded thereafter as his secret helper, his medicine, and is usually called his vision dream Nits-o-kan."
"I have obeyed the commands of my midnight dream," Jolena said, clinging to him. "I have followed its bidding and have found you, my darling."
Then a silent panic seized her, recalling the dream in which Spotted Eagle died, fearing that it might come true also. She leaned into his arms and held him much more tightly, wanting never to let him go.
The night was wrapped in shadows, with shreds of mist clinging to the trees overhead, as Jolena and Spotted Eagle began walking back toward their campsite. Spotted Eagle stopped when the moonlight revealed something that lay in their path. Jolena followed Spotted Eagle's eyes to a feather that had surely fallen from the wing of an eagle. It was perhaps the largest one that she had ever seen, and its colors were a beautiful soft gray, touched by streaks of white.
Spotted Eagle stopped and picked up the feather, then handed it to Jolena. "Have I told you before that the wing of a bird is a symbol of thoughts that fly very high?" he said softly.
"Whether or not you have, I could hear it over and over again," Jolena said softly. "That's a beautiful saying." She held the feather to her heart and walked leisurely along with Spotted Eagle again, the campfire throwing its golden light through a break in the trees a short distance away.
Jolena leaned closer to Spotted Eagle, not wanting these special moments to end.
Chapter Seventeen
The next day, the wagons continued onward. Jolena was filled with an anticipation she had never known before.
And why shouldn't she be feeling this way? she argued to herself. She was perhaps only days away from meeting her true father.
Oh, but how simple it would be to abandon this expedition and hurry onward with the rest of her life instead of waiting until she completed her mission for her ailing white father.
It was hard to sit on the wagon beside Kirk as though nothing had happened, while at the same moment her heart was beating out each and every minute of the day, bringing her closer to that time when she would say an awkward farewell to him.
He would not leave her all that easily, she knew. He would try to fill her mind with doubts about the life that lay ahead of her in an Indian village.
And she knew that most of his arguments would be valid ones. In her lifetime, she had known only luxuries. She knew that living in a tepee had to be far from luxurious and comfortable.
Being with Spotted Eagle would make up for everything else, but she dreaded trying to convince her brother of this. Often he was even more stubborn than she…
''You're more quiet than usual," Kirk said, allowing the reins to go somewhat slack in his hands as he gave Jolena a studious stare. "Why is that? What's on your mind?"
His lips curved into an angry pout when she smiled weakly at him, offering him no explanation. "How foolish of me to have asked," he said heatedly. "I already know the answer, don't I?"
