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The Cree renegades were always out there, always waiting for a reason to kill their neighboring enemy, the Blackfoot!
Tomorrow they would perhaps have that chance, for Spotted Eagle knew that his search for Kirk could take him into Cree country.
He planned to send scouts out tonight, hopefully to find evidence of Kirk's whereaboutsor the Crees'without meeting danger head on.
"You are so suddenly quiet," Jolena said, glancing up at him. "Why are you, darling?"
"No reason," Spotted Eagle said, forcing himself to sound nonchalant. "No reason at all."
Something in the way he spoke and looked made Jolena not believe him all that easily.
But she did not want to cloud her thoughts with doubts and wonder again. For now she just wanted to go to Spotted Eagle's tepee and hide there from all the rest of humanity, at least for the rest of the afternoon and tonight.
She dreaded tomorrow, fearing that Kirk might be foundand that he would be dead.
But she wanted to face that when it happened.
Not now, when her heart was already so scarred from today's activities.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The sun had gone to his lodge behind the mountains, disappearing behind the sharppointed peaks. In the fading light, the far-stretching prairie was turning dark. In the valley, sparsely timbered with quaking aspens and cottonwoods, a lone voice could be heard in the Blackfoot village, from a hilltop a short distance away.
Jolena clasped a blanket around her shoulders as she sat quietly beside Spotted Eagle's fire in his tepee, haunted by too many things to eat her evening meal. As soup simmered over the fire in a black pot, she was only faintly aware of the tantalizing fragrance of buffalo meat cooking with large chunks of vegetables.
Spotted Eagle had sent scouts ahead to look for Kirk. They had returned earlier in the afternoon with the news that he was being held captive in a Cree camp.
Jolena was joyous that her brother was alive, yet feared for his treatment at the hands of the Cree.
And now she was worried over Spotted Eagle, who was readying himself to go and rescue Kirk. He had left her early this day to take his medicine sweat and to prepare himself for a possible confrontation with the renegade Indians. He had even appointed a medicine pipe man to make medicine for him during his absence.
Spotted Eagle had chosen the warriors who would make up his war party. These warriors and himself had already gotten together and sung the wolf song. Their sweat lodge was then built and, unclothed, they entered it. With them came an elderly Blackfoot, Clouds Make Thunder, a medicine pipe man, who had always been a good, revered warrior.
The long- stemmed medicine pipe was filled. The warriors each asked Clouds Make Thunder to pray for them, that they might have good luck and accomplish what they desired.
Clouds Make Thunder prayed and sang and poured water on hot stones in the center of the sweat lodge, causing the warriors to sweat profusely.
Clouds Make Thunder then offered Spotted Eagle a new medicine bundle, to give him strength and courage for the time ahead and to bind him with the spirits who would carry his life in their mouths.
The bundle was formed from the head of a coyote, its jaws sewn together with sinew; from the jowls hung a few small locks of hair wrapped in red cloth. From the back of the head was suspended a round loop of willow, wrapped tightly in rawhide, to which was tied a fully stuffed war eagle.
After the ceremony was over, the warriors, all dripping with perspiration, ran to the river and plunged in, singing war songs.
Jolena gazed up at the smoke hole in the ceiling, shuddering when she discovered that the sunset's brilliant orange splash had faded from the sky, which meant that Spotted Eagle would soon leave the village. He had explained to her that he would be riding with his warriors from the village just after sunset, for it was a foolish warrior who traveled in the day when war parties might be out.
To busy her hands, Jolena leaned over and tossed some small twigs into the low flames of the fire. Then she straightened her back and stiffened. She glanced quickly toward the closed entrance flap of the tepee when she heard the thundering of many horses' hooves leaving the village, Spotted Eagle's voice the loudest of them all as he sang a song of war.
"Return to me with speed," Jolena whispered to herself, reaching a trembling hand toward the entrance flap. "I love you. Oh, how I love you."
Again she gazed into the flames of the fire, the horses' thunder having at least for a moment drowned out the mourning cries of her Blackfoot father as he sat on his high place, alone and distraught over the death of his one and only son. Through the long day, her father had sat on a nearby hill, mourning, his songs and wails filled with much sadness.
Jolena buried her face in her hands, her heart touched by the wailing. She still could not find it in her heart to mourn with him, but she did mourn for him!
Jolena moved her hands from her face and slowly lifted her eyes, her pulse racing. She leaned her ear toward the entrance flap, now scarcely breathing, realizing that suddenly she no longer heard her father's mourning cries. Everything outside was quiet except for an occasional bark from a dog, or cries from a child fighting off the urge to sleep.
A fire outside threw a square of flickering light on the outside of the tepee and then she saw the outline of someone standing over the fire, feeding wood into the flames.
"Is that my father?" Jolena whispered, pushing herself up from her couch of skins. "Is that him beside the communal fire?"
