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Keeping the blanket around her shoulders, clasping it together with a hand, Jolena went to the entrance flap and peered outside, disappointed that the person she had seen tending to the fire was not her father at all. Four Bears, a handsome, middle
-aged Blackfoot, turned Jolena's way and nodded a grim and silent hello, then sauntered off into the night toward his own tepee, where his wife and daughter waited for him.
Sighing, Jolena decided to wait outside for a while longer to see if her father's silence might mean that he was placing his sadness for a son behind him to join a daughter who was very much alive.
The night breeze carried a chill, but the blanket lent warmth to Jolena's shoulders. She looked heavenward and watched the play of stars in the velvety black sky. She could make out the big and little dipper and other constellations, especially that which the Blackfoot called The Seven Persons, the constellation of the Great Bear. Tonight it seemed overpoweringly bright, as if it were an omen.
''Daughter?" Brown Elk said as he came to Jolena out of the darkness, his face still painted black with mourning. "You wait for your father in the cold?" He came to her and placed a hand to her elbow, ushering her away from Spotted Eagle's dwelling to his own.
Jolena expected to find his tepee cold and without the fragrance of food, but someone had kept the fire burning and had made sure food awaited his return from his long hours of mourning. She expected the one who was so thoughtful and kind was Moon Flower. Her kindness was spread around, it seemed, to everyone who needed it. Even while she mourned for Two Ridges, she was putting her feelings second to others who mourned even more deeply.
Brown Elk nodded toward his couch, which was cushioned with many plush furs. "Sit," he said, helping her down onto it. "We will talk after I remove the mourning paint from my face."
"You must be starved," Jolena said, watching him as he poured water from a jug into a wooden basin, then began splashing his face with the water. "The stew smells delicious. While you wash your face, I will dip some stew into a bowl."
"Dip stew into two bowls," Brown Elk said, scrubbing his face with his hands, watching the water turn black with the discarded paint. "Am I right to think you have not eaten enough to keep your strength? Your heart is troubled too much to enjoy the taste of food on your tongue?"
"Yes, something like that," Jolena said, marveling over how he could measure her mood so well. She ladled stew into two bowls and set them aside until he came and sat down beside her.
She didn't hesitate to eat once he began, not having realized that she was so hungry until she got that first bite between her lips. She ate ravenously, then set her bowl aside as he scraped the last morsel of carrot from his bowl with his fingers.
Brown Elk then set his bowl aside and turned his dark eyes to Jolena. "It is written on your face that too much worries you," he said. He placed a gentle hand to her shoulder. "Do not fret over your white brother. Spotted Eagle will return him to you. And do not worry over Spotted Eagle. He is brave but cautious, and he has strong medicine. Some say that he is related to the ghosts and that they help him."
"Truly?" Jolena said, her eyes wide.
Brown Elk dropped his hand to his lap. "You see, my daughter?" he said, chuckling. "This wizened old man knows what to say to draw a daughter out of herself." His eyes twinkled into hers. "The mere mention of Spotted Eagle did not do it, but the wonder of what I said about him is what helped draw your thoughts away from that which torments you."
"Do people truly say that he is related to ghosts and that they help him?" Jolena asked, her eyes still filled with wonder.
"Perhaps," Brown Elk said, shrugging. "It was just something that came to me that I thought might draw your attention. it worked, did it not?"
Jolena laughed softly, now realizing that what he said was not at all true, but it had seemed something that might be. Spotted Eagle seemed the sort to be able to do anything and to be anything he desired.
"Yes, it worked," she murmured. "And I appreciate it. I am concerned over Spotted Eagle and my brother's welfare. Both are precious to me."
"Then I was right earlier to assume your feelings for Spotted Eagle are those that a woman feels for a man when she wishes to speak vows of forever with him?" Brown Elk said, leaning over to push another limb into the flesh-warming fire.
"Yes, I have many wonderful feelings for Spotted Eagle," Jolena said, finding it easy to talk with this man who until a few days ago had been a stranger to her. She was so glad that the Blackfoot of this village had associated enough with white people that they could speak her language. If not, she would have felt like a stranger in a foreign country!
"And I approve," Brown Elk said, settling back down onto his couch again. He folded his arms comfortably across his chest. "He need not pay me a large bride price for you, for I can see that he already has you locked within his heart, as he is locked within yours."
Jolena moved from the couch onto to her knees before Brown Elk. "Father, it is so strange how it happened," she murmured, her eyes sparkling into his. "I saw Spotted Eagle in my dreams before I ever met him face to face! When I told Spotted Eagle this, he explained the importance of dreams to the Blackfoot. I feel so blessed, Father, to be Blackfoot and to be here to learn everything that a Blackfoot woman should know."
"You will learn easily," Brown Elk said, smiling at her. "Already you know much."
"And how do you feel about my dreams?" Jolena said anxiously. "And that they for the most part come true?"
Brown Elk framed her delicate, copper face between his hands. "I, too, am gifted with dreaming," he said, his voice low and comforting. "You see, my daughter, I dreamed of you often before you came to me in the flesh."
"You did?" Jolena said, gasping. "Truly you did?" "It is true that I did," Brown Elk said. "But you see, my daughter, until you came to the village and showed yourself to me, when I dreamed of you I thought the dreams were of your mother! Now I know they were, in truth, of you!"
He drew her to him and cradled her close. "This father missed you," he said, his voice breaking. "You are so like your mother, my beautiful bride, my reason for breathing. But you are real and dear to me, forevermore, Ni-tun, as my daughter. Your mother is just a sweet memory that I have tucked away now inside my heart."
"Would you mind terribly telling me about my mother?" Jolena asked, easing from his arms. "If you would rather not, I would understand. You have just a short while ago left your place of mourning, where you mourned a son. I would understand if it is too soon to talk of someone else for whom you have sung your mourning songs."
"It would please me to acquaint you with your mother," Brown Elk said, his voice trailing off into silence as he gazed into the flames of the fire.
Jolena crept back onto her couch, feeling awkward in this silence. She stole a glance at her father's face and noticed again its texture, then noticed something new since he had lost a sonthe sagging lower lids of his level, assured eyes. Yet nothing had changed about his uncompromising, self-willed mouth.
