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Eagle Wolf had always been especially proud to be with his parents, for his father was the chief of their people, a proud, stately man, the kind of leader Eagle Wolf aspired to be.
His mother had always been just as special to him, but in different ways. No one could have been as sweet and caring as his mother.
He could even now remember the warmth of her arms as she would embrace and comfort him when an extra-loud crash of thunder shook the floor of their tepee.
Today there was no lightning or thunder, only the continuing soft pitter-patter of the raindrops against the sides of the lodge.
“There are rains of two types,” Eagle Wolf said as Nicole continued braiding his hair.
“Soft and hard,” Nicole responded, laughingly. She knew this was not what he was about to say, but it felt good to be lighthearted and gay with him.
Eagle Wolf laughed. He was glad she could be so lighthearted after the sorrow these past days had brought into her life. Some people who experienced the same might never smile or laugh again.
But this woman was the sort who would never allow anything to take away her joy in living. She loved life as much as he.
And that, too, brought them closer together. In so many ways they were so much alike.
They would be happy as husband and wife, and they would marvel at the children they’d bring together into this world.
“There is female rain and there is male rain,” Eagle Wolf said.
His comment was so unexpected, Nicole stopped braiding his hair for a moment, so that she could move around to gaze into his eyes.
“Female and male?” she asked. “How can there be…female and male rain?”
“This was taught me as a child by my mother,” Eagle Wolf said as Nicole returned to braiding his long hair. “She taught me that the soaking, yet soft rain is called female, because it is the rain that nurtures and nourishes. Not only plants, but also animals, as it settles gently upon them from the heavens.”
“Why, that is beautiful,” Nicole murmured, then went around and sat beside Eagle Wolf after securing his long braid with a short piece of leather thong.
“What is the male rain responsible for?” she asked.
“Male rain is not gentle in any respect,” Eagle Wolf said, reaching back and touching his braid, smiling his approval of how perfectly it had been formed.
“No?” Nicole said as he brought his hand away from his braid and reached over to grab a stick and slowly stir the ashes in the fire, causing sparks to fly upward through the smoke hole overhead. “As most men are seen by women, the male rain is powerful,” Eagle Wolf said.
He dropped the glowing, fiery stick, then settled back from the fire, now gazing into Nicole’s grass green eyes.
“This is the destructive rain of the most vicious storms,” he said. “Ofttimes trees are destroyed during these storms, not nourished. Animals run and hide, as do women and children. But strong warriors never run from such rain. Instead, it rekindles their own inner fires, and makes them the sort of warriors who keep our people safe from harm.”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, blinding light from a streak of lightning flashed downward through the smoke hole.
The suddenness of it, the brightness, caused Nicole to flinch. When the ensuing thunder rocked the floor on which she was sitting, she flung herself into Eagle Wolf’s arms and clung to him.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He could feel the rapidness of her breathing against his bare chest.
“I have always been afraid of storms,” Nicole said, realizing that she was trembling in his arms, and feeling embarrassed over it.
But nothing had ever been able to take the fear of storms away from her. When she had been a small child, a horrible tornado had torn through Missouri, destroying most of the homes close to Nicole’s.
It had uprooted some of the largest elm trees in the area. Some homes had caught fire from the lightning strikes. Some people’s lives were lost.
Her family had been fortunate not to have lost anything except for a few horses that had broken through their corral fence and run off.
“You are safe with me,” Eagle Wolf softly reassured her as he slowly caressed her back through the softness of her dress. “I will never allow anything or anyone to harm you. Nor will the Great Spirit. He sees everything and knows what you have been forced to endure. You will be always safe while you are with me.”
“I do feel so safe, yet the lightning and thunder always frighten me,” Nicole murmured, still clinging, even though she was no longer really afraid. She did believe that Eagle Wolf and his Great Spirit, as well as her own God, would keep her safe.
“When I was a child, lightning struck many things and set them afire,” Nicole murmured. “My neighbor’s house went up in flames during one of our worst storms. And then there were the tornadoes that we had to endure more than once. Some even called our portion of Missouri ‘tornado alley.’”
