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Too stubborn to give in to the animal’s meanness as it bucked again, then nipped at Brave Wolf’s bare legs with its large, yellowed teeth, Brave Wolf winced in pain. But he knew horses well and knew that this animal was nearing the breaking point. He must withstand the pain it had inflicted on him.
He held tightly to the reins. He kept his knees pressed hard against the stallion’s sides.
He smiled when the horse stopped rearing and began running at a slower pace. It no longer snorted. Its whinnying became low and tentative.
Brave Wolf smiled, ran a hand across the steed’s muscled neck, then leaned low and whispered words of encouragement and friendship in the horse’s ear.
Suddenly the horse stopped, hanging its head and breathing hard.
“You are now mine,” Brave Wolf said, leaning low to put his arms around the animal’s neck. “We will be devoted friends forever. Together we will be as one.”
The horse nodded as though it understood.
“Let us go home,” Brave Wolf said, straightening his back.
He wheeled the horse around and headed back in the direction of his village, where he saw everyone standing at the edge of the camp, their eyes anxious.
He heard the cheers and claps as he grew closer.
Mary Beth smiled and waved, the pride she saw in Brave Wolf’s eyes matching the emotion in her heart.
When he got closer, she ran out and met him.
She was not at all surprised when he reached down and swept her up from the ground and onto his lap.
“Thank God the moon was so bright tonight,” Mary Beth said, gazing lovingly into his eyes. “It enabled us all to watch you. It was so beautiful, Brave Wolf, how you and the horse came to peace with one another.”
“We are as one now,” he said. “Midnight, the name I have just given him, will be my main steed now. The one I have ridden so proudly for so long is now yours . . . if you will have it.”
“Truly?” she gasped. “You truly want me to have it?”
“Hecitu-yelo, yes,” he said huskily. “It will be my first gift to the woman who will soon be my wife.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, beaming. “I accept the gift with much pride.”
She hadn’t even thought about how it must have looked to his people when she had run to meet him. Now he held her tightly against him as he rode up to them.
Mary Beth scarcely breathed as she looked from person to person, the moon’s glow white on their copper faces.
She couldn’t believe the lack of resentment they showed toward her. They seemed mostly interested in their chief, who had once again proved his worth to them . . . his masterful ways.
He dismounted, then reached up for Mary Beth, who went willingly into his arms as she slid off the horse. “We shall now eat, sing, and be thankful to the First Maker,” Brave Wolf said as Mary Beth stepped away from him.
He gazed at her violet eyes, her lovely face framed by long, reddish-gold hair; then he looked around at his people.
“My woman will leave tomorrow. She goes to Fort Henry, to seek the pony soldiers’ help in finding her lost son,” he said. “My warriors, those of you who searched for the child before, I ask you to leave again tomorrow and resume the search while I see to Mary Beth’s safe arrival at the fort.”
/> He gave her a soft smile, then looked at his people again. “She will return soon, for there will be a wedding celebration . . . ours,” he announced.
He had hoped to see understanding in his people’s eyes. He found it, and even approval in some. He had explained himself well in council and asked the warriors to take the message of his love for this white woman back to their lodges.
If anyone resented his decision, his choice, it did not show tonight in anyone’s eyes.
Breaking the horse had been a deliberate move. He’d wanted to give his people something more to think about than their chief’s announcement that he wanted a white woman to be his wife.
“Go now, my people,” he said. “The night is new. I shall join you soon to share in the feasting and singing.”
They all went back into the village.
