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He looked over his mother’s shoulder at Brave Wolf. “I want to ride side by side with you on the hunt, to challenge you in games again, as we did when we were young brave,” he said earnestly. “My brother, I want to be everything to you.”
“Night Horse, oh, is that truly you, Night Horse?” Dancing Butterfly cried as she came running toward him.
Pure Heart stepped aside just as Dancing Butterfly reached Night Horse, tears flowing from her eyes when she saw her son reach out for the woman he had loved since they were children.
“I am sorry that I hurt you again,” he said, holding her tightly. “I am here to stay, if the soldiers will allow my freedom.”
“They will, oh, my love, they will,” Dancing Butterfly sobbed as she clung to him.
Brave Wolf bent down, grabbed Blackjack Tom by an arm, and yanked him to his feet. “Your days of killing and maiming are over,” he growled out. “Your days of accosting women in the dark are over. I will see to it that you are taken in chains to be confined in the guardhouse at Fort Hope. You will never be able to touch my wife again.”
“Your wife?” Blackjack Tom gasped out, paling as he looked quickly at Mary Beth. He glowered. “I was right to try and kill you. You are an Injun lover. You . . . you . . . actually married one.” He spat at her feet. “You whore.”
Mary Beth gasped and took a shaky step away from him, then flinched when Brave Wolf slapped him hard across the face, causing his neck to make a strange snapping sound.
Mary Beth gazed disbelievingly as Blackjack Tom’s head hung limply, his chin touching his chest as his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.
“Is . . . he . . . dead?” she gasped out.
“No, but he will be unconscious for a while, which is good since he has many miles to travel before Night Horse hands him over to Colonel Anderson for incarceration,” Brave Wolf said. He turned to Night Horse. “I will tie him more securely, in case he does awaken. Then, my brother, you should take time to eat before heading out for Fort Hope.”
“I shall fix food for him,” Dancing Butterfly said. She glanced quickly at Pure Heart, who she knew would want to spend those moments with her son in case he was not allowed to return to his home again.
“Pure Heart, I shall fix breakfast for you and Night Horse,” Dancing Butterfly murmured, smiling. “Go and be with your son alone. I shall join you soon with the food.”
Pure Heart smiled broadly, locked an arm through Night Horse’s, and walked away with him. She stopped and looked inquiringly at Mary Beth when she saw the cat in her arms.
“She came to me this morning,” Mary Beth said. She held the cat out to Pure Heart.
Pure Heart didn’t take the cat. “The cat has never looked as content in my arms as she does in yours. If you wish to have her as yours, I understand,” she murmured. Then she smiled. “And I soon will have Night Horse to fill the empty spaces in my heart with his smile and laughter. I do not need the animal.”
Mary Beth heard the hope in Pure Heart’s voice. She prayed that Night Horse would be allowed to return to the village.
“Then I shall keep her,” Mary Beth murmured. She ran a slow hand over the cat’s tummy. “But if you wish, you can have a kitten very soon to call your own.”
“I would like that,” Pure Heart said, smiling radiantly.
She turned her eyes down to the unconscious man. “He may be a bad man, but he might just be the reason for my son to be set free,” she said. “If Night Horse is seen as the one who is responsible for capturing the man that the pony soldiers are looking for, might not they reward him by allowing him his freedom?”
“I would hope so,” Mary Beth said, giving Brave Wolf a questioning look.
“Yes, I, too, would hope so,” he said. “I do hope that my brother is given his freedom and allowed a fresh start with his life, for I believe he deserves it. By capturing Blackjack Tom and saving us from what might have been a quick death, Night Horse has redeemed himself. He deserves a second chance.”
Mary Beth gazed down at Blackjack Tom, again reliving what he had done to her. “Not everyone deserves a second chance,” she said, shuddering. “This man . . . this Blackjack Tom . . . doesn’t!”
Chapter Thirty-one
Is it, in Heav’n a crime,
to love too well?
To bear too tender or too
firm a heart?
—Alexander Pope
It was the last cicada-shell moon of old summer and the second leaf-falling season at the Crow village for Mary Beth. She was now the happy, proud wife of the chief of the Whistling Water Clan. She knew this was the season when new tepee poles were cut and the women busied themselves making certain their lodge skins were renewed and whitened.
