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“Yes, sweetie, you can,” Mary Beth said. She laughed softly. “There are always enough kittens to go around. It seems that Sweetness has a male friend somewhere who keeps her belly filled with kittens.”
The sound of horses outside the hut made Mary Beth turn. She and Dancing Butterfly exchanged big smiles.
“Finally they are home,” Mary Beth said, hurrying from the small hut.
Just as they got outside and stood up, Mary Beth saw the large group of warriors entering the village, but there was someone else among them.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she grabbed Dancing Butterfly’s hand. “Is that a child on a pony beside Brave Wolf?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Oh, Dancing Butterfly, am I seeing right? Is it a young boy? Is his hair golden?”
Dancing Butterfly gazed intently at the child, whose skin was sun-bronzed and whose waist-length hair was the color of wheat. He rode proudly in his small saddle and wore only a breechcloth and moccasins.
“Yes, Mary Beth, you are seeing a young brave who is surely around nine winters of age and whose hair is the color of wheat,” Dancing Butterfly said, her own heart pounding at the sight, because she knew that she had just described Mary Beth’s David!
“Oh, Lord, oh, Lord,” Mary Beth cried, bolting toward them, her braids bouncing on her shoulders, her arms outstretched as the child came closer on his pony.
“David!” Mary Beth cried. “David! David!”
“Mama!” he cried as he leapt from his horse and began running toward her. “Mama!”
They met halfway.
Mary Beth fell to her knees and gathered him into her arms.
She clung and sobbed.
Brave Wolf dismounted and fell to his knees beside his wife and the young brave he would gladly call son. He gathered them both within his arms.
Mary Beth gazed at Brave Wolf. “I do not know how you managed this, but, oh, thank you, thank you,” she said, the tears hot on her lips. “My son. He is home. He is safe. He is alive!”
David clung for a moment longer, then as Brave Wolf leaned away, the child looked into his mother’s eyes. “Mama, I never let myself forget you, your love, the prettiness of your smile and eyes,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Mama, I knew that I would see you again.”
He lowered his eyes, then looked into hers again. “Mama, I remembered the prayer I said each night back at our home in Kentucky and I prayed that same prayer often, hoping I would find you when I became a great warrior who could travel far and wide to search for you,” he said. “But Brave Wolf, who I now know is your husband, found you for me.”
“We were hunting,” Brave Wolf said. He placed a gentle hand on the child’s shoulder. “Two Cheyenne warriors, one a powerful chief, joined our hunt. While we were becoming acquainted, I told him about you and that you were white. The chief told me about his adopted son, who is also white. I asked how he came to have the child, and for his description. It was moments later that I knew I had found David. And just as I thought it, the warrior spoke David’s name to me, as his name was before he gave him the Cheyenne name Lone Bear.”
“Lone Bear . . .” Mary Beth said, framing David’s tanned face between her hands. “My son . . . Lone Bear.”
She slowly looked at her son, up and down, smiling at how healthy and tan he was. She could hardly believe that he was there for her to love and touch forever and ever!
Then her eyes went to a warrior who came up beside Brave Wolf.
Brave Wolf placed an arm around the warrior’s shoulder. “This is Black Feather, who has fathered Lone Bear since the day he rescued him from a band of renegades,” he explained. He nodded from Black Feather to Mary Beth.
“Black Feather, this is Mary Beth, my wife,” he said, pride in his eyes and voice. “This is Lone Bear’s mother. Is not she as beautiful as I described her to you?”
Black Feather smiled and nodded. “Ah-hah, yes, and even more,” he said. He reached a hand out to Mary Beth. “It is good to finally meet the mother of my son Lone Bear.”
Mary Beth hesitated.
Her smile waned.
She didn’t like the way this warrior still spoke about David as though he were his . . . his to keep.
“I see that what I have said put alarm into your eyes,” Black Feather said, slowly lowering his hand to his side. “Although I still refer to Lone Bear as my son, I know that in truth he is yours, and that I must say farewell to him today. It is my wife, who is barren, who will find it difficult to accept this reality. He has become everything to my wife . . . and to me.”
“But you will not ask for him to leave with you?” Mary Beth asked hopefully. “You truly give him back to me although it is obvious how much you want and love him?”
“It is only right that he be with his true mother,” Black Feather said. “He kept you alive inside his heart. He spoke of you often. We sent out many search parties for you but never found you.”
