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The music had stopped. All eyes were on Jessie. At this moment she felt like a fixture someone might buy from a general store.
Now she understood the reason she’d been asked to live with him in the first place. He enjoyed having her there to show off to everyone as if she were a trophy.
Oh, how she was beginning to loathe this man! Anyone who would beat a woman was not a man at all. He was a weasel.
She forced herself to smile as Reginald continued to fuss over her, telling everyone about how they had been so close as children.
“My cousin Jessie is bringing a lot of life and love back into my home,” Reginald said solemnly. “Since my Sara’s death, you all know how hard it has been for me.”
Everyone seemed to nod at once as looks of sympathy were given to Reginald.
But when Jessie looked at him, all she saw was smugness. She knew right then and there that this man had everyone fooled.
Everyone!
She could not help but suddenly feel trapped.
Chapter Five
Truly curious about the wasichu mitawin, the white woman, Thunder Horse hid in the shadows of the veranda wall at Reginald Vineyard’s house. Nearby, double doors led into a room filled with music and laughter.
Thunder Horse had been watching the people through the sheer curtains of the closed doors, and had jumped out of sight just as the woman named Jessie walked through the doors to step out on the veranda.
He had scarcely breathed as she stood there alone for a while, as though she were contemplating life as she gazed up into the heavens, as he so often did.
He was tempted to join her there, to witness her reaction when she learned that he had come to see her again. But he knew if he did that, he might frighten her.
He was almost relieved when Reginald came and got her, removing the temptation to reveal himself to her. He knew that was best. He would have to find another way to speak to her again, to understand his fascination with her.
Seeing that no one was near, he stepped back to the doors again, where gauzy white curtains kept him from being seen.
He could see through them well enough, for the room within was well lit. Candles glowed from above, placed in a fancy contraption that hung from the ceiling in the center of the room.
He searched the gathering until he found Jessie and Reginald.
He could tell that the man was proud to show off the beautiful wasichu mitawin, but Thunder Horse could read expressions very well and could tell that Jessie was uneasy.
He wondered why.
Had she not come to Reginald Vineyard’s house because she wanted to?
Or . . . had she been coerced somehow?
His gaze was drawn elsewhere, for there was much to wonder at.
He had never seen white people dance. It was much different from the red man’s dances. This dancing was the dizziest thing he had ever seen.
His eyes focused next on four people at the far end of the room, who sat in chairs beside one another. They sawed away at stringed boards that made music. These instruments were nothing like what his people used to make music.
Again he gazed at the people who were dancing in time with the music. It puzzled him to see men dancing with women. And they actually touched while dancing. That was something his people never did.
Suddenly the dancing and music changed.
One of the musicians stood up and began shouting while another sawed away at his stringed board as men began swinging the women around on the shining wood floor.
This sort of dancing, and the loud shouting, looked and sounded very rude to him.
Then a young man and woman faced each other and danced in the middle of the floor as others watched and clapped their hands. Soon those people left and others took their place in the middle of the floor and began doing the same strange thing.
