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Light, so low in the vale,
You flash and lighten afar,
For this is the golden morning
Of love!
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Wolf Hawk rode on his black steed with his chin held high and with a smile at the knowledge that Mia was going to be alright.
And it was a glorious thing to see her with the tiny yellow bird. She was so gentle with it, so loving.
He had always known, deep down, that she had a caring, gentle heart, but seeing her treat one of Earthmaker’s tiny creatures with such love made him realize that she was exactly the sort of person he had always looked for in a wife.
The fact that her skin was white made no difference to him. It was her heart, her sweetness, that drew him to her.
The thought that he still had to convince his people of her goodness made his smile waver somewhat.
Whites had taken so much from the Winnebago, many had fallen into despair as they had been forced off their land, to be penned up like animals on reservations.
Wolf Hawk felt so fortunate that under his leadership the Bird Clan had avoided such treatment. He had made sure that they found a place far from the interference of whites.
The sign that whites had ever been in the area was the old fort, and that had been abandoned long before Wolf Hawk had led his people to the Rush River, where they built their homes and planted their crops.
He would meet in council soon with his warriors and explain to them what he planned to do…request Mia’s hand in marriage.
He would explain that she was a woman alone in the world, that she had no kin who would come for her and cause trouble to his Bird Clan. He would explain that were he to send her from their village, she would have nowhere to go, and no one to go to. She would be left to wander, to drift, and possibly to die at the hand of someone evil who might rape, then kill her.
No. He would not allow that to happen. He would make his warriors, his people as a whole, understand Mia’s plight.
In time, his people would all know and understand. But if it took them longer than it should, he would go ahead and do as his heart was leading him to do.
He was chief. What he said was final, always, at their village.
Suddenly his thoughts were stilled when he saw something on the ground that made him draw rein. He dismounted and knelt down, plucking from the ground a card such as he knew was used by gamblers.
He had seen them at a trading post and he had asked about them. The white man in charge of the post had explained to him what the cards were used for. He had been told that men sometimes killed one another over those cards.
A breeze brought another card to Wolf Hawk’s feet, and then another and another. He looked beyond them and saw others scattered across the land, colorful against the dullness of the ground.
He went and gathered them up, then stopped and studied them as they lay in his hand. He recalled Mia talking about the man whose name fit his tiny stature, and how he loved to gamble. She had said he carried a deck of cards with him at all times.
“These could be his,” he whispered to himself.
He stood and looked slowly around him, then searched the ground again for footprints. He saw none other than those he and his horse had made. He gathered from the lack of footprints that these cards had blown here from somewhere else.
But where?
And why would the man who owned them allow them to leave his possession?
“Unless…” he whispered, again slowly looking all around him.
Yes, something might have happened to the man who owned the cards.
Then another thought came to him.
These cards didn’t necessarily have to be Tiny’s. They could have belonged to the two trappers who were fleeing the Winnebago’s wrath.
