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Blanket Woman seemed intent on making her work.
Joylynn was afraid that one of these days, while mingling with the other women, one of them would notice her belly and realize that she was with child.
Of course she knew that it would have to happen eventually, for as each day passed, the child grew within her womb.
But she had hoped to keep that knowledge to herself until she
found a way to escape. Then nobody but herself would ever need know.
“Escape,” she whispered as she shoved the empty wooden plate away from her.
She gazed over at the rolled-up blankets at one side of the tepee, knowing they were used for High Hawk’s bed.
She crawled to them and ran a hand slowly over the bundle, then leaned low and smelled them.
A sensual craving that was unfamiliar to her swept through her at the scent of the man she should loathe, but now knew she secretly loved.
Everything about him spoke of gentleness and kindness, even caring.
He had never threatened her in any way, only treated her with respect.
She sighed and sat down by the fire, enjoying its warmth, for the nights and days had suddenly become cooler. She wished she could feel free to love that man, and he her. But the way they had come together was anything but normal, or right.
She was his captive.
He was her captor.
Such relationships should create hate, not infatuation.
But . . . she knew he felt something for her, too. Often she would catch him looking at her, so tenderly and, yes, so lovingly. She believed he regretted having taken her as his captive, yet if he had not, they never would have met. Like High Hawk, she truly believed now that it had been their destiny to meet.
Yet she was ready to turn her back on that destiny . . . on him. It just wasn’t forgivable for a man to take a woman forcefully. She had rights, and they had been taken from her, not once, but twice.
Well, she would take them back.
“I have no choice but to find a way to leave,” she whispered, tears suddenly in her eyes. “If only . . .”
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a soft voice, a child’s, coming from outside the tepee. The child was singing what sounded to Joylynn like a lullaby.
She leaned her ear closer to the entranceway and listened more intently.
The child was singing, “A-ho, I-lo, A-ho,” and other Pawnee words unknown to Joylynn.
To her, those Pawnee words had no meaning, but as the child continued to sing, the lullaby seemed to take on a special significance, somewhat like “Hush-A-Bye” in the English language.
“Is she singing a lullaby in Pawnee, and if so, is she singing to a baby, perhaps her brother or sister?” Joylynn whispered.
Too curious to sit there any longer, she rose to her feet and lifted the entrance flap slowly so she could see the child.
The little girl, perhaps seven years of age, sat beneath the low-hanging branches of a cottonwood tree, a few feet from High Hawk’s tepee.
Joylynn’s eyes widened in wonder when she saw what appeared to be a doll, made from dried husks of corn, in the girl’s arms.
As she sang, she slowly rocked her doll back and forth in her arms.
Recognizing maternal love in this little girl’s tender song to her make-believe child, Joylynn slid her hand to her stomach.
She only now realized that although this was a child of rape within her womb, she could not help having feelings for it.
