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He looked to his left, then to his right, where tall pines stood like sentinels near the canyon wall.
He felt safe here, and content.
Then he reached his hands to Joylynn’s waist and drew her into his embrace. “I have neglected you,” he said regretfully. “But once the hunt is behind us, you will be the sole center of my attention. You will see that the waiting was worth it. I plan many good things for you on our wedding day.”
“You are everything to me,” Joylynn murmured, placing a gentle hand on his cheek. She laughed softly. “So you have something special planned for me, huh?”
“You will see,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “My neglect of you will end after the hunt. Until then, though, my people’s welfare comes first. They all need warm homes, and new cache pits are being dug for the food that will be stored there.”
Joylynn groaned at the memory of helping his mother dig her cache pit. “Again?” she said, but her tone was teasing, not whining.
“One more time you will help my mother prepare her cache pit, but after this, when new crops are harvested, you will dig one for our own food,” he said. His eyes twinkled. “Maybe by then you will be so heavy with child, the other women will offer to dig our pit for you.”
Again Joylynn worried about being pregnant again, unsure of whether she could carry a child full term.
But when he drew her closer and kissed her, everything but High Hawk and the joy she felt with him was forgotten.
“I have missed you . . . in . . . that way,” she whispered against his lips. They had not been free to make love since their first time together. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“Ho, as I have missed you in that way,” High Hawk whispered back to her. “Once the Wolf band is settled into a normal way of life again, I will satisfy your hunger, over and over again.”
“As I will yours,” Joylynn said, blushing when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and found Blanket Woman standing there, her hands on her hips.
“One cannot get tepee poles in the ground when kissing seems more important,” Blanket Woman said, glaring at Joylynn. “When will you prepare mine? This old woman is anxious for her first lodge fire.”
Joylynn wanted to tell her that everyone was anxious for the same, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
She wondered, though, if she and High Hawk’s mother would ever be on friendly terms.
“Ina, this is your tepee we are building, not ours,” High Hawk said, reaching for his mother and embracing her. “I know how anxious you are to feel that things are normal again in your life. But everyone else feels the same way, yet I have heard no one but you complaining.”
“I disappoint you in so many ways,” Blanket Woman said, sudden tears in her eyes. “I will try not to, my son. I will try hard not to.”
“Ina, you are loved so much by this son, do not worry about trying so hard to do things that you think will please me,” High Hawk said. He leaned back from her and gazed into her eyes. “Ina, we have a new chance at life here where no white man’s feet have left any prints. It is a time to rejoice. Smile. Take heart. All is good.”
Blanket Woman flung herself into his arms. “I will not complain ever again,” she said, a sob catching in her throat. “I . . . I . . . sometimes feel so sad and bitter over the loss of land that was ours from the beginning of time, then the loss of my husband, and finally my firstborn. It is hard for this old woman to forget the losses that bring such pain to my heart.”
“I will help you forget if you will only let me,” High Hawk said. He looked at Joylynn, who was listening to the conversation between mother and son. “And so will this woman who will soon be your daughter.”
Blanket Woman looked at Joylynn.
Suddenly she smiled. “I will not complain any more about you, either,” she said. “From here on, you are my friend.”
“More than that, Ina,” High Hawk said. “She . . . will . . . be your daughter. Your daughter. She will be the one who will give you grandsons and granddaughters.”
Those words seemed to bring a soft light into the older woman’s eyes. She broke away from High Hawk and went to Joylynn. She surprised everyone who was watching by hugging her.
“I welcome you into my life,” Blanket Woman said, her voice breaking. “I welcome the children you will bring into my life.”
Joylynn wasn’t sure what to do or say, for what if she disappointed the older woman by not being able to give her grandchildren?
High Hawk’s smile was what she needed. She felt a quiet joy within her heart and knew at that moment that somehow she would bear him a son and this woman a grandson.
Suddenly she hugged Blanket Woman. Joylynn was filled with warmth when the old woman returned the hug.
High Hawk’s eyes widened. He was astonished by this sight, but knew now that even this was a part of his dream of paradise.
He smiled and went to the two women he loved, drawing them both into his embrace while his people worked at building their lodges and the children romped and played.
