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“Yes. I have been here for some time now and enjoy my life as never before,” Speckled Fawn said, smiling at Shirleen. “I have come to do what I can to make your time here more pleasant. The first thing I will do is take you to the pile of clothes that were brought to the village after Blue Thunder and his warriors took them from the Comanche renegades. Surely among those clothes are some that you will want. Unfortunately, the things you had on when you were injured are not fit to be worn again. The bloodstains on them are permanent.”
Speckled Fawn paused and smiled at Shirleen. “I understand why you might be afraid to trust anyone in this village,” she said. “I was afraid, too, when I first arrived here. I had heard horrible tales of how white women were mistreated by Indians. Well, it did not take long for me to learn that the Indians at this village would be far kinder to me than anyone in the white community. My family was slaughtered on their way to Wyoming, and I was forced to do anything that I could to survive . . . things I am not proud of having done.”
She paused, sucked in a nervous breath, then continued. “I had been a dance hall queen, and sometimes even worse than that, but circumstances occurred to change that part of my life,” Speckled Fawn said solemnly. “I won’t go into what those circumstances were, but just that I wandered alone and was near death when I was found by the Assiniboine Indians and brought to this village. I have now been here for five summers, which in the white way of describing things is five years. I was married shortly after my arrival to a man of this village, and I have never been happier.”
As Shirleen listened to what the woman told her, she saw just how happy she did seem to be. Yet Shirleen was not ready to open up and discuss her own life with this woman who was a total stranger to her.
Who was to say if what the woman told her was truth? Perhaps she was just toying with Shirleen, or even jealous that another white woman was now in the village.
“What is your name?” Speckled Fawn asked softly. “Surely you will share at least that with me, for I am here as a friend, and the only other white person in the village.”
Still Shirleen said nothing, yet she was thinking of the Indian name she had been given by the shaman. It had a beautiful sound to it.
Tiny Flames.
Yes, if she had to be called something while she was in this village, she wished to be known as Tiny Flames.
But Shirleen wasn’t ready to share even that much with this white woman, not until she knew whether her friendly overtures were genuine.
Speckled Fawn got to her feet. “If you don’t want to tell me your name, that’s fine and dandy,” she said, shrugging. “But please come with me to sort through the clothes.”
Shirleen quickly shook her head, refusing to do anything this woman asked her to do.
“I understand,” Speckled Fawn said softly. “Well, by gum, if you won’t go with me, I’ll bring some clothes to you.”
Speckled Fawn left and soon returned with a huge bag.
Shirleen’s eyes widened as the woman dumped the clothes out on the mats that covered the earthen floor.
She gasped when she saw that many of the clothes had belonged to her and her daughter. Her eyes lingered on one of Megan’s dresses, which Shirleen had made only recently. Each stitch had been taken with the deepest love. When Megan had put it on, she’d been so delighted by the embroidered flowers on the collar, she had swirled around and around, giggling. It was a special moment between mother and daughter that was their very own.
She suddenly thought of the sweater she had put on Megan this morning. Megan had even tried to put a few stitches of embroidery on the front herself, since Shirleen was sewing baby chickens on it. She’d wanted to make it extra special for her daughter since Megan loved baby chickens so much.
Recalling the sight of Megan rushing outside with the sweater on to play with the baby chicks, Shirleen felt tears prick her eyes. She hoped it would keep Megan warm at night wherever she was.
She swallowed hard as she fought her doubts that Megan was even still alive.
“May I be alone?” Shirleen suddenly asked, picking up Megan’s tiny dress and holding it to her breast. “Please?”
“Yes, I’ll leave,” Speckled Fawn said, already turning to walk toward the entrance.
She stopped and turned and gazed into Shirleen’s eyes again. “But while I am gone, please choose the clothes you want to keep, for the rest will be divided among the women of this village.”
Shirleen nodded and waited breathlessly to again be totally alone. She needed this time to think of a way to discover the whereabouts of her daughter.
But . . . how . . . ?
Chapter Nine
There is nothing held so dear as love,
If only it be hard to win.
—Ingelow
Deep in thought about what she had just experienced with the stranger who had been brought into the village, Speckled Fawn stepped into the tepee she shared with her Indian husband.
She stopped before going farther, her mind struck by something that had just transpired in the other tepee.
