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They were women, surely discussing the events that had happened today in their village, the most shocking being the arrival of the other white woman.
Many of these women had accepted Speckled Fawn’s presence, but there were those who still resented her, especially since one of their most precious elders had taken her as his wife.
Dancing Shadow had chosen Speckled Fawn as his wife soon after she had been brought into the village.
At that time he had still had his senses about him.
He had even given her her Indian name.
Some days after their marriage vows had been spoken, her husband had fallen into his strange life of silence.
They had never shared intimacy of the sort husbands and wives normally shared.
But he had had a few nights of just being able to enjoy the warmth of his wife next to him in bed.
He had never once touched her intimate parts. Nor had he even gazed at her when she was undressed. He had given her all the privacy she could have wished for.
That pleased Speckled Fawn, for after what she had gone through the weeks and months before her rescue by Blue Thunder, she felt nothing but loathing for men!
She was so glad she did not feel that way any longer. While among these Assiniboine people, no man among them had looked at her with lust, or treated her unjustly.
She was the wife of a wonderful old man.
She was treated with respect because of who her husband was, and had been.
“Husband, I am no longer the only white woman in our village,” Speckled Fawn confided. “There was a horrible massacre of white people by Big Nose and his men. All the white people who were attacked died except one. It was a woman. She was brought to our village. Her wound has been treated by Morning Thunder, and she now sits in a tepee that Blue Thunder assigned her. She is not a true captive, though. When she is well enough to travel, she will leave us.”
She reached a hand to her husband’s chin and slowly turned his face toward her, but still there was no recognition of her, or of anything that she had just told him.
She let go of his face so that he could look into the fire again.
She often wondered what he saw.
Did he see some of his past flickering before his eyes as the flames danced and popped and zigzagged along the pile of wood?
Or did he truly see nothing at all?
“Husband, the woman seems so lost, so deeply hurt inside her heart over what has happened to her at the hands of the renegades,” Speckled Fawn went on. Despite his lack of response, she believed that somehow these moments with her were important to her husband.
Otherwise he would be alone, totally alone, in his silent world.
Feeling blessed to have been chosen by him to be his wife, knowing how powerful he had once been, Speckled Fawn was happy to give her husband all the respect and love that were due him.
She would remain by his side until the end. Once he took his last breath, he would finally be among those he surely thought of all day, even though he was no longer able to express what, or whom, he was thinking about.
It was those brief moments when he gave Speckled Fawn a fleeting smile that made her certain he somehow did hear her when she spoke to him, and fully appreciated her nearness.
“My husband, something just happened while I was with the white woman to make me think she might have a daughter,” Speckled Fawn said softly. “It was the way she held a tiny dress taken from the white settlement that was attacked. But where is the child? Who might she be with?”
She swallowed hard. “I so fear she is with Big Nose,” she said tightly. “He might have separated her from the others and taken her away before Blue Thunder’s attack. Oh, God be with her if she is with that demon.”
She slid her hand from his and brushed a fallen lock of his hair back from his brow. “I wish the woman would confide in me,” she said thickly. “As it is, she doesn’t trust me. I imagine it’s because I am white and living among your people and am dressed like your women. I would have had the same reaction five years ago had I found a white woman among your people when I was brought here.”
She saw that a corner of her husband’s blanket had slid from his shoulder.
She leaned closer to him and repositioned the blanket so that it would warm his aged, wrinkled flesh.
“My husband, I want to go and meet with Blue Thunder, to tell him about the white woman’s reaction to the tiny dress, but I’m not sure if he will agree to meet with me,” she said, her voice catching. “Although I have never done anything to cause Blue Thunder to despise me, he still seems to. I am aware that he has never approved of my being here. He never wanted me to marry you, his people’s shaman, and also his uncle. But since I am your wife, I have been tolerated by not only him, but also by the men of our village. Thank goodness I have made friends with most of the women.”
