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When Dancing Shadow slowly turned his gaze to her, he looked deep into her eyes. Since he usually looked at her blankly, she sensed that this time he had understood at least a portion of what she had just said.
She frowned, thinking that if he understood there were some who still did not appreciate her living among them, the knowledge would hurt his heart. She had to be more careful about what she said, just in case he did understand but could not speak his mind to react to what he heard.
When he turned his eyes away from her and hung his head, quickly falling asleep where he sat, Speckled Fawn reached out for him and helped him down onto his pallet of blankets and furs beside the fire.
She positioned a rich pelt from a red fox beneath his head, his long hair spreading over it like a gray halo, then slowly covered him.
“My husband, oh, my husband, I so wish there was something I could do for you that you would feel and know,” she whispered. She brushed a soft kiss across his leathery brow. “I love you. Oh, at least please know how much I love and adore you. You have given me such peace inside my heart. I will be lost without you when you are taken from me.”
She leaned away from him, filled with gratitude for this elderly man. Without his attention toward her, who could say where she might be now, or with whom?
She had no idea whether or not Blue Thunder would have asked her to stay with his people if she were not Dancing Shadow’s wife.
But she was, and she knew that even if her husband passed on to the other side, she would still live among the Assiniboine, for she would be the widow of one of the most powerful shamans in Assiniboine history.
At least that was what she had been told.
Stubborn by nature, and unable to get the white woman off her mind, Speckled Fawn decided to go back and talk some more to her.
The other woman seemed to have lost everything that was precious to her. It was a plight Speckled Fawn recognized all too well. She had felt the same way, had lost just as much the day her wagon train was ambushed and her parents lost their lives.
Chapter Ten
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—
That is all ye know on earth,
And all ye need to know.
—Keats
Shirleen sat beside the fire sorting through the rest of the clothes. As she picked up another dress that she had sewn for her daughter a few months ago, and that had been worn by Megan only a couple of days ago, she brought the pretty garment to her nose and smelled it. Shirleen had not yet had the chance to wash it before her world had been torn asunder.
Oh, where was her precious child?
Shirleen felt the sting of tears in her eyes as she held the dress close to her cheek. The aroma of her daughter as she had always smelled right after a bath was still on the clothes as Shirleen had hoped it would be.
The thought of not being able to protect her child tore at her very being. Her heart ached as if someone were squeezing it.
As soon as she was able, she would leave this place and go to the nearest fort to report her missing daughter.
She was certain the colonel in charge would send out the cavalry to search for Megan.
Shirleen would ride with them, for although she was not skilled at outdoorsy things since she had been such a homebody while growing up, she did know how to ride a horse. She had enjoyed an occasional outing with her father, horseback riding through the park on cool summer days.
At this moment she missed her papa almost as much as Megan, for he was the man who had always given her the courage to attempt things s
he otherwise could not face. He had always managed to make her wrongs right.
If he were there now to encourage her, surely the pain of missing her daughter would be more bearable. He would hold her close and tell her not to doubt that she would be reunited with her daughter.
“Oh, Papa, I do hope that I am reunited with Megan, and soon,” she whispered to herself as she continued to hold the dress to her face, even though her tears were wetting it.
Lost in thought, Shirleen wasn’t aware that she was no longer alone. She hadn’t heard Speckled Fawn step quietly into the tepee.
She didn’t realize that the woman had seen her hugging Megan’s dress and crying. She didn’t notice when Speckled Fawn silently withdrew.
Sighing, she placed the dress with Megan’s other clothes and then stacked her own things in a pile.
