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“I am ready,” she said softly. “I will try not to allow myself to worry too much while you are gone.”
“Worrying is for the weak,” Blue Thunder said firmly. “And, woman, you are anything but weak.” His eyes roamed slowly over her; then he chuckled as he gazed into her eyes again. “You might be tiny, but you are not weak. You have proven to me that you are a woman of much passion . . . much courage.”
She blushed and laughed softly, then left the tepee with him.
Just as he started to mount his steed, which had been readied for him by a small brave whose role it was to tend to Blue Thunder’s horses, someone came running up to him.
Blue Thunder turned and gazed at Moon Star, the woman who had been left in charge of Dancing Shadow while Speckled Fawn was away. Then he looked at Speckled Fawn, who was already mounted on her steed beside Blue Thunder’s.
“What is it?” Blue Thunder and Speckled Fawn said in almost the same breath.
“Dancing Shadow has taken a turn for the worse,” Moon Star said, and a strange silence fell suddenly all around her.
Chapter Twenty-one
As sweet and musical
As bright Apollo’s lute,
Strung with his hair,
And when love speaks,
The voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
—SHAKESPEARE
The news had rendered everyone silent. Of course they had known that Dancing Shadow could not live much longer, but the fact that he had worsened tore at each of their hearts.
Even Shirleen felt a deep sadness, for although she had never known Dancing Shadow except by reputation, she knew that his passing would bring much sadness into the village.
Without further hesitation, Speckled Fawn hurried toward her home. Shirleen and Blue Thunder walked quickly behind her.
When they arrived at the lodge, they stopped, then quietly crept inside together. The sun filtered peacefully through the smoke hole overhead, looking mystical as the slowly rising smoke from the lodge fire bled into it.
Shirleen stayed just inside the lodge door while Blue Thunder and Speckled Fawn went to kneel at Dancing Shadow’s side.
Speckled Fawn stifled a sob behind a hand as she gazed down at her husband, lying there so motionless. She had seen him like this several times before, and she hoped this occasion was no different from the last. Then he had also seemed to take a turn for the worse, but awoke a few hours later, smiling. He was once more his usual quiet self, not ready to die just yet.
“I believe it is the same as before,” Blue Thunder said, placing a gentle hand on his uncle’s brow, which was cool to the touch.
He looked over at Speckled Fawn. He saw deep concern in her eyes, proving once again how much she loved her elderly husband.
“Speckled Fawn, I believe your husband is in one of his deep sleeps,” he explained. “I do not believe that he will die anytime soon because I have seen this many times before, just as you have. He slides peacefully into a sleeping stage such as he is in now, but awakens none the worse for it.”
“But, my chief, we cannot be sure,” Speckled Fawn said, reaching out to smooth the blanket that was spread over her husband.
She turned to Blue Thunder. “I truly do not know what to do,” she said, searching his eyes for answers. “What if this is not one of those sleeps? What if he does not awaken this time? You know as well as I do that it is going to happen one of these days. He . . . is . . . not at all well.”
“You must do what your heart tells you to do,” Blue Thunder said thickly. “But remember this, Speckled Fawn: A child’s life hangs in the balance. I do not doubt that at all. If we do not carry out today the plan we have made to rescue her, we may lose any opportunity to do so. If the child’s father leaves with her on a riverboat, she will disappear from her mother’s life forever.”
Speckled Fawn lowered her eyes.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
In her mind’s eye she was seeing the scars on Shirleen’s back. She believed that the man who had caused them would eventually do the same to his daughter, if not worse.
