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His father’s dark, haunting eyes became level with Dancing Cloud’s, proof that his son’s words had finally penetrated that blank wall that had seemed to have enveloped him.
“Dead,” his father said, his voice vacant of emotion. “Dancing Cloud, Yankees came. They took. They burned. They killed.”
Despair swam through Dancing Cloud. He swallowed back the urge to retch. He shook his head in an effort to clear it of the thoughts that were spinning there.
“They were deserters? Bushwhackers?” he finally managed to say.
“No, my son,” James Talking Bear said bitterly, the name James having been given to him by Boyd Johnston. “It was a full regiment of soldiers.”
“Soldiers?” Dancing Cloud said, stunned. “They came and . . . and . . . ?”
“They came and took my heart wit
h them when they left,” his father said mournfully.
“Confederate or Union?” Dancing Cloud said, his insides stiffening.
“Bluecoats,” James Talking Bear said, nodding. “The one with hair the color of the sun and eyes the color of the sky. He led the bluecoats into the slaughter of our people. When he left, he laughed.”
Dancing Cloud’s heart seemed to turn to ice at the description of the soldier. It was surely the very same man who had led the ambush on Dancing Cloud’s regiment a few days ago.
Now he wished that his aim had been more accurate.
In the back!
He should have shot the heartless Yankee in the back instead of the leg.
Silently Dancing Cloud once again vowed to find Clint McCloud one day and make many wrongs right.
But not now.
Perhaps not for many winters.
For now he was needed to help put his father’s life back together again, as well as his own, and the people who depended on his chieftain father’s leadership.
Dancing Cloud placed a comforting arm around his father’s shoulder. “Come,” he said thickly. “Your eldest son did not die at the hand of the ha-ma-ma—enemy Union soldiers. He has come home, to mend things for you, and our people.”
“Your father’s insides are dead,” James Talking Bear said, his voice breaking. “How can that ever be mended?”
“With much tsi-ge-yu-i, love, Father,” Dancing Cloud said, drawing him closer to his side. His fingers tightened against his father’s shoulder. “I am here. And I have much love to give you, Father. Much tsi-ge-yu-i love.”
When his father looked over at him, tears misting his usually bright and brilliant dark eyes, Dancing Cloud felt as though his very insides were being torn from inside him. His father had always prided himself in his nerves of steel and his ability to withstand all sadness and challenges. In one instant, in one heartbeat, that had all changed, and because of that, Dancing Cloud was suddenly a changed man, himself. He now knew a bitterness within him never known before.
Vengeance.
One day he would avenge this that had been done to his family.
Suddenly flashing before his mind’s eye were the faces of his mother, sister, and brothers. He was glad that he was able to see them as smiling, for any more sadness today would perhaps be too much for him to bear.
Chapter 2
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me.
