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He glowered over at Lauralee. “Especially to her,” he said, his voice weak, yet noticeably filled with a venomous hate. “She . . . is . . . white. I . . . trust . . . no whites.”
“Her skin is white, yes,” Dancing Cloud said, glancing over at Lauralee. “But never equate her with those who are evil. Lauralee’s heart is pure and sweet. She is loved by me, a Cherokee chief. So, Brian Brave Walker, you must see that she is deserving of more than hate. And know this, young brave. She is to be my wife.”
Brian Brave Walker’s lips parted in a disbelieving gasp.
Then he drifted off again, finding peace in the black void of sleep.
“Let us move onward and get him to my village,” Dancing Cloud said, rising to his feet. “I will carry him in my arms.”
When Lauralee said nothing back to him, Dancing Cloud kissed her softly. “Do not fret over this young brave’s misguided feelings for you. Once he is awake and lucid for clear thinking, he will learn quickly the sweetness of your heart.”
“I wonder what has happened in his past that makes him hate white people so quickly and easily?” Lauralee said, walking beside Dancing Cloud back to their horses. “His hate seems to run way deeper than anyone else I have ever known.”
She stopped and paused, then looked quickly up at Dancing Cloud. “Except for the hate I feel for a man, I should say, I have never witnessed such total hate,” she said, her voice drawn. “Clint McCloud. The Yankee with the red hair and blue eyes.”
“And wooden leg,” Dancing Cloud said, proud to be the one who caused the man such discomfort for the rest of his life.
“Yes, and wooden leg.” Lauralee nodded.
She shoved the rock aside that had kept the horse’s reins in place. She waited for Dancing Cloud to get secure in his saddle with Brian Brave Walker on his lap, then handed his reins to him.
Watching the child, to see if he was still asleep, Lauralee swung herself into her saddle.
They resumed their journey up the mountainside. Brian Brave Walker awakened for a while, then would drift off to sleep again.
“Once we get him to my cabin he can eat proper foods that will make his strength return,” Dancing Cloud said, gazing over at Lauralee.
“It must be done slowly, though. He apparently has been without solid food for quite a while now. He has to adjust to it gradually or his body will continue to rebel against it.”
Dancing Cloud nodded. “You bring your teachings of the white man’s hospital to my mountains?” he said, smiling over at her. “That is good. Like your father you will share with the Wolf Clan Cherokee.”
“I only hope that your people will accept me as they did my father,” Lauralee said warily. “You see, Dancing Cloud, I am arriving to your village in a much different capacity than my father. I will remain among your people as one with them. My father came to your people, brought them supplies, smoked their peace pipe and shared talk and knowledge with them, then he left. He returned to his own life, leaving your people to live theirs apart from his.”
“The difference also is that you are coming to my village as my future wife,” Dancing Cloud quickly interjected. “Who dares question that since I am their chief, their spokesperson?”
Lauralee smiled, yet did not share his confidence.
She looked straight ahead again, her spine stiff, her heart pounding when the first signs of the village came in sight as the ground leveled off into a wide valley beyond.
As they came closer to the village, Lauralee was stunned to see that it was so nearly like the smaller white communities in their manner of living, that a stranger could rarely distinguish an Indian’s cabin or little cove farm from that of a white man. The cabins were made of logs and roofed with the bark of chestnut trees. Each cabin had its own garden, corn, and various other vegetables maturing in them.
She looked past the village at the many orchards, manure evenly spread around the fruit trees. She could tell by the trunk and leaves of the trees that during the harvest season the Cherokee had an abundance of apples, peaches, and plums.
She looked elsewhere. Although there were some cows grazing in small plots behind the cabins, it seemed that pork was highly esteemed by the Cherokee. A considerable amount of hogs were fenced in beside the cabins, as well as some that ran wild and untended throughout the village.
As they came closer to the village and Lauralee could see some of the people outside their lodges doing various chores, she could tell that the primitive costumes had most certainly been long obsolete. Just like Dancing Cloud had told her, she saw that his people’s dress was like that of the white people, except that for the most part moccasins took the place of shoes.
And noticeably also were the men who still wore buckskins along with those who wore the breeches and shirts of the white man.
Her gaze was drawn to women sitting outside their cabins at spinning wheels and looms. It was obvious they manufactured their own clothes.
Dancing Cloud was observing, himself, things of his people and village. The Great Spirit had given them the land. And what a beautiful land it was. The sky was dark blue, the trees casting shadows. The arched backs of the hills beyond served as a sturdy backdrop for the thriving village.
He saw that the horses and ponies of his people were tethered in their usual places. Many dugout canoes, hollowed out of poplar logs with ax and fire, were beached along the banks of the river. Toddlers were busy at games that he had once played. Some women were fleshing yesterday’s kill for tonight’s dinner. Fresh meat hung from drying rocks, blood red; white sheets of buck fat were spread out to dry beneath the hot rays of the sun.
Dancing Cloud’s gaze stopped on one woman in particular. Susan Sweet Bird, his father’s sister. She was sitting solemnly outside his father’s lodge on a buffalo robe. She stared blindly ahead as she poked a steel needle into a newly cured skin.
Dancing Cloud could see her frustration as she continued to jab at the buffalo skin with her needle, her eyesight not there to assist in this chore that she was determined to do for herself.
