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“I don’t understand.”
“Do you judge all white men by the actions of some?”
“No. Of course not.” Certainly not, in his line of work. Bobby knew some men were pure evil.
“Then why should it be so with red men?”
Bobby had no answer. Such a notion that had never occurred to him, and his mind was too full to ponder it now. He cleared his throat. “How is that you speak my language?”
Standing Elk turned, and his chin quivered slightly. “My mother, who learned it from her mother, my grandmother. She was the daughter of a white man.”
* * *
As darkness set in, Bobby sat on a fur in the corner of the healing tent. Summer Breeze, her long hair plaited into an onyx braid that hung nearly to her feet, tended Naomi. Summer Breeze did not speak English, but Bobby read her facial expression.
Naomi was in danger.
She slept fretfully and was not responsive. Her slender body shuddered, and perspiration poured from her. But still she was beautiful. And pure. And good.
Much too good for the likes of him.
Bobby clenched his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes shut. Fear absorbed him for the first time in decades.
Naomi was a preacher’s daughter and she believed in God. Standing Elk spoke of the Great Spirit. Bobby’s mother used to read from the Bible. Long, long ago.
The day Indians had taken her from him, God had abandoned Bobby, so he in turn abandoned God and never looked back.
Now, he prayed to a God he wasn’t sure existed. But he had to try. God, the Great Spirit, whatever one called it, was his last hope.
Save her, he begged silently. Save her, and I’ll see her safely home to her pa. I know I was never meant to have her. Forgive me for trying to take what was never mine. I’ll give her up, I swear it, if only you’ll let her live.
* * *
Time passed like a locust caught in tree sap. Bobby lost track of the days, the nights. He ate smoked venison and corn because Standing Elk insisted, but he had no appetite. He refused Black Wolf’s pipe and drank only enough water to sustain himself. He had to live to see Naomi home once she recovered.
If she recovered.
After that, he didn’t give a damn what happened to him.
The next morning, when Summer Breeze lifted a blood soaked cloth from Naomi’s body, Bobby shuddered, and then relaxed, but only a bit. The cloth hadn’t come from Naomi’s wound. It had come from her private parts. She had started her courses.
Sadness, coupled with relief, enveloped him. The primal male part of him wished he’d impregnated her. Perhaps he’d have been able to keep her then, to watch her pretty belly swell with his child. But it was better this way. She could go on now, find someone worthy of her who could take care of her and keep her safe.
A knife settled in Bobby’s gut at the thought of another man touching Naomi. Lying with her. Impregnating her.
He forced away the hurtful images. What was important was that she live. She’d be safer without him.
On the fourth day of fever, convulsions seized Naomi’s weakened body. Bobby stiffened, fear pulsing through his veins. Summer Breeze ushered him out of the tent, jabbering in Lakota. She yelled something, and her little boy, Silver Raven, clad only in tan buckskins, came running. His cherubic tan face was solemn as he listened to his mother’s rapid words and then sped off in a cloud of dust.
Bobby sat outside the tent, his head in his hands, oblivious to the goings-on in the camp. He didn’t pray again. If God hadn’t heard him the first time, he wasn’t listening anyway.
At least his heart had stopped hammering. It had broken days before, when he realized Naomi was no longer his.
Had never been his.
Standing Elk came forward, his son in tow. He didn’t speak to Bobby as he passed him and entered the tipi.
Bobby had no idea how many hours had elapsed when Standing Elk finally emerged from the tent.
