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"I'm so sorry, my dear." He told her and hugged her to him.
"Frank," she pulled out of his arms and stared, "I can't leave her."
Aiden came toward them, "She's made her choice, I'm afraid we will have to leave."
"But it's not fair to let a child decide."
Lucy put an arm around her and started walking her back to their teepee. "It is hard to accept, what we don't understand. But a child's sense of time is much different than ours. Peggy has known love from you and from Red Feather. A child her age can't tell time, but they know love."
"But it's only been a little over a month… "
"For her, a month is like a lifetime. It is simple now. She is loved."
"But it's so wrong, she's white! She's my child! Won't she understand later, like you did, that she's white?"
"Someday maybe she'll understand. I hope she does not."
"How can you say that?"
"Because unlike a breed, you can't walk in both worlds, Gloria. You chose one, and you have to remain. It is where you belong. She belongs here now, where she is loved and happy. A child responds to love and love only. She knows not of the taking. She only sees and feels the love. She accepts that love for without it, she has nothing but a gamble that her world will be alright."
"But she's too little to make such a choice." Gloria cried. "What kind of life can they offer her?"
"A good life, at least until she's grown."
"Then what happens?"
"Then she might seek you." Lucy smiled with understanding at her.
Lucy turned to Aiden. "It would be best if we go now."
Aiden nodded. He and Angus got the horses and brought them around. Gloria looked over her shoulder at the teepee where her child was, and tears streamed silently down her face. Lucy was sure she was in shock.
Lucy climbed up behind Aiden once more, weary from the last two days of stress and strain.
"It must have been pretty hard for her," Aiden remarked.
"For Gloria, it was."
After riding silently for a while Lucy hugged Aiden. "I begin to understand now, Aiden."
"Understand, what?"
"Peggy felt the love from Red Feather. Like I felt the love so long ago. It is when I became Indian, not white. I had no choice but to accept. Peggy had a choice, but she's so little, she too may someday regret it."
"Do you regret giving into that love?"
"No, I could never regret it, it was so freely given." Lucy sighed with contentment. "But since I'm grown, things have changed. Now I wonder about the small part of me that is white."
"Lucy, are you still going back to the fort with me?"
"I promised, I will go."
"I've got an idea how to make it a little easier for you."
"Oh, is that possible?"
"I think so."
