Savage Hero (32 page)

He turned to David again. He bent down and gave him a fierce hug, then stood again. He gazed at the boy for a moment longer, then turned and walked to his horse.

He mounted his steed, then rode away without looking back.

Suddenly Mary Beth was aware of someone else at her side. She turned and saw that it was Brave Wolf's mother, her weak, old eyes squinting as she gazed down at David.

“So this is your son,” Pure Heart said in a voice that was so weak she could hardly speak. She was being held up between two warriors. She had aged and often seemed at death's door, yet stubbornly bounced back, smiling at how she had cheated death again.

“Yes, this is my David,” Mary Beth said proudly, bending to pull him into her arms. She smiled into his eyes. “I'm not sure I can get used to calling you anything but David.”

“Then do not,” he said. “You see, Mother, I always felt like a David, not a Lone Bear.”

“You are so dear,” she murmured, hugging him to her heart. “You are my David. My darling, sweet David.”

Then she stood. She gestured toward Brave Wolf's mother. “David, this is Pure Heart,” she murmured. “She is Brave Wolf's mother. She is now your grandmother.”

Then she turned to Dancing Butterfly. “And this is Dancing Butterfly, who is now your aunt and who is my very best friend in the world,” she murmured.

Little Horse ran up and clung to his mother's skirt, his dark eyes slowly assessing David. In his free arm, the coyote pup lay cuddled and asleep. He smiled at his father as he came now and stood beside Brave Wolf.

“And this child is Little Horse,” Mary Beth said, gesturing toward him. “He is Dancing Butterfly's son, who is now your cousin.” She smiled at Night Horse. “And this is Night Horse, Brave Wolf's brother and Little Horse's father.”

Mary Beth saw that her son was having trouble absorbing so much. She started to take his hand to lead him home with her and Brave Wolf, but stopped when Little Horse stepped away from his mother, toward David.

“Do you want to hold White Coyote?” Little Horse asked, smiling up at David, who was twice as tall as he.

“A coyote pup! And he is white,” David cried. He held his arms out. “Yes, I would love to hold him.”

Little Horse gently laid his pup in David's arms.

David beamed.

“Will you be my friend?” Little Horse asked, his eyes wide.

David smiled and nodded, then walked away with Little Horse to a crowd of children, who began asking David questions all at once.

But Mary Beth saw how David suddenly turned and looked at Black Feather who was riding from the village. She saw the shine of tears in his eyes. Then he turned his head quickly away, as though he knew it was best not to linger over the pain of parting.

She sighed with relief when she saw him talking with the children.

She turned to Brave Wolf.

“I have not only brought home our son, but also much meat for our plates,” Brave Wolf said, just as horses approached, dragging travois covered with fresh slabs of meat.

“It is not so much buffalo meat as deer,” Brave Wolf said. “But no matter. It is good and nourishing for all of our bellies.”

Mary Beth reached for him, then drew him into her arms. “Do you know how happy you have just made me?” she murmured. “My darling, thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing my son home to me.”

“It is good to see the peace in your eyes that your son's return has put there,” Brave Wolf said, holding her close as his people clamored around the meat-laden travois. He watched his mother being taken back to her lodge, then held Mary Beth away from him.

“Tonight we will have a great celebration,” he said. “We will celebrate the reuniting of you and your son, and the good hunt.”

He saw a sudden mischievous glint in Mary
Beth's eyes, then noticed how her hands slid down and rested across her belly.

“My darling, we have even more to celebrate than that,” she said, her eyes dancing. “My adorable chieftain husband, I . . . am . . . with child.”

His eyes brightened and widened. “You are pregnant?” he gasped, then laughed and lifted her into his arms. He swung her around playfully as he shouted out the news for everyone else to hear.

Mary Beth giggled and found this moment to be oh, so very, very delicious!

I am certain of nothing but of the
holiness of the Heart's affections,
of the truth of Imagination—what the
imagination seizes as Beauty must be
truth, whether it existed before, or not.

—Keats

The skeleton trees were laced with the white of a recent snowfall. Two years had passed. Now the parents of two sons, Mary Beth and Brave Wolf were content if no more children were born to them.

Things had changed in their lives.

They had moved onto the reservation where so many were now forced to live, but they still had good enough land for gardens and were able to hunt.

Mary Beth was so glad Brave Wolf had seen that his family's tepee was large enough for all of them to be comfortable. She would never forget the day the conical lodge was finished. It was so tall . . . so round . . . so beautiful.

Just after the lodge was up, she watched in awe as Brave Wolf burned sagebrush and weeds inside the tepee, and as the smoke appeared through the hides, he had told her this process would keep out the rain. Only then did he open the vent at the top of the tepee for the smoke to escape.

Inside were spread robes for his family's comfort, and he had made four backrests of willows strung with sinew and covered with buffalo hides.

Since their move onto the reservation, Mary Beth had another good female friend besides Dancing Butterfly; and Brave Wolf had a new friend too . . . Black Feather and his wife. He and his people were assigned to the same reservation.

Now David was fortunate enough to have two sets of parents to dote over him, and Mary Beth didn't mind sharing him. She saw David as fortunate to have so many who loved him.

It was still dark-face time, the period just before dawn began to color the eastern horizon. Old Woman Moon was lowering in the star-scattered sky, the sun soon to replace her.

Mary Beth lay in Brave Wolf's arms, snuggling close. He had been up only long enough to place wood on the coals in the firepit. The flames were just catching hold, sending warmth behind a blanket-curtain, where David slept in complete
privacy, and onto a small bed of pelts, where Mary Beth and Brave Wolf's other small son slept soundly and sweetly.

Mary Beth and Brave Wolf's bed was enclosed by a sort of curtain made of the skins of elk. It completely encompassed them, giving them the privacy they needed when they wanted to make love.

“Today will be fun for all the children,” Mary Beth said. “With the snowfall come games and sledding.”

“I have just finished making a new sled for David,” Brave Wolf said.

“It's so interesting how you made the sled from buffalo ribs fastened together with rawhide,” Mary Beth murmured. “I'm sure David and his friends will enjoy it so much.”

“As will they enjoy the many snowball fights that the children will start,” Brave Wolf said.

“And I shall again make angels in the snow for you,” Mary Beth said, laughing softly.

“We have time for a different sort of fun before the children awaken, my Sunshine,” Brave Wolf said, sliding his hand beneath the pelt that covered him and Mary Beth. He ran his hand over her soft curves. “We have time to make love before the children awaken.”

She turned to him and molded her body against his, then he held her gently at the waist as he slid her beneath him.

“My love, before you came into my life with your sunshine, laughter, and heart-melting gazes, my
lodge was a place of emptiness,” Brave Wolf said, his eyes gazing into hers. “There was no heartbeat next to me. There was no hand to reach out for me in the middle of the night. There was no wondrous, sweet press of a woman's body to take me into the deep of sleep.”

He smiled. “But now?” he said. “I have all those things that I had only dreamed about before you came into my heart and life. You are my
everything
.”

“I was so alone . . . so afraid, until you came along and swept me away from my fears and loneliness,” Mary Beth murmured. She placed a gentle hand on his cheek. “My husband, you gave me back my life, my reason for being.
You
. Oh, my darling, you were my knight in shining armor. You rescued me.”

“Your knight?” Brave Wolf said, arching an eyebrow. “Shining armor?”

Mary Beth giggled. “When I was a young girl and had idle time on my hands, I read many, many books,” she said. “I adored reading about damsels in distress and knights who rescued them. These knights wore armor to protect their muscled bodies, somewhat like the shield that hangs from the lodge pole, which is carried into battle to protect you.”

“Books,” Brave Wolf said, nodding. “When I was in Washington in council with the Great White Father, there were many talking leaves on shelves in his huge council house. When he saw my interest in them, he took a book from the shelf and showed it to me. He read passages from it to me.
It was a story about another president. His name was strange, like Lincoln.”

“Yes, President Lincoln,” Mary Beth said. “He was a wonderful president.”

She didn't tell him that President Lincoln had been assassinated. Such a topic of conversation seemed misplaced at a time when they were speaking of pleasant things.

“Darling Brave Wolf, your body against mine speaks of other things besides knights, damsels, and presidents,” Mary Beth said softly. “It speaks of needs . . . of desire.”

He laughed throatily, then pressed his lips against hers, and as the stars winked down at them through the smoke hole above, they made love and whispered sweet words against each other's lips.

“
Mihigna
, husband, I could never be as content as I am now,” Mary Beth whispered against his.

“
Mitawin
, my woman, you and our children are my contentment,” he whispered back as they rocked, clung, and soared off together into the clouds of total bliss.

For them, life was
wasteste
, good, very good!