Savage Tempest (23 page)

He slowly eased his hand from Joylynn's. His jaw tightened as he looked again at the hidden valley. “Let the white man try to disrupt our lives again,” he said fiercely, then turned to Joylynn again. “If they do try to come, they . . . will . . . die.”

Joylynn knew that he had already placed many sentries at strategic points along the high canyon wall. They could see all movement down below during the daytime hours, and could hear all sounds when darkness enveloped the land. If even a wolf or mountain lion crept close, these trained sentries would hear it.

Joylynn remained where she was while High Hawk rode to a spot where he could be seen by all of his people.

He drew rein and smiled at each of them, then spoke. “My people, I have brought you to where my dreams led me,” he said. “This is your home now. No one will disrupt your lives again. No one will threaten your young sons or daughters. I promise this to you, my people, and you know I always keep my promises.”

While he was talking and instructing his people, Joylynn's eyes shifted to Andrew. After finally getting several nights of good rest while on their journey to this new home, he looked his age again. Before, after being wounded and traveling without rest, the young man had seemed to have aged overnight.

Even Joylynn had felt as though she had grown older from the long, hard ride without sleep, rest or a warm meal to please the stomach.

After they had finally caught up with their people, it had been heavenly to finally feel safe enough to stop and rest a full night before heading out again along the narrow passages that had brought them to this hideaway.

She knew that many of the Pawnee people were still wary of Andrew, although their shaman had befriended him. She had seen Andrew and Two Stars often discussing religion, and she had seen Andrew hand his Bible to Two Stars after reading special verses to him.

She knew that Two Stars was quite taken by the young man and the passages that had been read from the Bible to him.

Joylynn wasn't sure how to take Andrew's friendship with the shaman. Was the young man getting on the good side of Two Stars in order to gain the trust that might lead to his quick release?

Or did Andrew truly care about the older man?

In time, Joylynn and everyone else would know the truth behind the young man's behavior.

She only hoped that he was not making a fool of such a wonderful man as Two Stars.

Hearing the rushing sound of a waterfall near the spot where the new village was going to be built, Joylynn remembered another waterfall, another time.

She swallowed hard as she thought about Sleeping Wolf's poor, twisted body being covered by stones. His burial had been near a waterfall, where he would hear it for all eternity.

He was also close to where eagles nested. Joylynn smiled at the remembrance of the nest of eagles, where the small heads popped up for food when their mother came with a tiny morsel for each.

She glanced over at Blanket Woman, who now stood beside the travois on which she had traveled. Joylynn was glad to see hope in her old eyes now, instead of the sadness that had been there as she mourned her elder son's death. Joylynn would never forget the look on Blanket Woman's face, when she had been told that his body had been found and buried. Blanket Woman had been beside herself that she had not been at the burial of her son. She had been desperate to say final words to him and pray over his body.

For Blanket Woman, the rest of the journey had been miserable as she lay on the travois with a
blanket drawn over her face. But she had been heard. Her wails and prayers had reached into everyone's hearts.

Joylynn was glad when Blanket Woman stopped her open grieving and rejoined humanity, throwing the blanket aside and eating again, yet still saying nothing to anyone, not even her chieftain son.

But now? Joylynn could see a tentative joy in Blanket Woman's eyes as she gazed upon this new land that was so beautiful and filled with peace.

High Hawk was still telling his people what was to be, now that they had arrived.

Soon after, they cleared a large piece of land for their lodges and began building new tepees, placing them in a tight group at the lower level of a slope in the well-watered valley.

A large fire was built in the center of the village, where even now the elderly men, who were not strong enough to help cut wood, or build homes, sat smoking their long-stemmed pipes. In their eyes was a revived look of hope.

Joylynn pitched in and helped plant poles into the ground to support the lodge coverings. She smiled at High Hawk, who worked alongside her.

The children romped and played, some running after beautiful butterflies, others chasing quail from the high grass.

The deer that Joylynn had seen upon her arrival were farther down the stream, but not drinking. They watched with large brown eyes as they observed,
for the first time in their lives, animals that walked on two legs, not four.

“They are beautiful, are they not?” High Hawk asked as he came and stood beside Joylynn.

“Do you ever hesitate to kill them?” Joylynn asked.

“One cannot afford such hesitation, not when so many people's lives depend on the meat and pelts of the deer,” High Hawk said, watching as the creatures finally bounded away and were lost to sight amid a thick stand of cottonwood trees.

He looked to his left, then to his right, where tall pines stood like sentinels near the canyon wall.

He felt safe here, and content.

Then he reached his hands to Joylynn's waist and drew her into his embrace. “I have neglected you,” he said regretfully. “But once the hunt is behind us, you will be the sole center of my attention. You will see that the waiting was worth it. I plan many good things for you on our wedding day.”

“You are everything to me,” Joylynn murmured, placing a gentle hand on his cheek. She laughed softly. “So you have something special planned for me, huh?”

“You will see,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “My neglect of you will end after the hunt. Until then, though, my people's welfare comes first. They all need warm homes, and new cache pits are being dug for the food that will be stored there.”

Joylynn groaned at the memory of helping his
mother dig her cache pit. “Again?” she said, but her tone was teasing, not whining.

“One more time you will help my mother prepare her cache pit, but after this, when new crops are harvested, you will dig one for our own food,” he said. His eyes twinkled. “Maybe by then you will be so heavy with child, the other women will offer to dig our pit for you.”

Again Joylynn worried about being pregnant again, unsure of whether she could carry a child full term.

But when he drew her closer and kissed her, everything but High Hawk and the joy she felt with him was forgotten.

“I have missed you . . . in . . . that way,” she whispered against his lips. They had not been free to make love since their first time together. “You know what I mean, don't you?”

“
Ho
, as I have missed you in that way,” High Hawk whispered back to her. “Once the Wolf band is settled into a normal way of life again, I will satisfy your hunger, over and over again.”

“As I will yours,” Joylynn said, blushing when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and found Blanket Woman standing there, her hands on her hips.

“One cannot get tepee poles in the ground when kissing seems more important,” Blanket Woman said, glaring at Joylynn. “When will you prepare
mine? This old woman is anxious for her first lodge fire.”

Joylynn wanted to tell her that everyone was anxious for the same, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

She wondered, though, if she and High Hawk's mother would ever be on friendly terms.

“
Ina
, this is your tepee we are building, not ours,” High Hawk said, reaching for his mother and embracing her. “I know how anxious you are to feel that things are normal again in your life. But everyone else feels the same way, yet I have heard no one but you complaining.”

“I disappoint you in so many ways,” Blanket Woman said, sudden tears in her eyes. “I will try not to, my son. I will try hard not to.”

“
Ina
, you are loved so much by this son, do not worry about trying so hard to do things that you think will please me,” High Hawk said. He leaned back from her and gazed into her eyes. “
Ina
, we have a new chance at life here where no white man's feet have left any prints. It is a time to rejoice. Smile. Take heart. All is good.”

Blanket Woman flung herself into his arms. “I will not complain ever again,” she said, a sob catching in her throat. “I . . . I . . . sometimes feel so sad and bitter over the loss of land that was ours from the beginning of time, then the loss of my husband, and finally my firstborn. It is hard for this
old woman to forget the losses that bring such pain to my heart.”

“I will help you forget if you will only let me,” High Hawk said. He looked at Joylynn, who was listening to the conversation between mother and son. “And so will this woman who will soon be your daughter.”

Blanket Woman looked at Joylynn.

Suddenly she smiled. “I will not complain any more about you, either,” she said. “From here on, you are my friend.”

“More than that,
Ina
,” High Hawk said. “She . . . will . . . be your daughter. Your daughter. She will be the one who will give you grandsons and granddaughters.”

Those words seemed to bring a soft light into the older woman's eyes. She broke away from High Hawk and went to Joylynn. She surprised everyone who was watching by hugging her.

“I welcome you into my life,” Blanket Woman said, her voice breaking. “I welcome the children you will bring into my life.”

Joylynn wasn't sure what to do or say, for what if she disappointed the older woman by not being able to give her grandchildren?

High Hawk's smile was what she needed. She felt a quiet joy within her heart and knew at that moment that somehow she would bear him a son and this woman a grandson.

Suddenly she hugged Blanket Woman. Joylynn
was filled with warmth when the old woman returned the hug.

High Hawk's eyes widened. He was astonished by this sight, but knew now that even this was a part of his dream of paradise.

He smiled and went to the two women he loved, drawing them both into his embrace while his people worked at building their lodges and the children romped and played.

He did not see Andrew and the way he was watching the joy of the people he was supposed to have hunted down and killed.

Joylynn had helped dig Blanket Woman's cache pot, giving the two women time to bond. Blanket Woman had promised never to cause Joylynn any trouble again, and she believed her. She so badly wanted their future to be bright and warm; she wanted them to be a true family.

High Hawk's scouts had been sent in various directions to look for buffalo and had returned with good news. Plenty of buffalo had been spotted on this new land, where no man had had a chance to kill them off.

Joylynn was riding proudly beside High Hawk as they set off for the hunt. The warriors planned to kill only as many buffalo as were needed to keep the Wolf band in meat for the duration of the winter.

Joylynn was proud to be a part of the hunt, even though she was not going to take part in the actual hunt, but would be an observer.

Yet some of the Pawnee women saw Joylynn's mere presence during the hunt as taboo, fearing that she might bring their husbands, brothers and cousins trouble if she rode with them. Some thought that the mere sight and smell of her would warn the buffalo to flee.

Others thought Joylynn was courageous to do so many things that they had only seen men do. They had been told that Joylynn had been a rider for the Pony Express, which was also a male preserve.

Most of the women saw her as someone strong and courageous enough to be a chief's wife, whose strength and stamina would cause her to bear their chief many strong sons.

“I'm so glad that you are letting me go with you today,” Joylynn said, drawing High Hawk's eyes to her. “But I understand why you don't want me to be an actual participant in the hunt, even though I hunted often with my father. He would let out a loud ‘whoopee' when I downed an animal to put meat on our supper table.”

She swallowed hard. “I miss my father terribly,” she said. “Mama, too, but I had more of a relationship with my father than Mama.”

“Your
ahte
is looking down from the heavens even now, pride in his eyes that he has had a role in bringing up a strong and wonderful woman like you,” High Hawk said. “I am sure your
ina
is looking down at you, as well, with love.”

“I always wanted to make them proud,” Joylynn
murmured. “And now I want the same for you. I don't want to let you down, ever. You . . . are . . . my world.”

“You are my world, my woman, as well as my people's,” High Hawk said. He looked quickly to the right when the sound of many horses' hooves frightened quail from their roosting places.

“Quail make a good meal,” Joylynn said, having also seen the flight of the birds.

“Today we seek much larger animals, whose meat will last for the duration of the long winter,” High Hawk said, again looking ahead for signs of the buffalo that had been sighted by his scouts.

He knew they must be drawing near the herd, for they had traveled half a day now.

“How are you feeling about Andrew?” Joylynn asked. “Do you still believe he is being truthful? Or do you think that all he says and does is a ploy to draw us into trusting him until he is well enough to travel back down the mountain?”

“I want to trust him. Certainly, Two Stars believes that he is sincere. They sit often and talk about their religions and the differences between their Gods,” High Hawk said, his long black hair blowing in the wind. “If Andrew is playing a game with my people's religious leader, he will pay dearly in the end for his betrayal. For now, I will trust as Two Stars trusts.”