Savage Flames

The sumac leaves and roots of the pallaganghywere taken in equal parts and crushed separately again until they were almost a powder.

These were mixed with sumac berries, then all of this was placed in a small pot in the flames of the lodge fire. The mixture would simmer until it was ready for use later.

Joshua knew that in time the shaman would also take another root called the ouissoucatcki and grind it into a thin powdery substance. Shining Soul had given it to Joshua to increase his strength, and he would give it to Lavinia when she was finally awake. He would place this mixture in warm water for her to drink.

“Do we have to go, Pappy?” Twila whined as she looked up into his dark eyes. “I’se so worried about Lavinia, I don’t think I could stand bein’ away from her.”

“We aren’t needed here, Twila. It’s bes’ that we go to my home and wait to hear how Lavinia is doin’,” Joshua said, already taking Twila by the hand and leading her outside.

“Pappy, you have a house here on Mystic Island?” Twila asked, her eyes wide as they walked away from the shaman’s lodge. “A house of yore very own?”

“Yes’m,” Joshua said proudly. “And it’s a mighty fine one, Twila. You’ll see. It’s a home like ours back at the plantation nevah was. I wished your mammy could be here to live in it with us.”

“And Dorey,” Twila said, sobbing. “Where is she, Pappy? Where can Dorey be? Those boys! They should be punished, that’s fo’ sure.”

“I’m certain they’re in a mighty bunch of trouble,” Joshua said, walking onward with Twila.

Inside the shaman’s lodge, Wolf Dancer continued to sit silently by as Shining Soul worked his magic on Lavinia. As he watched, he vowed that after Shining Soul made her well, Wolf Dancer would never let her go!

He doubted that she would want to return to the danger waiting for her back at the plantation. Its new owner was a man who had killed her husband in order to have her!

That man would never be allowed to get near her again.

Surely she would not want to go there after she discovered the truth about her husband’s death.

The only person she had left to care about was her daughter. And Dorey was lost in the swamp.

Lavinia was lying somewhere between life and death because of the young braves who had made plans to abduct a white child for their own entertainment. When he and Joshua and the boys had reached the tree house earlier that evening, they had found it empty. Somehow their prisoner had escaped.

He would make sure Running Bear and Deer Shadow understood the wrong they had done, but his main concern now was seeing that Lavinia was alright, and finding the lost child.

Tomorrow he would resume searching for the daughter named Dorey. He would make certain many canoes of warriors were sent out to hunt for her, and he would instruct some of these warriors to go on land and search there, too.

He did not want to think that Dorey might have been swallowed up by the treachery of the Everglades.

He would not think of that possibility. He would believe that the child would be found, just as he believed that his shaman would work a miracle on the child’s mother.

He sat quietly by as Shining Soul continued to minister to Lavinia’s wound. As he watched he was convinced that this woman was the loveliest on this earth, and she deserved far better than what life had thus far handed her.

She deserved to be happy.

She deserved to have her daughter with her again.

She deserved a husband who would never let her down, in any respect.

And she deserved to see the man who had killed her husband dead.

Wolf Dancer had assigned himself her protector, and he would not let her down.

Now if only she would survive to accept him as such!

Chapter Fifteen

There is a fullness of all things,

Even of sleep and of love.

—Homer