“You don’t need to say it, Twila,” she sobbed. “I already know the answer. If my daughter had been found, she’d be here with me.”
Seeing Lavinia’s despair, feeling it deep inside his own heart, Wolf Dancer reached a hand out and gently placed it beneath Lavinia’s chin.
He slowly turned her face so that they could look into each other’s eyes. “Lavinia, we were searching for Dorey when we found you unconscious in your canoe,” Wolf Dancer said thickly.
He saw puzzlement in her eyes behind the shine of her tears, and he understood. The circumstances behind Dorey’s disappearance were difficult to comprehend. He wasn’t certain he could even make it clear to her, himself, were he to tell her from the beginning how the two young braves had abducted Dorey, and why.
“Please tell me everything,” Lavinia said, searching his eyes. “I…I…am alright. I need to hear it. I want to know what you know about Dorey. You do know what’s happened to her, don’t you? It’s there in your eyes and in your voice. Please, oh, please tell me she is alright.”
“I cannot tell you that because I myself do not know how she is,” Wolf Dancer said.
His reply made her wince and brought even more tears to her eyes. He placed gentle hands to her face and wiped the tears away.
“I am not certain you are well enough to hearwhat I am about to tell you,” he said, his voice tight. “Perhaps you might want to wait until later.” “No,” Lavinia said, swallowing hard. “I want to hear whatever you know, now. This is my daughter we are talking about. If anything has happened to her, I…need…to know.”
She reached a desperate hand to Wolf Dancer and clutched one of his hands. “You must tell me,” she said urgently. “Please tell me now.”
He knew he had no choice but to tell her what he knew, even though it might turn her against the two young braves who’d caused such sorrow, and possibly against himself and his entire band.
“There are two young Seminole braves…” he began and didn’t stop until it was all said, even the worst of it—that Dorey seemed to have disappeared into the Everglades and had not been seen again since the boys left her alone in the tree house.
“No!” Lavinia cried, turning away from everyone and sobbing. “No. She can’t be dead. Not…my…Dorey.”
Then she turned back to Wolf Dancer. “It is my fault,” she cried. “I never should have given her permission to leave our home, especially alone…yet I have always trusted that she would be alright.”
Then a sudden fire replaced the guilt in her eyes. She sat up straight and gazed directly at Wolf Dancer. “And…those …two boys?” she demanded. “Where are they? Are they being punished? Do they know the wrong they have done my daughter …and me? I may never see my precious Dorey again!”
“The young braves have been shamed for what they did, and they are out in the swamps even as we speak, helping to search for your daughter,” Wolf Dancer said, understanding her need for vengeance. He was going to wait awhile longer before making a decision about what the young braves must do to atone for their reckless behavior.
“Lavinia, for now, all that is important is finding your daughter,” Wolf Dancer quickly added.
Tears filled Lavinia’s eyes again. “Where can my daughter be?” she asked, feeling sick to her stomach because she was so upset. “Could she have made it back home in the dark during the treacherous hours of night? Or…is she lost? Could she have died in the Everglades all alone?”
Suddenly a voice spoke up from outside the shaman’s lodge. Shining Soul was away for the moment, saying prayers in private, so Wolf Dancer went to the door and opened it, finding one of his most trusted warriors standing outside.
“Singing Waters, you have left your sentry post,” Wolf Dancer said. He gazed intently into his warrior’s eyes, seeing trouble in them. “What brings you to your chief?”
“A small canoe has been found beached at the far side of the island,” Singing Waters said. “It is not one of our canoes, and no one was found anywhere near it.”
Wolf Dancer was filled with sudden alarm, for he had always feared the day when whites might find his village and invade it.
He stepped outside, quickly looked beyond SingingWaters, and slowly scanned the village. When he saw nothing unusual, he turned back to Singing Waters. “Go,” he commanded. “Get several warriors. Tell them what you have seen and instruct them to search every part of Mystic Island.”
After Singing Waters left to do his chief’s bidding, a new thought came to Wolf Dancer. Could that canoe be the one in which Dorey had traveled? Could Dorey even now be on the island, hiding and afraid? He went to Lavinia and knelt beside her. “A canoe was found beached on the opposite side of the island,” he said, and saw her eyes light up at the possibility he’d just been considering.
“Could it be Dorey’s?” she gasped. Wanting to see the canoe herself, she started to get up, but her weak knees buckled and she fell back down onto the bed of pelts.
“If it is, she will be found,” Wolf Dancer reassured her. “I will go myself and search the island, to see if she is here. But you must not get your hopes up. The empty canoe might have floated down the river on its own, and the waves might have carried it onto the sandy beach of my island.”
He nodded at Joshua. “Come with me,” he said. “We shall look together.”
Joshua’s eyes lit up as he went to stand beside Wolf Dancer.
Lavinia smiled up at Wolf Dancer. “Thank you,” she murmured. She found it incredible that this young chief could be so kind to her, when it was whites like herself who had forced his Seminole band into isolation, and others onto reservations. She wished shecould somehow find a way to make it up to them, especially Wolf Dancer and his people.
Twila settled down close to Lavinia and held her hand.
“She’ll be fine, Miz Lavinia,” Twila said optimistically. “I just can’t imagine anything happening to our Dorey. She’s a strong person. She’ll be alright, I just knows it.”