Savage Flames

e old ways. The children listen to each and every word, learning much from him.”

They left the village and walked through the trees and brush until they came to the beached canoes.

Wolf Dancer lifted her and gently placed her in his canoe, which was larger than the others, but not too large to be manned by just one person.

Thrilled to be with Wolf Dancer alone like this, Lavinia watched him shove the canoe out into the water. Then he leapt aboard, and began pulling the paddle through the water.

Lavinia held on to the seat as Wolf Dancer took the canoe out deeper, then guided it down the center of the river beneath the low-hanging limbs of the willows and mossy oaks.

The sun spiraled its way through the thick vegetation overhead, twinkling like diamonds in the water, and becoming many more suns as the reflection floated away in many directions in the wake of the canoe.

Lavinia was glad that he was not going in the direction of her home, but instead farther into the swamp.

Although she knew this was the Everglades and that many mysteries lay within the swamp, she was not afraid, because she was with a man who knew these waters better than anyone else.

Lavinia could hear the screeching of birds and the cries of animals as they traveled on. She looked up and saw birds that she had never seen before. Then over on the shore, she spotted the shine of eyes through the vegetation, and wondered what animal it was, and whether it would be safe to leave the canoe when they reached their destination.

“There are so many animals and birds here that I am not familiar with,” Lavinia blurted out, unable to keep down the fear that was creeping into her heart. “Will it be safe to beach the canoe so…so…far from your village?”

“I know all the animals that live in this area, and while you are with me, you have nothing to fear. They all know me and know they have nothing to fear from me,” Wolf Dancer said.

He looked over his shoulder at her, yet did not miss a stroke in the water as they traveled onward.

“I have respect for living beings, whether they stand upright or prowl the forest, whether they swim in the river or send roots into the earth,” he said.

“You think of trees as beings?” Lavinia asked, marveling anew over the complexities of this man.

For a brief moment she thought of seeing the white panther, and then Wolf Dancer, on the limb of the old oak near her house.

Yes, Wolf Dancer was someone unique, and someone she might be afraid of if she had not been given the chance to know him.

But the opposite was true. She felt safer while with him than she had ever felt with anyone else, even her beloved father. Her father had been an ordinary man who did ordinary things.

Wolf Dancer was not ordinary in any sense, and he was the man she now loved with all her being.

There was not one aspect of him that frightened her, not even the part of him that seemed linked to the white panther.

She recalled having seen something curious backat the village and decided to ask him about it. “Wolf Dancer, I saw something the women were doing at your village that fascinated me,” she said, glad to have something to talk about other than mysteries.

“What was that?” he asked, glancing at her over his shoulder.

“I saw women stringing what looked like green beans on threads,” she said. “Why is that? We have always had green beans in our family garden, but never did we string them on thread.”

“It is the custom among my people. We find that stringing the beans is a good way to store them in the garita,” Wolf Dancer said, this time paying more attention to where he was guiding the canoe. He now directed it toward a long, sandy beach. “After the beans have been strung on thread, the women dry them in the sun for several days. Once they are prepared in this way, the beans will keep for months. When other food is scarce, we always have beans available. The women soak them overnight and then cook them up in tasty, nourishing stews.” He turned back to smile at Lavinia. “Moon Beam will be glad to show you how to string the beans and how to prepare many dishes with them.”

“I want to learn how to do that and everything else your women do each day,” Lavinia said. Then she was distracted from their conversation by a strange sight. She saw piles of bones, all sorts of bones, along the shore where Wolf Dancer was carefully guiding the canoe.

“Those bones,” she said, just as Wolf Dancerbeached the canoe. “Where on earth did so many bones come from? And what creatures are they from?”

“These bones have been here for many, many moons,” Wolf Dancer said, going back and sitting beside Lavinia. “No one goes among them, for it is forbidden to disturb the dead.”

“Are they animal bones, or…” Lavinia was unable to finish her sentence. She just could not imagine those bones being human, for there were so many.

And she could not tell by their shape if they were human or not.

All she did know was that they had been bleached white by the sun.

“These bones have been washed ashore and have come together in these large stacks long ago,” Wolf Dancer said. “No one really knows for sure, but I would say that some are human bones from shipwrecks of long ago.”