Savage Beloved

“Thank you,” Candy murmured. “I so appreciate your kindness.”

Crying Wolf gave her a smile and a nod, then lifted his bag in his arms and left without another word.

Candy’s heart now thumped wildly inside her chest. She was alone again with Two Eagles. Anxiously, she waited to see what his next move would be.

When he pulled his knife from its sheath again and knelt in front of her, her hopes plummeted.

“I am going to cut your hair,” Two Eagles said, lifting the knife toward it.

“Do you mean that . . . you . . . are going to scalp me?” Candy gulped out, her hopes of living past the next few moments waning.

She could not help recalling how Hawk Woman’s eyes had gleamed when she had said Candy’s hair would look good on Two Eagles’s scalp pole.

A look of surprise entered Two Eagles’s eyes. “I am not going to scalp you,” he said. “I just want to cut your hair so that when you work in the fields with the Wichita women, you won’t be so noticeable.”

“You . . . aren’t . . . going to scalp me?” Candy said, sighing heavily. “When I saw you sharpening your knife, I thought it was because . . .”

“Do not say it again, for you were wrong,” Two Eagles commanded. He gazed at her hair, then reached out and touched it. “I do not like having to remove any of it. It is so soft, like a butterfly’s wings. But to ensure that you are not noticed by those who might come near my village, I must cut it.”

Relieved, Candy sighed heavily, then smiled. She would gladly part with a portion of her hair if it meant that she wouldn’t be scalped, even though she had always been proud of her long hair.

Knowing now that he wasn’t going to scalp her made Candy begin to hope that Two Eagles did not intend to harm her. Perhaps in time he would even release her.

“I understand,” she murmured. Then, with Shadow still sleeping on her lap

, Candy closed her eyes as Two Eagles used his knife to cut her hair, one lock at a time.

When he was done, she opened her eyes and saw her hair laid out smoothly on the mat beside her.

She questioned Two Eagles with her eyes.

“It is yours to do with as you please,” he said. He then lifted the dress that he had brought into the tepee and handed it to her, along with the moccasins. “These are yours to wear. Change into them. You will join the women in the fields soon.”

She glanced down at the irons and chains, then up into his eyes. “Will I be forced to wear these while I help the women?” she asked guardedly, afraid to hear the answer.

“Yes,” he said flatly. “You are no less my enemy now than moments ago. I will step outside so that you can change your clothes; then I’ll return and place the chains and irons back on you.”

Knowing that no matter what she said, she would still be chained, Candy watched Two Eagles step outside.

She gently laid Shadow aside.

Then she changed into the wonderfully soft dress and moccasins.

She reached up and touched the blunt ends of her hair.

“I wonder what I look like,” she whispered to herself, then flinched when Two Eagles came back into the lodge and placed the irons and chains back on her.

“I must leave now,” he said, standing over her. “I must go into council with my warriors. It is the time of the waxing of the moon, when people feel and think less narrowly. They are more giving.” He gazed at Shadow, then into Candy’s eyes. “This is also the time the wolf and coyote are more successful in hunting.”

It was at that moment that Candy heard the baying of wolves in the distance. She shivered at the wild sound, fearful of what they might eventually do with Shadow. She was afraid they might lure her wolf away from her.

As it was, Shadow was the only part of her old life left to Candy . . . the only one that loved her.

She saw a look she did not understand in Two Eagles’s eyes as he gazed at her in silence for a moment. Then he turned and left the tepee.

Having never felt so alone in her entire life, Candy gazed into the flames of the fire, and then looked at Shadow sleeping so snugly beside her.

If not for Shadow, she wasn’t certain she could remain sane.