Savage Beloved

Candy could hardly bear to look at this wonderful old man who would never speak again, or laugh.

And it was all because of her father!

Oh, Lord, she felt such guilt in her heart because she was the daughter of someone who had heartlessly tortured an innocent, elderly man.

She fell suddenly to her knees beside Short Robe. She bowed her head as she sobbed out her grief beside him.

Two Eagles was stunned by the way she was reacting to his uncle’s death. Her grief was deeply heartfelt.

Ho, he had brought her there for a purpose, to see her reaction when she learned his uncle was dead.

What he was witnessing proved the sort of person she was. Just as his uncle had said, she was good-hearted, kind, and oh, so much more.

She truly did have feelings for Short Robe.

Two Eagles was feeling his own guilt heavy in his heart now. He wished he had not made Candy wear the irons. He gazed down and saw the dried blood on her ankles and wrists.

He hoped he could find a way to make all of this up to her.

He knew that if he did, his uncle would look down at him from the heavens and smile upon him.

He bent low next to Candy and twined an arm around her waist. “Hiyu-wo, come,” he said.

Candy looked up at him through her tears, nodded, then left with him.

She was surprised when he did not return her to the lodge where she had been held captive, but to a much larger one which she guessed was his.

It was not far from his uncle’s, so they’d been able to easily come and go when one or the other had needed to talk.

She noticed how neat and clean his lodge was even though he never had a wife. The women of the village surely took turns caring for him.

The tepee was large, the floor slightly more egg-shaped than circular. It was supported by slender poles arranged and lashed together in a cone-shaped framework. At the top was a smoke hole with directional flaps, and at the bottom edge the only door, facing east.

Inside the tepee were many skins and furs of mountain lions, bears, and deer. At one side she saw a bed with a mattress made of slender willow rods and coverings of buffalo hide.

Hanging down in front of the bed was a long curtain of buffalo hide, which she could tell could be raised or lowered at will. The half-lowered hide seemed to be painted with war scenes.

Farther back were Two Eagles’s weapons.

She was drawn from her thoughts when Two Eagles suddenly spoke.

“Sit beside my fire,” he said, gesturing toward a thick, plush pelt that was spread over the rush mats on the floor. “The sun is lowering. Soon the air will be cool again and the heat of the fire will feel good against your skin.”

“Thank you,” Candy murmured.

She smiled at him as she sat down, welcoming the softness after being in the garden the entire day. She was not used to such manual labor, and every bone in her body seemed to be aching.

For a moment, nothing was said between Candy and Two Eagles. She didn’t turn to watch what he was doing, but when he came with a wooden basin of water, in which was a soft cloth, she questioned him with her eyes.

She was then taken, heart and soul, by his gesture of kindness when he began washing the dried blood from around her ankles and wrists, as she had from his uncle’s.

The feeling was magical as he softly bathed her.

Then suddenly he stopped and left the tepee.

She was full of wonder over his change of heart toward her, yet understood it since his uncle had spoken the truth. She wondered where Two Eagles had gone.

But she was no longer afraid of what might happen next. She thrilled at the very thought of how gentle he had been as he washed the blood from her flesh.