Penelope had never known that Sara was her mother.
“Oh, my baby,” she cried, her body feeling so empty.
Chapter Twenty-two
As sometimes, in a dead man’s face,
To those that watch it more and more,
A likeness, hardly seen before,
Comes out to someone of his race.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Candy was fighting off her nervousness as she rode on a beautiful white mare beside Two Eagles’s black stallion.
Two Eagles sat alert and silent in his saddle. His jaw was set, his muscled shoulders tight beneath his fringed buckskin shirt, his eyes directed straight ahead. She knew this journey was a painful one for him, but he was determined to visit the other band of Wichita whose lives had been touched by Candy’s father.
She glanced at the large buckskin bag that hung at the right side of Two Eagles’s steed. Just thinking about what was inside the bag made her shiver.
It was the severed head her father had kept as a trophy!
Dressed in a lovely beaded doeskin dress and moccasins, her golden hair waving about her fringed collar, Candy rode as straight-backed and rigid as Two Eagles. She dreaded what was to happen today, only one day after Short Robe’s burial.
Two Eagles had awakened her early this morning and told her of the mission he must undertake today. It was the day that he would be returning the head of Chief Night Horse to the Raven band, their neighbors.
When she had told him that she would rather not accompany him there, Two Eagles had said that he thought it best that she go with him, because she would soon be his wife. He wanted the Raven band to understand her importance to him, especially since they would know who her father was.
Two Eagles had said that it was best to make it clear that no matter what guilt lay on the shoulders of Candy’s father, none of it rested on hers.
Despite his words, Candy felt a tightness in her chest, and knew that she was experiencing terrible dread. What if the people of the Raven band did not see Candy in the same light as Two Eagles?
Perhaps they would not even allow her to leave their village alive with Two Eagles. Perhaps they would make her pay for the sins of her father, as Two Eagles had started out to do.
Oh, she was so very afraid to mingle with other Indians, especially those her father had so terribly wronged. Might not this band of Wichita want her head after learning who she was?
Yet she had been afraid to stay behind, for Hawk Woman’s hatred was becoming ever more obvious, and Candy didn’t want to burden Two Eagles with worry for her. He already had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
And she had seen the seriousness with which Two Eagles had told her that he wanted her to go with him, so she had agreed.
She sighed heavily as she again tried to compose herself for what was to come. It seemed they had been traveling for hours, but in truth they hadn’t. It just felt as though every step her horse took was bringing her closer to her death!
But she knew that was not so. Two Eagles would never have brought her today if he had thought for one moment he would be placing her in danger.
She looked quickly heavenward when she heard the call of a red hawk and saw its mighty outline against the ocean of blue sky. It soared with widespread wings overhead.
And then she saw another hawk join the first. Their red wings flashing in the sunlight, they dove downward and then just as quickly floated away again on the sweet breeze of the morning.
Candy knew that the Wichita saw such things as omens. Was this sighting an omen? If so, was it good or bad?
“We are almost there.”
Two Eagles’s voice broke through Candy’s preoccupation with the hawks. She tore her eyes away from their loveliness.
At once she noticed something else. A flock of birds had congregated on a nearby hilltop, seemingly undisturbed by the presence of humans on horses so near them. And they were behaving very strangely. They were huge, each one weighing about seven pounds, she guessed.
Two Eagles saw her fascination with the birds. “Those are male sage grouse,” he said. “They are involved in a mating ritual.”