Savage Beloved

The pumpkin pieces were then left to dry for about a day. Afterward, the women gathered again to complete the process. The pumpkin strips were braided and formed into mats, which were left out in the sun to dry.

Two of these that Candy had helped to make lay even now in Two Eagles’s tepee, a reminder of how much she had already learned. She was eager to prove that she was worthy of being a Wichita chief’s wife.

There were other, less pleasant memories of the past days, too. Hawk Woman had not worked in the communal garden with the others. Instead, she had strutted around the village with her hands and clothes clean, her golden hair hanging down long and beautiful to her waist.

“What makes you frown?” Two Eagles asked, bringing Candy back to the present.

“I’m sorry,” she said, laughing softly. “I did not mean to think so hard on things. I am enjoying riding with you on this beautiful evening, but I couldn’t help thinking proudly of all that I managed to learn these past several days while helping with the harvest.”

“I would have preferred it if you had not gone away from the village without me there to protect you,” Two Eagles said, his voice drawn. “But I understand your need to prove to the people of my village that you are not the sort to sit by and watch while others do the work.”

“No, I would not want to get the reputation that Hawk Woman has,” Candy blurted out, her eyes wavering when she realized what she had said. The spiteful words had crossed her lips before she thought them over.

“You mean because Hawk Woman did not join the harvest,” Two Eagles said, drawing rein.

Candy followed his lead by stopping her horse, too. She gazed into his eyes, hoping that he would not think less of her for criticizing Hawk Woman.

“Yes, I still cannot help being curious about how Hawk Woman can sit idly by while the other women work so hard,” Candy murmured. Her eyes lowered. “Even I.”

She was not about to mention her hair, how she had been forced to have hers cut while Hawk Woman’s hung so beautifully down her back.

She might have already said too much about the woman; she didn’t want Two Eagles to think she was jealous.

Two Eagles dismounted as Candy slid from her saddle. He came and took her reins, then tied both horses to the low limb of a tree.

“Suk-spid, come. Come and sit with me beside the river,” Two Eagles said, taking one of Candy’s hands. “I have brought you here to share an unusual sight with you.”

His gaze moved approvingly over her; how sweet she looked in a new dress that one of the women had made for her. Many of the women had brought dresses for Candy since she had none of her own.

That was one of the next things she would learn to do—sew her own clothes and learn the fancy bead-work that would decorate them.

She had proven to be an astute student of all that was shown her, so he knew that the ability to sew clothes for the two of them would come quickly, too.

Two Eagles found a soft, velvety cushion of green moss and sat down on it with Candy beside him. The lowering sun was sending streamers of light down through the leaves overhead. Not far away a wood thrush sang its lovely song.

“What do you want to show me?” Candy asked, searching his eyes.

He gestured outward, across the water. “Follow my eyes and see what I have marveled over so often,” he said, now looking at a sand dune in the center of the river.

Candy looked where he was pointing and gasped. “What sort of island is that?” she murmured.

“It is no island,” he said, dropping his hands. He raised his knees and wrapped his arms around them. “It is what is called a sand dune.”

“In the Kansas River?” Candy asked. She looked quickly over at him. “How did it get there? It is so beautiful.”

As he began explaining, she gazed again in wonder at the sand formation in mid-river.

“This has been here for as long as my people have made their home on this land,” Two Eagles said. “It is there because of war between wind and land. Trees that once grew in the lee of the dune have now been entombed by it as the wind shifted the sand. They are called Ghost Trees because they still stand there, dead but not decomposed.”

“But there are huge cottonwood trees there, very alive,” she said. “Surely some are fifty feet tall.”

“But you will notice that most of their height is hidden under the sand,” Two Eagles said. “When their limbs were enshrouded by sand, they shot down roots and new trees sprouted.”

“I see so many other things,” Candy murmured. “Plants that one wouldn’t normally see in Kansas.”

“I have gone there by canoe, and, yes, there are a wide variety of wild plants, their seeds planted there by the wind,” he said. He looked over at Candy. “There are many other things there to marvel over, too.”

“Tell me,” Candy said.