Savage Beloved

“Impregnated again?” Candy gasped.

“Ho. Hawk Woman had a daughter by the man,” Two Eagles said. “She named her, but never was she able to mother her. To make Hawk Woman pay for escaping the first time, the man took the child from her the moment she was born. She never had a chance to mother her baby. When she fled, it was to flee not only the man, but also the hurt of not being allowed to have her child.”

“How horrible,” Candy gasped. “Now I see why she is such a bitter, cold woman. I can’t help but pity her.”

“Do not waste pity on her,” Two Eagles said flatly. “Except for the kindness she showed my uncle Short Robe, she otherwise has no warmth inside her. And I feel it has nothing to do with having lost her child. People like her are usually born that way, not shaped by tragedy.”

“And so you do believe the man is looking for her?” Candy asked, reaching a hand to her cropped-off hair. If this man happened along and saw her from a distance, might he not think he had found his lost wife?

“We do not risk that possibility,” Two Eagles said. “That is why she seems to be getting special treatment. It is only because she might still be in danger, for I feel that if he found her, he would kill her. And although she is a cold and unlikable woman, she deserves to live as much as you and I.”

He looked over his shoulder into the distance, then gazed into Candy’s eyes again. “And one day that man might find her,” he said, frowning. “More and more white people are occupying land close to my people’s village,” he said tightly.

“Father was talking about that. He said that although he wanted to leave Fort Hope, he felt that some soldiers should stay to protect the settlers who are coming in so quickly,” Candy said.

“Those people who are making homes in this area are brazen,” Two eagles said bitterly. “I have not yet told you this, but tomorrow I will leave the village for a while to have council with another Wichita band. They have requested my help. They are having problems with a white family that recently moved into the area. The children of this white family have been caught stealing wood from outside the lodges of this band. I am meeting with their chief to offer advice.”

“Could this family possibly be . . . that of the man who is searching for Hawk Woman?” Candy asked, suddenly feeling threatened, herself, by Albert Cohen.

“That is one reason why I am getting involved,” Two Eagles said fla

tly. “I am going to see whether or not this man has one wife, or . . . many. If he has many, and he does not travel with others of his faith, I will know it is he.”

“Good Lord,” Candy said, paling. “I don’t think I want to go with you this time. Is that alright?”

“I would not want you to go,” Two Eagles said, twining an arm around her waist and drawing her closer to him.

He was aware again of the nearby wood thrush and its lovely song. “Do you hear the birdsong?” he asked, searching overhead for the creature.

“Yes, I know this bird,” Candy murmured. “It has been called a Shakespeare among birds.”

“Shakespeare?” Two Eagles said, lifting an eyebrow. “What is a Shakespeare?”

“It is the name of a man who wrote many beautiful poems and plays,” Candy said, looking quickly overhead when she heard the stirring of leaves. The bird began singing even more loudly on a closer limb, but Candy couldn’t see it. She didn’t really need to. The wood thrush’s true beauty was in his enchanting voice.

Suddenly she and Two Eagles realized there were two wood thrushes. They seemed to fire off notes at each other, each defending his portion of the forest.

Their weapons were their voices, their melodies their ammunition, each seeking to wound the other’s pride, but their sweet fluting pierced only the evening’s silence.

And then she saw one of the birds. He was pouring out his song from the middle of a low limb that was draped with leaves. He had a brown back and a speckled breast.

“Do you see him?” Candy asked as she found Two Eagles looking in the same direction.

“Ho, he is a part of the ancient magic which lives in these woods,” Two Eagles said softly.

“That is so beautiful,” Candy murmured. “And just listen. He sings more enchantingly than any other bird I know. Lyrical, liquid, and loud, his voice has beauty and depth to match nature’s own loveliness.”

They both went quiet as they continued to listen. Each song of the bird consisted of several phrases, variations on his basic “ee-o-lay” theme; the notes sounded like a flute, but richer, not airy.

The sun had shifted lower in the sky. An orange haze now filtered through the trees from where the wood thrush still sang. To gaze on this pleasant light, to be bathed in it, to see the trees reaching high into the air, their leaves hanging motionless, and to hear the ageless song of the bird rising above it all, put Candy in a state of almost hypnotic serenity.

“Soon the moon will replace the sun in the sky,” Two Eagles said, drawing Candy from her reverie. “The moon is the special guardian of Wichita women, for the moon is a woman and possesses all the powers that women desire. It was the moon who taught the first woman on earth and gave her power. She instructs women as to the time of the monthly sickness, informs them when they are pregnant, and when the child is to be born. She has told them that after birth the child must be offered to her by passing the hands over the child’s body and raising it aloft to the moon. At that time the moon is asked to bestow her blessings upon the child, that he or she may grow into power rapidly, for she, herself, has the power to increase rapidly in size.”

Two Eagles took Candy’s hand. “She also leads lovers into each other’s arms,” he said huskily. “But I need no guidance from the moon at this time.”

He pressed his lips to Candy’s, and with his arms lowered her gently to the ground.

“I will never need anything but you,” he whispered against her lips, his hands already up inside the skirt of her dress, his fingers teasing where Candy was already trembling and warm with want of him.