Savage Beloved

Neither he nor his warriors knew yet that she was there, behind them.

She saw Shadow gazing up at her as though questioning her reason for stopping.

“Yes, Shadow, I know what I must do, and I will,” Candy said, her voice filled with sudden determination. She pointed at Two Eagles. “Go! Go, Shadow! Go and get Two Eagles! Now! Hurry!”

Shadow paused, then took off at a hard run.

Candy fought off fear as she saw Two Eagles suddenly stop and wheel his horse around. Everything inside Candy went cold when she saw Two Eagles look at Shadow, then past the wolf, at her.

Suddenly Two Eagles slapped his reins against his horse’s rump and rode hard toward Candy. Shadow ran alongside him.

A part of Candy was, oh, so afraid of Two Eagles’s reaction to what she had done, while another part of her trusted his love for her and believed that he would understand her decision to risk everything to help save this ailing, lonely man.

Chapter Twenty-seven

All was gloom, and silent all,

Save now and then the still foot-fall

Of one returning homewards late,

Past the echoing minster-gate.

—John Keats

The other warriors stayed their ground as Two Eagles rode up to Candy and drew rein beside her.

He gazed questioningly into her eyes, and then looked down at the ailing man on the travois. He gasped and quickly dismounted, then knelt beside the travois.

“Spotted Bear?” he said, in his voice a deep caring.

He was stunned not only that S

potted Bear was with Candy, but also that he was alive.

He could see where the wound from being scalped had healed, but he could hardly believe his eyes.

Two Eagles’s voice brought Spotted Bear out of his semi-coma; his cousin’s voice had reached into his consciousness.

He held a shaky hand toward Two Eagles. “Cousin,” he said, his voice dry with fever.

Then he looked up at Candy, who still sat on her horse, tense with fear of how Two Eagles was going to react.

He then gazed at Two Eagles again. “Cousin, please do not turn the woman away for . . . having helped . . . me, a Ghost,” he pleaded.

Two Eagles gazed up at Candy as she slowly dismounted.

When she stood on the ground a few feet from the travois, he saw the fear in her eyes. Two Eagles did not like seeing it, for he knew she was afraid of his reaction to what she had done.

“How did this happen?” he asked thickly. “How is it that you are with my cousin who I thought was dead?”

“Your cousin?” Candy said, her eyes widening. “Spotted Bear is your cousin? And . . . and . . . you thought he was dead?”

“His mother and my father were sister and brother, though both are now in the Hereafter,” Two Eagles said. “And, ho, I thought my cousin was dead. I knew he had been scalped. I went for his body to give him burial rites, but I could not find it. I thought that the enemy had taken it and desecrated it still further.”

“He was afraid to come home because he saw himself as a Ghost, one of the living dead,” Candy murmured, so glad to know that Two Eagles had not heartlessly turned his back on Spotted Bear.

“You have not yet explained why you are with him,” Two Eagles said solemnly.