He looked at the women and children. “You are now free to go wherever you want to go,” he told them. “You are no longer captives of this white man who lost sight of decency long ago.”
Candy gazed at her mother, then turned her eyes up to Two Eagles. “Can my mother come home with us?” she asked softly.
Agnes stood up and climbed from the wagon.
She came up beside Two Eagles’s horse and took Candy’s hand in her own. “Honey, I’d rather not,” she murmured. “I would rather continue my journey now that Albert isn’t here to stop me. I’m anxious to go where I can perform on the stage again. Dancing is in my blood.”
She laughed softly. “Yes, I know I’m probably too old for anyone to want to see me dance, but I must give it a try,” she said. She would not trouble her daughter with the possibility that she might be pregnant with the madman’s child.
It was not necessary.
She knew almost without a doubt that before long she would lose the child, as she had in the past. Then she would finally have her life back again, one that she could live on her own terms.
Agnes turned and gazed at the other women and children. “Do you want to go with me to find civilization again, to truly know the meaning of freedom?” she asked, smiling at the women she had grown close to, and then the children she adored.
They all said “yes,” as though in one voice.
Candy slid from the horse and went to her mother. Trying hard to understand a woman who would choose to live far away from her only daughter, she embraced her mother. “Mama, is this what you truly want?” she asked, leaning away from her so that they could gaze into each other’s eyes. “If so, we might never see one another again.”
Agnes looked past Candy and smiled at Two Eagles, then held Candy’s hands. “I think I’m leaving you in good hands,” she said. “And I believe we will see one another again. It’s just that I need something different than you do. Please understand.”
“Mama, I hope you find that something and will be happy,” Candy murmured. “You deserve it. I know how unhappy you were for so long with Father.”
“He only thought of himself, no one else,” Agnes said thickly. “The day I left was the first time in years that I knew freedom.”
“And then it was stifled again by that terrible man,” Candy said, glancing at Albert’s body and shuddering at what his intentions had been for her.
“Yes, that terrible man,” Agnes said, stiffening at the memory of those long nights with him, and especially those times when he had beaten her almost to death.
Agnes stepped away from Candy and climbed aboard the wagon. She shoved Albert’s body off the seat to the back of the wagon, then covered him with a blanket.
She then took her seat and grabbed the reins as the other women and children took their places in the wagons.
“I’ll hand his body over to the authorities at the next town or fort, whichever we arrive at first,” Agnes said, her back straight, her long, russet-colored hair blowing in the gentle breeze. “I love you, daughter, forever and ever.”
“I love you, too,” Candy said, blinking tears from her eyes.
Two Eagles dismounted and stood at Candy’s side as the wagons rolled away. The people in them had looks of hope and faith now, such as they had not known while Albert Cohen was alive.
Candy’s mother’s wagon didn’t get far before Agnes turned and smiled at her over her shoulder, then said, “I love you . . . Painted Wings.”
Candy was touched deeply by her mother use of her Indian name. She realized now that her mother had truly accepted her daughter’s new life.
Candy nodded as her mother’s eyes turned away from her and Agnes Creighton continued on her journey.
“Painted Wings?” Two Eagles asked, drawing Candy’s eyes to him.
“Yes, I told Mother the beautiful name that you gave me and . . . and . . . she approved,” she said.
Her insides turned warm with love for this wonderful Wichita chief when he embraced and kissed her.
And then he held her away from him and gazed into her eyes. “Are you ready to go wissgutts, home?” he asked, searching her eyes.
“Yes, ah, home,” Candy murmured. “For a while I didn’t know if I would ever see it, or you, again.”
She flung herself into his arms. “Thank you for rescuing me,” she whispered, then felt something leaning against her leg.
She turned and gazed down and found Shadow there, gazing up at her. She knew that if wolves could smile, her wolf would be smiling now. She knelt down and embraced her pet. “Thank you, too,” she said.