Savage Courage

Shoshana gasped as again she recalled the dream. The eagle! Her mother!

She gazed with a thudding heart at the older woman, whose back was still turned to her. Could it be? Could her tragic life have aged her so much? Had it robbed her of her voice?

Yes, oh, yes, surely this was her mother. Why else would the eagle have come to her like this, in truth, instead of in a dream?

“Is your name Fawn? Ina . . . mother?” Shoshana asked, her voice trembling. “Ina, it is I, Shoshana. Do you hear me? It is I, your daughter!”

Her heart stood still as the old woman turned and their eyes met. In the woman’s was the shine of tears.

Then her mother held her arms out for Shoshana and softly spoke her name.

“Shoshana . . . Shoshana . . .” Fawn said, tears streaming from her old eyes.

“It is you!” Shoshana cried. “And you can speak!”

“I have not talked since the day I lost you,” Fawn cried. “This morning I saw you brought into the village but I did not ask who you were. I did not think it was my business.”

“But I am your business, Ina,” Shoshana murmured, tears rushing from her eyes. “I am your daughter.”

Shoshana ran to her. She fell into her embrace. They clung and cried, and then Shoshana gazed heavenward and watched the eagle make a few more circles above them before flying away.

“Mother, I have had so many dreams,” Shoshana murmured. “Dreams of you. Dreams of me and you being together. Dreams of the eagle . . . and . . . you . . .”

“It was fate that led you to me,” Fawn said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I prayed so often to Maheo, Shoshana. Oh, so often. And I never gave up the hope of seeing you again. I knew that you did not die that day. I searched among the dead. You were not there.”

“No, Mother, I am here,” Shoshana murmured. “And it was not fate that led us to one another. It . . . it . . . was the eagle! It has brought us together again! Come and sit with me. Please tell me what happened after I was taken away that day. I . . . thought . . . you were dead.”

Hand in hand, they walked to the pond and sat down beside it. They started talking, Fawn’s words tumbling over each other as she poured out her story.

“I was shot by the white man’s bullet, but it was not a mortal wound,” Fawn said, reaching a quivering hand to Shoshana’s face and slowly running it over her beautiful features. “After the pony soldiers left, I became conscious. I looked around and you were gone. My heart broken, but not my spirit, I managed to get to my feet. I . . . I . . . checked to see if anyone else was alive. I was the only one . . . apart from you . . . who survived that tragedy.”

“And then where did you go?” Shoshana asked, not able to get enough of looking at her mother. She could look beyond the wrinkles and see her mother as she had been on that day they were separated.

Beautiful.

Entrancingly beautiful.

“I wandered alone, getting weaker each day as I lost more blood from my wound,” Fawn said, her voice breaking. “And then one day a young brave found me. He brought me here, where I have made my home ever since.”

“That young brave was Storm,” Shoshana said, her voice breaking.

“Yes, it was Chief Storm,” Fawn murmured. She reached for Shoshana and hugged her. “But my voice would not come to me. I could not speak. I could not tell him about your disappearance.” She hung her head. “I did not want to think of what might have happened to you. I . . . I . . . made my home with Chief Storm and his people, but I never forgot you.”

“Mother, Mother,” Shoshana said, again embracing Fawn.

“You kept your Indian name although you lived with whites,” Fawn said. “How can that be?”

“I was allowed to keep my name because the woman who raised me thought it pretty,” Shoshana murmured. “Just as you were unable to speak, for many years I was unable to remember anything but my name. But when I did begin to remember, it became my goal to return to the home of my ancestors. I . . . I . . . had seen in my dreams that you were alive. I had to try to find you.”

“I want to know everything about where you have been, and how life has treated you in the white world,” Fawn said softly.

“I shall tell you everything,” Shoshana murmured. She took her mother’s bony hands and began the long tale that had brought her finally to this place with her beloved mother.

“Ina, I was treated like a princess,” Shoshana murmured. “But, Ina, this princess has come home . . . home to you.”

Chapter Seventeen

Last night, ah, yesternight,