Savage Courage

“Yes, take me home,” Shoshana said, sighing.

“Did we hear right?” Dancing Willow asked as she stepped up to Storm and Shoshana. She gazed with a strange expression at Shoshana. “Are . . . you . . . with . . . child?”

“Ho, my ish-tia-nay is with child!” Storm said proudly, causing his men to smile.

He tried to ignore the bitterness he saw in his sister’s eyes, for he now knew that nothing would ever make her accept Shoshana. He just hoped that she would never carry her jealousy too far again. If she did, he knew what he would have to do.

Banish her!

He placed a gentle hand on Shoshana’s belly. “And I will do everything within my power to protect our child . . . to protect my wife,” he said thickly. He spoke three names. “You three ride with us tonight. The rest stay. Tend to this man’s body, and protect our horses. Start for home tomorrow with the new horses at first daylight.”

Everyone agreed, but Dancing Willow stamped away. Shoshana ignored her.

She was so glad to be on her horse alongside Storm as they made their way toward home. She was still trembling from what had happened.

But she knew that the terror of the attack had not harmed her child. She was determined not to allow anything to get in the way of her having Storm’s son, especially not Dancing Willow!

Yes, she thought to herself, smiling. This child she was carrying was a son.

She thought of her mother. She hoped that Fawn would live long enough to hold her grandson in her arms. In some way she felt it would make up for the years Fawn had been separated from her daughter.

“I’m so anxious to be home,” Shoshana said. “Except for our journey to Canada, I don’t plan to go on any more outings like this. I am ready to be a wife who tends to wifely things.”

“And then motherly things,” Storm said, smiling at her. “My wife, you make this husband very happy and proud.”

“That is my mission,” Shoshana said, smiling softly. “I have never felt more feminine than I do now.”

“You could never be anything less,” Storm chuckled.

They rode onward in silence, and soon morning began to break along the horizon.

“We are soon home,” Storm said, nodding. “Ho, soon . . .” Shoshana murmured, yet something made her suddenly uneasy.

She could not put her finger on what it was. She just had a strange sense of dread. . . .

Chapter Thirty

Can I see a falling tear,

And not feel my sorrow’s share?

—William Blake

Riding up the familiar pass, Shoshana recognized that she was close to the stronghold. She was sorely tired, and after she went to her mother and hugged her, she would sleep the rest of the day.

She had her baby to protect.

She sat up straight again in her saddle when she caught a movement at her right side, where something had slithered into a loose pile of rocks. It was chunky and striped and very fast.

“That is a marbled salamander,” Storm said, noticing it. “With fall so near, most salamander females will be seeking out sheltered nooks. As summer gives way to fall, these salamanders breed. The salamander we just saw is not seeking safety in the rocks. It will travel on down the mountain and when it finds a low-lying swale in the forest, it will lay clusters of up to one hundred eggs in dry leaf litter, or under a rotting log, then wait for the water to come.”

“What water?” Shoshana asked, always amazed at Storm’s knowledge of nature.

“Rain water,” Storm said. “As fall rains fill these low depressions, rising water inundates the eggs. They hatch and within days are on the prowl, seeking out tiny aquatic animals. Months later, when spotted salamanders, wood frogs, and other spring-bred amphibians arrive at the pools, the marbled salamanders are months old and far ahead of the competition.”

“How do you know these things?” Shoshana asked, eyes wide.

“My grandfather and my father taught me many things I am certain white fathers do not know to tell their children,” Storm said softly.