Savage Courage

“Sometimes two grow in that small place,” Storm said, gently pulling his hand away. He reached for two wooden platters and set one before himself and the other before Shoshana. “Twins have been known to have been born on my father’s side of our family. I have more than one set of twin cousins.”

“You do?” Shoshana said, her eyes wide. “Do you think we might . . . have . . . twins?” She grinned. “Perhaps even triplets?”

“Everything is possible,” Storm said, chuckling.

He ladled out an assortment of food for both himself and Shoshana, then poured two cups of a sweet drink that had also been brought with the food.

“Well, if it is possible that I might have two or three children inside my belly, don’t you think I had better eat my fill of this delicious-looking food that has been brought to us?” Shoshana said, smiling mischievously at Storm.

It felt good to forget her grief for just a moment.

She ate ravenously as Storm watched with amusement in his dark eyes. He was hungry himself. It had been many hours since they had feasted on baked beaver tail.

That now seemed so long ago, when they had sat peacefully beneath the stars eating and laughing with friends.

“Do any of your twin cousins live here at your stronghold?” Shoshana asked, pausing before eating anything else.

“To-dah, I have not seen them since our different bands were separated when the pony soldiers began tearing asunder the lives of all Apache,” Storm grumbled. “Who is to say, though, that perhaps I may find them in Canada land? Several of our different bands have gone there already.”

“When are we leaving?” Shoshana asked.

“Before you get large with child and before the cold winter winds begin to blow,” Storm said, nodding. “Soon, my wife. Soon.”

She felt a wrenching sadness at the thought of leaving her mother behind, yet she had to remind herself that she was not actually leaving her mother. Only Fawn’s shell lay in the ground. The important part of her, her spirit, soared even now somewhere in the heavens, looking down upon Shoshana.

“I look forward to arriving there so that we can start building our new life which soon will include our child,” Shoshana said, sinking her teeth into a piece of corn on the cob, which had recently been harvested.

She knew, because it was harvest time, that they must make haste to leave. Not long after harvest came winter.

“Do you not mean that we will be starting our new life with our children . . . not a lone child?” Storm teased. “Twins are destined for us, my wife. You can count on twins.”

She knew that he was speaking in jest, yet it was a possibility.

She was anxious to see what her dreams told her tonight, whether she was

carrying one, or two, children in her womb. Her dreams had revealed so much to her already in her life.

Her thoughts went to the eagle and how magically it had appeared today at her mother’s burial. She would never forget that eagle and what it had brought into her life, and she had first met it in a dream.

Chapter Thirty-two

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can!

—Anne Bradstreet

Four years later—Canada

The grass, once crackling and brittle underfoot, had been transformed into huge carpets of green. Shoshana stood at the door of her log cabin, gazing out at everything beyond the village of tepees, cabins, and wickiups.

Canada was a beautiful place. As now, Shoshana admired the long stretch of land for as far as she could see, and the patches of color along the ground, where spring wildflowers had just opened their faces to the warmth of the sun.

Far in the distance she could see mountain peaks that still showed a covering of snow, which would soon melt, swelling the creeks and rivers below with delicious, sweet water.

Shoshana was, ah, so content at their new home. It was indeed a wilderness, and far from humanity except for their band of Apache, and another band that had recently established themselves downriver.

They needed no white man’s supplies, for they made do with what they took from the earth and sky.