Savage Courage

She looked around, and smiled when she gazed at freshly upturned earth where soon corn would be planted, as well as pumpkins, squash, beans, and many other vegetables that would be added to the meat that the warriors kept their families supplied with.

She had helped prepare the earth for seeds in this communal garden, but knew that Storm would soon curtail all of her strenuous activities, for with the last child, she had experienced some frightening moments. She had almost given birth too early, which would have made it impossible for the baby to live.

She and Storm had decided that after this third child was brought into the world, they would be cautious so that Shoshana would not get pregnant again.

Along with feeling that their unborn baby’s life had been threatened during those many frightening moments when pains, and some blood, had interrupted her last pregnancy, there were moments when White Moon had feared for Shoshana’s life.

She placed her hand on her stomach now, resting it there against her doeskin dress.

She would do nothing to endanger this child’s life.

Nothing!

And she had no enemies such as Mountain Jack to fear, which might have threatened her and the child.

Thus far, no white man had come to interfere in the life of the Piñaleno River Band of Apache.

But she knew that could not last forever, for she knew how white men planned and schemed against all people with red skin.

Ho, yes, in time, she knew to expect the same sort of interference that she had seen happen in America.

But she would not dwell on that.

This was now.

Everything was wonderful!

While Storm was in council today, and their two children were with their Aunt Dancing Willow to spend the night with her, who still had not found a man for herself, Shoshana dropped the buckskin entrance flap and went and sat beside the fire and resumed beading herself a new pair of moccasins.

The ankle-high moccasins to which she was adding beads today were more lightweight, for spring and summer wear, very unlike the coarser, heavier, knee-high moccasins she wore during the blustery cold months of winter.

“Yes, the winters are very cold here,” she whispered to herself, wincing when she pricked her finger, then resumed sewing the colorful beads onto the doeskin, in the shape of spring flowers.

After they had arrived in Canada land, the erection of lodges was the first priority, because hints of winter had already begun to breathe across the land.

Since she was with child, Storm had not allowed Shoshana to help him build their home, but she had watched as he lovingly built their wickiup, as he thrust the long, slender poles into the ground about two feet apart, bent them inward until they met, and then bound them together at the top, leaving a little hole to let their lodge fire’s smoke out.

They had planned to live in the wickiup that first winter, and a log cabin the second winter and thereafter.

Shoshana had watched Storm skillfully weave branches into the framework and then cover it with bark and deerskins.

After the structure had been completed, she had watched him scoop dirt out in the floor at the far back of the lodge, from eighteen inches to two feet deep, to serve as their bedroom. He had secured it for warmth with flooring made of heavy bark, and then rich pelts that they had brought from Arizona.

The dirt that had been dug out had then been packed around the inside base of the wickiup, to give solidity to the house, and afford protection against driving storms.

A firepit had been dug in the center of the floor, where Shoshana had then lovingly prepared meals for her husband.

She found this way of life vastly different from how she had lived when she had been a part of the white man’s world.

But although the home she had lived in at Missouri had been what some called a mansion, she preferred her cabin, for it was her home.

She was glad that Storm had built a cabin, and much larger than most, for after she had borne one child, another had come only nine months later.

Now she was pregnant with a third, but only barely. Her stomach had not begun to swell yet.

But she was anxious for it to grow, for she would never forget the pride she had seen in her husband’s eyes those two times she had carried their children in her womb.

Yes, she had to do everything that was required to go full term with this child, and she, oh, so hoped it would be a daughter, to finally give her two sons, Two Moons and Panther Eyes, a sister.