“As I feel the same because of you.” She paused and enjoyed the call of the birds and the hum of the bees. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the flowers that clung to the mountainside. She again absorbed the glories of her surroundings.
“How long now until we reach your village?” she finally blurted, anxious, yet afraid, to arrive there. If it were possible, she would postpone ever leaving this beautiful place where it seemed no other people existed except for herself and her beloved.
She could not stop being afraid of Dancing Cloud’s people’s reaction to her. Her heart thumped wildly at the thought of moving among them, their eyes intent on her, perhaps hating her. . . .
“My village lays beyond that rise yonder,” Dancing Cloud said, pointing. “Long
ago my Wolf Clan of Cherokee settled in a valley where they were sheltered from the worst harshness of winter and the intrusion of those who might be our enemy.”
“Yet even that did not stop the damn Yankees as they wreaked their treachery during the war,” Lauralee said solemnly. “No one could escape their plundering it seems. Both of our lives were altered because of the Yankees’ hunger for blood and power.”
She hung her head as thoughts of her Uncle Abner swam through her consciousness. He had been a Yankee and he and Nancy were precious to her. It seemed impossible that she could separate her feelings for them from those she had always felt for anyone who lived in the Union states, yet she had.
And she could not help but recall the kindness of Noah Brown and his son Paul, nor the doctor who had saved Dancing Cloud’s life. They were all Yankees and she had warm feelings for them all.
The war, she despaired to herself.
The Civil War had not only left confusion in its wake all those years ago.
It did so even now.
A sound, like the small, faint cry of a child, drew Lauralee’s head up. She looked quickly over at Dancing Cloud. She could tell by his guarded expression and wandering eyes as he peered slowly around him that he had also heard the sound.
“Dancing Cloud, could that . . .”
She got no more words out. Suddenly before them was a small child stumbling in a drunken stupor toward them. Although his skin was copper, it was ashen in color, and his eyes were sunken. He was gaunt and thin, as though he hadn’t eaten for days.
Lauralee and Dancing Cloud slid quickly from their saddles. Lauralee took the horse’s reins and secured them beneath a boulder on the graveled path, then ran to Dancing Cloud and knelt down with him before the boy.
Dancing Cloud gently steadied the small child between his strong hands as he clasped them onto his frail shoulders.
Brian Brave Walker blinked his eyes as he stared up at Dancing Cloud, then over at his white stallion. This warrior! This horse! He had seen them both in his dreams!
Then he looked questionably at the white woman. This was not the way it was supposed to be. She had never appeared to him in his dreams. She was not supposed to be with the noble warrior on the white stallion.
For sure this was not a dream.
This was real!
Brian Brave Walker’s dark eyes widened with fear. Again he looked quickly from Lauralee to Dancing Cloud, then tried to wrench himself free.
Lauralee wanted so badly to go and draw the child into her arms and comfort him. It was plain to see that he perhaps trusted no one.
“We are friends,” Dancing Cloud reassured, releasing one of his hands to talk in sign language with the boy in case he could not understand English. He pointed to himself with his right thumb, then pointed to Lauralee in the same way, meaning “we.” He then clasped his hands together and shook them, meaning “friends. “
“My name is Chief Dancing Cloud.” He motioned toward himself with a hand. Then he gestured toward Lauralee. “Her name is Lauralee. What is your name?”
Deep inside himself Brian Brave Walker was glad to have finally found someone who might give him directions to any Indian village. He had given up hoping that he would find the one in which his mother had lived as a child before the Civil War. As he had wandered, searching, he seemed to have gone in circles.
Until now, until he had come across these two people, he had begun to think that he might die on this mountain. He had fled from more than one bear. Now he was too weak to flee from anything, or anyone.
He was glad to know that this brave whose skin color matched his own was declaring himself a friend.
He looked guardedly over at the woman. She was most beautiful! Yet her skin was white. He hated all whites. In them he always saw his father! He could not look at a white-skinned person and at the same time think “friend.” His very own father was his enemy and he was white-skinned!
“My name is Brian Brave Walker. I speak English well,” he said, giving Lauralee another insolent stare. Then he gazed up at Dancing Cloud. “But I also speak in Cherokee. Do you know the Cherokee language?”
Dancing Cloud’s eyes lit up. “I am Cherokee,” he said proudly. “You are also Cherokee?”