Wild Abandon

Blind since birth, she had learned well to live with her affliction. Her senses guided her into her every movement.

And for the most part she functioned as well as one whose eyes were bright and alive.

But today it seemed that something was keeping her from her skills of sewing. He did not have to be told what. She was still mourning the death of her beloved chieftain brother.

And she surely wondered when her nephew was going to return to assume the duties of chief.

Suddenly Susan Sweet Bird jerked her sightless eyes in Dancing Cloud’s direction. She stiffened and leaned her ear toward the sound of the approaching horses. She dropped her sewing and pushed herself up from the buffalo robe. Her hands groping before her, she came toward Dancing Cloud, a soft smile quavering on her lips.

“Dancing Cloud?” she shouted. She broke into a run. “It is you, isn’t it, Dancing Cloud? You have come home to us.”

Her reaction to the sounds that she had heard at the far edge of the village caused everyone else to respond and see what had caused Susan Sweet Bird’s sudden anxiousness. Gasps wafted through the crowd when they caught their first sight of Dancing Cloud.

Then everyone broke into a run. Two women went to Susan Sweet Bird and gently led her onward toward her nephew.

“It is Dancing Cloud,” they told Susan Sweet Bird. “He is home.”

Susan Sweet Bird listened again, her senses telling her that three horses were arriving instead of one. “Who is with my nephew?” she asked the women.

“A white woman and it seems that Chief Dancing Cloud carries a child in his arms,” one of them replied.

“A white woman and a . . . baby . . . child?” Susan Sweet Bird said, her voice drawn. “Does it appear to be a child that could belong to my nephew . . . and . . . the white woman?”

“The child appears to be nine or ten winters of age,” one of them told her back.

Susan Sweet Bird sucked in a breath of relief. “That is good,” she murmured. “I did not think my nephew would have brought home a white wife and child.”

“The child is not white from what I can tell from this distance,” one of the other women said, stretching her neck to get a better look as Dancing Cloud still approached on his horse. “It is a young man and he is as copper-skinned as you and I.”

“Truly?” Susan Sweet Bird said, then frowned. “Then who is the woman?”

There was a strained silence. Susan Sweet Bird stopped when she realized that the horses were near enough for her to wait for Dancing Cloud to dismount and come to her.

When strong arms suddenly enveloped her, she clung to Dancing Cloud and sobbed out his father’s name. “I-go-no-tli, is gone. My brother is gone.”

“Ii, yes, my e-do-da is gone from this earth,” Dancing Cloud said, caressing her back through her buckskin dress. “But never gone from the a-qua-do-no-do, heart. His spirit is here even now as my arms and voice give you comfort. I

n part, I am my e-do-da, father.”

Susan Sweet Bird leaned away from him and placed her hands on each side of his face. “You speak and act as if you knew of your father’s passing before I told you,” she said softly. “How is it that you knew? We sent no messenger to tell you. Saint Louis is far from our mountains. We knew you would return soon to us to hear of your father’s passing.”

“In a vision I saw my father in the spirit world,” Dancing Cloud began explaining, drawing a quiet gasp deeply from within Susan Sweet Bird’s soul.

Touched deeply by Dancing Cloud’s gentleness with his aunt, Lauralee placed a hand over her mouth and stifled a sob. Time and time again she realized just how lucky she was to be loved by this man!

Chapter 27

The night bird song and the stars above,

Told many a touching story.

—MRS. CRAWFORD

Two weeks had passed. Lauralee had tried to accept Dancing Cloud’s absence as he mourned his father’s death. The time of mourning with his people had passed. He now mourned alone somewhere in the mountains, the Great Spirit his only companion.

Lauralee had also tried to accept that Brian Brave Walker had not grown close to her. Although she had nursed him back to health, he still wouldn’t talk to her.

Susan Sweet Bird had her mourning behind her and had been assigned to keep Lauralee company in Dancing Cloud’s absence.