Wild Embrace

“Your father has a heavy heart,” Chief Moon Elk mumbled. “So much hope was taken from me yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Strong Heart said, recalling the fierceness of the thunderstorm as he and Elizabeth had clung to one another beneath the protection of their tent. “You say this happened yesterday. Was it lightning, Father, that caused the fire?”

“No, not lightning,” Chief Moon Elk said somberly. “The fire was set by—”

Chief Moon Elk stopped in mid-sentence and looked fiercely into Strong Heart’s eyes. “Four Winds?” he asked, his voice low and threatening. “You set him free? He is free to roam and do as he pleases now?”

“Ah-hah, that is so,” Strong Heart said, puzzled by his father asking about Four Winds. What could Four Winds have to do with the fire?

If it had not been started by lightning, then by what? Or by whom?

“He is with you now? He has come to our village before riding on to his village in Canada?” Chief Moon Elk asked suspiciously.

“No, he did not come here. Once free, he rode separate from me,” he said. His eyes widened when he remembered that, in his haste to check on the welfare of his parents, he had left Elizabeth alone. He wanted to rush to her now, but the matters of his people came first. Especially now that so much me-sah-chie, bad, had befallen them.

“That is as I thought,” Chief Moon Elk grumbled, turning slowly away from Strong Heart. “He was probably among those who came and ravished our village. He was not recognized, but it was renegades like Four Winds who rode side by side with the white men as they tossed torches on our people’s dwellings. They sent many of our people to their deaths with sprays of arrows and bullets.”

Chief Moon Elk’s eyes flashed with anger as he threw aside the otter fur pelts, and revealed a gunshot wound in his right leg. “Four Winds may have even sent the bullet into your father’s leg!” he shouted.

Strong Heart sat there, aghast and speechless over what had happened while he had been gone. Chief Moon Elk drew the pelts back in place again and turned his eyes from Strong Heart.

“My son, you should have let the white man hang Four Winds,” he said bitterly. “Four Winds is me-sah-chie, to the core!”

Pretty Nose placed a gentle hand on Strong Heart’s arm. “My son, it is best now that you let your father rest. His wound has been treated well enough by me, but his heart—it still pains him, terribly.”

She flung herself into Strong Heart’s arms. “My son, it is so good that you are home again,” she cried. “Pay no heed to your father’s anger about Four Winds. I believe that you would not have allowed him to be set free just to come and harm us. I truly do not believe that Four Winds had any part in the attack on our people. It is just someone for your father to blame, so that he does not feel so to blame, himself, for our tragedy.”

Strong Heart held his mother close. “If anyone is to blame,” he said thickly, “it is I. I should have been home, protecting our people, instead of—”

He closed his eyes tightly, trying to block out thoughts of where he had probably been at the very moment of the attack. In Elizabeth’s arms, his people and their concerns far, far from his mind. While he was making love to his la-daila, his people had needed him.

And he had not been there for them.

Pretty Nose pulled away from Strong Heart and peered up at him. “My son, you are only one person, she tried to reassure him. “You cannot be everywhere at once. No one expects you to be.” She paused, then added, “While in Seattle, you did not find your grandfather? He is dead, is he not, my son? Your grandfather is surely dead!”

Strong Heart held her face between his powerful hands and leaned down and kissed her on her pert nose. “I searched and I did not find,” he said. “But I do not allow myself to think that he is dead. I shall return to Seattle when I can, and search again, Mother.”

Then his thoughts flew again to Elizabeth, seeing her sitting on the horse, afraid, as his people surrounded her. Perhaps they had even pulled her from the horse. She was white. And white men, accompanied by Indian renegades, had only yesterday come to their village and wreaked havoc in their lives! They could suspect her because her skin was white.

Without further words, Strong Heart left the longhouse at a run, then stopped in dismay when he did not find Elizabeth anywhere. His heart pounded as he looked in all directions. Seeing his longhouse, he wondered if she could be there.

With swift strides, Strong Heart went to his longhouse. He found Elizabeth inside sitting beside a fire. There was even a pot of soup hanging over it.

Strong Heart’s eyes went to the Indian who was kneeling beside the fire, slowly stirring the soup. It was Many Stars, a lovely, petite Suquamish maiden who served Chief Moon Elk and his son devotedly. Although the same age as Strong Heart, she had been widowed twice. She now spent her time helping others, warding off any man’s attempt to court her. She had declared that she would never love again. She had experienced the pain of too many losses already.

When Elizabeth saw Strong Heart standing in the doorway, she bolted to her feet and ran to him. She flung herself into his arms and clung to him. “Thank God you’ve come. If not for Many Stars, I may have been slain. She grabbed me away from several of your people. They see me as the enemy, Strong Heart. They hate me.”

Many Stars smiled up at Strong Heart. “It was just a few who reacted foolishly to seeing Elizabeth on your horse,” she said, rising to her feet, her eyes as dark as midnight as she gazed up at Strong Heart. “I guessed she was your woman since she was riding on your horse, and wearing your clothes. I brought her to your lodge. I knew that was what you would want.”

Strong Heart reached a hand to Many Stars’s soft, copper cheek. “Mah-sie, thank you,” he said softly. She was comely as always, in her mountain sheepskin dress that was beautifully ornamented with quill beads. Her hair was neatly plaited in large braids that hung down over her breasts. “Now return to your parents. Help them build a new dwelling. I saw that their longhouse was among those that burned, yet I was thankful to see that your parents were among the survivors.”

Many Stars nodded. “Ah-hah, they survived and I will return to my chores alongside them. We were the lucky ones. We still have one another, while others have lost loved ones.”

Guilt flooded Strong Heart’s heart again, for having not been there to look after the welfare of his people.

Yet he felt blessed that it had not been worse than it was. All of the village could have been destroyed and all of his people could be dead.

His thoughts went to Four Winds, also wondering about his innocence or guilt in this. Yet it was just not logical to think that Four Winds would repay Strong Heart in such a way for having helped him to escape from the prison.