Sitting as she had for so long now beside the old shaman, Shirleen had lost track of time.
She stared into the distance, where a sunset flared red along the horizon.
She wished that she could have gone with Blue Thunder and Speckled Fawn, but knew her presence would only have complicated matters if she’d been noticed.
Shirleen’s heart skipped a beat when she heard a weak voice speaking behind her. It . . . had to be . . .
“Dancing Shadow,” Shirleen whispered as she turned to the old man.
“Speckled Fawn,” he whispered, holding out a trembling hand to Shirleen.
She realized that he thought his wife was in his lodge with him, not someone he had never met. Shirleen desperately wished that it were Speckled Fawn instead of herself that the old man was gazing at so intently.
Surprised that he was actually talking, and so glad that he was awake, Shirleen rushed to his bedside and knelt beside it.
Dancing Shadow squinted his old, faded eyes as he stared at Shirleen, then again reached his frail, quivering hand toward her. “Speckled Fawn?” he said, almost too softly for Shirleen to understand.
She sat down beside the bed of pelts and blankets just as the old, shaky hand reached higher and touched her hair.
“My beautiful wife, it is good to see your hair a flame color again,” Dancing Shadow said, pausing between every other word to catch his breath. “That was the color of your hair when I first saw you.”
Shirleen was now absolutely certain that he thought she was Speckled Fawn. She was stunned that he seemed to be partly rational, and was even speaking. She had been told that he had not spoken for a long time.
Oh, how she wished that Speckled Fawn and Blue Thunder were there to hear the old man finally speaking. And he had not said only one or two words, but full sentences.
He was ev
en aware of the color of her hair.
Yet he still had not recognized that he was not talking with his wife, but someone who was a total stranger to him.
Hoping to make him happy in his last moments, Shirleen tried her best to pretend to be Speckled Fawn. She lowered her voice, making it gruffy and scratchy sounding as she responded to Dancing Shadow.
“My husband, I am so glad you are awake,” Shirleen said.
She took his hand in hers, trying not to show her alarm at how cold his flesh was.
She recalled that when one of her aunts lay dying some years ago, and Shirleen had come to say her final good-bye, the coldness of her aunt’s withered hand had sent spirals of dread into Shirleen’s heart. She had realized then that her aunt was near death.
Did the coldness of this elderly man’s hand mean the same?
Was Shirleen going to witness another death? Her Aunt Sara had died while clutching Shirleen’s hand.
She recalled with a strange sort of horror how as soon as her aunt took her last breath, her hand had tightened around Shirleen’s. She’d had a hard time getting her hand free from her aunt’s grip.
When her mother had come and helped her, Shirleen had rushed from the room, crying. Even her father’s comforting arms had not erased that moment from her mind.
“My husband, I have missed you so much,” Shirleen murmured, glancing off and on at his hand, which seemed to be clutching hers harder by the moment.
He had been so happy to be able to touch her hair again, believing he was touching his wife’s.
She smiled at him although it was the last thing she felt like doing. She was terrified that he was dying right before her eyes!
She tried to think past that. “I am so glad that you like the color of my hair,” she said, her voice catching as Dancing Shadow closed his eyes and held them closed for a long time. What if he never opened them again? What if he did die while she was alone with him?
When he opened his eyes and again smiled weakly at her, Shirleen sucked in a breath of relief. “I . . . dyed . . . it red again just for you,” she lied.
His old eyes twinkled, he chuckled, and then his eyes went wild as he yanked his hand from Shirleen’s and clutched hard at his chest.