And soon, ah, soon, another child would be born into their lives.
“Hurry, Speckled Fawn,” Shirleen said, growing even more uneasy.
Again she gazed into the forest.
She flinched when she thought she saw movement among the shadows, and heard what might be a twig snapping.
She chided herself for being so uneasy, especially on such a beautiful spring day. She had waited a long time for such a day after having been forced to stay inside her lodge for so long due to the cold winter and early spring.
Suddenly she w
as aware she could no longer hear the children laughing, and her mind snapped back to attention. She grew stiff as she turned on a moccasined heel and looked for the girls.
She sighed with relief when she saw them darting in and out of tall lupines, laughing as they chased butterflies.
She hoped they knew not to wander farther than the flowers and wanted to tell them, but something warned her not to draw attention to them.
The children came into view long enough to wave at her, and then they were gone again as they ran to chase the butterflies.
Again a sound from the darkness of the aspen trees brought Shirleen around to stare into the forest. Even Speckled Fawn seemed aware of something amiss; she backed up toward Shirleen, her eyes locked on the trees.
“You heard it, too?” Shirleen whispered as Speckled Fawn stepped quickly to her side. “Perhaps it’s only a deer, or a red fox. I have seen several foxes these past days. They are so beautiful, I hate to see them killed for their pelts.”
“They do seem to be so trusting,” Speckled Fawn said, clutching her basket of flowers closer to her side. She laughed softly. “I think we are letting our imaginations get out of hand, thinking that what we heard was something besides a forest animal.”
She turned to Shirleen. “Let’s go home,” she said. “I think we’ve had a long enough outing, don’t you?”
“Yes, and enough flowers to make pretty decorations for each of our lodges,” Shirleen said, laughing softly. She grew serious again. “It is so sad that you had to destroy the tepee in which you lived with your husband. It held such memories for you.”
“It is the custom to take down a tepee where someone has died,” Speckled Fawn said somberly. “I understand the custom, but I, too, would have loved to remain where my husband and I had sat together beside the fire.”
“But I like the fact that your new lodge is much closer to mine,” Shirleen said, smiling sweetly at Speckled Fawn. “We don’t have so far to walk now to gossip together.”
They both flinched at the same time when they heard a sound coming from behind some thick bushes nearby. What they saw next made them grab for one another as their baskets of flowers fell from their hands.
Earl stepped from behind the bushes, a shotgun aimed directly at Shirleen’s swollen belly. “Well, what do we have here . . . two of my favorite women?” he said, chuckling.
He was unaware that Megan had heard his voice and had grabbed Little Bee’s hand. The two children were now running through the tall flowers behind him, toward their village.
Megan knew the danger her mother and her mother’s best friend were in. She and Little Bee were going to seek help!
Earl’s smile faded as he glowered at Speckled Fawn.
“Well, now, Judith,” Earl said, speaking the only name by which he knew Speckled Fawn. “Ain’t you the smart one? You talked me into giving up my daughter while all along planning to take her back to her real mommy.” He glowered even more darkly at Shirleen, then gazed at Speckled Fawn again. “After sobering up enough to understand what had happened, I thought it over and knew that something was rotten in Denmark. I had to find out what. I just had a hunch that the woman who took Megan was connected somehow with my wife.”
He heaved a sigh. “But I had no idea where Shirleen was after she was taken by the renegades. I searched around here for a while, then went to Johnson’s Fort, downriver from Fort Dennison. But after thinkin’ more on what happened, I began to believe that Shirleen would still be somewhere in this area, so I looked and looked. Finally I found her, as well as you, Judith, and my child.”
He had been watching the girls romping and playing, and only now realized that he no longer saw them anywhere. He guessed that Megan had gone into hiding the minute she had seen her father with a gun aimed at her mommy’s belly.
He would find her next, and then he’d show Shirleen that it was not the smartest thing to do to cross ol’ Earl Mingus. He’d take his daughter again, but not before killing her mother and the golden-haired woman who seemed to be her best friend.
He gazed at Speckled Fawn’s attire and how she wore her hair in two long braids. Then he stared at Shirleen who was also dressed like an Indian.
His eyes lingered long on her belly.
“And so you’re someone’s squaw, are you?” he said tightly.
He gazed past her at the smoke rising from the tepees not far away.