Andrew laughed softly. “Dumb as an ox, Mole believed me,” he said. “I knew that there would be no way he could kill any Pawnee, because I wouldn’t let him. Mole put his trust in the wrong man.”
Suddenly there was a loud squeal behind High Hawk and Joylynn.
Rose came running past them.
The gunfire had brought everyone to see what had happened.
Rose had seen Andrew standing there, his firearm lowered at his side, and Mole dead on the ground.
She had known it was safe to run to the man she loved!
Andrew dropped his rifle and took Rose tenderly into his arms. “Rose, Rose, I almost died finding my way back to you,” he said, clinging to her and sobbing. “While searching for a horse for my bride price, I went too far. I . . . I . . . got lost. As I was trying to find my way back to the stronghold, I ran into that horrible man named Mole. He almost beat me to death in order to get answers from me.”
“But you are all right now?” Rose asked, leaning away from him, touching his gaunt face with a hand. “You are so thin. But . . . you . . . are alive!”
Again she flung herself into his arms, clinging.
“Yes, I’m alive,” Andrew said, a sob catching in his throat. “I survived and stayed in Mole’s hideout until the weather improved enough to travel up the mountain again. I was with that man for the duration of the winter. He made me hunt for food. He tied me up at night when we slept. And then the weather finally changed for the better and the snows began melting from the mountainside. I started out with Mole up the mountain and I had thought I’d led him to where the sentries would spy us and would recognize me and kill him. But again I was disoriented. I had no idea I was bringing him up the back side, not the front, where the sentries always were.”
“You took such chances,” Rose cried. “If you had found the right way to the village and the sentries had seen you, they would have taken you for an enemy alongside Mole. They would not have stopped to ask questions. They . . . they . . . would have shot both you and the evil man, side by side.”
“I’d have chanced anything to find my way back to where I belonged . . . to you,” Andrew said thickly. “I’d allowed Mole
to get this close, while all along knowing that I would kill him before he had a chance to harm your Pawnee people. I . . . I . . . felt that it was safer to travel with Mole on my way back to the stronghold than to travel alone, since I don’t have the same knowledge of how to survive in the wild. I took advantage of Mole’s knowledge of the mountain and how to survive the cold, by pretending to be his partner in crime.”
“Yet he still tied you up at night?” Rose said, leaning away from him to search his eyes.
Andrew nodded. “I was his captive the whole time, his pawn. I . . . I . . . feel like such a fool.”
“Yet he is dead and you are alive,” Rose said, smiling at him. “I do not think you a fool, but very, very brave. You survived these past months while living on the edge of death with that . . . that . . . monster.”
“But, Andy, where were you when Mole stepped from the trees, his rifle aimed at my belly?” Joylynn asked.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t plan carefully enough,” he said, gulping hard. “I would have died if he’d managed to kill you before I caught up with him. You see, he saw you alone before I did. He ran away from me after spotting you. I had just gotten close enough to shoot him when High Hawk’s arrow did the deed for me.”
He looked slowly from Rose to High Hawk to Joylynn, and then back at High Hawk. “You do believe me, don’t you?” he asked guardedly. “You do believe me when I say that I was not in cahoots with Mole, that I never knew him before he took me prisoner, not even when he was a part of the cavalry I was with that day when . . . when . . . he and I were the lone survivors. You’ve got to believe me when I tell you that I used him in order to find my way back here alive.”
Rose heard the silence all around her.
She stepped away from Andrew and went pale as she looked around at everyone. The onlookers were moving slowly forward, making a tight circle around their chief, his woman, and Rose and Andrew.
“I would not lie about this,” Andrew cried. He looked pleadingly at Rose, then fell to his knees before her. “I love you, Rose. I did all of this because of you.”
He looked over his shoulder into the shadows of the trees, then gazed into Rose’s eyes again as she placed soft hands on his cheeks.
“In there, amid the trees, you will find the steed that I brought back for the bride price,” he said, his voice breaking. “There are three horses, Rose, in the shadows of those trees. The horse that High Hawk loaned me, Mole’s, and the one I tamed for you and brought with me to offer your father. Rose, the steed is as white as the snows that fell on the mountain this winter. You will surely be glad to ride alongside me on that steed through the wildflowers, chasing butterflies and watching eagles soar. Won’t you, Rose? Won’t you?”
Three Bears stepped away from the others and went into the forest.
He came out again with three horses, their reins tied together.
Among them was the steed that High Hawk had loaned Andrew, a roan, and then a lovely white mustang that had surely been found among those that High Hawk had seen upon their first arrival in this new land of the Pawnee.
“He tells the truth,” Three Bears said, standing with the horses behind him.
“I knew it,” Rose cried, falling to her knees before Andrew and hugging him. “I knew you loved me. I knew there was a good reason why you had not returned. Oh, my Andrew, how horrible that you had to live with that evil man the whole winter through when you and I could have shared a warm tepee as man and wife.”
“We will share everything forever, my darling, now that I have found you again,” Andrew said, drawing her into his embrace and softly kissing her.