Savage Abandon

d where she was going. She had walked right into the middle of thick poison ivy vines. The leaves were even up the inside of her skirt, touching the bare flesh of her legs.

She already felt her skin itch, for she had learned long ago that she got poison ivy immediately and became very ill from it before getting better.

She had had such a severe reaction at times that she had thought she might die.

“Oh, Lord, what have I done?” she cried as she looked around herself.

The vines were everywhere. They were climbing up the trunks of the trees, overpowering everything within reach.

They covered the ground so thickly, there was no way she could get free of the tangle without the leaves touching the skin of her legs over and over again.

Mia now realized how wrong she had been to flee the Indian village. She was without protection of any kind out here in the wild.

What if she grew as ill from the poison ivy this time as she had the last, and she was all alone, with no one to care for her?

“I must go back,” she whispered, as tears spilled from her eyes. “I must!”

She truly had no choice.

She cringed with each step she took as the shiny, three-pointed leaves brushed against her skin. Her legs were already itching and hurting her.

When she got poison ivy, it was not just a few bumps on her flesh. In the past her legs had swollen to double their normal size.

Breaking into a wet sweat all over her body, Mia began to run. Half an hour later, she was never so glad to see anything as when she spotted tepees through a break in the trees a short distance away.

Suddenly she stopped. Up ahead, near the first of the tepees of the village, she saw a strange mist moving toward the dwellings.

She gasped and felt faint when she saw the mist coalesce and take on the form of Wolf Hawk, who now ran on toward his own lodge, which was set some distance from the other tepees.

“What does it mean?” Mia whispered to herself, shaken by what she had seen. How could the young chief have materialized from the hazy mist?

She was glad that he had not seen her, for she was well hidden in the dark shadows of the forest. She felt it was best that he wasn’t aware of what she had seen.

It seemed so fantastic, she wondered if the event was just a figment of her imagination.

Yes, that’s what it was, she told herself. It hadn’t been real at all.

She had imagined seeing the mist. Probably, she was so anxious about the poison ivy making her ill that her mind was playing tricks on her.

Trembling, unable to truly make herself believe that what she had seen had not been real, she hurried on into the village and went to the tepee where she had been staying.

Once inside, she hurried over to what was left of the fire. She was cold inside and out from everything that had just happened to her.

And she was so afraid of how sick she might become from the poison ivy, she wasn’t sure what to do.

She hated the idea of asking the aid of an Indian Shaman. She wouldn’t do it until she knew that she must. She would wait and see how bad the poison ivy got.

She jerked with alarm when Wolf Hawk came suddenly into the tepee.

She turned slowly and gazed into his eyes, seeing that he knew something was wrong. There was a questioning look on his face.

Wolf Hawk saw how Mia was trembling, and he saw telltale signs that she had been in the forest, for there were pieces of grass and leaves snagged on the skirt of her dress.

He again gazed deeply into her eyes. He knew now that while he was gone she had decided to go into the forest, but why?

Had she planned to flee, yet changed her mind? Had something frightened her into returning to the safety of his people’s village?

Needing answers, he stepped closer to her and reached a hand out for her.