She no longer felt threatened, but quite the opposite. She had hoped to see Chief Thunder Horse again, and here he was, his eyes looking squarely into hers. Her insides melted when he smiled at her.
But no words were exchanged.
He drew rein a few feet from her, and she knew that any other white woman would be afraid to be discovered by Indians so far from home.
But she wasn’t afraid.
She would never forget Thunder Horse’s kindness toward her, how he had saved her life!
Thunder Horse raised his left hand in greeting, palm out, in his people’s gesture of friendship . . . the left hand because it was nearer the heart and had shed no blood.
“I remember you,” he said in a deep, masculine tone as he lowered his hand and again took up his horse’s reins. “We became friends on that day when I stopped the runaway stagecoach. I remember your name, too. It is Jessie.”
Pleased that he had remembered not only her, but also her name, Jessie nodded. “Yes, I remember you, too,” she said, nervously twining and untwining the reins around her left hand. She occupied her hands in the hope of keeping him from noticing that they were trembling.
If he saw them trembling, he might think it was from fear, when actually it was because she was so taken by him.
“It . . . is . . . nice to see you again,” Jessie blurted out.
“I am pleased also,” Thunder Horse said. Then he motioned with a hand toward Lone Wing. “This is my nephew. He goes by the name Lone Wing. Lone Wing, this woman’s name is Jessie.”
“It is good to know you, Jessie,” Lone Wing said, beginning to understand why his uncle seemed so fascinated by this woman. Even Lone Wing could see how beautiful she was. And she seemed sweet, as his own mother was.
“It’s nice to know you, too, Lone Wing,” Jessie said, reaching a hand out toward the boy, which he didn’t take. It was obvious he did not understand that her way of greeting someone was with a handshake.
She again toyed with the reins.
“Why have you stopped at the sacred rock of my people?” Thunder Horse blurted out.
His abrupt question made Jessie’s smile fade. He wished now that he had not been so quick to demand an answer.
“I was horseback riding and was drawn to this huge stone,” Jessie explained. Only now did she realize that she might have done something wrong in examining the stone. Obviously, it was something sacred to Thunder Horse’s people. “First I noticed, from a distance, that the stone was painted red, then when I grew closer, I became even more curious when I saw the many things on the ground around it.”
“What you see are votive offerings,” Thunder Horse said, nodding toward small bags of tobacco, pieces of cloth, hatchets, knives, and a lone arrow. “There are certain stones such as this that are worshiped with prayers and offerings by my people.”
“I apologize for coming here,” Jessie murmured. “I didn’t know about the meaning behind the red stone, or the gifts, or I wouldn’t have come close. I will not do so again.”
“You can come often, if you so choose,” Thunder Horse said thickly. “The stone is there for everyone, not only us Sioux.” He reached his hands heavenward and motioned all around him. “In these things, the stone, the clouds, the trees, the buffalo, all things are one.”
He ended with the sign for “all,” moving his right hand, palm side down, in a horizontal circle at the height of his heart.
He had noticed that all the while he sat on his horse so close to Jessie, she kept placing her hand on her stomach.
He had seen this before, when a woman with child felt that the child inside her might be threatened by something or someone. The thought of this woman possibly carrying Reginald Vineyard’s child was repulsive to him, for it surely meant that she was his wife . . . and absolutely forbidden to Thunder Horse.
But besides that, he didn’t like to think that this woman felt threatened in his presence. He had told her more than once that he was a friend.
And hadn’t he proved it to her? Had he not saved her life?
The sound of an approaching horse and buggy, seen now in the distance, interrupted his thoughts. Thunder Horse recognized the deranged Reginald Vineyard by his tiny size. Could he truly be the husband of this woman who might haunt Thunder Horse with her sweet loveliness forever and ever?
Thunder Horse wheeled his horse quickly around.
“Hiyu-wo, come, nephew!” he said, giving Lone Wing a nod. “It is time to go. Quickly!”
As he rode into a stand of trees with Lone Wing beside him, Thunder Horse could not stop thinking about how Jessie had placed her hand on her stomach. Surely she was with child.
“Why did we flee so quickly?” Lone Wing asked. “I like the lady. You seemed to, also.”