The sun was barely over the treetops, pulsing and glowing. In the shadows of early dawn stood a tall, lean man with broad shoulders, his sun-bronzed face revealing strong lines and a kind of savage eagerness. His eyes were crisply blue, his shoulder-length hair was the golden color of summer wheat. Though he was dressed in fringed buckskins and beaded moccasins, and stood among the Chippewa Indians as though one of them, he was white.
All around Shane Brennan men and women labored hard cutting birch trees and erecting wigwams. The Chippewa had traveled for two sleeps but now had arrived at the location of the village they had left behind many moons ago.
Across the land, bare bent birch poles reached up from the ground like skeletal fingers. At one time in the past many wigwams had housed families of Chippewa here. When the decision was made for the village to move north, the poles had been stripped of their buckskin coverings and left behind, a graveyard of memories.
Resting the handle of his axe on his shoulder, Shane stared into space. He had his own memories to contend with. They had only recently been brought to the surface in his mind. He and the Chippewa with whom he had been living these past twenty-five years had stopped to rest and parley with other bands of Chippewa on their way back from Canada, sharing stories over a campfire long into the night. When Shane was asked how he had come to be with the Chippewa instead of his true white family, he had explained about the massacre and the man who was partly to blamethe man with the peculiar eyes, one brown and one blue.
It had come as a shock to Shane when some of those who had listened intently to his tale of a dying mother and her stolen wedding band said they had heard rumors of such a man. He had been seen trapping in the area. They even supplied Shane with the man's name.
"Trapper Dan!" Shane whispered in a hiss. "He calls himself Trapper Dan!"
Shane lifted his axe and began chopping a birch tree with angry swings, pretending the tree was the evil, murdering trapper. As soon as he had erected his wigwam, he was going to go and search for him. Finally, Shane's mother's death would be avenged!
He lifted the axe for another blow to the tree, but stopped when a shadow fell in his path. Not offering a smile, he turned and faced Chief Gray Falcon. Ever since Gray Falcon's father had died, Shane had felt his coldness toward him deepen into something more intense. Though they had been childhood friends, t
hings had begun to change as they grew older. Gray Falcon had become jealous of Shane because Shane had become so close to his father, Chief Standing Tall.
Did Shane have to expect this jealousy to intensify even after the old chief's death? He hoped not, yet it was in Gray Falcon's dark eyes even now, the smoldering fire of his hatred of someone he had decided not to accept as one of his people.
"Stop!" Gray Falcon ordered flatly. "You have no need to build an ayn-dah-yin."
Shane's blue eyes widened with surprise. The muscles of his tanned, bare shoulders tensed. "I don't understand you," he said in Chippewa, although he still spoke in English quite well. He had kept the ability by sharing much time with trappers and traders while living in Canada. He had even learned the French language from those who had taken the time to teach him. He was proud to be fluent in three different languages.
Shane looked around him. Many wigwams were nearing completion. He looked back into Gray Falcon's cold, fathomless eyes. "What have you not said that you are feeling in your heart?" he asked. "Tell me why I have no need for a wigwam."
Gray Falcon folded his arms across his bare
copper chest. He lifted his chin smugly. "You have no need, because you will no longer be a part of my people," he said sternly. "It is time for you to return to your people. Leave me in peace with mine!"
"What did you say?" Shane gasped. "You are ordering me to leave? You do not see that I am happy with the Chippewa? I have no family but Chippewa!"
Shane gestured with a hand toward himself. "Do I not wear my hair unbraided to prove my mourning for your father? Do I not wear narrow strips of braided buckskin around my neck and waist during this period of mourning?" he said, his voice drawn and disbelieving of what was being forced upon him.
He doubled a fist to his bare chest, resting it over his heart. His gaze lowered and he looked at himself and how he was clothed in fringed buckskin leggings and moccasins. "Have I not always dressed and acted as though a true Chippewa?" he asked, looking slowly up at Gray Falcon. "As children, we rode side by side in the hunt, Gray Falcon. Did you resent me even then? Did you?"
"It is because of you that my people were moved north from the peaceful land of many lakes," Gray Falcon said sharply. "It is because of you my father chose to move his people north. He grew tired of hiding you when white people came asking for you. He knew that it was best to take you north because he knew the white people would not venture that far from their own land. He did this
to his own people to protect your identity from yours!"
"That is not the only reason your father moved north," Shane said. He had been told later in life about Chief Standing Tall having always hidden him when he was a child from anyone who came searching for him. At that time Shane had been too small to understand why he was whisked away at the sound of approaching horses. When he was older, he was already in Canada, and hiding was no longer necessary. "Your father was not content with the land and the game that was offered him in the south. He was in search of a better way of life. Never would a chief as strong-minded as your father let a mere boy stand in the way of what was best for his people!"
"I am more astute than you. I saw a father whose heart drifted from strong love for a son to care more deeply for one who was not a blood relation. Though you did not live in the same dwelling as my family, my father became your father," Chief Gray Falcon said. "He enjoyed your company more than mine, his true son. Did he not even play the white man game of cards that you call poker with you? Sons and fathers should sharenot sons and strangers!"
"I have not been a stranger since the day your father rescued me from the forest," Shane said, setting his jaw firmly. "I became one of your people that day. I grew to love all of your people. When your father gave me to Little Dove to raise as her own, and when I was even blessed with a
sister many moons later, my past life was forgotten. I did not mean to cause resentments. I am sorry for that, Gray Falcon, but now let us forget the past and live as a family. This is what your father would want."
Gray Falcon firmed his jaw. "No," he argued. "It is time for you to seek your true destiny. You were not born with the blood of the Chippewa running through your veins. You are white. You have a family who are white. Mah-szhongo to them now."
Anger rose within Shane and he felt as though he were being banished from the tribe because of having been deceitful. He met Gray Falcon's steady stare with his own. "I go," he said. "But not to a white family, for I have none. They were lost to me many years ago. To them I am dead. To me they are dead!"
"You have a brother and father who are alive," Gray Falcon said, his eyes unblinking. "For many moons my father has known of your true father and where he resides. Before Father died, he confided this truth to me. I was not to tell you unless you had reason to know. My father showed two of his braves where your family resides and instructed them to keep the secret until the time came for you to know. One of the old braves is still alive. He will guide you to your true family. There you will live. Not here with the Chippewa."
Shane's head was spinning with all that he was discoveringnot only that Grey Falcon, who had once been as close to him as a brother, resented him so deeply, but that Chief Standing Tall had known all along where Shane's true family was! When Shane was first told about being hidden from his family when they had come searching for him all those years ago, it had been hard to accept. But he had grown to understand that Chief Standing Tall had acted this way because he had grown to love him. No true father could have ever loved as strongly or devotedly!
Yet, for Chief Standing Tall to have known through all the years where Shane's true family resided, surely grieving for him, made his heart begin a slow ache. In a sense, Chief Standing Tall had deceived him. Though done in love, it was still no less than deceit!
Han-tay-wee, Cedar Maid, the daughter of Little Dove who had been raised as Shane's sister, came to stand beside him. She took his hand and gazed up into his eyes the color of the sky, then looked slowly at Gray Falcon. She grew cold inside when she saw Gray Falcon's stiff reserve as he glared at Shane. Since Chief Standing Tall's death, she had feared what might transpire between the new young chief and Shane. She knew the depth of Gray Falcon's resentment.