Chapter 29
Loved you when the summer deepened into June,
And those fair, wild, ideal dreams of youth
Were there, yet dangerous and half unreal.
As when Endymion kissed the mateless moon.
—VITA SACKVILLE-WEST
Five Years Later—
Her fingers sore and split from having been cattailing with the rest of the Kickapoo Women these past two days, Kaylene walked homeward with several heavy bundles of cattail leaves secured on the back of her burro.
She smiled, to know that she was now a part of the Kickapoo’s lives, blending in well with their customs because of her eagerness to learn them.
But today, now that her cattailing was complete, she was anxious to return home, to her family. She never liked being gone from her two children for any length of time.
And then there was Fire Thunder. How she ached for him in his absence. Theirs was a love affair that was neverending.
Family, she sighed to herself, thinking of the others who were an intricate part of her life.
Anna, ah, sweet Anna, who was always eager to care for her two grandchildren, Kaylene and Fire Thunder’s lovely daughter and handsome son.
Eloisa, her true mother, cherished the moments when Kaylene took her children close enough for her to see them—her grandchildren—and marvel over.
And pretty and delicate Little Sparrow! How she always brightened up a room when she entered.
But Little Sparrow’s being there, in their home, would soon end. When she reached her sixteenth birthday, she would marry Wolf Fire, a young man she had fallen in love with only a few weeks ago, leaving her puppy love for the other young brave behind her.
Wolf Fire was a patient man. He was willing to wait for Little Sparrow to become sixteen. He himself was twenty, and had become a fast friend of Fire Thunder’s. He was Fire Thunder’s sidekick, a brave young warrior who hardly left Fire Thunder’s side when there were things to be done for their people.
Kaylene’s smile faded when she thought of Midnight. Her beloved panther was not at all well. He scarcely ate anymore and he spent most of his time sleeping.
But it comforted Kaylene to know that they had had the best of times together. He had been her salvation during her years of feeling so alone, and dreaming of a day she might find “roots” in her life.
Yes, she would mourn him, as though he were a person. But one could not change one’s destiny. They had lived theirs out, it seemed, and soon it would be time to say a final, sad farewell.
She thought back to the Kickapoo women, with whom she now traveled down the mountainside, and how they had spent their time away from their families these past days. When they had arrived at a distant stream, farther up the mountain than their village, they had quickly set up a temporary camp for shelter.
Each woman had cut enough cattails to make mats and, if necessary, repair the walls of her wigwam. Kaylene was happy that she and Fire Thunder had a cabin, so she did not have to spend as much time wading in the snake-infested stream where the tall cattails grew.
The women offered prayers and tobacco to the snakes that guarded the cattails, promising to take only as many as needed. Once they returned home, they would dry the bundled cattails up against their wigwams, working a few at a time whenever they could find some spare moments away from other chores. It was a laborious process, cleaning the long stalks, then soaking them in hot water until they became pliable enough to work into mats.
As Kaylene moved onward, having encouraged the women to take this different route down the mountainside this time, thinking it might be shorter, she gazed around her at the difference in the foliage. Nothing of nature seemed disturbed. The trees were thick. Flowering vines ran up the trunks of each, sending off a sweet and spicy fragrance.
As she looked up into the trees, Kaylene saw birds she had never seen before as they flitted from limb to limb.
Yes, this way was different than the other side of the mountain, and she remembered now that Fire Thunder had said that this one side was not frequented by his warriors when they went on a hunt, mainly, because of the thickness of the trees and bushes.
Kaylene regretted having come this way. It was hard to squeeze the burros through the denseness of the trees. And she had rips and tears on her skirt caused by the thorny bushes.
Suddenly her heart leaped with surprise and she stopped to listen. Up ahead, through the trees, she thought she had heard someone laughing softly.
She turned to the woman beside her. “Did you hear laughter?” she asked, seeing that the other women had also stopped, and seemed to be scarcely breathing as they also listened.
“Yes, I heard it, but who could it be?” Blue Cloud said. “No one else but we Kickapoo live on this mountain.”