Savage Beloved
Among them were two that he readily recognized. There was no doubt whom they belonged to.
His mother and sister!
Theirs had a unique trait that no other scalp hanging there had.
His mother’s black hair had had one wide streak of gray that went straight down the back of the scalp, as had his sister’s. She had inherited this trait from her mother.
Anger seethed inside Two Eagles as he placed the jar on the desk, then went and took those two scalps from the others and attached them to the belt of his breechclout. Now he could take them where they belonged . . . to the graves of his mother and sister. Finally their bodies would be complete in their final resting place.
He grabbed the jar up and held it securely, for he was glad to have found it. Now he would be able to return it to his close allies and friends. The head of their chief could finally be placed with the body!
Instead of returning to the part of the house where the colonel’s body lay, Two Eagles and Running Wolf went through a back door and hurried to their steeds. Two Eagles never wanted to see that man again, especially now that he knew it was the colonel who had stolen his mother and sister away and murdered them.
Anger still flashing in his eyes, Two Eagles placed the jar inside the huge buckskin bag that he carried with him at all times at the side of his horse.
He placed the scalps there, too, then went and stood before his warriors.
“Do not leave anything of these people standing!” Two Eagles shouted, knowing that enough time had elapsed so that the Sioux could not hear him. “Burn it all! Burn everything!”
He mounted his steed and sat stiff-backed in his saddle as he watched torches being thrown on first the main building, and then the others. When they were all aflame, he wheeled his horse around and rode away, his warriors close behind him.
He had gone only a short distance before he was stopped by an unusual movement in the brush. There was just enough light left for him to see a woman crawling along the ground.
From this vantage point, he didn’t see any blood on her person, nor did she seem injured, so he assumed that she was crawling in an effort to keep him and his warriors from seeing her.
Suddenly he saw her stop and look over her shoulder. She had spotted Two Eagles, who was now riding toward her.
Candy’s heart was thudding with fear as the handsome young Indian, who was scarcely clothed, now slowly circled her.
She noticed a scar on his face, beneath his lower lip; it slightly marred his perfect, noble features, as did the tattoos on his hands. She bit her lip when she realized where her mind had taken her. There she was in mortal danger, her father and Malvina behind her now in the burning building, and she was thinking about how handsome this Indian was.
But she had never considered any Indian handsome. She had always thought they all looked alike.
But now?
Up this close?
Sh
e knew how wrong she had been.
Yet how could she forget, for even one moment, that this man was responsible for the death of many people, among them her father and Malvina?
She gazed at him now with contempt, with hate, as he stopped beside her.
“Stand,” he said in perfect English. “Or do you prefer to continue crawling like a lowly snake along the ground?”
Knowing that she had no choice, yet so afraid she was not certain her knees would support her when she did try to stand, Candy slowly pushed herself up from the ground.
She stood straight-backed, her chin held firmly high, as she tried to prove that she was a woman of spirit . . . of courage . . . despite the danger she was in. She knew that one arrow could snuff her life out, as so many lives had been ended this evening at the fort.
Two Eagles knew this woman must be related to one of the men who lay dead now at the fort. Yet he couldn’t help noticing her tininess, and the attire she wore, which was so different from what his Wichita women wore. And her eyes. They were beautiful and the same color as the sky. And he could hardly take his eyes off the golden color of her hair.
But it was her show of courage, of spirit, as she stood so boldly before him, her hands now moving slowly to her hips in an act of defiance, that truly awed him.
He had always thought that white women were weak, especially in the presence of their enemy, the red man.
But this woman was different, much different from the one who lived among his people now. That woman, who was called by the name Hawk Woman, had come crying and screaming and begging for her life when she had been found wandering alone on the prairie.