Savage Beloved

It belonged to the man who seemed to be the leader, who had brought her on his horse to the village.

She was in awe that the conversation was being conducted in perfect English.

She leapt to her feet and went to stand beside the entrance flap, listening to what was being said, for she knew it was about her.

The one Indian, whom she thought so handsome, had remembered her name and used it now as he gave the other man instructions.

She cringed when she heard that she was to be guarded at all times. Even if she got brave enough to try, she wouldn’t be able to escape whatever fate awaited her.

When the voices stopped, she again heard only the same sounds that she had been listening to before the conversation began.

She heard women’s voices and children at play who seemed happy as they laughed among themselves. She also heard what sounded like the voices of older men.

Before being taken inside this lodge, she had gotten enough of a glimpse of the village to see a huge outdoor fire burning in the center of many tepees. Older men were sitting around it smoking pipes; they had been conversing among themselves until they spotted her being brought into the village. As she was led to this tepee she could not take her eyes away from the big, roaring fire with its flames leaping skyward, lighting up the dark heavens.

Seeing that fire made a lump rise in her throat, for the burning inferno of the fort was the last thing she had seen as she had been taken from the scene of the massacre.

Not only had the Indians come and killed everyone there except herself, they had also set all the buildings aflame.

What had happened to the many horses that belonged to the soldiers? What had happened to those that belonged to her father, to her own strawberry roan, which she had adored riding on the days her father allowed her to leave the fort?

She jumped with alarm when the entrance flap was suddenly shoved aside and the handsome Indian came into the tepee. He caught her standing there, and surely guessed that she had been listening to his instructions.

But his discovery of her eavesdropping was not what frightened her. She grew pale, and the sick feeling that had overcome her since the beginning of the horrible massacre worsened when she saw what the warrior was bringing into the lodge.

As he turned to her, his eyes gleaming, she trembled at the sight of the irons and chains he was dragging behind him. The dried blood on them made her gulp hard in order to keep from losing everything that was rolling around in her stomach.

“What . . . are . . . you going to do with those?” she finally had the courage to ask.

She flinched when she suddenly recalled the last time she had seen such irons and chains.

The old Indian had been forced to wear them, and then made to walk from the fort with them on; the soldiers had been riding in front of him, leading him by a rope around his neck.

She gagged as another thought came to her. Was the blood on these iron and chains the old Indian’s?

It made her feel ill to think of the kind old man being forced to wear those horri

ble things, and for such a length of time.

Two Eagles lifted and began swinging one of the chains before Candy’s fearful eyes.

She watched it as though it were a pendulum, slowly moving back and forth, each swing counting off another moment of time.

She was afraid that each swing of the chain was counting off the moments before she would be killed for the sins of her father.

“You do recognize these, do you not?” Two Eagles asked tightly. He had seen a look of recognition and horror in her eyes as she watched the chain moving back and forth.

When Candy didn’t respond, Two Eagles stepped closer to her and leaned into her face. The chain now hung quietly at his left side.

“You know that these chains are the very ones that were placed on my uncle by the white pony soldiers at the fort,” he said, his teeth clenched. “You will now wear them. My uncle’s blood will mingle with yours when they cut into your tender white flesh. Flies and gnats will buzz around your bleeding flesh and eat the blood as they did while my uncle wore them.”

Candy was mortified to know that the old man was this Indian’s uncle.

That made the situation even worse for her than she had imagined. Surely he was going to make her wear these nasty chains for a few days, and then kill her.

As she looked onto his face, the scar that ran in a jagged line beneath his lower lip was clearer; she noticed that the tattoos on the backs of his hands were in the design of a bird’s foot, and on his right arm there were tattoos in the shape of a small cross. She found it hard to speak. Her words seemed frozen inside her. Her fear was so acute that she now felt cold all over.

“You have nothing to say?” Two Eagles demanded, finding it hard to be cruel to her, since everything about her spoke of innocence and loveliness.