Savage Beloved

She was beginning to fear that this man might be dangerous, especially if his own people had just cause to turn their backs on him.

“I did the same as all the warriors who rode with me on that fateful day of the Sioux ambush,” Spotted Bear said, his voice tense. “But I was the only Wichita warrior who was downed by a Sioux, scalped, and left for dead.”

She gazed at his head again and now understood why he was so disfigured.

She was stunned that he had survived such a thing as a scalping!

The more she knew about him, and the longer she was with him, the less afraid she felt.

She listened intently as he told her his story.

“I was scalped and left to die,” he said, looking humbly at the ground. Then he raised his head quickly and gazed into her eyes. “But I managed to live and treat my wounds with herbs. Since I was too weak to hunt, I survived by eating berries. Now I am healed, and strong enough to hunt again. But even now I cannot return home. I am now a man without a people, without a friend. I am to walk this earth alone, forever.”

“But why?” Candy asked, pitying this man whose heart seemed broken because he’d been abandoned by those he loved.

She could not imagine Two Eagles being so heartless.

There had to be a misunderstanding here.

“All Indian warriors who survive a scalping such as I did are feared,” he said. “We are called the Living Dead. I have always been a man of peace and have never been an energetic fighter. That is why the Sioux got the best of me and scalped me. I have lived alone ever since.”

His gaze moved slowly over her. When he noticed that she was dressed in the clothes of his people, he looked more closely into her eyes. “Tell me about yourself,” he said softly. “Tell me why you are not with your own people and why you are dressed in the clothes of the Wichita.”

She told him about her father’s death and the massacre at Fort Hope, and how she had thought it was the Wichita who had done this horrible thing. She told him that she and her pet wolf were the sole survivors of the massacre, and that Two Eagles took her in, first as his captive, and now . . .

She paused and then blushed as she confessed that she was something more now than a captive to Two Eagles.

“I am free to come and go as I please,” she said. “When my pet wolf went off, as she is wont to do now that she is grown, I set out on my own to find her. I am afraid that the wolves might see how weak she is now and possibly kill her.”

She looked over her shoulder, still disoriented and unsure as to which way to go to get back to the village.

Then she looked again at Spotted Bear. “I had to search for my wolf alone because Two Eagles could not go with me,” she said. “He is mourning his uncle’s death.”

“Short Robe is dead?” Spotted Bear said, his eyes revealing his sadness. “It is wrong that I am not there to mourn him, too, along with my people.”

“I am sad for you,” Candy said, truly feeling sorrow for this man whose world had been torn asunder by the Sioux, just as her own had been. She was more fortunate than Spotted Bear, though. The Sioux had unknowingly fulfilled two destinies when they attacked Fort Hope: hers and Two Eagles’s.

Thinking of Two Eagles brought her back to her current predicament. She slowly shook her head back and forth. “I am lost,” she said, her voice breaking. She looked again into Spotted Bear’s dark eyes. “I can’t find my way back to the village. If you aren’t allowed there, you can’t take me back, but can you at least point me in the right direction?”

Spotted Bear looked at the sky and then at Candy. “You should not leave now to find the village,” he said. “Soon it will be dark. It is not safe to travel during the night hours. Come to my camp with me. Eat. Rest. Sleep. Tomorrow I will lead you back to the village, or if you prefer, I can take you near a white person’s home.”

Candy didn’t have to think twice about where she would rather be taken. “I prefer going back to Two Eagles’s village to be a part of his life,” she said, seeing the shocked look on his face.

Candy blushed when she realized what she had just said about being a part of Two Eagles?

??s life. That was vastly different from saying that she wanted to be a part of the Wichita’s lives.

By singling out Two Eagles she had practically admitted her feelings for Two Eagles to this banished warrior.

She felt suddenly uneasy over her openness with this man, who might disapprove of any relationship between a white woman and a red man.

She watched closely for his reaction, relieved when he didn’t seem perturbed by what he had just learned.

For his part, Spotted Bear was surprised to learn that this woman was in love with Two Eagles, which was taboo. But that did not concern him. Her safety did, for if she was so open about her feelings for Two Eagles, surely he cared as much for her.

“Will you come with me?” he asked, searching her eyes. “Will you trust me as much as you do Two Eagles, or is that asking too much? You have not been with me long enough to know if you can trust me.” He lowered his eyes. “Knowing that I am a Ghost, banished by my people, you may see me in the same light as they.”

Truly not feeling threatened by this man, in fact feeling sorry for what had happened to him, Candy nodded. “I will go with you,” she murmured, feeling that was the best way to answer his question. “I truly appreciate your kindness.”