Wild Whispers

Fire Thunder went and got the other three young women and waited for them to get their belongings.

Then when all four girls were huddled together, Fire Thunder embraced them each and said a soft prayer over them.

“Go

in peace,” Fire Thunder said softly. “Kitzhiat, our Great Spirit, will always be with you.”

Downcast, tears silvering their eyes, the girls left together.

Solemn and heavy hearted, Black Hair watched his one and only child leave the village. His gaze shifted to the mothers of the other three girls. In their grief, they were chanting, crying, and pulling at their hair.

He looked again at the girls as they walked farther and farther from the village. And although he knew that their expulsion was the fate of those who lived reckless, shameful lives, he could hardly bear to live with the decision, or without Running Fawn.

Although he was trying to be strong, he hung his head. He was so tormented, he was not sure if he could make it another day with the guilt lying heavy on his heart.

His own daughter! How could she have done this? She betrayed his loyalty to their chief by her wrongful behavior.

He turned to say something to Fire Thunder, to apologize again, but Fire Thunder was almost at his cabin.

Everyone turning their backs on him, Black Hair walked through the village until he got to the corral. He saddled his horse then swung himself into the saddle and rode away in a different direction from the path that took Running Fawn away from him.

He had to get away, to think, to plan his future which no longer included a daughter.

He had to plan a future that surely no longer held the full respect of his best friend, his chief.

Chapter 24

It smites my soul with sudden sickening;

It binds my being with a wreath of rue—

This want of you.

—IVAN LEONARD WRIGHT

Two days had passed and the Kickapoo were involved in another celebration—the first of three Feasts for the Dead ceremonies, which always followed the New Year. No children were allowed. Only the adult men and women participated in this solemn ritual.

It was midmorning. Fire Thunder sat on the west bench, with Kaylene at his left side, while the other Kickapoo men and women, among them Dawnmarie and White Wolf, sat on the north and south benches, all facing the fire. A ladle rested on everyone’s lap, which would be used during the ceremony.

Ten large pots of ne-pupe cooked slowly over the fire. This was a special stew made of venison, corn and squash, and it would be accompanied by fry bread and wild berry cakes.

Earlier in the day, Fire Thunder had explained the ceremony to Kaylene. Just like the living, the Kickapoo dead must eat three meals. And so, when a person passed from this world, one of his relatives took on the solemn responsibility of attending the three yearly festivals during which the dead were offered the necessary sustenance. If this duty was neglected, the spirits of the dead might return to harm the living.

There were many attending the feast today, for almost every adult in the village had lost a loved one at some point during his or her lifetime.

The feast meant more than one certainty to Kaylene. Soon after, when the sun rose tomorrow, she would be saying a final farewell to Dawnmarie.

And that made her sad. Kaylene hated to see Dawnmarie leave, because Dawnmarie had become a sort of mother figure to her. Theirs was a genuine sharing. Unlike what Kaylene had found with Running Fawn, there was a trust between herself and Dawnmarie.

Also, tomorrow, John Shelton was going to be released from his captivity—not so much to give him his freedom, but to give him the chance to unknowingly lead Kaylene to the carnival, so that she could question the woman she now knew was not her mother.

Fire Thunder was responsive to Kaylene’s troubled heart, to her needs, and had volunteered to help her find her true mother after procuring the needed information from Anna Shelton.

Of course it went against Fire Thunder’s grain to release a guilty man from imprisonment before he had received his full punishment.

But Kaylene had convinced him that John had suffered much already while being caged in total isolation. Surely just sitting there pondering his fate from day to day had put the fear of God in him, perhaps causing him to change his ways.

Yet deep down inside where Kaylene’s memories were sharpest of John’s mental, and sometimes physical abuse to Anna Shelton, she had to wonder whether or not she should help him return to be a part of Anna’s life again. Kaylene’s only hope was that the captivity had changed John Shelton.