Savage Tempest

He offered Joylynn a wooden bowl and a spoon made of horn.

He nodded toward an earthen vessel shaped like a bread tray, filled with pieces of what she believed was more wasna, as well as ribs that looked delicious. In other bowls were foods that she did not recognize.

It was all tempting, yet not knowing what most of the dishes were, Joylynn hesitated, even though her belly was aching from hunger.

“Eat and then you can rest while I go and attend to some personal duties,” High Hawk said, noticing that she hesitated to take anything in her bowl.

He thought it might be because she was afraid to eat food his people cooked. He hoped she was not so prejudiced that she believed his people’s food was too dirty for her.

She had eaten the wasna he had given her.

As she continued to stare at the food, High Hawk pointed to one thing and then another.

“There you have pemmican, which is dried meat pounded into paste with fat and berries,” he said. He pointed to something else. “There you have a brace of buffalo ribs, delightfully roasted.”

Again he pointed to another bowl. “And here is something my mother made this morning,” he said.

“This bowl contains a kind of pudding made of a delicious turnip of the prairie, finely flavored with buffalo berries, which resemble dried currants.”

She started to nod and reach for some of the food, but stopped when he cut a piece of meat from the ribs and threw it into the fire.

He didn’t explain his action, but she guessed that it was some sort of sacrifice he felt he must perform before eating.

As he seemed to be waiting for her to place food in her bowl, she hurriedly took small pieces of everything, then dipped some of the pudding into her bowl beside the other food.

She glanced up at him and saw that her behavior seemed to have pleased him, for he was smiling.

But his smile faded when an elderly woman came into the lodge, her look anything but friendly. She gazed down at Joylynn with contempt in her faded old brown eyes.

Joylynn was glad when the woman turned to High Hawk as he rose to embrace her. Joylynn could only conclude this was High Hawk’s mother.

The woman wore an elaborately beaded ankle-length dress; her graying hair fell in one long braid down her back. Her face was lined with wrinkles, yet still beautiful.

But in her eyes a look of anger and utter contempt made Joylynn uncomfortable. Did she disapprove of her son bringing a captive home, or was it his kind treatment of his captive that angered her?

“Your father left right after you departed to check on a buffalo herd that had been sighted, and he has not yet returned,” Blanket Woman said tightly. “I am getting concerned.”

“Ina, Father has done this before,” he said calmly. “He may be gone for many days.”

“Your ahte is no longer a young man,” Blanket Woman said. “His body is not as strong as it once was.”

“Do not worry,” High Hawk said. Then, just as he started to introduce Joylynn to his mother, Blanket Woman took him by an arm and led him to the entrance flap.

“Come outside with me,” she said, yanking on his arm.

Trying not to be embarrassed by his mother’s antics, High Hawk hurried outside, leaving Joylynn alone, her eyes wide at the confrontation between mother and son.

Joylynn was put off by the older woman. She was abrasive. She was someone who did not care whether or not she was humiliating her proud son in the presence of . . . of . . . a captive.

Joylynn listened as the woman scolded High Hawk. Her angry tone was evident, even though Joylynn knew that his mother was trying to keep her voice down.

But Joylynn could tell from all that the old woman was saying to High Hawk that she did not approve of his having brought her home with him.

Joylynn heard the woman tell High Hawk that he should not have a white woman in his lodge. He, who would one day be chief, should be keeping his lodge pure, for soon he would be choosing a wife to bear him children . . . to carry on their family bloodline because his crippled brother could not do so.

Joylynn realized from what she had just heard that High Hawk had no wife. Of course that should mean nothing to

her, but strangely enough, somewhere deep down, where her desires were formed, she did care.