Savage Skies

Having these things made her feel a little less lonesome for the happy life she had once known before she had been abused by her husband, for most of these clothes had been brought from Boston.

If not for the birth of her daughter, she would wish that she had never left Boston to journey to this dangerous territory with a man she too soon learned to fear. But she had heard so much about the exciting West that the opportunity to go there had been too tempting to let herself think about the possible pitfalls of living there.

Having chosen the clothes she would keep, she shoved the other things into the travel bag and took them to the entrance flap.

After shoving aside the skin hide, she set the clothes on the ground on the opposite side of the entranceway from where the warrior stood. He did not look down at her, did not seem even to know that she had leaned out from the tepee, if only for a moment.

She took the time to observe the activity of the village and caught sight of Speckled Fawn disappearing inside Chief Blue Thunder’s large tepee.

Seeing the woman going there caused a spurt of surprising jealousy to rush through her. She did not like the idea that the white woman could come and go with such ease from this handsome Indian’s lodge, as though she was something special to him.

Shirleen had to remind herself that this woman had a husband. Surely Blue Thunder was only her chief, a strange thought since she was white.

Shaking jealousy from her mind, and reminding herself it was foolish to fantasize over Blue Thunder, she turned and hurried back inside the tepee.

Because her meal had been interrupted earlier, she was still hungry, so she ladled another bowl of food out for herself.

As she slowly ate it, Shirleen could not stop herself from wondering why the other white woman had been going inside the chief’s lodge.

“Speckled Fawn,” Shirleen whispered between bites. “I wonder what her true name is, and why she chooses to go by an Indian name.”

Yes, she was puzzled by everything about this woman. What in her past did she want to deny so badly that she had taken on an entirely new identity?

Chapter Eleven

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun,

I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes.

—Millay

The early morning sun had just risen on a new day when Blue Thunder heard someone outside his lodge, waiting to be admitted.

When he opened the entrance flap, he discovered it was his uncle’s wife, Speckled Fawn.

“Enter,” Blue Thunder said as he gestured his visitor toward a thick pallet of furs near the lodge fire.

Speckled Fawn smiled weakly at him as she came further into the tepee, then sat down where she could look across the slowly burning flames in his firepit and see him clearly.

“Why have you come?” Blue Thunder asked, folding his arms across his muscled chest. “Is it about my uncle? Has he worsened since I last looked in on him?”

“He is no better, nor worse,” Speckled Fawn said, nervously fidgeting with some fringe on her white doeskin dress.

“Then why have you come and interrupted my morning if not with news of my uncle?” Blue Thunder asked, though he had already guessed why.

He had seen her come and go from the white woman’s lodge more than once.

Surely Speckled Fawn had appointed herself the woman’s guardian since they both had the same color of skin.

But that was the only physical similarity between them. One was tiny and fragile-looking, the other full-bodied.

He had never had any true reason to dislike the one with the golden hair, especially since she had made his uncle so happy during his last days on this earth.

It was just that he had never wanted her among his people in the first place, to attract other unwanted whites there.