"It is good to see you have an appet.i.te. You will need strength today, for it is a difficult job to convince men to do anything."

Raven paused in her meal. "Will you bring food to Running Wolf?"

Truthful Woman showed her another bowl full of porridge. Her brother arrived in time to finish the remainder of the meal, for though he had a lodge, he had no woman to cook for him.

"Will you speak to Father with me?" Raven asked her brother.

"You do not want my help. I still want him killed."

Her grandmother patted Bright Arrow. "Do you not want your sister's happiness?"

"Not if it means she will humiliate herself with a snake." He looked at his sister, his face a mask of confusion. "You will not tend fires or clean fish or make clothing. You insist on riding, hunting and fighting like a warrior and now you bring this man to our camp." He raised his voice. "It is too much!"

"We are who we are. And we love who we love," said Truthful Woman.

Bright Arrow grunted and returned his attention to his porridge.

Six Elks called a greeting to his own home, and all discussion ceased as he entered the lodge with his elderly uncle.

"From the volume of your voices, the entire tribe will know what is too much, son."

Bright Arrow gave up the place across from the entrance instantly and Truthful Woman added more water and flour to her iron kettle to begin a second batch of porridge. She offered the helping she had set aside for Running Wolf to her son and he accepted it and pa.s.sed it to his uncle.

All was quiet except for the turning of the smooth stick Truthful Woman used to stir the porridge and the sc.r.a.pe of the horn spoon on the turtle sh.e.l.l.

Raven wanted so much to explain to her father that they must not harm Running Wolf, but her fear stopped her. What if she presented her opinion badly? What if it did not matter what she said because, like her brother, his mind was fixed?

Her father had raised her to hate the Sioux. Everyone had suffered loss from battle or raid, but her father harbored special detestation for their enemy since the death of his brother. She knew this only from her grandmother, who had said her son had once been carefree and careless but all that had changed when his brother had left.

Six Elks finished a first helping of porridge and her uncle a second. Raven found herself clicking her thumbnail with the one on her opposite index finger in a nervous repet.i.tive action. Finally they lowered their bowls. And both men turned their attention to Raven.

"So, daughter, what is it you wish me to know about our captive?"

Where to begin? So many things seemed important. She wanted to leap into the conversation, but she collected her thoughts. She had rehea.r.s.ed half the night, but now that she had his attention she was mute.

"Have you changed your mind, then? Come to your senses and realized that you are safe now?"

"No. I am more afraid now than when I was first taken captive because then I only feared for my own life. But now I fear for his."

"He walked into our hands. Once an elk walked into our camp. I'm sure you know what happened to the elk."

Raven began again. "When I was first captured, Running Wolf kept the man who attacked Grandmother from killing me. This man tried to kill me several times. Running Wolf protected me and outwitted this man at every turn. He kept me from being used by the men of his tribe, he kept me from being sold to a white trader and, when we were freed, he brought us home. These are not the actions of an enemy."

"If he is such an ally, why did he not bring you all home months ago?"

"Because like all warriors, he followed the orders of his chief."

"What is it you want us to do, daughter?"

She tore off her thumbnail with her teeth and then gnawed on the ragged tip. Why was it so hard to say aloud?

"I wish you to give your permission for me to marry him."

Her grandmother stopped stirring the porridge. Her brother choked on the hot tea he had been sipping and her father and uncle stared like owls.

Finally her father laughed.

"For a moment I thought you were serious."

"I am serious, Father. I love him. I would give my life for him."

"He is a captive," said Bright Arrow. "We kill captives. Let me test his strength. Let us see if he dies with honor or if he yips and howls like a coyote with his coat on fire."

Raven gripped her hand into a fist. Her grandmother placed a hand upon her arm.

Her father dismissed both Bright Arrow and Raven's request. "He is not Crow. You cannot marry him. But he has brought many of our women out of enemy territory and he did not kill my son when he had the chance. Still, he is Sioux."

Raven bowed her head to think. Her father had not spared him. Neither had he condemned him.

Then she resumed her attack.

"If he goes, I will go with him."

"He is not going. I do not free captives."

Truthful Woman spoke at last. "I have heard that my granddaughter protected the warrior from her brother and his men. I have heard that she was willing to go with him to the Spirit World rather than let him die." Her grandmother touched the healing scab on Raven's neck, and then turned her attention back to her son. "You have heard this, too. Did you also hear who stopped her?"

Six Elks made a face. "I did."

"This is a selfless act. Most men would have used her as a weapon to help them escape. But he saved her even from herself while knowing he would lose any chance of escape."

Six Elks's scowl deepened the creases across his forehead.

"Such a man does not deserve to be a captive," said Truthful Woman.

Her uncle spoke. "Truthful Woman is right. He should not be a captive because all Sioux are better dead. Making him a captive is dangerous. Who would want a warrior as a servant?"

Raven crept across the circle to her father and took hold of his hand between her two smaller ones. She thought of all the requests she had made, both insignificant and outlandish. Her father had denied her nothing. But this...this she feared he would not grant.

"Spare him," she begged.

Six Elks looked to his uncle. "What are your thoughts?"

"No warrior with any honor would live long as a captive. Even if he did survive the winter, which he will not, he would try to escape. You will have to guard him constantly or let him go and then hunt him down and kill him. It is a lot of trouble. Just kill him now."

Raven gave a strangled cry and fell across her father's lap, wrapping her arms about his waist and weeping.

"If I were a captive, I would kill myself," said Bright Arrow.

Her father patted her shoulder as she wept against him. "Perhaps he will escape and we can just let him go."

Raven sat up. Before she had wiped her eyes, she realized that she would rather see him go than have him live here as a captive. Then he could keep his honor and go on his vision quest and return to his people. He could start again. He would have everything he had before.

Everything except her.

She had said that if he went, she would go with him. But she could not. She could never return to his tribe without revealing Mouse's deception.

Would he forget her in time?

She used the heels of her hands to swipe away the tears.

"Yes," she whispered. "Let him go."

Her father looked long at his daughter without speaking. At last he rested a hand upon her cheek.

"I will recommend this to the council. If I can persuade them, then he will go and you will stay."

"Thank you, Father."

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Raven knew this was the best chance for Running Wolf. He would live. He would rejoin his people and, in time, he might forget her. Perhaps marry Spotted Fawn and reach his destiny as a leader of his people.

But even knowing all that, her heart was dead. It beat but it might just as well have been a burl in the wood of a tree. She would survive. She knew she would.

Her grandmother and her father showed her that the living continued on even after a loved one was lost. But in her father's case, the loss had changed him, made him more solemn and more angry. She felt herself changing, hardening like the cascading water that froze in blue strands in winter.

That day the council met, and at night the people prepared to continue the welcoming of the return of the captives. Tomorrow men would be sent to the other tribes to report who had survived and who had died in the four years since the first of the captives had been taken.

Raven watched the council lodge, waiting for the leaders of her tribe to emerge. For a time she sat with the other women around the outside of the lodge. Most of what was said could be easily heard.

She was not a patient sitter.

Unlike the other women, she had brought nothing to do with her hands. Truthful Woman handed her a small pouch. Inside were flint and steel and a soft bit of leather. By the time midday arrived, Raven had three new arrowheads napped.

Truthful Woman held a finger in the air and the women stopped working.

"They are coming out," she said. The women made no show of hiding. They continued to sit in a ring outside the lodge. Listening to the conversation saved time. If they heard what was said, their husbands would not have to say again the words spoken. The council members would return to their lodges for a midday meal and listen to the opinions of their families, especially their wives and mothers, before returning to their talk.

The council members filed out followed by her brother, the war chief, their medicine man and several other warriors who had been asked to join the council and render opinions.

"Grandmother, do you think they will follow Father's request?"

"Opinion seemed mixed. Now they gather the thoughts of all."

"If they will not free him, what will I do?"

"Your father offered a suggestion to me about your young warrior this morning without knowing he had done so. I have been thinking it over since."

"What suggestion?" The panic crept up into her throat again.

Her grandmother gathered her quillwork and rose. "Come now, it is time to make the meal, and if you are to be a wife, you must learn to cook."

A wife? The best she could hope for was that Running Wolf regained his freedom. She would never be a wife.

Raven gathered her arrowheads and hurried after her grandmother.

"Do you think I should go with him? Perhaps find another tribe of the Sioux?"

"No, daughter. A man comes to his wife's tribe, not the other way around."

"But, Grandmother, you heard Father. He will never be a Crow."

"I did hear your father. But in his words I heard room to wiggle, like a weasel through a very tight spot. Did you know my husband called me Little Weasel? It was his pet name because I was so good at getting through tight places."

Raven grasped Truthful Woman's arm. "Please tell me. What do I do? I will do anything you say."

"First we see what the council decides. You have never seen a male captive in our midst. But I have seen many. Sioux, Blackfoot, even a Cree boy. But that was past. Perhaps you would like to help me feed your young man."

"Should we not speak to Father?"

"We should feed him, but do you think your father is unclear as to your wishes?"

"No."

"Then, you do not need to talk."

Raven helped her grandmother prepare a stew and a flatbread from the remains of the flour that Truthful Woman had ground at breakfast. Bright Arrow and Six Elks ate first and did not linger. Raven choked down a small portion of stew because her grandmother refused to go to Running Wolf unless she did so. She carried the kettle across the camp. Her grandmother spoke to everyone they pa.s.sed. Raven was in a hurry and she found the delays tiring.

"It will be dinner before we get there," she whispered.

Truthful Woman cast her an indulgent look. "These women are speaking to their men about your young man. They will be more inclined to help you if you are not rude to them."

Raven, properly chastened, took her time to speak to each person they met from there on, accepting welcomes and catching up on the news she had missed.

She was careful to include one example of how well the Sioux had treated her. They let her hunt. They gave her food. Her warrior's mother taught her how to pack a household, which she had never done here. And helped her learn to prepare buffalo for drying. She told them that she had prepared several hides on her own. So now she felt better ready to be a wife.

"His mother treated her like her own daughter," said Truthful Woman.

Her grandmother told of how this brave man had rescued all the captives, not just the woman he loved, and brought them home. "And he saved my granddaughter from the one who stole my beads. He killed four blue coats who tried to molest our women. And even when captured, he rescued my little warrior from herself." She touched the wound on her granddaughter's neck. "I remember being so in love. This Sioux brave is a good match for my granddaughter. They have the same heart, brave and free. It is not just any man who would understand a woman who would own her own horses and hunt buffalo."

They finally reached the far edge of the camp.