An old woman with white hair sat near the center of the tipi. She sat not cross-legged but with her limbs folded beneath her. She sewed fine turquoise embroidery into bleached-white buckskin. It would be a beautiful garment, Skylar thought. A robe of some sort or perhaps a dress like the ones most of the women were wearing. The old woman looked up at her. She nodded as if she had expected Skylar and was not alarmed or even disturbed by her presence.
Besides the old woman, there were children in the tipi.
There was a girl of perhaps eleven or twelve, a boy of maybe eight, and four very little children—one a baby in a cradle board, two toddlers, one a bit bigger. She wasn’t even sure of the gender of the little ones, but as she stood there, the twelve-year-old girl offered a tentative smile, and the little ones, except for the babe in the cradle board, started coming toward her.
The girl’s smile encouraged her. She ducked down, ready to greet the children.
They literally crawled on top of her. She laughed, falling back on the ground. One of the toddlers laughed with delight then as well, and the others joined in. She plucked up the erring fellow who had toppled her, setting him down at her side. The girl came to her then, smiling tentatively again, and speaking in her ownlanguage but making a drinking motion Skylar couldn’t fail to understand.
“Water, yes, please,” Skylar said.
Hawk’s grandfather entered the tipi. He watched her, his eyes dark and fathomless, his face deeply lined by time and the elements. She drank the water offered to her from a gourd and thanked the girl and then Hawk’s grandfather. One of the babies found a tortoiseshell comb in her skirt pocket. She drew her eyes from those grave ones of the old brave and showed the child what the comb did, laughing as she drew it through the babe’s dark hair, then offered it to the little one. The child watched her with enormous, almond-shaped dark eyes. Beautiful eyes, in a face filled with wonder. Skylar bit her lower lip suddenly, remembering accounts she had heard of Indian babes being killed when the soldiers had triumphed over the bands. It had seemed so distant then, so real now. The children were beautiful.
No one had a right to slaughter innocents. Cherubs like these. Little ones who smiled, laughed, gurgled, reached out to be touched, expected love. She shivered suddenly. She looked up at the old Indian brave. And as he looked down at her, she felt that he knew what she was thinking. She couldn’t talk to him. She didn’t know a word of his language. But he seemed to understand her thoughts. He smiled, and somehow, they communicated.
And she wasn’t so afraid.
The old woman spoke very quietly to the man. He shrugged, then looked at Skylar again.
“Deer Woman would ask if you are you hungry if she could. She does not speak your language and so cannot.”
“No, I’m—” She broke off, startled. Hawk’s grandfather spoke English quite well. Regaining her composure, she wondered if it would be rude not to accept something to eat. “Perhaps, I’m a little hungry. Only if it is no problem…”
Her voice trailed as he turned back to the white-haired woman. She rose, setting her work aside, and left the tipi. She returned with a bowl filled with meat in a thick juice. Skylar thanked her and tasted the meat, hoping that she would find it good and that she wouldn’t embarrass herself further by choking it down—or worse, being sick.
The food was delicious. She arranged her legs beneath her the same way she had seen the white-haired woman do as she ate, aware that the children continued to play with her comb as she did so.
Hawk’s grandfather sat before his fire, gazing at her.
“Your feet are hurt,” he said.
“Just a little sore.”
“Deer Woman has salve for them.”
Skylar straightened her legs so Deer Woman could reach her feet. As the woman gently tended to them, Hawk’s grandfather continued to speak to her.
“You came from the East?”
“Yes.”
“Married to Hawk?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I—I met Hawk’s father there.”
The old warrior nodded as if her explanation made perfect sense to him when no one else had ever really understood it. “David found you for Hawk.”
“I—yes,” she said simply.
The old man smiled.
“What do you think of us?”
The blunt question threw her. “I…I don’t know yet. I have just come here. I know so little and I’m trying to learn so fast. I think the children are beautiful.”
