“Where is Elaina?” Running Wolf gasped.
“What are you talking about? Isn’t she at your tepee? She was there this morning when I dropped Jessica off. What’s going on, Running Wolf?”
“I think she left, but… that can’t be possible, right? I mean, she… she loves me.” Running Wolf shook his head as he turned Wolf around. “We have so many happy memories… we’ve professed our love and… she wouldn’t.”
“Running Wolf, calm...” Chito’s words were interrupted as Running Wolf galloped away.
Thoughts of his conversation with Elaina earlier keptreplaying in his head.It will be much harder to say goodbye to you again.Just leave from there, all right?She had wanted him to leave and not return. It was because she had been planning to leave. She had left him. She had broken his heart and left him.
He pulled to a halt as he bent over on the horse. Running Wolf struggled to hold back the tears. How could she? She loved him. Right? He had felt it in her smile, her kisses, her touches!
“Maybe what she had out there was bigger than what you both have in here,” Chito answered Running Wolf’s unspoken questions quietly as he rode up beside him.
Running Wolf looked at his friend with pain filled eyes. He stiffened his back as he said, “I’ll be on my vision quest.”
“Are you sure about that, Running Wolf? You need time to...”
“What else is there to be here for? The woman I love, left with my daughter. My family is gone. I have nothing left here.”
Before his friend could say more, Running Wolf pulled on the reins and galloped off, into the mountains. He was a man with a pain-filled and heavy heart.
Chapter Nineteen
Running Wolf sat in the middle of the forest, his eyes shut. He had been on his vision quest for almost a day. Up in the forests in the mountains to the north of the village. There he was, on his lone journey. He shook his head and groaned as once again, he was blasted with images of Elaina and Jessica. It had been like that ever since he got to the forest. Tired of seeing them everywhere, he had settled down to meditate and now, he was seeing them more.
How could he embark on his vision quest when he could not let go of the pain she had brought him? How could he do what he had to do?
“Why are you so convinced that she left you behind?” a voice rumbled through the forest. Running Wolf’s eyes flitted around and he gasped as he was surrounded by images of Elaina and Jessica. They were memories of the times he had spent with them.
Before he could reply to the spirits, more voices rumbled through, “Running Wolf, son of Chief Minco, you deprive yourself of what you deserve, of true happiness because of your fears!!”
“I...” Running Wolf stuttered.
He could not see anything in the distance. There was a mist around him and it was growing as the voices increased in multitude. The voices of the spirits echoed through the enclosed space.
“Self-destructive Running Wolf, always running away,” one of them taunted him. Running Wolf turned in the direction of the voice but another emerged from behind him,
“Running Wolf, certainly fitting...”
He fell down to his knees, his head in his hands, “She left me!”
“Did she really or are you determined not to be happy?” a voice hissed in his ear.
A chill enveloped him and a force pushed him forward. He found himself staring at a memory in the mist that was foreign to him. It was Elaina. Her hands were bound behind her and so were her legs. She was in the back of a wagon that was teetering from side to side. Sitting beside her was a sneering man, holding Jessica.
He gasped at the sight and his mouth opened even wider when he saw that the wagon was just one in a long caravan.
“So… does that look like a woman who ran off happily?” came a voice next to his ear.
“Oh no! I have to save her! I have to save Elaina!”
He ran toward the mouth of the forest, not looking back. The voices of the spirits accompanied him, “Run, Running Wolf! Save her for she is the one for you!”
Running Wolf retrieved Wolf from where he was tied up at the forest’s entrance and rode toward the village. He was in so much of a hurry that he did not see the man that emerged from the shadows at the entrance of the forest. The man let out an angry grunt as his hand tightened around a dagger.
Running Wolf headed straight to the Warriors’ pod at the center of the village. All the warriors gathered there rose at his presence and bowed their heads. They were surprised but dared not ask.
“I need you,” he pronounced breathlessly, “The woman I love, she is in danger. I need you to join this fight with me.”
