Savage Tempest (11 page)

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a soft voice, a child's, coming from outside the tepee. The child was singing what sounded to Joylynn like a lullaby.

She leaned her ear closer to the entranceway and listened more intently.

The child was singing, “
A-ho
,
I-lo
,
A-ho
,” and other Pawnee words unknown to Joylynn.

To her, those Pawnee words had no meaning, but as the child continued to sing, the lullaby seemed to take on a special significance, somewhat like “Hush-A-Bye” in the English language.

“Is she singing a lullaby in Pawnee, and if so, is she singing to a baby, perhaps her brother or sister?” Joylynn whispered.

Too curious to sit there any longer, she rose to her feet and lifted the entrance flap slowly so she could see the child.

The little girl, perhaps seven years of age, sat beneath the low-hanging branches of a cottonwood tree, a few feet from High Hawk's tepee.

Joylynn's eyes widened in wonder when she saw what appeared to be a doll, made from dried husks of corn, in the girl's arms.

As she sang, she slowly rocked her doll back and forth in her arms.

Recognizing maternal love in this little girl's tender song to her make-believe child, Joylynn slid her hand to her stomach.

She only now realized that although this was a child of rape within her womb, she could not help having feelings for it.

It was a part of her, wasn't it?

How could she not have feelings for it?

Tears filled her eyes again. What should she do when the time came for her to decide the fate of this baby? She knew that she should not want to keep the child, yet . . . yet . . . could she truly give it away? Once she held it in her arms, as this little girl was holding her pretend baby, could Joylynn turn her back on the tiny, defenseless creature?

Feeling someone's eyes on her, the child stopped singing and stared at Joylynn. Then she smiled the sweetest smile Joylynn had ever seen.

The little girl laid her doll aside and came to Joylynn. “Why do you have tears in your eyes?” she asked in perfect English. It seemed most of the people in this village could speak English. “Are you sad?”

“Not really,” Joylynn murmured, wiping the tears away.

“Then why are you crying?” the child asked. “Are you lonely? You look lonely.”

“Yes, I am lonely,” Joylynn said, slowly smiling.
“But now that you are here, talking with me, I don't feel so alone any longer.”

To Joylynn's surprise, the girl took her by one hand and yanked on it. “Come with me,” she said. “You can play house with me.”

“Play . . . house?” Joylynn said, walking with the little girl back to where she had been sitting beneath the tree. “Yes, I would love to play house with you . . . that is, if your mother wouldn't mind.”

“
Ina
is busy grinding meal for tonight's supper, so she will not know what we are doing,” the little girl said, softly giggling. She let go of Joylynn's hand and gazed up at her. “I know your name but you do not know mine, do you?”

“No, I don't,” Joylynn murmured. “But I would like to, especially if we are going to play house together.”

“I am called by the name Singing In Water,” the child said, smiling widely. “I like your name. Do you like mine?”

“It's as pretty as you are,” Joylynn said, her eyes moving slowly over the little girl. She was petite and pretty with big brown eyes, a round, copper face, and hair hanging in two braids down her back to her waist. She was dressed in buckskin, ornamented with beautiful beaded designs. She wore moccasins that went up to her knees, also beautifully beaded.

“Sit,” Singing In Water said as she spread a blanket out for Joylynn. “Watch. I will show you how to play house.”

Feeling lighthearted and gay for the first time in months, Joylynn plopped down on the blanket and watched what Singing In Water did next.

“You do this first,” Singing In Water said. She scurried around beneath the tree and picked up some forked limbs that had fallen to the ground. “You stick these in the ground like this, and then watch what I do.”

Joylynn saw how she pushed the limbs into the ground in the shape of a tepee, then disappeared momentarily inside her parents' tepee and came back with a small, old buffalo hide that she placed over the sticks, so that it looked like a small tepee.

“This is our home,” Singing In Water said. “It is just big enough for us to go inside and sit. Will you sit with me?”

“If I can fit in,” Joylynn said, laughing softly.

She crawled inside but had to keep her shoulders hunched over so that she would not push her way through the roof.

Singing In Water came in after her, carrying her pretend baby.

She sat down close to Joylynn, so close that Joylynn could smell the sweetness of the child's skin and clothes, like rainwater.

“On days when a lot of my friends play with me, we make a much larger house, and boys play with us,” Singing In Water said. She placed a braid that had come over her shoulder behind
her, so that it hung alongside the other down her back.

“You pretend to be families?” Joylynn asked, beginning to feel cramped in the small space. Her stomach was uncomfortable in her hunched position.

“
Ho
, and the boys go to their mothers to get a buffalo tongue that has been cooked, or some pemmican,” Singing In Water said, slowly rocking her pretend baby back and forth in her arms. “We girls then spread clean grass on the floor of our home and put the food on it. We feast on the food, the boys on one side of the imaginary fire pit, the girls on the other.”

“It sounds like so much fun,” Joylynn murmured. She had never had any close friends to play with when she was a child because the farms the families lived on were too far apart.

“It is fun,” Singing In Water said, then she handed the doll over to Joylynn. “Would you like to hold my baby?”

Joylynn was taken aback by the suggestion.

She stared at the strange-looking thing the girl called her baby, then did as she had seen the child do.

She slowly rocked it back and forth in her arms, seeing that this pleased Singing In Water. The child smiled even more broadly than before.

“Sometimes our dolls are made of rushes; oftentimes they are made by our grandmothers in the
summer from mud,” Singing In Water said. She shrugged. “I like all dolls. I love to think of when I will have a real baby of my own.”

Singing In Water lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you not have a baby of your own?” she asked matter-of-factly. “You are of the age when you should, are you not? Do not white women have babies very often?”

That question took Joylynn aback. She could feel the heat of a blush rush to her cheeks, for how could she answer such a question? Here she was, holding a fake baby, while inside her belly lay a true one!

“Joylynn, where are you?”

The familiar, dreaded voice of High Hawk's mother penetrated the small tepee, but this time it was welcome. Joylynn was finding the little girl's questions uncomfortable.

“Oh, no,” Singing In Water said, sighing. “High Hawk's
ina
is wanting you. She will probably put you to work again today. Do you mind working alongside the other women?”

“Joylynn!”

Blanket Woman's voice was more insistent, more shrill.

“I must go,” Joylynn said, placing the doll in Singing In Water's arms. She leaned over and brushed a kiss across the child's brow. “Thank you. I've had fun.”

“Me, too,” Singing In Water said, crawling outside with Joylynn.

“There you are,” Blanket Woman huffed. In her arms was a lovely white doeskin dress. Between her fingers she held a pair of beautiful moccasins. “Come back to my son's lodge. I have clothes for you.”

Joylynn gazed at the clothes and then into Blanket Woman's eyes. “I have enough of my own dresses to wear, thank you,” she said tightly.

“You will wear them no more,” Blanket Woman said, going to Joylynn and thrusting the dress into her arms. “Come. I will bring the moccasins in for you. You will wear them, too, instead of your sort of shoes, which are ugly.”

Joylynn gave Blanket Woman an angry stare, then, feeling the eyes of other women on her, she sighed and hurried to High Hawk's tepee with Blanket Woman on her heels.

Once inside, Joylynn turned and faced Blanket Woman. She shoved the dress back into the older woman's arms. “I refuse to wear this,” she said tightly. “Why should I? I am not Pawnee.”

“It is better that you wear something that makes you blend in with us Pawnee women,” Blanket Woman snorted out. She shoved the dress back into Joylynn's arms. “Now. You . . . change . . . now!”

Understanding that she had no choice but to do as Blanket Woman said, and seeing that the older woman was back to her normal hateful self, Joylynn kept the dress in her arms, but she stood stiffly glaring at Blanket Woman. “Leave, and then I will change,” she said tightly.

“I do not believe you will, so I shall stay until you are wearing the dress of my people and what you are wearing has been thrown into the fire,” Blanket Woman said, angrily placing her fists on her hips. “Now, white woman. Change now!”

Joylynn felt cornered. She did not want this woman to see her belly, because when Joylynn was nude, there was no hiding that she carried a child within her womb. She lifted her chin angrily. “I . . . absolutely . . . refuse,” she said. “You leave, and then I will change into this . . . this thing that you call a dress.”

“And now you even insult what I have sewn?” Blanket Woman huffed. She stepped closer to Joylynn. “You take off that ugly white woman's dress or I will do it for you.”

Truly believing that the older woman would carry out her threat, Joylynn realized that she had no choice but to risk Blanket Woman learning her secret. She laid the doeskin dress aside, then slowly pulled her own gown over her head.

Before she had it totally removed, she heard a gasp. She felt weak in the knees to know what had caused Blanket Woman's surprised reaction.

“You . . . are . . . with child?” Blanket Woman said, then rushed from the tepee, leaving Joylynn alone with her fears.

“Now what?” she murmured, slipping into the doeskin dress. Actually, she thought it soft and absolutely beautiful, not ugly.

She slid her feet into the buttery soft moccasins, then sank down on a blanket before the fire.

Oh, how she dreaded High Hawk's reaction to her pregnancy. If he had loved her at all, as she now hoped he did, surely that love would turn to hate, for had she not deceived him by disguising the truth about her condition?

Blanket Woman could hardly get to the council house quickly enough. She was so eager to tell High Hawk the news, she barged inside and interrupted the council.

The men of the village were meeting to discuss her missing husband. Search parties had gone out in all directions again, and thus far, none had brought good news home with them.

Her husband was gone, perhaps . . . forever!

Ignoring the stares of the men who sat around the fire with her son, Blanket Woman stepped up to High Hawk as he rose quickly to his feet. “Come outside with me,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “I have something to tell you.”

Seeing the anger in his mother's eyes, he stepped outside with her and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. She stared up at him with a familiar determination in her eyes. Never had he known such
a strong-willed person. Yet he realized the white woman seemed to be just as determined.

But he would never compare Joylynn to his mother. There were vast differences in their personalities. There was a softness about Joylynn when she let down her guard with him.

His mother's softness had left her long ago!

“What do you have to tell me? What is so important that you would interrupt the council of warriors?” High Hawk asked.

“It has been proven to me today that you were absolutely wrong to bring the white woman to our village,” Blanket Woman blurted out.

“And how was it proven?” High Hawk asked, weary of his mother's interference.

“She . . . is . . . with child,” Blanket Woman said. Her words brought alarm into her son's eyes, and he jerked his hands from her shoulders. “It is ironic, is it not, that she is with child when your father's main purpose in having you abduct her was to prevent one more white child from being born into the world.”

She clenched her jaw. “And here this woman is pregnant!” she said angrily. “I was right to counsel you against this abduction. I have been proven right!”

“How do you know that she is with child?” High Hawk asked warily.

“I took her a dress to wear, and when she disrobed, I saw her belly,” Blanket Woman said bitterly.
“I know when the swell of a woman's belly means that she is with child!”

High Hawk was so stunned, he was speechless.

Joylynn was not a married woman. She had not been living with a man.

So how could she be with child?

Had she been married? Had her husband died? Or had he been killed?

“You must return the white woman to her home,” Blanket Woman said tightly. “It is bad enough that you stole her in the first place. But you cannot keep a captive who carries the child of a white man in her belly!”

“I will never take her back to the white world,” High Hawk blurted out. “She is a woman alone in a harsh land. I cannot leave her vulnerable, especially now, now that she is with child.”

Blanket Woman took a shaky step away from him, her eyes wide. She now knew the depths of her son's feelings for Joylynn.

“
Ina
, take your anger elsewhere today,” High Hawk said, giving her a look she could not decipher. Then he walked away from her.

High Hawk hurried to his tepee.