When they were young, I had thought they would always be there. Now Hawk and Mary had homes of their own, and soon Blackie would be grown and gone as well.
I glanced at Shadow. He was sitting on the edge of the hearth mending a bridle. The lamplight cast his profile in bronze, and I marveled at how handsome he was, this man who was my whole life.
A little fear began to niggle at the back of my mind as I thought about Shadow’s promise to Hawk. I knew that Shadow would not let them hang our son, nor would he let Hawk languish in prison. Closing my eyes, I sent an urgent prayer to God and Maheo, begging them for help. Our lives would be turned upside down if Shadow were forced to break Hawk out of jail. My husband and my son would be fugitives, and our lives in Bear Valley would be over. What would I do then? Where would we go?
I remembered how it had been when Shadow and I were being hunted by the soldiers after Little Big Horn, how awful it had been to be constantly running and hiding, always afraid, always tired and hungry. I did not want to live like that again, and even as I thought about it, I knew it was impossible. I could not drag Blackie across the countryside, running and hiding. I could not endanger my youngest son’s life. And what of Victoria? She was too fragile to endure such a life. Not only that, she had two young sons to consider.
I had been mending one of Shadow’s shirts, and now I laid it aside and went to kneel beside him.
“Oh, Shadow,” I murmured.
“I know,” he said quietly. Laying the bridle on the floor, he stroked my hair. I loved the touch of his hand, and I closed my eyes as I rested my head in his lap. We sat there for a long time, content to be quietly close, both wondering what the outcome of the trial would be and how it would affect our lives in Bear Valley.
“Long life and happiness,” Shadow said after a while. “That was what the hawks promised. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Tomorrow I am going into the hills. I will be gone most of the day.”
“What about Hawk?”
“Tell him I will see him sometime tomorrow.”
Chapter Seven
He rose just before dawn. Slipping out of bed, he pulled on an old pair of buckskin trousers and a pair of moccasins and padded noiselessly out of the bedroom, through the dark house, and out the front door. At the corral, he threw a bridle over Smoke’s head, swung aboard the stallion’s bare back, and headed for the hills.
As he rode eastward, the sun climbed above the horizon, splashing the sky with an ever-changing palette of colors, gray to lavender, pink to rose, each color growing brighter until the whole sky seemed to be on fire with the birth of a new day.
Shadow rode at an easy, ground-covering lope, enjoying the feel of the wind in his face, the movement of the horse beneath him, the fragrance of earth and grass that filled his nostrils.
Reaching the hills some time later, Shadow urged the stallion up the steep slope until he came to a place where the ground leveled out. Reining Smoke to a halt, he dismounted.
For a long moment he stood staring into the distance, remembering days long past. Gazing down the corridors of time, he saw Hannah as she had been as a young girl. She was there at Rabbit’s Head Rock that sunny day they had first met, a skinny little girl with flaming red hair and expressive gray eyes, a handful of wildflowers clutched in her hands. He saw himself as a young boy, lonely for a mother’s love and attention. It had been Hannah’s mother, as much as Hannah herself, who had drawn him to the Kincaid house time and again. There was a feeling of love there, a sense of warmth and belonging, and he had soaked it up. It had been Hannah’s mother, Mary, who had taught him to read and write the white man’s language. She had been a wise woman, knowing that, while it was all right to teach him some things, it was best not to try to make a white man out of him.
Turning his gaze to the east, Shadow
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