Read Online Seneca Surrender by Gen Bailey - Free Book Online Page B

afraid you startled me.” She placed her hand on her chest, not for theatrics, but because she had been truly startled. “I fear that you so rarely return before evening that I had let down my guard. I was not expecting you.”
    “Forgive me,” he said. “It was not my intention to startle you. I heard talking and was wondering if someone had come to visit.”
    “And so someone has,” Sarah replied. “’Tis Miss Squirrel, who visits with me most every day. However, she is no longer here. I fear she ran away when you entered.”
    “As well she should,” he commented. “I might take it into my mind to have her for a meal.”
    “Oh, no,” replied Sarah at once. “I specifically told her that she is my friend and that I would not eat her.”
    White Thunder crossed the room to the fireplace, where Sarah was reposing. She still held a shell full of pine-needle tea at her side, but he seemed not to notice. He said, “Then I shall not place an arrow in Miss Squirrel’s side.” He knelt down on one knee beside Sarah. “Usually when I return, you are asleep, but I see that you have managed to make your way to the fire.”
    “Yes,” she replied.
    “This is good,” he said. “Did you walk? ”
    “No,” replied Sarah. “I am still crawling. I fear my legs will not hold me yet.”
    “Still, you are gaining back your strength and soon you will be walking about. I have been thinking about what we might do when you do come to remember your former life. And I concluded that it would be best that I should take you back to your family, who will be happy to know that you are still alive, I think.”
    Sarah bit her lip. “And if I don’t remember anything? ’Tis hard for me, for I recall nothing.”
    White Thunder placed a hand on her shoulder, and said, “You will remember. Be at your ease. It will come.”
    Sarah gazed toward his hand, where it lay so close to her breast. He meant it as comfort. She said, “And if my memory doesn’t return? ”
    “Then I will take you to my home, where you will be welcomed as a guest until a new home can be found for you. My mother will be happy to have you.”
    And you? Would you be happy to have me? She wanted to ask the question, but knew she dare not. Not only was she uncertain of him, she was also uncertain of herself.
    “I have brought you something,” he said.
    Sarah’s eyes lit up. “Have you, now? ”
    “It is not much.” He presented her with a stick. But to call it such was to do it a disservice. Indeed, it was a work of art, for the rod had been carefully carved into the shape of a cane. “It is to aid you in walking. You must try to stand and take a few steps every day, I think, for it may require some time for your leg muscles to remember again that their duty is to take you from one place to another.”
    Sarah smiled up at him. “It is a beautiful present and I will cherish it and use it, indeed,” she said. “Did you make it yourself?”
    He looked sheepish as he said, “I did.”
    “Thank you. I will prize it all the more. It might help, too, the muscle spasms that almost cripple me at times, for the pain is almost unbearable.”
    He frowned at her. “This should not be.”
    His voice was so firm that Sarah sent him a wide-eyed stare.
    “I will have to sit and contemplate and try to call back to mind the knowledge that my grandmother endeavored to teach me when I was a child. If I recall correctly, she used to say that most physical problems come from something missing in the food that a person eats. Though she tried to instruct me in specific cures, I fear I do not remember them.”
    “Is your grandmother still living? ”
    “ Neh , no, she passed into the next world many years ago, and unluckily for me, the knowledge that she possessed died with her. I was not apt at learning the wisdom of her years; at the time, I thought of little more than the glory of the war path.”
    “Indeed? ”
    “It is so, for only as a warrior could I win the hand