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that showed muscular Indian men holding scantily attired white women in their arms, and been confused. White women were afraid of Indians. The few he’d seen had looked at him in terror. He could not imagine any of them tearing off their clothes and willingly falling into his arms.
    That evening, he sat across the table from the Spirit Woman, hardly tasting the food on his plate as his gaze was drawn toward her time and again, mesmerized by the way the candlelight caressed her skin and danced in the thick blackness of her hair. He listened to the sound of her voice, liking the way she spoke his language, though it was often laced with words of the white man which he didn’t fully understand. She told him of Veronica’s family, and of how much Bobby wanted to be a warrior, a real warrior, like in the old days.
    “But, of course, that’s impossible,” Maggie said, her voice tinged with regret.
    “Why?”
    “Because the old days are gone. He wants to seek a vision and count coup on an enemy. He wants to ride to battle, like Crazy Horse.”
    “You know of Crazy Horse?”
    “Of course. Everyone does.”
    “How?”
    “It’s in the history books. Children learn of him in school.”
    “White children?” he asked in disbelief.
    “Yes.”
    “What do they learn?”
    “That he was a great warrior. They learn about Sitting Bull, too, and Red Cloud.” Maggie paused as an idea came to her. “Maybe I could teach you to speak English while you’re here.”
    Shadow Hawk considered her suggestion. He could not go back to the cave until the next full moon. Perhaps it would be advisable for him to learn as much of the white man’s tongue as he could in the time he had left. A wise man studied the ways of his enemies.
    “Teach me,” Shadow Hawk said.
    Maggie put her writing on hold and spent the next week teaching Shadow Hawk to speak English. She had thought to spend an hour or so each morning at the task, but one hour stretched into two, and then three, and by the end of the week they had worked themselves up to almost eight hours each day.
    She was glad that Veronica was there to help her, because the sentence structure of English was vastly different from that of the Lakota. There seemed to be no linking verbs in Lakota. Where a white man would say “The grass is tall”, the Lakota said “ peji hanska ”, meaning “grass tall”. “The sun is hot” translated as Wi kata , “ sun hot”. “The dog ate the chicken” became sunka he kokoyahanla tebye , or “dog that chicken ate”.
    By the end of the week, Maggie was amazed at how much Shadow Hawk had learned. She had only to tell him something once or twice and he knew it.
    Now, sitting across the kitchen table from Shadow Hawk, she found herself staring at him surreptitiously as she did so often. He still refused to wear anything but his clout and moccasins and her gaze was constantly drawn to his broad shoulders, to the vast expanse of his copper-hued chest.
    Even more compelling was the haunting magnetism of his deep black eyes and the sensual line of his mouth. She found herself longing to run her fingertips over his lower lip, to trace the faint white scars on his chest. Such a magnificent chest, she mused.
    With a shake of her head, she put such thoughts from her mind. It wasn’t like her to fantasize about such things. Even as a teenager she hadn’t been overly interested in boys or making out. A nice girl saved herself for marriage, her mother had always said, and Maggie had been a nice girl. No doubt she was the only thirty-two-year-old virgin in the United States.
    She looked up at the sound of Shadow Hawk’s voice. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
    “Are you tired?” Shadow Hawk repeated, wondering at her long silence.
    “No, I’m fine,” Maggie said, and then smiled as she realized he’d spoken to her in English.
    Shadow Hawk gazed at her thoughtfully for several moments. He’d been keenly aware of her covert stares during the past