Light of the Northern Dancers by Robin F. Gainey

Author:Robin F. Gainey [Gainey, Robin F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2017-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Useful Gifts

A sleek grey sky moving in from the west delayed the morning. Sun peaked underneath the cover, pinking up the eastern rangeland and the western peaks, before disappearing to the rest of the day under thick clouds. Intah laid the fish he caught on the grass. Eden’s back was to the prairie as she slept. The brief sunlight never touched her eyes. Her short curls lay strewn around her head, cheeks the ruddy mottle of a duck egg against the charcoal tips of the elk hair. Summer had tanned her face well.

She was as fair a woman as he’d seen. Difficult to understand why she was alone. If she were an Indian woman abandoned by her man, she’d be fair game to another. But she was a white. Her man, even if he didn’t want her, would kill before allowing his woman the company of a Native. Intah did his best to banish the spirit moving him toward the woman. He would take her into the mountains, find her brother, and then leave the memory behind.

Intah regarded Eden in the lush grass near the stream until she blinked awake.

She propped up on an elbow, perched her head upon one palm, and rubbed a hand through her hair. “Every time you look at me you look surprised.”

Intah walked to the campfire. “You remind me of someone I once saw.”

“Must have startled you to see my face at the door that first time.”

“It was a start when first I saw you crossing the pasture.” He looked down, shy to admit the infraction.

Eden’s voice was indignant. “You’d been watching me?”

Intah nodded.

“And for how long?”

“For as long as it took you to mend the fence and gather water from the well.”

Eden stared hard at Intah. “Did you free my mares only to gather them up again?”

“No.”

“Well, then, it was a fair piece of fortune for you, wasn’t it?”

Intah smiled, pushing the embers of the fire with a small stick.

“Tell me,” said Eden, as she rolled onto her back. “How’d you get to be so distant from your kin?”

“You’re fixed on that, aren’t you?”

“Well, it’s just that I love my brother so, I can’t imagine a thing coming between us in so deep a way.”

“I had something he wanted.” Intah threw the stick into the fire, and looked out across the prairie. “He was promised as the next holy man of our tribe. Our father took another wife. I was born, blue-eyed son of a holy man. It was said to be the doing of the spirit world, to mark me with such a thing. And the first vision I ever had was finding water for our people. Blue eyes, blue water. My brother lost his place.”

“So he hated you for that?”

“Not yet. He resolved to rise as chief instead. Many games are played by a young warrior to train for such things. As holy man, it was not my place to join in, but he taunted me to try. I beat him each time.

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