Brave Heart

A grunt of surprise escaped him as he pulled the chemise aside. The woman’s breasts bore deep, fresh burns. He hunched over, perplexed by the unusual wounds. She had small, firm breasts, their ivory roundness crowned with pink-tipped nipples. The urge to touch them, to see if they were as velvety soft as they appeared, moved through Wolf. Disgusted with his physical reaction to Cante Tinza, he turned his thoughts back to healing. He took a special powder ground from comfrey root and sprinkled it across the terrible scars on her breasts.

“Who has done this to her?“ Little Swallow demanded, leaning over his shoulder. She jabbed her finger downward. “This woman has been hurt by wasicuns.”

Wolf gave her a bare glance. “It could be the Crow who did this, too. They are known to burn great scars on the bodies of their enemies.”

“Perhaps,” Little Swallow muttered, coming around to kneel at the woman’s head. Taking a cloth wet from the river, she pressed it against the head wound. “Has someone whipped her, also?”

Glancing up from his work, he saw that Little Swallow was pointing to some fresh, pink scars that lay like ribbons across the white woman’s small, proud shoulders. “Let me dress these wounds first, and then we will find out,” he muttered.

“She saved us, Wolf. Do not be bitter about trying to save her.”

Compressing his lips, he held on to his anger. Little Swallow had been raped, and she was unraveling emotionally before him, her hands shaking as she daubed the blood away from Cante Tinza’s head wound. “I will do what I can,” he promised quietly.

“I saw the hatred in her eyes,” Little Swallow whispered, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. “She hated these miners. Perhaps they tortured or abused her—like they abused us….”

“If that is so, then she has an even braver heart than I first thought,” he admitted as he carefully closed her chemise and rebuttoned her dress.

“I have never seen someone fight with such fury, such anger,” Little Swallow continued.

Wolf reached over, placing his hand on Little Swallow’s slumped shoulder. “Tanksi, sister, go and sit down. You are shaking like a young leaf in a storm.”

Managing a wobbly smile, Little Swallow nodded. “You are right, tiblo, brother.“ Patting the woman’s shoulder, she whispered, “This one is special. I do not care if she has white skin—her heart is Lakota.”

“You have always had an eye on those who are good and kind,” Wolf agreed. “Now, go. Sit and rest. The warriors will be here shortly to take everyone back to the village.“ It felt as if a hand were squeezing his heart. Wolf acknowledged his younger sister’s words of wisdom. No longer did he try to hold his hatred as a barrier toward Cante Tinza as he moved to dress her head wound. If not for her courage, he could have lost the last of his once large family. He owed her much.

His mind moved forward. Many things would have to be done. Once the bodies of the miners were found, the Lakota would be held responsible for their deaths by the wasicun whether they deserved it or not. Chief Badger Mouth would have to move the village; otherwise fort soldiers would kill all of them, swooping down upon them like hawks from the sky. Right now, there was an unstable peace between all Lakota and the wasicun.

There were Lakotas who wouldn’t like the fact that he was going to take the red-haired woman into his tepee, Black Wolf thought. Badger Mouth would oppose it. Every family in the village of one hundred people had lost someone to the guns of the wasicun. They bore hatred toward the miners, who continued to steal their ancestral lands. With a sigh, Wolf gently ran his hand across her dirty forehead. She needed to be bathed, and her hair needed to be unknotted, washed and combed. Despite the torture Cante Tinza had undergone, there was still beauty in her face. As Wolf heard the sound of hoofbeats reverberating through the foggy dawn air that told the warriors were approaching, he wondered what color Cante Tinza’s eyes were.

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