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her.
    For the first time today, Fancy brushed her fear to the
recess of her heart and brought forth her desire for Bull Elk. She had no
choice tonight but to do that. She could not run from him. But she could enjoy
the man who was determined to join with her and she would allow herself the joy
of that union. Savage or not, this man wanted her. He had planned and fought to
gain her and keep her. He had kept her alive. For that, she was grateful. For
that, she would submit. And in the night if she also learned to enjoy his
devotion, she was brave enough and perhaps wise enough to accept his body into
her own. His desire as her due. His passion as a mirror of her own.
    * * * * *
    My brother White Hawk and I both walked toward the eastern
edge of the camp, a position where the old men always erected their sweat
lodge. I led the way, opening the flap and bending down to enter, White Hawk
close on my heels.
    Smoke from their pipes burned my eyes. Heat from their fire
instantly warmed my skin and water beaded on me. Tobacco and smoke blended to
fill the air. A good thing I had led us here next to a raging river where I
could wash like a buck about to marry his virgin before I put my naked flesh to
my woman’s.
    “My old ones,” I said once I sat cross-legged upon a buffalo
skin among them. “I am here to tell you of my journey today.” To be eloquent
was the mark of a noble brave among my Antelope tribe’s warriors. I began my
tale of taking a band of nine men south to Bravado, to the ranch of the Anglo
man named Turner. Leaving no detail out of how I wished to capture Shining
Moon, I told them of the man’s three daughters and the youngest, the most
lovely. I described the scene at her ranch as we galloped toward her and her
older sister picking weeds in their garden and took her for my own. “No one
followed us. No one attacked us. I returned to our camp through the rocky
climes where finding our tracks is difficult. You know the Anglo cannot follow
a horse as easily as we can. We will have no problems with the Anglos over
this.”
    The oldest man among them, my uncle and the only remaining
living brother of my father, spoke first. “You count no coup today?”
    “None. This was not my intent.”
    “Yet word comes, Bull Elk, that Knows Brown Bear is dead.”
    “He showed me disrespect. He tried to take from me the woman
I won by my own deed. She is my prize. This I would not permit him to steal.” I
could see from the expressions on their faces that they agreed with me and did
not blame me for his death at my hand.
    Another elder leaned forward, skepticism on his wrinkled
brow. “This Anglo woman is so important to you?”
    I nodded. “She is. You will see her tomorrow.” I considered
this a moment, then grinned. “Or perhaps not for a few days.”
    They laughed, all knowing how lusty I could be from stories
that my two dear wives told of how well and how often I serviced them.
    But I continued, lest they think I had not cared for Knows
Brown Bear in ways that were proper. “Knows Brown Bear was like many of us who
have lost a wife to the Great Spirit. He wished for a woman of his own. Yet, he
dishonored me by showing disrespect to the woman I have chosen and I cannot
permit anyone to do that. She will live among us a long time. She will bear my
children and serve me. As my first wife, she will be honored.”
    “She is Anglo, Bull Elk,” said my uncle. “If she must be
yours, let her be a slave.”
    “Never.” I had studied the Anglo and Tejano men and their
wives. If she were not my equal, she could not learn to love me.
    “Then let her be your second wife.”
    “As an Anglo, she would never consent to another woman
sharing my seed.” She would desert me if I did not honor her in her own way.
Besides, her pretty body would be more than enough to make me happy.
    “But in coming years when you go to count coup,” my uncle
said, “you know that White Hawk has the right to comfort and protect her. It