He knew that he was in danger of falling if he did not lie down. He must concentrate on his own welfare now. Whatever happened below could not concern him.
He must think of himself now, for he had his people’s future to think about. He must get well so that he could return to them.
Even though he loved his brother, something in Eagle Wolf’s heart told him Spirit Wolf could not altogether be trusted. Lately his brother had looked at him with a strangeness in his dark eyes.
But this was not the time to concern himself with his suspicious. When Eagle Wolf returned home, he would look into his brother’s strange behavior.
He stumbled back to where he had spread the blanket over a soft bed of pine needles.
He eased down onto the blanket, and almost the moment he closed his eyes, he was fast asleep. But his sleep was not peaceful.
He dreamed.
He groaned.
He tossed and turned.
Suddenly he awakened in a sweat.
He did not feel as feverish as he had before going to sleep. But the weakness that had claimed him now was a new enemy.
Again he closed his eyes, and this time he slept more peacefully.
When he began dreaming anew, he saw the woman on the horse again, but this time her red hair was swirling all around her and her steed, fully enveloping them both. The woman’s hair was so beautiful as the sun shone on it, making it an even deeper red.
In his dream he saw the color of the woman’s eyes, which were as green as fresh spring grass.
And her lips. They were red, too, and oh, so perfectly shaped, as though they were made to be kissed.
He could not see much more than that since her long, flowing hair hid the rest of her. But his senses were so keen in this dream, he could actually smell the woman’s sweetness, as though she had bathed in the petals of the roses that grew wild along the plains.
His breathing was more even now. His body seemed to ache less. He settled into a deeper sleep.
In these moments of restful slumber, he would find his strength again so he could return to his people a well man.
Yet…something made him want to find the woman first.
Chapter Four
Fighting the sting in her eyes caused by the pervasive black smoke, Nicole came to a stop as she entered what had for a short time been a town named after her family.
A sob caught in her throat when she looked around her. All of the buildings, which had been few, were either already burned to the ground or burning rapidly.
Nothing had been spared, and no one.
She gulped hard as she tried not to vomit. There were dead bodies everywhere. She saw men, women, and children who had been viciously murdered.
“No!” she cried to the heavens as everything in her rebelled when she caught sight of the two people she had loved so dearly lying nearby.
“Mama, Papa…” she gasped.
Her heart seemed to stop the instant she saw them, lying side by side, on their backs.
She choked up with deep emotion when she saw that they were holding hands. It was such a touching scene, for in death they seemed to have found the truth of their love for each other.
But when she saw how they had been killed, Nicole’s heart pounded and her face grew hot with a mixture of emotions—sadness, regret, pain, but most of all, hate for whoever had done this to her parents.
Each had been shot with a single bullet in the forehead, execution style. Nicole almost fainted from the shock of it.