body lengths from where she stumbled back through the tall cattails.
“Aha. An enemy scout,” he said, his grin playful.
And again she stopped, staring like a ground squirrel who, when confronted by a fox, finds herself too far from the safety of the trees. The smile transformed him from a seriously handsome man to one that made her blood rush and her body quake. What had she gotten herself into with her foolish promise? She would not be able to sleep a wink knowing what lay beside her in the dark.
He frowned now. “Why are you wearing your dress?”
Storm studied her now, treading water as smoothly as a duck. Did he see her flushed face and round, frightened eyes? Did he see her heavy breathing and clenched fists.”
“Did you come to swim?” His words sounded like an accusation.
Skylark met the smoldering fury of his stare and realized that her assumption had injured his pride. She shook her head in answer to his question, did she come to swim? The truth, she wondered, or a lie. Truth, she decided. “I heard the splash and...”
“Naturally you thought I was drowning. Why should I be capable of taking care of myself?” He spun in the water and swam smoothly back to the rocky bank beside their camp. She watched him stride quickly from the water, trying and failing not to stare at his wide shoulders, narrow waist and muscular backside. Then she turned tail and threaded herself more carefully through the reeds, recovering her bag and knife. She sat on the bank to pour the water out of her moccasins and decided to carry them. He wanted her help. But she must find a way to do so without stealing away his dignity. Besides, she would be here only two nights. After that there would be no one to watch him but Frost.
As if thinking of the dog had conjured him, the dog charged out of the reeds and then shook away the water droplets clinging to his skin. Skylark squeaked and vainly tried to ward off the unwelcome shower with her hands. Frost sat, tongue lolling, eyes half-closed, as she stood and shouldered her bag. She slipped the cord holding her skinning knife over her head and then completed the circle, returning toward their camp. She paused at the fast-moving stream to wash away the mud that speckled her arms and legs.
She removed her dress, thinking she must find some clay to clean away the mud stains when next she came upon some. As she splashed off the grime and sweat, she thought of him, perfect and in motion. The need came upon her unawares. Her breasts ached and her body trembled. She wanted him in all the ways a woman needs a man but she knew why she couldn’t.
She thought of all the men she had met at the fall gathering when they camped with the Wind Basin tribe and how none had chosen to court her. What if this man was her only chance to experience the coupling that her aunt and uncle obviously enjoyed in the night?
She crossed her arms over her heavy breasts, her nipples hardening instantly. Then she splashed a fist down into the water. No, she would not repeat the mistakes of her mother. Storm was promised to another and Sky would never be a second wife. She must be strong and live alone.
She finished her bathing quickly and donned her dress over damp skin. Then she returned to camp to see Storm striking flint with a steel ring and sending a shower of sparks onto carefully gathered tinder of inner bark and the fluff pulled from the dry cattail flower heads. This method of fire starting was usually faster than the cord and stick, but it required steel, which she did not have. Her skinning knife was red flint that came from far to the east.
Storm glanced at her and then returned his attention to his work. Beside him lay three trout, two small and one enormous.
Soon one of the sparks caught and a wisp of smoke emerged from the nest of cattails. Expertly, he lifted the dry white fluff and blew into his hands. The dander caught, glowed, and then a flame erupted from within. He carefully set the flame inside the tepee of tinder and the flames began to catch and rise.
He had already gutted the fish, so she cut green skewers and returned to construct a simple rack for the whole fish. Then she peeled the cattail tubers and cut the inner tender shoots into manageable sizes. She left the cactus and thistle roots for another meal but crushed several juniper berries and stuffed them inside the hollow cavities of the fish.
When the fire had burned for a time, she set her moccasins to dry but not too close to the flames. They were precious to her, because, like her knife sheath, they had been made by her mother, the best quill worker in her village. Or she had been.
When the larger logs began to collapse into glowing embers, she raked the coals into a neat pile and set the shoots to roast while he tended the fish. Frost watched his every motion with hungry eyes and a drooling mouth. Despite the warmth of the fire, the air surrounding Night Storm was still cold and he did not look at her.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I meant no insult.”
Finally he met her gaze. “It is why I do not speak of it and why I do not want those in my tribe to know. Then they will see me as you do.”
“How is that?”
“Imperfect. Weak. Helpless.”
Her shoulders sank at the truth of that. But she also thought they might see him as dangerous and frightening because of the owls.
“I am sorry. I know you are strong. I see you are capable. But everyone has a weakness of some kind.”
“I never did.”
She turned the subject to something that troubled her.
“How have you kept the others from seeing you fall?”
“I spend more and more time away, alone.”
She thought of him, unaided in a falling spell and frowned. “That is dangerous.”
“No worse than losing everything I am,” he said.
“Is your life worth any less?”
“Less and less every day.”
She reached in her bag and drew out a leaf from the nosebleed plant she had collected. Then she crushed the leaf between her fingers and applied it to the scabbing wound on her hand.
“You have been alone during each spell?”
“But I usually have warning. I did not recognize it at first, but now I do and I move away from others.”
Her anger faded as her curiosity was piqued. “What warning?”
“I smell the odor of burning flesh. Then my vision wavers as if I am looking through lake water or like staring through the bands of heat that rise from ground baking in the summer sun.”
“You see movement?”
“A wavering or trembling of the world around me.”
“Can you see the spirit world beyond?”
His brow furrowed. “I have not tried that. I think I see only this world. Sometimes it is just in one eye. I notice this because I closed one eye and then the other.”
“Which
