Lakota Winds (Zebra Historical Romance) Read Online Free

husband, a warrior who would
not like my interest in her. Perhaps she was not supposed to be in the
forest alone and that is why she sneaked away and took no battle prizes.
To seek her out would expose her disobedience."
    "That could be true, mitakola; you told me of her bad ways. The
women of our band would be punished for such behavior toward a
warrior."
    "Perhaps there was a good reason for her mean words and manner."
    "Perhaps the fierce and powerful Waci Tate frightened her into a
loss of wits. Or perhaps she was angered and shamed because you filled
her body with desire when her husband is ugly and selfish and does
not give her pleasure upon the sleeping mat or he is too old to do his
duty there."
    Wind Dancer chuckled at his friend's jests. He called to mind her
beautiful image and how she had looked at him with interest, a remembrance which sparked fiery hunger within his loins. The thought of her
being captured and abused by a Crow enemy sent quivers of fury throughout him. He even felt nibblings of envy and jealousy toward a possible
husband, a man who could enjoy her body every moon and enjoy her
beauty, smiles, and laughter every sun. Why, he wondered, had his wife
never made him experience such potent feelings? But he knew the answer
as he asked himself the question: she had been chosen by his father, not
him, after he had reached manhood and it was time to mate and bring
forth children. Even so, following her death, he had not wished to repeat
that experience. No woman had tempted him until-
    "It has been over two circles of the seasons since you lost your wife
and son, mitakola. Do your heart and body hunger to replace them?"
    Wind Dancer's fading smile vanished fast at Red Feather's serious
expression. "I had put such longings away until I saw Morning Mist,"
he revealed. "She stirred my body as no woman has, and I yearn for
another child. I love and respect my family, but it was strange to return to their tepee and to remain there after mine was gone, as if doing so
shouts loudly of that defeat by the Bird People. At times, it is as if I
walk two life trails. When my moccasins roam one, it is as if they never
lived; when they travel the other, it is as if they still live and I will see
them that sun or moon."

    Red Feather understood well: following the deaths of his wife and
son, Wind Dancer, as was their custom in the ituwahan, gave away all
he owned except his weapons and horse which he needed for hunting
and for battling enemies. He also kept his Wicasta Itancan shirt which
was half blue and half yellow and decorated with hairlocks, a symbol
of his rank in that powerful group of men who carried out the orders
of the council. Homeless and alone afterward, he returned to his parents'
tepee, there to stay until he took another wife, who owned the family's
tepee and its possessions. Their physical bodies had long ago been
reclaimed by nature's elements from their burial scaffolds, their spirits-
wanagi-now living with Wakantanka.
    "That is the way it is meant to be, mitakola, "Red Feather said. "The
Great Spirit dulls those memories so peace can come and pains be
healed. The time for Ghost-Owning is past, so you must release them
forever and travel a new and happy path."
    As he stared at the unfinished arrow across his thighs, Wind Dancer
briefly reflected on the loss of his cherished son. He recalled the wanagi
wopahte which had contained his son's second finest garments, favorite
playthings, and hairlock; that leather spirit pouch had hung on a short
huyamni for a year following the boy's death. Food had been placed
before that three-legged stand at meals for one full span of the seasons,
until those possessions were placed upon his son's scaffold after the
ituwahan ceremony of feasting and giving away of almost all of his
belongings, thus ending the Ghost-Owning rite for his beloved child.
He recalled how he had sung the death chant for two suns and moons