Savage Flames Read Online Free Page A

Dancer hurried onward with Joshua, he heard a rustling of the thick vegetation at his right side and soon saw the
     sentry who was posted there step quickly into view. The sentry, Blue Sky, stopped abruptly when he saw Wolf Dancer coming
     toward him with a black man hanging limply in his muscular arms.
    “This man has half an arrow embedded deep in his left shoulder,” Wolf Dancer said, his voice drawn and tight. “I found him
     in a canoe, unconscious, floating in the river. I must get him to Shining Soul. Our shaman should be able to save his life.”
    “Who do you think is responsible?” Blue Sky asked, keeping up with Wolf Dancer as he made his way to their village. “Do you
     think he was trying to escape from the plantation where he was a slave and was shot?”
    Wolf Dancer gave Blue Sky a quick glance. “This man was not shot while trying to escape,” he said. “And the white men I have
     seen carry firearms, not bows and quivers of arrows.”
    “Then who?” Blue Sky persisted as the huts came into view through the thick foliage.
    “It was an arrow of Seminole design, but there is no one among our Seminole people who would have cause to shoot this man,”
     Wolf Dancer said. “And, anyhow, I know who did it. It was a whiteman trying to make it look as though a Seminole were responsible.”
    “A slave owner?” Blue Sky prodded. “Was it a slave owner who attempted to kill his own slave?”
    “Yes, and we must make certain that the wounded man defies the one who attempted to kill him, by living,” Wolf Dancer said.
     “Run on ahead, Blue Sky. Alert Shining Soul that I am bringing a wounded man to him. He must have his medicines ready.”
    Blue Sky nodded, then ran quickly ahead of Wolf Dancer and was soon out of sight.
    Wolf Dancer only hoped that he had found Joshua in time, and that he would live. He was also worried that the beautiful, golden-haired
     woman might be in as much danger as this black man and her husband had obviously been!
    Although she, a white woman, should be nothing to Wolf Dancer, he could not help caring about her welfare. She was so petite
     and vulnerable, he couldn’t keep himself from being concerned about her.
    When he finally reached the village, Wolf Dancer rushed into his shaman’s personal lodge without even announcing himself.
     It was the custom of his people to announce themselves outside someone’s personal lodge, never entering without permission.
     Privacy was cherished and honored by all who lived in his village.
    But today things were different.
    There was a need for haste. The injured man had already lost a lot of blood.
    Shining Soul, a wrinkled, shrunken old man withkindly eyes, was dressed in a long robe with designs of the sky people on it,
     such as the rainbow, moon, sun, and stars. He had already prepared a pallet of furs for his patient.
    Shining Soul even now gestured with a bony, long-fingered hand toward it.
    “Place him there,” he said, closely studying Joshua’s face. He had never before been so close to a black man.
    After Joshua was stretched out on the furs, Shining Soul knelt beside him. “Blue Sky did not tell me where you found this
     man, nor why he was shot with an arrow,” Shining Soul said. He tore Joshua’s shirt away from the wound, giving him a clear
     view of the injury.
    Wolf Dancer went and knelt on the opposite side of the pelts from Shining Soul as the shaman gently pressed his fingers all
     around the puckered skin where the rest of the arrow was still lodged.
    Wolf Dancer quickly told Shining Soul what he knew as the shaman skillfully opened the wound. With delicate fingers he removed
     the other half of the arrow from Joshua’s body, then quickly put a compress on the wound, which was again bleeding. “I believe
     that poison was placed on the tip of the arrowhead before it was shot into the man,” Shining Soul said as he stopped the bleeding
     and began applying various herbs to the wound. “That is why the black