The Warrior's Captive Bride. Jenna Kernan

take me.”

      “But no medicine?” She could not believe his shaman had not given Storm something for pain and to bring down the swelling.

      “You said that someone close to you died?” she said.

      “Yes. My friend and cousin. We were raised together. We went on our vision quest together, and we were inducted into the same medicine society.” He shook his head and looked truly miserable.

      She did not ask the name of his cousin because it was both impolite and dangerous to speak of the dead. To do so was to disturb their rest and risk inviting them to return to haunt the living. But some souls did not rest because they refused to walk the ghost road to the spirit world, lingering instead among them. These ghosts could cause havoc if measures were not taken to send them away.

      “We can look into this possibility. Did he die a good death?” She was asking if he had fought bravely or, if captured, if he represented his people and himself with pride and dignity under torture.

      “His death was good, quick. The gray white men shot him with their rifles.”

      “And his body was recovered?”

      “Yes, and he was sent on a scaffold with his things.”

      “That is good. You said that you have seen things that were not there. Will you tell me of them?”

      “Not tonight.”

      She pursed her lips at this delaying tactic and thought to remind him that he said he would be forthcoming. But he rubbed his forehead again, as he had done earlier when he said he had pain. She did not want to cause another fall by her questions.

      “These wounds look recent.” She laid an open palm on the scarred flesh at his chest. There were two ragged, raised places on each side of his upper torso that could mean only one thing. This man had tested his devotion and bravery in the most sacred of all ways.

      “I have the honor of success in the sun dance,” he said, his voice humble.

      This was no small feat. She had watched the sun dance in her tribe. Young warriors volunteered to have wooden spikes inserted through the skin of their chest or upper back. The spikes pierced in and then out at a different place, like a bone awl through a buckskin. From these dowels, long rawhide tethers were tied. The other ends of these ropes were fixed to a tall pole, set deep in the ground solely for this purpose. Then the men would dance as sweat streamed down their bodies. They would dance and chant and blow whistles made from the bones of an eagle’s wing. All the while they would stare at the sun and try to tear free of their bonds. This might take a day or more. Some men passed out during the dance only to revive to try again. Not all tore free. To voluntarily submit to such an ordeal was a true test of courage. And this man had succeeded.

      “I was the first to free myself.”

      “The first?” It was a great coup. Skylark did not think she could be more impressed. “That is amazing.”

      “It was not. I tore free only because I fell.”

      Unease prickled.

      “Your second fall.”

      Beyond the circle of their fire and past the open ground now fading with twilight came the hoot of a great horned owl. She stilled as the chill of night seemed to seep into every pore.