Free Broken Wings by Sandra Edwards

like a troubled parent.
    She tried her best to ignore him
because she knew what was coming. She didn’t want to hear it and
she certainly didn’t have to like it.
    But that didn’t stop him. “You
understand that you have to leave here,” he said, “don’t
you?”
    Maggie could almost feel the fire
flickering from her eyes. “I can’t leave him.” Her tone was
undeniable and her words final. “I could sooner stop breathing than
to leave him.”
    “ The longer you stay here,”
he said in a calm manner, “the more danger you’re putting him in.
They killed your sister down in Carson City. And if they get one
look at you,” he said of the white law men, “they’re going to know
you were one of her accomplices.”
    He wasn’t overlooking the similarities
between Maggie and Molly. They both had red hair and they looked
alike. Mary was the different one with hair as dark as
night.
    “ I can’t leave him…” her
words trailed off on an injured tone.
    “ You’re wanted,” he said.
“Remember?”
    Yes. And up until now—as far as she
knew—she’d been an unidentified party. But now that Molly had been
identified, this was not a safe place for Maggie to hide. Not safe
for her. Not safe for Tajan. And not safe for his
people.
    Tears slipped from the corners of her
eyes.
    “ I’m thankful that he found
you and nursed you back to health,” he said with a measure of
compassion. “But if you truly love him, you’ll leave here with me
tomorrow…before they find you and he ends up dying trying to
protect you.”
    Her grandfather’s words crashed down
around her a little too harshly. Even so, they rang of pure
truth.
    * * *
    Once Tajan heard that Bradford intended
to take Maggie back to California the next day, he was overcome
with anger. Inside his own grandfather’s lodge, Tajan paced paced
the length of the interior while Timeko and his grandfather, the
Chief, looked on.
    He stopped, as if a cold wind had
frozen his body, and faced his elders. “I will not let him take
her!” he said in his native tongue.
    “ It’s not your choice,”
Timeko replied in the same language. “And she’s in danger here.”
Timeko hoped to reason with his son, yet fearing there would be no
way of reckoning with him.
    “ The girl must be returned
to her grandfather,” the Chief finally spoke, issuing the final
words on the matter.
    And those were the worst words in the
whole world for Tajan. His grandfather had the last
word.
    * * *
    The tribe’s council decided Tajan’s
wife would not accompany him to his lodge that night. Doing so
could make it all the more difficult to separate them in the
morning.
    Just before daybreak, Tajan emerged
from his lodge. Having had all night to wallow in his anger, it had
swelled to the breaking point.
    How dare they? How dare his own people
attempt to take away the only thing that had ever meant anything to
him?
    Maggie emerged from a nearby lodge.
She’d been grilled half the night about the danger she’d be
bringing to Tajan if she stayed. They’d all tried to make her feel
guilty and they’d done a pretty good job of it, too.
    She didn’t want to bring danger to him.
Why couldn’t they see that? She loved him more than life itself. In
fact, she couldn’t imagine life without him. How in the world was
she supposed to go back to California and put on this farce of a
pretense that she was happy about it? She didn’t know how she was
supposed to survive without him. But everyone seemed so certain of
one thing—if she stayed, Tajan would die.
    Bradford led Maggie past Tajan. She
paused, gazing into his eyes. She wished she could tell him it was
a bad joke. That everything was going to be okay. But that was a
lie. It wasn’t going to be okay. Nothing was ever going to be okay
again.
    Bradford gave Maggie a tug, prompting
her away from Tajan’s side. Her eyes never left Tajan’s steady gaze
as she was led away
    Tajan had put forth a good front—on the
outside. But inside, he