Free Proud Wolf's Woman by Karen Kay Page B

husband. No, I do not wish it.” Voesee paused, then, after a moment, she sat back down and leaning over toward Aamehee, she said, “I have seen this white woman at the stream in the morning. I have seen her courage, have witnessed her stamina. I believe she has a good heart, I believe she is brave.” This said, she glanced back toward Neeheeowee. “I can see that you have a problem, my brother-in-law, for if you do not make this woman your wife, as I think you should, and I cannot make a sister of the white woman, what will you do with her?”
    “I do not know,” Neeheeowee answered, then, turning toward his brother-in-law, he stated, “I had thought to make her a present to you, Mahoohe.”
    Mahoohe choked on the puff of smoke he had just inhaled. Amidst coughing and sputtering, he said, “As you have heard, my brother, one such as she would upset my household.” Here he looked to his wife, who in her own turn, nodded.
    Voesee shook her head, also in agreement. “Yes, she is too…pretty and already a woman. One such as she could not be brought into our households. Still…” Here Voesee smirked, a twinkle in her eye before she continued, “But wait, my brother-in-law, there is another in camp who would be only too happy to take the white slave into his household as wife. Se’eskema, Wart, is having trouble finding a woman. He would be easy to convince to take her.” Voesee smiled. “I would only ask you, my northern in-law, not to judge the poor man on his looks. Wart would be kind to the woman.”
    “You would have me give her to Wart? I said that the woman, Julia, is my friend.”
    “He would make a good husband.” It was his young nephew at his side who spoke, and Neeheeowee, rising up onto his knees, glanced down at the boy.
    “Eaaa!” Neeheeowee spoke at last to everyone present. “Have you all lost your sense?”
    No one said a word as all within the tepee, save one, grinned.
    “Come, come, my brother.” Mahoohe was the first to take pity on his northern relative. “If you must purchase the slave, then you must. But I hope you are ready to make a hard trade; for my brother, the Kiowa warrior who owns her, treasures his slave, I think.”
    Neeheeowee didn’t respond—at first. Then, “What do you mean?”
    Mahoohe smiled before he spoke. At last, he said, “My good brother-in-law, what would you trade for the slave?”
    Neeheeowee shrugged, sitting back down into position. “I will have to part with one of my ponies since they are my wealth. But come now, you avoid my question.”
    Mahoohe paused, seemed to reflect for a moment, then said, “I am afraid, my brother, that it might take more than one pony to buy your friend away from her captor.”
    “Why do you say this?”
    “Her Kiowa master refuses to part with her.”
    Neeheeowee took this message with a great deal more nonchalance than he felt, and he wondered why the matter affected him so. At last he spoke, again to his brother-in-law. “What do you mean,” he asked, “refuses to part with her?”
    Mahoohe raised an eyebrow, looking away, before saying, “Just as I said. We arrived here at the trading fair before the others. We saw the war party as it came in and settled into camp. We saw the white woman and we thought her Kiowa captor might have brought her here to trade. But we soon learned it was not to be. Her captor tells a story of killing the woman’s husband in a fight with the blue-coated soldiers. He says because of her, he now has much medicine. He says she was braver than her husband.”
    Neeheeowee nodded, and, at length, he said, “That is a good story, but you evade my question, brother. How can a man refuse to part with a slave? It seems strange to me. Can you tell me what you know about these Kiowa people who own her?”
    Mahoohe sat in silence as was Indian custom, the rule being, one should think before speech. At last, Mahoohe glanced up, saying to his brother-in-law, “I know little about them save that