Free Wolf Shadow’s Promise by Karen Kay Page B

him,” her mother went on, as though reading Alys’s thoughts, “he’s probably only wearing that breechcloth. He’ll need something warmer.”
    â€œThank you, Mama.” Alys let out her breath slowly and arose, stepping quickly toward the chest of drawers. “I’ll be back tonight to check on you.”
    â€œThat will be fine, although you know that I have Mary to take care of me.”
    â€œI know. I’ll be back tonight, anyway.”
    Ma Clayton looked doubtful, but Alys didn’t see.
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    â€œNow look what you’ve gone and done,” Alys scolded, coming upon the man in the caves. She eyed the bandages around his leg. “Have you been moving about some more?”
    He didn’t budge.
    â€œAre you awake?”
    A single eye popped open. She saw it.
    â€œWell, your dressing is soaked with blood again, Mister Wolf Shadow.”
    â€œThe wound will get better,” he muttered.
    â€œNo thanks to you.” Bending down toward him, she fingered the old bandage and began to strip it away. “I’m going to have to stop this bleeding, wash it again and put another poultice on it. And when I’m done with it this time, you are to stay put until I tell you that it’s all right to move. Do you understand me?”
    He didn’t say a word, although he smiled.
    She stripped the bandage away, taking care to place a blanket over his unmentionable parts and avoid them altogether. Even more carefully, she retied the tourniquetand, putting a fresh bandage to the wound, pressed on it until the bleeding subsided.
    â€œWhen did you decide to return to the caves?” she asked, choosing her words and her subject with care. “I’ve only been away at school for five years, and I don’t remember your coming back while I was still here.”
    â€œI returned four great suns ago, or four years as the white man says, when the whiskey traders started coming north.”
    â€œI see. Not until then?” She let up on the pressure and picked up a bunch of herbs, beginning the task of crushing them.
    â€œI did not want to return to this town. It held bad memories for me.”
    â€œAll bad?” She cast a shy glance at him.
    He came up onto his elbows, his look humorous, yet serious all at once. “Not all.” His eyes raked over her form, up and down, from the top of her dark-brown head to the tips of her slippered toes, where they peeped out from beneath the folds of her dress. He commented, “I was happy to see that the school is no longer here. It was a bad place.”
    She nodded. “It did not last long. A few weeks after your trouble, the teacher quit and went back east. It was just as well. I would rather have been taught by my mother anyway.”
    â€œ Aa , yes,” he said as he attempted to sit up straighter. “It is always better when someone close to you educates you in the ways of the world. In my village, it is one of the highest duties of an Indian parent, to teach their young. No man or woman ever becomes a parent without dedicating their life to their children. And teaching them, this is the natural way for a child to learn.”
    She gave him a smile. “I think that’s a wonderful thing,” she remarked, her tone social, “and I do agree, but please,Mister Wolf Shadow, do not move about when you talk to me. It makes the wound bleed again. I may have to sew some stitches in it, I fear.”
    â€œ Aa , if you must,” he uttered and fell back down. “Why do you not call me Moon Wolf, or perhaps ‘Indian’ as the other pale-eyes call me?”
    â€œI don’t know. It seemed the right thing to do. And I’m not like all the other ‘pale-eyes.’”
    â€œ Saa , no, you are not.”
    She paused, expecting him to say more, her brow pulled into a frown. But, at last, when it appeared he had finished, she asked, “Am I not supposed to call you by your