Luke left Aiyana alone to put her borrowed bathrobe on. She wouldn't have to hide behind the falls for anyone. He headed for the cabin, unable to figure out if he should make her go into town and find refuge. He simmered to the point of boiling over how the Rayburns labeled Aiyana, as if something less than human, as if anyone should own her. He wasn't so sure she wouldn't run off from modern life and back into the bushes.


Clutching the door to the cabin, he thought again about the gold necklace of a cross. It had a story to tell, and he didn't know how he could wrangle it out of her. He stepped inside sopping wet where a morning dampness of the cabin made him scurry across the floor. Luke ran a matchstick to a flame over the Dutch oven and then warmed his hands from his dip in the creek.

He knew he needed to get out of his skivvies. Putting his pot of coffee to boil, he then shifted over near the fireplace where he took an old blanket and hung it over a rope where he often hung clothes to dry near the fireplace.

Luke changed into his dungarees and a fresh shirt from his chest. The door squeaked open. He buttoned up his shirt, tucked it in, and then watched Aiyana make her entrance toward the kitchen table. His dog followed close behind. She fingered the cross necklace around her neck and proceeded to sit down on one of his stick chairs with the robe tied around her waist.

The aroma from the coffee filled the air between them. The coffee sizzled and popped, making Aiyana twinge. As Luke approached her, he couldn't help noticing a large tear in her left eye. It cascaded down her honey-colored complexion. Fingering the cross around her neck, she looked through the small window toward the mountains, as if her mind had left his cabin.

Luke approached her and slipped his coffee pot to a cold plate. He breathed in the aroma, settling his nerves, not wanting to come across as some kind of ruthless interrogator. Prayer crossed his mind. But then he thought about how unlike the congregation in town, he tended to come to God only when he needed a favor. He looked at his dog Sugar planted next to Aiyana. "Looks like you have a shadow to follow you wherever you go."

It broke her spell, as Aiyana looked up at Luke holding his coffee mug. She hadn't bothered to wipe the tear that left a streak down her face. Her vulnerable moment grabbed his heart, and it made her more strikingly beautiful! Her dark tangled hair was a mess, but it didn't diminish the sheen.

As he poured the days old coffee into his cup, he'd forgot to ask if she would like one. He pointed to his coffee in one hand and the metal pot in the other. He grunted, as he held them both up and looked at her with an invite to share it. Luke's mouth dried. A nervous sweat formed on his forehead.

"My father is chief of the Crow. My mother was taken by the Cheyenne, then traded to the Crow. She lost her father, mother, and little brother. Mother was adopted into the tribe. If not for them, my mother told me she would not have lasted the first winter with the savage tribe.

As Luke sat down, he nearly fell from his chair. "So, you can speak English. Why didn't you from the start?"

"My mother told me not to trust the white men any more than a red skin. She saw what French fur traders did to the squaws. She wanted me to leave. She helped me escape. She wanted me to find what was left of her family. She believes the bluecoats lost her trail, or had reason to believe she died."

Luke didn't have the heart to hurt her with his words anymore. If the truth be told, she was pricking his heart with every word she spoke. He wanted to prove her mother wrong. He wanted her to know he wasn't like other men who took advantage of a female.

It was like a dam in Aiyana's eyes had finally broken. Tears fell freely, finally letting go of her coiled emotions. "My mother's parents were missionaries. Trusting souls who thought they could preach to Cheyenne people. They left the safety of the Fort and ventured out to build a church and set out to convince the tribe of a savior who hung on a cross."

Aiyana passed the cross necklace toward Luke's hands where the steam from his coffee was between them. His calloused hands touched the necklace but reached for her hands, as she shook with emotion.

"It...it was my grandmother's," she said.

Luke drew in a deep breath and squeezed her hands. They were strikingly soft and tender considering her blistered and beaten appearance from the first day. "Who beat You?"

"Cheyenne found me. They claimed me for their tribe. I was told I needed to marry the son of Chief Running Bear. They would make peace with my Crow family and offer gifts. The first time I tried to escape, they beat me. His son was in love with me, but I needed to leave. I needed to tell someone about my mother. She wanted what family she had left to know she lived."

Luke held one hand and drank from his coffee mug. "Your mother taught you English."

"My mother was given her Bible from the tribe. She earnestly read it to me, and I learned the language. She told me as time went on, as the season came and went, she gained a great audience of children who would listen to her stories, even when they may not have understood."

"And this Cheyenne warrior. He looks for you?"

"He's crazy with love. He will cross many mountains to find me. He told me so when I tried to escape the first time."

Luke looked over at the mantel and swallowed a lump in his throat. He thought of his bride, Ruth Thompson. She'd be on the rail heading west. He was days away from traveling to Julesburg to fetch her.

The rest of the day Aiyana worked outside preparing deer hides for sale in town. Luke was impressed with her ability to work the hides to a soft velvet touch. He tended to his garden, which was an imminent disaster. With a boiling sun in a stark blue sky, Luke attempted to bring his squash and beats back to life with water buckets from the creek. Naked from the waist up, he managed a lather of sweat with a mind to sit beneath the shade of a pine tree.

When Aiyana was finished skinning the flesh from the hides, she stretched them out in the sun on posts Luke had originally set. She needed no instruction, and for most of the day there were hardly any words spoken. Once the sun melted into the mountains, Aiyana surprised Luke with a ladle to drink water from a bucket, and head found wild berries to share. Kneeling, they took a moment to look at each other with such mystery between them.

Aiyana served Luke, until her hands graced his lips. Her touch was again a jolt to his senses. She looked deep into his hazel eyes. "I prayed for God to save me. Do you believe we met for a reason?"

Luke knew her mother was raised under missionaries before captured by the Indians, but until now he wasn't sure she engaged prayer or took the view that their encounter was providential. "We are at crossroads here, that much I'm sure of."

The shadows toward evening encompassed the pair, as they retired toward the cabin. Inside Luke took a match to an oil lamp by the door. Aiyana carried some fresh logs for the rock fireplace. Luke dusted off an Indian blanket that he placed around her shoulders where she sat in front of the fire.

Coyotes howled in the distance, but there was a sense of calm inside the cabin, with Sugar, his faithful spaniel wedged between them. Aiyana and Luke traded stories while staring into the flaming tongue of the fire.