He bent to see Nancy's unconscious face.
Coming up beside him Redbird asked quietly, "Do you know this woman?"
"Yes," he said. It all came back to him—last summer at Victoire, the meetings on the prairie, that night in the cornfield beside her father's house when she had begged him to "know" her. Had he missed her? Yes; he had to admit that. Did he love her? He was not sure, but, happy as he had been with Redbird, he often thought of Nancy and wondered if she still longed for him as she had when he left her.
How, without hurting Redbird, who stood next to him watching as he stared down at Nancy, could he explain what this white woman meant to him?
He reached out to untie the rope looped around Nancy's back that held her to Wolf Paw's horse.
"Do not touch her," Wolf Paw growled. "She is for me, and only for me."
No, White Bear thought, he could not let Nancy be kidnapped and raped by this man. Whatever bloody things had been done at Victor, this he must prevent. He readied himself to fight Wolf Paw if he had to.
And how would he explain that to Redbird?
Wolf Paw slid down from his horse and, one-handed, untied Nancy. Fresh blood was soaking through the cloth around his shoulder—a strip of blue gingham torn from Nancy's dress, White Bear now saw.
Weak from his wound, Wolf Paw could not lift Nancy and carry her. Regardless of Wolf Paw's warning, White Bear would not let her fall. He took her from Wolf Paw and eased her to the ground. Her eyelids were fluttering. Redbird, bending awkwardly with her swollen belly, helped him. Their eyes met, and she looked searchingly into his.