"No."
"I would be foolish to believe that."
"I would tell you if I had done that. I did want to, and she wanted to, but I would not. Does it make you hate her to know she wanted that of me?"
Redbird's head was bowed so that he could not see her face. "You are a man many women would want. I cannot hate them all."
"When I asked you to untie Nancy today and take her to our wickiup, you could have refused me, as Running Deer did to Wolf Paw. Then the women would have cut her to pieces. I could not have stopped them. I thank you for honoring my wishes."
Redbird said, "You would have tried to stop them, and you would have been hurt. I did not want that to happen." She looked up at him suddenly, smiling. "And I knew that people would say, 'See, White Bear's wife does as he asks, but Wolf Paw's wife makes him look foolish.' It felt good to make Wolf Paw look foolish, after what he did to us."
It warmed him to hear her say "us."
"Now I want to do something more for her," he said. "But I can only do it if you will say yes to it." He held his breath.
Redbird said, "If you made her your wife, then no one in the band would dare to hurt her."
White Bear let out a deep sigh. He should have known her thoughts would move as swiftly as his own. He had wondered how to say it to her, and she had said it for him.