"Yes, I'm that man too." He looked down at her bare feet. "You've lost your moccasins. We must get you another pair." And she was lucky not to have a leech or two clinging to her feet; so was he. His moccasins were lost too. Clothing would be hard to come by, with the band on the run in strange country, but he need not make her feel worse by telling her that.
"I have to resign myself to staying with your people, don't I?" she asked. "Thank God you're here, Auguste. Maybe it was Providence that your uncle stole your estate from you."
Yes, Earthmaker's way is surprising, he thought.
"One thing I must ask of you, Nancy. For your protection, you and I must go through a wedding ceremony. Then no one will be allowed to bother you."
"A wedding!" She let go of him and stepped away quickly.
His heartbeat quickened with anxiety over her apparent shock.
"Nothing to be afraid of. A simple ceremony." He recalled his wedding to Redbird last fall. He might be a shaman, but he'd not had the slightest premonition that he would go through the same ceremony with a different woman less than a year later.
"But you already have a wife. That pretty little woman who is ... expecting." She reddened. "You told me she was your wife." Soaking wet, she turned forlornly away from him.
"In our tribe men may have more than one wife."
He expected to see contempt in her eyes, her pale eyes' morality outraged.