"Not more than you. In another way. Sometimes I seem to be two people."
"Among the Sauk you could have both me and Redbird as wives. And when I was a captive, and I thought I might die at any time without ever having loved you, then I accepted your way. But if Redbird lived here, you and I would have to be together in secret. And I couldn't live my whole life that way."
He had known it would hurt like this. This was the very reason he had tried again and again to renounce Nancy's love.
"I understand," he said, and the words seared his throat.
But now I would never give up a moment I spent with her, even to escape this pain.
He ached to put his arms around Nancy and to feel her holding him. But he made himself sit rigid, fingers digging into his thighs.
Nancy spoke, and he could hear the iron of grief in her voice. "If Redbird comes here as your wife—I'll leave here. Maybe we'll go back East. Woodrow and I."
She stopped abruptly, too choked by tears to speak. The fence rail they were sitting on shook with her sobs.
Something broke inside Auguste, and he felt his eyes burn as the wetness trickled down his cheeks. He slid from the fence and held out his arms to her.
"To see you again and hear you say you'll leave me forever," he said. "It hurts too much."