Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (107 page)

Emily’s shoulders tingled; she smiled, flung her arms around his neck, kissed him long and hard. “Oh, Isna, yes, please do this. Emily would be with Isna forever. It
can
be so.”

His eyes slowly contracted; his smile faded. “To do this, Isna would have to leave the Lakota forever . . . become like a white man.” He stared at the forest. “Isna is a Lakota warrior . . .
unlike
a white man. He is not certain what a white man is . . . or that he can learn to be one. And what would Emily’s people say?”

“Isna will be with Emily, and . . . and her people will accept Isna.” She suddenly frowned, realized they’d
never
accept someone
they
considered a Savage marrying an English girl. And what would Mother think? Could any of them understand . . . or accept a Lakota in the colony . . . much less as my husband? She felt warm tears fill her eyes, trickle down her cheeks, then visualized Isna leaving, never to return. But she suddenly recalled that they treated Manteo well in England . . . treated him as an English gentleman . . . and Shines . . . everyone treats her well. So why not Isna? A sudden surge of hope pulsed through her veins. Perchance it
could
work. But
marriage
would be a far different matter, and . . . she noticed him watching her with an amused smile and admiring eyes. “What is it?”

“Emily and Isna need not decide
now
how they will fulfil Isna’s vision and Emily’s dream; but they must do so soon . . . and Isna must learn what a white man is, so he can decide if he wants to be one . . . Emily must help him understand this.”

She stared into his eyes, felt her excitement subside to reality. How can he become an Englishman? He and his people are so different from Manteo and his, so . . . so Lakota, so deeply warlike . . . how could it be? And how could I ever ask him to give up what he is . . . to become something he will surely despise? And what of Tayler . . . and the baby . . . and . . . dearest Lord, what an endless nightmare my life has become. She unconsciously shook her head. ’Twould not be fair to him, and ’twould be completely selfish of me. Tears flooded her eyes. “Isna, I cannot ask you to be a white man . . . an Englishman.” She shook her head; pressed her body against his, squeezed him with all her strength; fell into deep sobs, trembled.

Isna held her tight, closed his eyes, laid his head on hers, then whispered, “ Isna will do this for Emily.”

She looked up at him with tormented, teary eyes, shook her head. “No, Isna, I . . . I cannot let you give up everything you are and love. You will hate it.”

He pulled her close, softly rubbed the back of her neck, kissed her hair. “ Isna will do this for Emily.”

“No, Isna, ’twould not be right, and . . . and . . . there is something Emily must tell Isna.” She paused, summoned her strength, leaned back, looked into his eyes. “When the white man, Tayler, took Emily’s body, he made her with child, and—”

“Isna knows this,” he spoke flatly.

She blinked, gaped at him with disbelieving eyes. “How . . . how can Isna know this?”

“Isna knows. He has known from the beginning . . . and it matters not.”

Tears again flooded her eyes. “But . . . but . . . oh, Isna.” She pulled him close. “Emily loves Isna with all her heart.”

“As Isna loves Emily . . . and will love her child.”

“Isna, Isna, my love, we
must
find a way. I cannot be without you.”

“Emily and Isna will be together . . . they
will
find a way. Their truth-bearers and Wakan Tanka will show them that way.” He eased her slightly back, stared into her eyes, moved his lips slowly toward hers until they touched in soft, gentle passion.

They had sat a long while facing each other, hand in hand, searching their own and each other’s minds for answers, when Isna finally spoke. “ Isna will stay with his people for three moons before starting back to Emily at the beginning of the
Moon-of-Ripening
. The return trip will be quicker because of paddling
downstream
on the Mother-of-All-Rivers rather than
upstream
; so Isna
could
reach Emily in the
Moon-of-Colored-Leaves
, before the cold moons begin. The slowest part of the trip will be paddling up the large river that flows into the Mother-of-All-Rivers from the north and east.” His face suddenly brightened. “But if Isna does not carry furs of Tatanka, he will not
need
to paddle a canoe up the big north-and-east river; he can instead follow a straight path from the Mother-of-All-Rivers to, and then over, the mountains.” He looked away, smiled as if he’d suddenly recaptured a lost thought, again faced her. “ Isna now tells Emily that it was at a place far up this large north-and-east river that the Lakota once lived. From there they often traveled to a big lake four days’ walk to the north—a lake with water that could be drunk and which was too wide to see across, but much smaller than the Mother-of-All-
Lakes
near where the Lakota now live . . . which is not far from where the Mother-of-All-
Rivers
is born.” He smiled again. “The grandfathers say that it was at this smaller lake, in those old years, that Ptesanwin brought the sacred pipe to the Lakota. They also tell that in those times Tatanka roamed on this side of the Mother-of-All-Rivers, all the way to the mountains to the east, and became the center of life for the Lakota and other peoples.”

“Why did the Lakota leave this place?”

“Too many strong enemies.” He looked remote, lost in thought, then suddenly smiled. “The grandfathers also say it was at this same smaller lake that the Lakota first saw white men”—he paused, thought for a moment, then flashed ten fingers three times—“ nearly that many grandfathers ago.”

“White men . . . then? Isna . . . that’s . . . that’s thirty generations . . . 600 years. What . . . what white men could have been here then? Do the grandfathers tell what these men looked like?”

“Yes. They were strong men with much fair hair on their heads and faces; and some wore hard hats like your warriors, but different . . . more round. And they carried big axes . . . much bigger than Isna’s . . . and big knives like some of your warriors carry, but wider and shorter. The grandfathers still have some of these knives and axes, which seem to be made from the same stone as Isna’s knife and hatchet . . . but a brown and red dust now lives on them.”

Emily’s eyes were wide with awe, her lips agape. “Rust.” She pondered for a moment. “Does Isna know where these warriors came from?”

He shook his head. “Isna knows only that they first came from somewhere across the large water that cannot be drunk, to the east . . . the same water as here.” He swung his hand from north to south. “They came in big canoes, each with a tall, fierce wolf’s head with big teeth, on the front. And each canoe had a big skin the color of snow on a tall pole in its center and many long paddles on the sides. It is said they first camped for a long time on a big island in the large water, many days north of our lake; but one day they brought their big canoes up a large river south of their island, pulling behind them smaller canoes that looked like the big ones. They left the big canoes at a place with white, churning water and carried the smaller canoes over the ground until they again found deep water and paddled further up the river to a large lake. The wind then blew them across the lake, where they continued up the river to a great waterfall; there they again had to carry their canoes on the ground until they could re-enter the river. They paddled upriver to a second big lake—the Lakota’s lake—where they met the Lakota and remained with them for many seasons . . . made children with them . . . which is why, today, some Lakota, like Isna, have lighter skin and noses and cheeks more like white men than Lakota.”

Emily’s eyes swelled with astonishment; her mind churned. “Manteo told me these people visited the Lakota, but . . . but . . . Isna, why did they come?”

“It is said they came to see what lay beyond the horizon, for they were people of the water and thought they could take their canoes to new lands filled with things they sought. And that is all Isna knows of them . . . except that some of them continued across our lake and paddled up more
rivers and across more lakes, including the Mother-of-All-Lakes, which the Lakota
now
live beside. The Lakota know this because after many seasons, these men returned to the ones who stayed with the Lakota, and took them back to their island to the north . . . in the bad water.” He smiled. “They told us the bad water goes from the bottom of the world to the top.”

Emily stared through him, her mind churning with wild thoughts. My dreams . . . after the massacre . . . and other times . . .Vikings talking about where to go, what to explore . . . an island where they’d settled. Dear Lord, it must have been them, but . . . yes, I remember. The dreams were real, as if I were there watching the men . . . and I remember it all as clearly as my name. And one of them—his name started with a
T
, sounded like
Trihh
-something—talked about . . . no,
thought
about . . . a girl . . . a girl in England . . . a girl he loved, wanted to return to someday . . . a girl who bore his child. But how can this be? How could I dream such things . . . see his mind . . . remember it all? Impossible. “Isna, if these people were who Emily thinks they were, they were called Vikings, and they discovered this land far earlier than anyone knows or suspects. And . . . and . . . their blood flows not only in you but also in
my
people; for they raided us for many years . . . and some settled with us . . . and . . . and Emily dreams of them . . . dreams as real as life, as if she were there with them, seeing everything happen as it truly did. Isna, I . . .”

Though she slept, Allie O’Shay’s eyes blinked open; her body trembled; and had she been wired to the Stanford equipment, all of her readings would have simultaneously peaked.

“Isna has heard of such dreamers among his people. They are always women . . . women with powerful gifts, perhaps like Emily . . . all four gifts of the circle of life, and—”

A distant bell clanged three times from the direction of the colony. “Isna. ’Tis the call to meeting. Something’s happened. I must go quickly. It could be—” The crack of a discharging pistol ripped through the air, again from the direction of the colony. “Something bad’s happened . . . perhaps an attack, perhaps . . . I must go now, quickly.” She stood, kissed him, then turned, lifted her dress above her ankles, started toward the forest.

“Wait. Isna goes with Emily to the edge of the forest.” He quickly slid his tamahaac and knife into his waistband, flung his quiver over his shoulder, and tossed the whetstone into Emily’s canvas bag. Gripping his bow with his left hand, he took
her
hand with his right, led her into the trees at a jog. When they reached the clearing around the palisades, they stopped, quickly kissed. Emily jogged off toward the group of soldiers and civilians gathered in a cluster near the trees on the far side of the clearing. She saw more people running out through the gaps in the palisades, heard women wailing, men shouting. They all looked at something on the ground.