Bound by Honor Bound by Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

strong and thrive.”
He just didn’t know how it was possible, and he couldn’t bring
himself to tell the chief that.
    “ Then you must do whatever
it takes to make it happen. We’ve been too soft, too willing to
compromise with the white man who speaks with a forked tongue. Our
Lone Man can’t return if we’re not here. He protected our people
long ago from the great flood by building a wall around our
village. We owe him much for what he did.”
    It seemed to Citlali that if the Lone
Man was so powerful, he would have protected them from the Smallpox
outbreak that ravaged their people, but he held his
tongue.
    “ Perhaps we need to seek
guidance from the spirits,” the chief said before he brought the
pipe to his lips and inhaled again. He blew out smoke and looked at
Citlali. “You must go out on your own for a week and seek a
vision.”
    He nodded. “I’m due to seek one in
April.”
    “ No. We can’t wait that
long.”
    “ Then in March?”
    The chief shook his head and handed
Citlali the pipe. “Tomorrow. You will take your teepee and go
outside the tribe. I’ll send a flint knife to your lodge in the
morning, so you can take that as well. You will head out to the
sacred spot near the trees where I received my first vision. I will
fast while you are away so you may receive the spirits’ approval to
lead when I am gone.”
    Citlali’s disappointment that he’d
have to leave Onawa so soon after they married was replaced with
the awareness of what the chief was saying. “Are you
ill?”
    “ Not yet, but I had a dream
that my soul was light brown.”
    “ Then you’ll become a
meadowlark when your soul leaves your body,” Citlali whispered,
recalling the religious knowledge he bought a year
earlier.
    “ It appears that is my
destiny. I hoped to be a lodge spirit so I could stay here and
watch over you as you assume my responsibilities, but the spirits
have made their choice and it’s for the best.”
    “ Perhaps you will come to
us as the meadowlark.”
    “ Perhaps…if the spirits
will it.”
    Citlali took the pipe back from the
chief and swallowed. “I hope the dream you had is a long time in
coming.”
    “ Now, Citlali, don’t expose
your feelings. Your sorrow is apparent, and it’s not good. You must
be strong. Any time you reveal your emotions, you become
vulnerable. If you do that, you lose the respect of our people, and
they will not follow your guidance. I am counting on you to
preserve our way of life. You must not fail me in this.”
    Steeling his resolve, Citlali nodded.
“I will not.”
    “ Good. I don’t know when my
time will come, but when it does, I’m ready to go.”
    Not wanting to give away the grief he
experienced at the thought of losing the chief, he settled for
another nod.
    “ Now, we have much to
discuss,” the chief said, changing topics. “We must determine the
best way to encourage marriages between full-blooded Mandans. One
thing we are doing wrong is showing the young that marriage with
the white man—or woman—is acceptable by allowing the white people
in our tribe. I’m afraid we have to tell them to leave.”
    “ What if we forbid anyone
else to marry a white person?”
    “ They will see the white
people here and the marriages they are in. It will give them ideas
they don’t need to be having.”
    “ I did not desire a white
woman because of this.”
    “ That’s because you
understand how important it is to continue our line, our way of
life. Many have lost this desire.”
    No. For him, it was more than that.
When he saw Onawa, the fact that she was a full-blooded Mandan like
him didn’t even occur to him. But he kept this thought to himself.
Perhaps what frightened the chief was the fact that the white man
encouraged one mate for life instead of multiple wives. The white
man also didn’t regard divorce with the ease the Mandans did. Their
ways were different, but based on how happy Gary and Chogan were,
maybe different wasn’t bad. Citlali