Creative Writing: The Warrior's Lover

Wenona had not hoped in vain, for her lover was with her, and Wanska seemed to be forgotten. The warrior's flute would draw her out from her uncle's lodge while the moon rose o'er the cold waters. Wrapped in her blanket, she would hasten to meet him, and listen to his assurances of affection, wondering the while that she had ever feared he loved another.

She had been some months at the village of Markeda, and she went to meet her lover with a heavy heart. Her mother had noticed that her looks were sad and heavy, and Wenona knew that it would not be long ere she should be a happy wife, or a mark for the bitter scorn of her companions.

The Deer-killer had promised, day after day, that he would make her his wife, but he ever found a ready excuse;

His quiver was full of arrows, and his leggins were tightly girded upon him.

Wenona's full heart was nigh bursting as she heard that the party were to leave to-morrow. Should he desert her, her parents would kill her for disgracing them; and her rival, Wanska, how would she triumph over her fall?

"You say that you love me," said she to the Deer-killer, "and yet you treat me cruelly. Why should you leave me without saying that I am your wife? Who would watch for your coming as I would? and you will disgrace me when I have loved you so truly. Stay--tell them you have made me your wife, and then will I wait for you at the door of my teepee."

The warrior could not stay from the chase, but he promised her that he would soon return to their village, and then she should be his wife.

Wenona wept when he left her; shadows had fallen upon her heart, and yet she hoped on. Turning her weary steps homeward, she arrived there when the maidens of the village were preparing to celebrate

Wenona went forward with a beating heart; she was not a wife, and soon must be a mother. Wanska, the Merry Heart, was there, and many others who wondered at the pale looks of Wenona--she who had been on a journey, and who ought to have returned with color bright as the dying sun, whose light illumined earth, sky and water.

As they entered the ring a party of warriors approached the circle.

Wenona does not look towards them, and yet the throbbings of her heart were not to be endured. Her trembling limbs refused to sustain her, as the Deer-killer, stalking towards the ring, calls aloud--"Take her from the sacred feast; should she eat with the maidens?--she, under whose bosom lies a warrior's child? She is unworthy."

And as the unhappy girl, with features of stone and glaring eyes, gazed upon him bewildered, he rudely led her from the ring.

Wenona bowed her head and went--even as night came on when the sun went down. Nor did the heart of the Deer-killer reproach him, for how dare she offend the Great Spirit! Were not the customs of his race holy and sacred?

Little to Wenona were her father's reproaches, or her mother's curse; that she was no more beloved was all she remembered.

Again was the Deer-killer by the side of Wanska, and she paid