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the three-legged stool at the foot of the bed, deciding it was better than nothing, when he heard a gasp. Looking up, his eyes widened in disbelief as the Spirit Woman entered the room. She was seated in the chair with wheels and it glided silently across the wooden floor.
    Shadow Hawk stared at her, and at the strange-looking chair, not believing his eyes, wondering if he was still inside the Sacred Cave. Perhaps there hadn’t been a battle. Perhaps Heart-of-the-Wolf still lived. Perhaps this was just another vision. “ Winyan Wanagi ,” he murmured reverently. “Spirit Woman.” She was even more beautiful than she had been in his visions. Her skin was smooth and clear, her lashes long and thick. Her hair, as black as his own, was worn in braids, the ends tied with bright blue ribbons that matched the color of her eyes.
    Maggie stared at the Indian. Awake his resemblance to the warrior in her painting was even more startling. The man in her dream had been a shadow figure without substance. The man in her painting was merely a flat image depicting what she recalled from memory. But this man was very much alive and he radiated masculinity and strength and a latent sense of danger.
    Behind her, she heard Veronica gasp and Maggie knew that the breakfast tray in Veronica’s hands had come perilously close to crashing to the floor.
    “Good morning,” Maggie said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her alarm at finding her patient standing in the middle of the room, naked as the day he’d been born. “How are you feeling?”
    Shadow Hawk stared at her, wishing he had learned more of the white man’s language from his cousin so he could understand the Spirit Woman’s words.
    Maggie frowned, wondering if he was deaf. “How are you?” she said again, speaking slowly and distinctly so he could read her lips.
    “Maybe he doesn’t understand,” Veronica suggested.
    Maggie shook her head. “Why wouldn’t he understand? You told me all the Indians from the reservation speak English.”
    “Maybe he’s not from the reservation.”
    “Where else would he be from?”
    Veronica shrugged. “I don’t know, but he looks…different.”
    “Different?” Maggie looked at the Indian more closely. His hair wasn’t any longer than that of some of the Indian men she’d seen, his skin wasn’t much darker than most, and yet he did look different somehow. He held himself with a kind of pride she’d never seen in any of the reservation Indians. There was a wildness about him, a feral look in the depths of his dark eyes that reminded her of a cornered lion, or a bird of prey. She frowned at the scars on his broad chest. But surely they couldn’t be Sun Dance scars, not in this day and age.
    “ Nituwe he ?” Maggie asked, speaking in Lakota. “Who are you?”
    “ Mieyebo Cetán Nagin ,” he replied, startled that she should know his language. “I am Shadow Hawk.”
    “ Tokiyatanhan yahi he? ” Maggie asked, pleased that he could understand her. “Where have you come from?”
    “ Wicoti mitawa .”
    Maggie glanced at Veronica. “His village,” she remarked. “What village do you think he means?”
    Veronica shrugged. “I don’t know. There are no villages near here.”
    With a shake of her head, the housekeeper walked past Maggie and placed the breakfast tray on the bed. “ Wóyute ,” she said, looking at the Indian. “Food.”
    Shadow Hawk stared at the Indian woman for a moment. She was tall, with deep-set black eyes and black hair that showed a few streaks of gray. She wore a loose white top, a colorful skirt similar to the ones Apache women wore, and beaded moccasins. She returned his gaze as though she were also studying him, and then she gestured at the tray.
    “ Yúta ,” she said in a motherly tone. “Eat.” Shadow Hawk glanced from the Indian woman to the tray on the bed, his dark eyes wary.
    “Well, maybe you can find out where he came from,” Veronica said. “I have a pie in the oven that’s