Ruth found herself being vigorously being shaken awake. "There's a horse outside, Nadua."

"Nadua?" she mumbled sleepily, not recognizing the word.

"It is your name now," Quanna said fiercely, daring her to argue. "It simply means found."

She actually liked it. She was found and seeking the lost here, so they could be found too. "Nadua," she repeated. She got to her feet and looked out the flap to see her horse staring her in the face. "He's giving me my own horse back?"

"No. He is giving it to me."

"Why is he giving it to you?"

Quanna pinched the bridge of her nose, tiring of her questions. She admitted she asked a lot of them, but there was so much about this culture she didn't know. "I am the only family you have here. The man gives a gift to the family of the woman he wants to marry."

So Quanna was an adoptive mother of sorts. That was sweet she supposed. Though the woman hadn't taken the role willingly.

After breakfast, they received a visitor. She had seen him around but couldn't recall his name. The names were all foreign to her and hard to pronounce though they were just the beginning. She had to master the language if she hoped to show the people she cared, but the Lord had seen fit to provide speakers of English until she did, which she thanked Him for repeatedly.

"This is Pahayoko's uncle," Quanna said, answering the question before she asked it.

"Is that right?" She wondered what he could possibly want with her.

The man let out a string of words in his harsh-sounding language, but he didn't look at her harshly.

"He says Pahayoko would like to marry you."

"Why doesn't he tell me himself?"

"Because that is not the way we do things."

She supposed that was a good reason, but it was peculiar to be proposed to by a relative. She didn't know what to say. What could she say? Did she even have to agree? Was Pahayoko just going to come in the middle of the night and snatch her?

Seeing her hesitation, Quanna said, "You can say no. You are considered one of the tribe. Comanche women are not slaves. They can say yes or no to the man who asks to be their husband."

"Really?"

"Yes, but you'd be wise to think on it. He is the only man here who speaks your tongue."

She'd forgotten Kid, but maybe she didn't consider him one of the tribe. Still, the fact that a man spoke the same language wasn't a high enough recommendation to her. She would obey God's word and not marry a man who didn't share her faith though it might make the tribe look on her even more disfavorably. "Then no."

The old man took it well, but then he wasn't the one asking for her hand. She hoped Pahayoko took it as well.

sss

Pahayoko wouldn't tell him how to go about marrying a woman around here as his rival. He wasn't sure Quanna would either, but she was his only option, so that's who he went to. He caught her alone, making some kind of medicinal concoction.

"I want to marry, Ruth," he said, coming straight to the point. He'd gotten the feeling that she was a woman who appreciated brevity.

"You mean Nadua."

They'd changed her named already? It figured. "If that's what she goes by now. And I don't know how I go about asking. I was hoping you could help me."

She considered him for the longest time before responding. He thought she was going to refuse. "You must give me a gift to show you can take care of her. What do you have to give?"

That was a good question. He had no horses, which must have been the purpose of the one he'd seen outside Quanna and Ruth's tent. He hoped it wasn't too late for him to ask, but she probably would have said something if it was. He had nothing but what he had snuck into camp with: the clothes on his back and his weapon. He couldn't give her his clothes but... "Thank you, ma'am. I think I know what to do now."

sss

Ruth was sewing a rip in her boot outside the tipi, making use of the sun. Quanna sewed a dress beside her. The deerskin was not as pliable as cloth and the needle was made from bone rather than metal, but the basic principles were there. "Different but not as hard to sew it as I thought."

"No. Sewing human lips together is much harder."

She let out a short bark of laughter. Quanna surely jested, but her eyes remained fixed on her work, and Ruth thought perhaps not. She didn't know if she'd issued a warning to her because of her chatter or merely made an observation, but she thought it wise to finish the task in silence.

They were interrupted by Kid's approach. He carried his firearm and gave it to Quanna, who took it.

"Why did you just give her your gun?" Ruth asked him.

"Because I don't have a ring."

She gasped. He was following the Comanche marriage custom. This was another proposal.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

"Thank you for asking, but I already told you why I can't marry you." She picked her sewing back up, praying he'd go away.

"You did tell me. Now let me tell you why I would make a good husband. I can protect and provide for you, I respect you and would allow you to do whatever you wished, but most of all I love you."

She put the sewing down again. "You can't love me. We hardly know each other. " People who had known less about each other had gotten married and gone on to have wonderful marriages. It was a weak excuse.

"I can, and I do." He motioned her to a place of privacy, and she reluctantly got up and followed. "Listen, if you want to stay here and tell about God for the rest of your life. Okay. I'll be by your side as you do it."

That had been one of her primary defenses was that he was trying to draw her away from her purpose, and now he wasn't. She still had one defense left, and it was a good one. "But you don't know and love God and that I could never abide in a husband."

"But you could abide it in an Indian husband."

"That was when I thought I didn't have the ability to say no, but I know now I do, and I refused him just like I'm refusing you." She wished Kid would have had a relative to send in his place. It would be so much easier refusing him if she didn't have to look into his soulful eyes.

"You are the most stubborn, pigheaded person I have ever met."

"I could say the same thing about you," she retorted.

"They expect you to say yes to a man sometime. That's what women here do here. They get married and have babies. If you haven't noticed that's what white women do too. All except for you."

"How do you know I've never been married?" she threw back though she hadn't.

"Because there's not a man alive who could put up with you."

She threw her hands in the air in sheer exasperation and hurt. "Oh! Why don't you go find an Indian bride and leave me be!"

"Maybe I will," he said, and this time he was the one to storm away from the argument.