Two years later

Dallas, Texas

“Look, Burwell, they’re just like Kit at that age. Aren’t they just the spit and image of him?”

Kit watched in quiet satisfaction as his parents passed the twins between them, the two little boys that he and Pat had just brought into the world.

His tall, grown brothers, Kyle and Kay, were bending over the big crib, laughing and making strange noises to make the babies look at them.

His eyes moved to Pat’s. She was sitting on the velvet sofa, temporarily out of the picture, and he walked over to sit down beside her and planted a gentle peck on her cheek.

She rested her head on his chest, and he put his arm around her shoulders. He had courted her on a porch, and they had sparked, and he had asked her to marry him, and they’d had a wedding. He’d done all the things she wanted, and he’d do more if she asked.

They had walked a long road together.

But he still wasn’t used to where that road had taken him. His eyes moved around his parents’ parlor. It had a high ceiling covered in tin tiles. The windows stretched almost to meet it, and everywhere he looked he saw gleaming furniture and thick carpet.

The white world still felt strange to him, but slowly he was relearning the things he’d forgotten: the sound of buggies and wagons rattling by on the street, the cool, dark interior of a mercantile, the inside of a church.

His mother’s gentle hand on his cheek, and his father’s shining eyes on him.

He was happy, he loved his new-old family, and he would die for his wife and sons.

But part of his heart would still be empty. He knew that would be true no matter what path he took.

But he had gone to his Kiowa father to tell him of the birth of his sons. He found that someone had blazed a trail, not big, but running from Lost Creek halfway to his father’s camp. It had made him sad.

Slowly but surely, the Kiowa lands were shrinking, and the white lands were growing.

But what had broken his heart was what he found when he got there. Their band had defeated White Wolf, but it had not been enough to save them. The army had found their hiding place at last, and he arrived to see blue coat soldiers guarding the camp.

They had let him see his father and brother. But Runs Toward Thunder had told him they were going to a place called Oklahoma and would have to live on a reservation there.

Kit put a hand to his eyes. Pat had told him nothing, but knowing his father, he guessed the truth. His father had seen this coming. He had let him go to spare him the fate he saw in their future.

Their parting had been bitter, because he feared, deep in his heart, that it was the last time he would see his father. He begged them to come live with him, but his father had refused.

“You can live in the white man’s world, but we cannot,” he had replied sadly. “I will die with my people.”

Kit’s eyes filled with tears to remember it, and he felt Pat’s fingers curl around his own.

Her eyes told him that she guessed what he was thinking.

“I know,” she murmured. “But there’s nothing stopping us from going to Oklahoma any time we like. And I want your little brother to come visit us.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand, and Kit understood both what she said and what she did not say.

She was telling him that his father might be too old to change, but they could make sure he had everything he needed. She was hinting that Sun Fox was young enough to learn to live in both worlds if he wanted to. That they could give him the chance for a better future than he’d have on a reservation.

Kit thought of his little brother and wondered if he’d choose the old ways, or if, like him, he would move between worlds. He didn’t know, but Sun Fox was his brother, and he would stand with him, whatever he decided.

He pulled Pat close. Life was strange. He’d had no choice when he was taken by the Kiowa, and he had no choice now about how the world had changed. But he’d learned more about it than he ever would’ve if he’d stayed with his white family. Learning had made him sad, but it had made him see.

He wished the same for his brother, and for his sons. Even if it meant that there were some who would never understand, as he still encountered. Hard looks on the street when he wore his buckskins, whispers as he passed. It was the price he paid for living in both worlds.

But he had done his best to explain his red family to his white one. He didn’t expect them to understand fully, or right away, and they hadn’t. But they had waited patiently for him, many long years.

He was prepared to be patient, too.

His mother suddenly turned her head and saw them sitting on the couch. She picked up one of the babies and carried it across the room to place it in Pat’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” she smiled. “I just can’t help it. They’re so beautiful!”
Kit’s gaze softened as he looked down at his son’s tiny face. He had walked a long, strange road. But it had come full circle at last. He wasn’t complete, he never would be, but he was happy.

He looked up to see Pat’s eyes on him, and the smile in them told him that she understood. He put his arm around her shoulders, and they put their heads together to smile down at their sons.

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