Two Many Toes looked out of great big wide brown eyes at the line of braves going off to the hunt.
Their bronze skin shone in the sunlight amid paint and feathers; their faces were fierce and their muscles taut as they held their weapons; and their feet danced in place, anxious to take them to the chase.
Two Many Toes thought they were all beautiful and strong, but the beautifulest and strongest was Two Streams Come Together.
His legs stood like pillars and his chest fanned out like a peacock, proud and broad.
She whispered to herself, "You are my husband," and giggled, and hid behind the tepee to watch him longer.
Then her sister came up with a bundle of food.
"Take this to Many Faces. Quickly now!" she ordered. Everyone in the village was stern and intent right now. They did not have time for the silly fantasies of a little girl.
So Two Many Toes took the bundle and raced toward the brave at the front of the line. She was a swift runner, and she raised her chin and ran as fast as she could, remembering Two Streams standing in the line.
Only, before she had run halfway, she tripped on a gray rock and went sprawling, sending the contents of the bundle rolling across the dusty brown prairie dirt.
When she realized she had fallen right in front of Two Streams, she hid her face in the dirt and wished it were possible he had not noticed.
But a gentle hand on her back and a kind voice asking if she was alright told her that he had not only noticed, but had come to see her humiliation up close.
Dragging her eyes up to look at his, she saw them smiling and twinkling at her, and she thought that, somehow, any amount of humiliation was worth a gaze like that from him, face to face.
Flustered, she hopped up, gathering her bundle and assuring him she was not hurt.
She delivered the bundle to Many Faces, and scampered away to the quiet place under the gorse bush, where she could reimagine, and examine, and cherish the look she had seen on his face, like one of the treasures she kept buried in a rabbit skin under the bush; and where she could study her bleeding knee and wash it with water from the muddy river, and hope it left a long scar to remember him by.
Later, when the braves had filed out of the village, she went back and found the gray rock, and dug it out of the dirt with her fingers. Then she took it to the quiet place, where she held it tight to her heart and asked the Great Spirit to watch over her beloved, and give him strength to kill many, and bring him home safe to her, before burying it in the rabbit skin.
* * * * He did return safely, though he was limping upon a bandaged foot. She heard he had lost a toe to a heavy hoof in the hunt.
Two Many Toes wished she had an extra toe to give him. If only her grandmother had been right when she named her at birth. But alas, she was feeble and half-blind, and joined Two Many Toes' mother in the Great Hunting Ground soon after that sad day.
She also noticed that the fall she had taken had left no scar whatever on her knee.
Two Streams Come Together did not seem to remember their fated meeting, and showed much greater interest in her older sister, Hair of a Raven.