He let her see all of it. The hope, the fear, everything he wasn't sure how to put into proper words. Slowly, her mouth curved into a smile that lit her whole face from within. "Yes, I want to marry you, Wyatt. " The camp erupted into celebration. Drums started up somewhere behind them.
People cheered and danced, and Grey Owl raised both hands for quiet. "Then there will be a wedding. " His voice carried clean across the valley. "Two days of celebration, we will call the Allied bands. A wedding nobody here forgets. Those two days passed in a blur of activity.
Wyatt found himself an honored guest everywhere he turned. Warriors who'd eyed him with open suspicion at first now greeted him with genuine respect. Women prepared elaborate meals. Children decorated the camp with wild flowers and bright cloth. Naellili walked him through the meaning behind every custom, every ritual.
Patient with each question he had, he picked up words in her language, tried foods he'd never once encountered, sat through old stories around the fire that made the whole camp laugh or fall quiet by turns. "Certain about this? " Naellili asked him the night before the wedding. "Your whole life changes after tomorrow. No more living alone on that quiet ranch. Wyatt took her hand.
Don't want to live alone anymore. And that ranch won't be just mine after tomorrow. It'll be ours. A place where both our worlds can meet. A bridge.
Exactly that. The wedding day dawned golden and clear. The whole camp gathered in a wide clearing set aside for ceremonies of real weight, and Grey Owl himself presided, dressed in his finest ceremonial clothing. Naellili wore a dress of soft buckskin worked with beads and feathers, her black hair loose and crowned with wild flowers, her face bare to the sun for everyone gathered to see. No veil this time, nothing hidden at all, just open joy written plain across her features.
Wyatt wore clothing the tribe had made for him, a blend of Apache and cowboy styling that said plainly what neither of them could quite manage in words. Two worlds meeting halfway. Drums kept a slow, steady rhythm beneath the whole ceremony, and elders from the Allied band stood in a wide circle around the clearing, watching with expressions why it couldn't quite read. Curiosity, some of it, and something that looked a great deal like cautious hope. Grey Owl spoke at length about respect, about the strength found in unity, about how real love has a way of outlasting whatever differences try to stand in its path.
Wyatt and Naellili held each other's eyes through every word, hands laced together the whole time. When the moment came for gifts, warriors carried forward chests filled with gold, fine furs, beautiful beadwork, more wealth than Wyatt had ever laid eyes on in one place. The Grey Owl raised a hand before the ceremony could move past it. There is one gift greater than these, one that will change far more than a single household. At his signal, representatives from five different allied bands stepped forward.