"You will go from this place with me, walk in my footsteps?" A strained silence settled between them. "Oh, yes, Hunter, yes." "Do not make a promise of it quick. We must go west. Alone, Blue Eyes, leaving all that we are behind. All those we love, your people, my people." Loretta caught his face between her hands, shaking with the intensity of her emotions. "Hunter, are my people. I'll follow you anywhere." "I do not know the way." His voice was gravelly, the words he spoke halting. Admitting his own vulnerability didn't come easily. But this was no time for pride. If Loretta chose to follow him, her life could be at risk. He wanted her to know that. "The song says we will make a new nation, but this Comanche fears he cannot feed even two. If you walk behind me, you follow a man who is lost." Loretta encircled his waist with her arms and pressed her cheek against his chest, inhaling the scent of his skin, loving it. Her gaze settled on the gigantic moon that shone down on them. "You aren't lost, Hunter. The words in your song will guide you. And when you falter, your Great Ones will lead you--to the place we're meant to find. We will sing the People's songs to our children. The Comanche and will live as one forever. Don't you see? You and I are the beginning." She arched her back to see into his eyes. "Hunter and his yellow-hair, together as one." "You believe?" Hunter studied her, more than a little amazed. "The words of my song are inside your heart?" Smiling through tears, Loretta told him the meaning of her name. "Yes, I believe. I believe in your Great Ones, I believe in your song, but, most important, I believe in you." She touched her fingertips to the scar that lined his cheek. "I'm not afraid of anything except being without you. This morning I thought you'd been killed...I've never been so frightened. Never."