off her boots, moved the lantern to a hook just over the bed, and took out one of her two precious books. A Karl May Winnetou book, of course. Within moments she was lost in its pages, coming out only now and again to marvel that here she was, in the midst of the very people she was reading about.
She was in the middle of a descriptive passage of a herd of buffalo when a tap on the frame of the open door made her look up, as she realized that the music from the show was no longer sounding from the big tent. Kellerman and Leading Fox stood at the doorway, waiting politely for an invitation to come in.
“Please,” she said, swinging her feet and legs over the side of the bed. “Come in!” Although technically she was “entertaining” in her “bedroom,” somehow she did not feel shy or self-conscious about the situation. Perhaps that was due to the demeanor of Leading Fox, who was so solemn and dignified she could not imagine him even thinking anything improper.
“I won’t be staying,” Kellerman said, as Leading Fox entered the wagon and carefully took a seat on the bench. “Unless you would prefer me to. Leading Fox told me that you and he will be able to converse by means of your familiar spirits.”
Well, that was less than accurate, but she let it pass. “I believe that we can,” she replied, “And I am perfectly comfortable in the presence of Leading Fox, if you have work you need to do.”
“Alas, yes, I do,” Kellerman replied, with regret. “A bugle will wake the camp, and a second bugle call will announce when breakfast is ready in the mess tent. It will not be much like the breakfasts that you and I are used to, but it is quite good. You will meet with the Captain then and go to rehearsal, and he will integrate you into the show.”
Well, how he was to do that without any shared language she had no idea. Still, wasn’t that supposed to be what Leading Fox was going to address?
She thanked him, and Kellerman hurried away, vanishing immediately into the night and the camp, which had gone suddenly very quiet. These people went to bed at country hours, it seemed, no lingering at bedtime over a book or a beer. . . .
She turned to the Indian, who nodded, and whistled—not shrilly as Cody had, but softly. It sounded like a bird call, but it was answered by two winged creatures, flying in the open door. One was the Indian’s little owl, the other a night-sylph. The owl flew to the Indian’s shoulder, while the sylph balanced atop the cold stove. Her wings were a pale blue, very moth-like, and folded down her back as soon as she had landed, like a stiff cloak.
“You speak to me,” the sylph, an imperious little black-haired beauty said. “I will speak to the owl, who will tell his man what you said. And the other way around.”
Giselle nodded, and folded her hands in her lap. “Well . . . obviously Herr Leading Fox is an Elemental Master of Air?”
The sylph inclined her head to the owl, and silently conveyed what Giselle had said. The owl turned to the Indian and the same silent colloquy passed between them. It all happened in mere moments of course, in much less time than it had taken her to speak the words, and then the sylph had the reply.
“Leading Fox says that yes, he is very like that, and he is going to make it possible for you to learn English and Pawnee, as he promised.”
She was going to ask how that could be possible, but evidently the sylph already had the answer. “His owl spirit is to spend the night here, and if you command it, I am to spend the night in his teepee, and the owl will put English and Pawnee into your mind while you sleep, while I do the same for Leading Fox and our tongue.”
She blinked. “And all I have to do is tell—I mean, ask you to do this?”
The sylph lost a little of her imperious demeanor. “You—would ask me, rather than order me?” she said in astonishment.
Giselle blinked again. “Well, of course. It is always better to be friends, is it not? The only time I might give an order to one of you is if there is no time to be polite about it. And