Chapter Eleven
"Come along, Deb-or-ah!" Bee tugged at her arm. "It will be fun!"
Deborah shook her head dismally. "No, really Bee, I'd rather not."
The little boy got down on his hands and knees in front of her and stared at her face. "I'm sorry that you are unhappy here. I was unhappy too when first I came, but only because I was afraid. Happiness will soon come to you here."
"I'm not staying, Bee. I must go home to my family." She tossed a stick into the fire burning in the center of Snow Blanket's wigwam.
"Then I am sorry for you, because . . ." He slipped his hand into hers. "But if you will not go harvest nuts, then I will not go. I will stay here and be your nitis."
Deborah studied the small dark hand in hers. "Your nit-is? What's that?"
"I am Tshingee's nitis. He taught me the word. It means friend. But you can be my friend, too. Tshingee says a man counts his happinesses by the number of friends he has."
Deborah laughed. "I could use a nitis."
"Will you come then?" His face was bright with hope.
She nodded, smiling. "All right, my nitis. I will go nut gathering with you, but only for a while."
The little boy leaped to his feet. "Onna says we can take these baskets." He hurried to retrieve two bark containers from the far side of the wigwam. "You just put them over your head like this." He demonstrated, putting his head through the soft leather strap attached to the basket. "Then you can pick with your hands!" He waved his little hands, bouncing up and down.
Deborah took the basket and placed it around her neck. "I'm ready."
"We'll have to hurry." He ran out of the wigwam. "The others have already left."
Deborah followed Bee through the center of the village, listening to his chatter. He spoke half in English and half in Lenni Lenape so sometimes it was difficult to understand what he was saying.
The little boy led her through the walnut grove and over the stream. "These have already been picked," he told her, motioning to the trees that stretched high above their heads. "But I know where there's more!"
"Don't you get me lost," Deborah threatened.
Bee laughed. "I would never do that." He hit his chest with his fist. "I am a brave Lenni Lenape warrior. I will protect my woman!"
Deborah couldn't help laughing at the boy's antics as they moved deeper into the forest. It felt good to be outside in the fresh crisp air. Another week had passed and still there had been no word from Host's Wealth. Since that night at the harvest celebration Deborah had not seen Tshingee. He had gone on a hunting trip, leaving the following morning, and had not yet returned.
"Just a little further," Bee hollered over his shoulder.
Deborah ducked and dodged branches, stepping over a fallen log. "Wait for me, Bee! You're going too fast." She followed him into an area where there was no underbrush.
"See, I told you! He spread his arms.
Deborah looked up, smiling. They stood in a small glove of ancient black walnut trees. The trees were massive with twisted limbs and huge blackened trunks towering high above the surrounding trees. The ground was littered with thousands of nuts in their black casings.
"Look at them all! You certainly did know where to find the nuts, didn't you!" Deborah crouched and began to pick up walnuts. Then she tossed one, smacking Bee in the arm with it.
The boy laughed, bombarding her with a nut. Soon the two were laughing and dodging trees in earnest battle.
"Ouch!" came a feminine voice from the brush.
Deborah and Bee turned to see Suuklan coming through a thicket, massaging her forehead. "If you did not wish to share your nuts, Bee, words would have been kinder," she told him in Lenni Lenape. The girl stopped short when she spotted Deborah.
Deborah forced a smile. "Sorry. We didn't hear you coming."
The young woman nodded. "I can go." She walked away.
Deborah stood for a moment in indecision and then ran after her. "Don't be a goose. There are more nuts here than Bee and I could possibly carry back to the village. Pick with us."
Suuklan smiled hesitantly. "The other women are further west, but the nuts are not so many," she said in English. "I remembered this grove that Tshingee . . ." She dropped to her knees and began to retrieve walnuts.
Deborah sighed. Suuklan reminded her of her own sister Elizabeth. Afraid of her own shadow. She knelt beside the girl, wondering what Tshingee saw in the little mouse.
The two women gathered nuts in silence while Bee continued to chatter. Soon he grew tired of the harvesting and abandoned his basket to chase a squirrel.
"Don't go too far!" Deborah warned. "Our baskets are nearly full. It's going to be getting dark soon."
Bee disappeared into the brush and for a few minutes the women worked side by side filling their baskets in silence. Suddenly there was a rumbling, snarling sound and the crash of brush.
"Deb-or-ah!" Bee shouted. "Deb-or-ah! Suuklan! Uishameheela! Run!"
Startled, Deborah stood. "Bee! What is it?"
The boy came running into the clearing. "Bear! Run!" Behind him there was a loud splintering of wood as something large pursued him.
"Into the tree," Deborah shouted. "You can't outrun it." She caught the frightened little boy around the waist and heaved him over her head. Bee grasped a branch and swung up.
"Into the tree, Suuklan!" Deborah shouted over her shoulder, scrambling to climb up behind Bee.
Suuklan screamed in terror, running for the nearest black walnut tree, her basket clutched in her hands. She stretched, but could not reach the lowest limb. Sobbing she ran to the next tree, clawing at the bark of the trunk. The basket tipped over her head and showered her with the pelting walnuts.
A huge black bear burst through the tangled brush howling and throwing itself onto its hind legs. Its mouth gaped open and it gnashed its great white teeth in fury.
"Jump!" Deborah shouted. "Let go of the damned basket and jump, Suuklan!"
The tiny Lenni Lenape woman leaped again and again but to no avail. In utter fright she crumbled to the ground. "I cannot! I cannot!" she shrieked as the bear grew closer.
Deborah hesitated for only an instant and then swung down out of the safety of her tree. "Stay there, Bee. No matter what happens, you stay there!" she ordered over her shoulder.
"No!" the little boy shouted. "It will kill you both!"
But Deborah was already racing across the grove to the tree where Suuklan lay. She darted into the bear's path and the she-bear growled, howling horrendously.
"Get up! Get up!" Deborah demanded.
Suuklan stumbled to her feet, clutching the tree trunk.
Deborah cupped her hands. "Step up. Now, damn it!"
Shaking with fear, Suuklan stepped into the white woman's hand and Deborah boosted her up. "Climb higher," Deborah shouted. "Make room for me, I'm coming up!"
Deborah heard the bear's angry growl and the swoosh her massive paw made in the air as she struck out at the human. Suuklan's scream echoed through the forest. Deborah was in midair as the bear struck with its front paw slicing through her leather tunic and into the soft flesh of her buttocks.
Deborah grimaced, swinging onto the lowest branch and scurrying for the next. She could still feel the bear's hot breath on her legs and smell its heavy, clinging odor. Higher and higher she climbed, shoving Suuklan ahead of her until she was positive they were out of reach of the frenzied animal.
Suuklan sobbed, holding tightly to a branch. "You bleed! You bleed!"
There was a numbness across Deborah's backside that made her brush her hand over it. It was a moment before she realized that the sticky warm stuff was blood. She lifted her hand and looked at the red staining.
"You're hurt." Suuklan wailed. "You bleed. You bleed."
"Oh, for Christ's sake, shut up!" Deborah snapped. "I'm all right." But the moment she tried to sit on a tree limb, she realized she wasn't. Pain shot through her backside and into her back and she winced, bouncing to her feet.
Suuklan continued to sob, tremors wracking her body.
"Deb-or-ah," came Bee's timid voice from a far tree. "Are you hurt badly?"
"No, Bee. Just scratched." The she-bear circled the tree she and Suuklan had taken refuge in. Growling and swinging onto her hind legs. "We're all right Bee," Deborah repeated.
"I'm sorry," the little boy called, trying desperately not to cry. "I knew not to play with the baby bear but he was fluffy. I just wanted to touch him."
Deborah sighed, balancing on a branch while she held on to the one Suuklan was perched on. Through the brush she could see a young black bear cub running for its mother. "Don't cry, Bee. We're safe. It's a lesson you'll not forget, that's all." Through the tree limbs she could see Bee sitting dejectedly on a branch.
"Now what do we do?" the boy asked, plucking a walnut and tossing it to the ground. The mother bear had dropped onto all fours, but still circled the tree the women were in. Occasionally she snapped her massive jaws, growling angrily.
"We wait," Deborah responded, grimacing. There was now a burning heat rising from the pain in her buttocks.
"How long?"
"Until the bear's gone, Bee."
"Oh. How long will that be, Deb-or-ah?"
"I don't know, so just be sure you're well seated. I don't want you falling out of that tree. You'd make too tasty a supper."
Bee laughed in response. "I don't want to be anyone's supper!"
Laughing with him, Deborah glanced up at Suuklan above her. The young woman was now crying silently; fat wet tears rolled down her pretty cheeks. "Stop crying, Suuklan," Deborah said impatiently. "You're safe. Now we just wait."
But an hour passed and the mother-bear remained in the walnut grove, pacing, its cub at its side. They tried smacking the sow with walnuts to chase her away, but that seemed only to aggravate her. Darkness began to settle in and the pain of Deborah's injury began to worry her. The bleeding had slowed to an oozing, but she was beginning to feel dizzy. The backs of her legs were warm and sticky and pieces of her shredded hide tunic stuck to her bare skin. Because she couldn't sit, she stood, leaning in the crook of two branches.
"Bee?" Deborah called across the walnut grove.
"Yes, Deb-or-ah."
"Bee, I think maybe you need to go get help. Could you find your way back in the dark if you could get out of the tree."
The little boy bobbed up. "Of course. This Lenni Lenape warrior is not afraid of the dark."
"All right, listen carefully." Deborah gazed down at the mother bear resting beneath the tree. She seemed to be content to lick at her cub for the present. "I want you to climb out on the limb above you and swing into the next tree," Deborah continued. "Do you understand?"
"Yes!"
"Good. Then I want you to climb through the next tree and find a branch close enough to another. I want you to stay up in the trees until you can't see the bears anymore."
"Just jump from tree to tree?" He nodded vigorously. "I can do that. Can't you, too?"
Deborah glanced up at Suuklan sitting perfectly still on her branch. Her knuckles were ghostly white, she was hanging on so hard. "I don't think so, Bee. You go get someone from the village and bring them back. Can you do that?"
"I can do it!" He scrambled across a tree limb.
"Careful! I don't want you falling! What use is a warrior with a broken leg?" Deborah watched through the fading light of early evening as the boy moved from tree to tree until he disappeared from sight.
"I'm going, now," Bee called from the distance.
"Hurry, Bee. Hurry!"
The mother bear lifted her head in the direction the boy had gone, but she didn't move and Deborah heaved a sigh of relief.
Time passed and Deborah began to grow sleepy. She rested her head on a branch, wrapping her arms around a limb to keep from falling. A warmth was beginning to creep up from her toes despite the chilly air that settled in as darkness fell upon them. Suuklan sat in mute silence above her, hanging on for dear life to the thick trunk of the tree.
Deborah must have dozed off because the next thing she knew, she was falling. She stiffened, crying out, but a soft voice soothed her. "It's all right, Ki-ti-hi," the voice assured her. "Maata-wischasi. You are safe."
Deborah's eyes flew open and in the darkness she could see Tshingee's face bent over hers. He was holding her safely in his arms. She smiled sleepily. She wanted to speak, but the words just wouldn't form on her lips.
Pushing out of the tree, Tshingee landed safely on the ground with Deborah still cradled in his arms. "Can you hear me, Red Bird?"
"Yes," she forced herself to say. She didn't know why she was so sleepy. The pain in her buttocks was dull and throbbing, but it seemed to be someone else's pain rather than her own. "Bee? Suuklan?" she whispered, resting her head on Tshingee's shoulder.
"They are well. Bee says you were injured. You must tell me where you are hurt, Red Bird."
Deborah giggled. "In a very unladylike place, I fear," she slurred.
Tshingee brushed his lips against her perspiration-soaked brow. She was burning with fever. The arm he held beneath her was growing warm and sticky with oozing blood. "I'm going to take you back to the village now, so just hold on to me."
Deborah nodded, linking her fingers behind his neck. She snuggled against him, inhaling his familiar masculine scent. "To your wigwam?" she managed.
"Yes." He kissed her flushed cheeks. "Sleep now Red Bird and Tshingee will care for his woman."
The night was a blur of warmth and muddled confusion for Deborah. She drifted in and out of sleep, barely aware of the teas that were poured between her lips and the cool water that was used to cleanse her wounds. At one point there was a hot searing pain across her buttocks as if she was being poked with a branding iron but the pain was gone as quickly as it had come, mixed with the soothing hum of Tshingee's voice. Sometime in the night she grew very cold, but suddenly Tshingee was there beside her, wrapping her in the folds of a warm blanket and tucking her safely in his arms.
When Deborah woke, the sunlight was bright and startling. She was resting on her side, her head cradled in her arm. Immediately she realized that she wasn't in Snow Blanket's wigwam. Where then? She smiled. Tshingee's of course.
"So you are finally awake, lazy esquawa."
Deborah blinked and Tshingee was there, crouched beside her. He laid his hand on her forehead. The fever is nearly gone."
"I was sick? She started to roll over, but the pain that streaked up her backside made her groan. "Ouch!" She rolled back onto her side, brushing her bare backside with her hand. The tender flesh had been cleaned and covered with a soothing ointment, but here was a line of wiry threads protruding from a cut on her left buttock.
"Bear scratches always give a man illness, no matter how small they are. But my mother's herbs have brought healing. You will be fine in a couple of days."
Deborah touched her buttocks again lightly. "What are these?"
He chuckled. "There was one deep cut. It had to be sewn with porcupine needles."
"Snow Blanket stitched my bottom?" she asked, mortified.
A smile broke the smooth lines of his face. "No, I did. My hand is better than hers."
Deborah laughed, then winced, and then laughed again. She knew she should be embarrassed, but all she could do was laugh. "Ouch, that hurts."
Tshingee laughed with her, relieved that she was all right. "This will teach you not to play with a mother bear and her cub."
"Bee told you what happened?" She held her sides to keep from laughing anymore.
"He did. He told me that you risked your life for Suuklan." Tshingee's eyes were warm and bright with pride.
Deborah frowned, propping herself up on her elbow. "I was tempted to let the bear eat her."
Tshingee chuckled, stretching out beside her so that his face was only inches from hers. He toyed with her shorn lock of hair. "I have never had two maidens to fight over me before. I think perhaps I like it."
"What fighting? You said you're going to marry her. You and Suuklan are going to have little wildcats. I'm going back to Thomas Hogarth."
Tshingee traced her chin with the tip of his finger. "I am considering telling Suuklan's father that I cannot marry her."
"Why? You cannot have me. John's life depends upon my safe return." Her voice was barely a whisper. "We both know that."
"I know. But my . . . my feelings for you have made me realize that it would be unfair to take Suuklan as my wife. Ours souls are not matched. If we marry, I will be unhappy; she will be unhappy. My onna has been against the match since the beginning."
"Will her father be angry?" Deborah studied his bronzed sculptured face, mesmerized by the way the sunlight played off his suntanned skin.
"Not angry. Only disappointed. Our families have been joining for many generations."
Deborah laid her hand on his shoulder, massaging it lightly through the muslin shirt he wore. "What of Suuklan?"
"She will be hurt, but she will understand. I think she already knows. Last night when I came for you, I brought Sikihiila with me among my men. It was he that she went to, not me. She is not in love with me."
"I think she is."
He shook his head. "She thinks she wants me but love is not what is in her heart. Suuklan is young. It is easy to confuse a body's wants with love when you are young."
Deborah wondered if he was referring to her as well, but she didn't ask. "I cannot lie." She smiled, brushing the seam of his leather breeches with her fingertips. "I am glad you aren't going to marry her." She giggled. "She's too tiny. You'd squash her here on your sleeping mat."
Tshingee growled, low and animal-like. "You are supposed to be ill." He slipped his hand beneath the hide blanket caressing her flat stomach and the curve of her hips.
"And you are not supposed to be taking advantage of your prisoner." She continued to caress the apex of his breeches, noting the rising bulge beneath the soft leather.
"I know," he answered honestly. "The fight within me is strong. I have never wanted a woman more than I want you Red Bird, but — "
She pressed her fingers to his lips. "No buts. I know this cannot be, but can't we pretend for a short time? Can't you give me something to carry within me the rest of days? Can't you let me give you something? Something meant for no other?"
"K'daholel," he whispered.
"What does it mean?" A heat was rising from her middle to radiate to her limbs.
"It means . . ." He took her hand, pressing a kiss to each knuckle. "It means that I love you. Deborah."
She smiled sadly. "No one has ever said that to me." She guided his hand to her breast. "So love me, just for a little while. Let me love you."
His mouth met hers in a searing kiss and the pain of Deborah's injury was forgotten. She clung to him in wanton need, flinging back her head to let him kiss the pulse of her throat.
He suckled her breast, his tongue darting out to tease her nipple into a hard, ripened peak. Deborah laughed huskily, lowering her hand until it touched his hard, throbbing shaft.
A groan rose in Tshingee's throat, but she stifled it with her mouth, kissing him deeply. With his aid she tugged off his breeches and lifted her blanket so that he could snuggle in beside her. Her hand grazed the thick muscles of his thighs as she stroked him, in awe of the power of her own touch. The rhythm of their breathing grew faster in unison as they writhed in glorious pleasure.
Tshingee brushed his fingers against the tight web of curls between Deborah's thighs and she moaned, lifting her hips to meet his gentle probing.
Come to me," Tshingee murmured in her ear. "Come to me, Ki-ti-hi."
To her surprise, he caught her around the waist and lifted her gently.
"I do not want to hurt you," he whispered.
She shook her head, flattening her body over his. "The pain is gone." She kissed him, moving carefully as she experimented with this new sensation.
The force of his hard, bulging loins pressed against her woman's mound brought a new wave of pulsating desire. Parting her legs, Tshingee guided her as she slid onto his tumescent member.
Consumed by fire, the two moved as one until the stars of the heavens burst above them, showering them in ecstasy. Kissing her damp cheeks, Tshingee lowered Deborah onto her side and wrapped her tightly in his arms. Bringing the hide blanket over his shoulders, they slept in peace.