Chapter Nine
Okonsa stood outside the rear door of the kitchen resting his foot on the stone that served as a step. One stroke at a time, he leisurely shaved the bark off a stick with his long-bladed hunting knife.
He could hear his sister singing. Her voice made him smile. She had been so unhappy since the death of her husband, He-Whose-Name-Could-Not-Be-Spoken, Okonsa's best friend. She had hoped to have children by him. Instead he had been killed in a skirmish with the British.
The truth was that he'd been killed when their party had attacked the redcoat soldiers, but no one knew that. Everyone in the village thought the soldiers had attacked them. It was the way Okonsa wanted it. It was the only way to make the Shawnee of the Turtle Clan understand.
Okonsa heard Little Weaver approach the door. He stepped out of the way just before she threw a pan of dirty water onto the ground.
"You splash me, sister," he said in Shawnee.
She glanced at him and then clunked back into the kitchen in her leather shoes.
Okonsa hated to see her like this, working like a dog for the white swine. It made no sense to him. White men had killed her husband. White men had killed their father and had raped and tortured their mother. How could she want to be one of them?
He followed her into the kitchen that stank of lye soap and burnt animal fat. "This man came to tell you it is time you pack your sleeping mat."
She halted and faced him, the dishpan still in her arms. "What do you mean?"
"In Shawnee," he corrected. "The soldiers might hear us."
Reluctantly, she spoke in Shawnee. "You tell this woman she must go. Fire Dancer tells this woman we do not go yet. He waits for the Frenchmen. They will talk of peace again with Major Albertson."
Okonsa tucked his knife into its sheath and the stick into his belt to work on later. "There will be no peace. We do not go yet, but the time draws near. This man will come for you, sister, and we will leave this foul place."
Little Weaver set down the dishpan. "I will make ready. When you come for me, brother, I will follow."
He picked up a cold corn biscuit from the tree trunk table as he passed it on his way out the door. He had expected more of a fight out of her. This was good. Maybe she had spent enough time with the white men to know that she wanted no part of them. "This man must go away. Two days, maybe three. When he returns, we will go home." He hesitated at the door. "Only do not tell our brother, Fire Dancer." He grinned. "It will be a surprise."
"What will be this surprise?" Fire Dancer spoke the last word in lightly accented English.
Okonsa tried not to appear alarmed by his cousin's sudden appearance. He rearranged his testicles beneath his loin skin. "If I tell you of this surprise, it will not be a surprise." His gaze met Fire Dancer's and he grinned boyishly. "No?"
Fire Dancer made that face he always made when he was suspicious of Okonsa. "Why are you inside the fort walls, brother, now that darkness has fallen and the great gates are closed?"
Okonsa swaggered beside his cousin. Both men were careful to walk along the palisade fence inside the shadows so as not to be detected by the redcoats.
"I would ask you the same, Fire Dancer."
"I but look after my cousins."
Okonsa waved his finger. "I am not a boy any longer that you must follow me day and night."
"When we were boys, you found trouble when I did not follow you, Okonsa."
Okonsa ground his teeth. He was in a good mood and he would not let Fire Dancer ruin it. It was a strange relationship the two shared. Their mothers were sisters. When his parents died it was Fire Dancer's mother who took him and Little Weaver in and made them her own. Okonsa loved Fire Dancer for all that he was. And he hated him for all that he was.
"Battered Pot tells this man you, and he, and six others leave at dawn. I asked him where you go but he made no reply." Fire Dancer stopped beside the corner of one of the fort's outbuildings. This one held black powder and munitions. The door was locked with an iron padlock. "Where do you go, Okonsa?" Fire Dancer probed.
Okonsa shrugged and walked on. "Only hunting."
"He says you will be gone a sunset or two, perhaps three."
Okonsa nodded. He had learned long ago that the trick to lying was to believe in your own lies. "This is true, brother. The white manake have hunted this land until there is not a decent buck for a day's run. My men and I, we will bring back fresh meat. You can take some to the white woman, if you want." He felt a stiffening in his man rod at his mention of the red-haired woman. "Better yet. This man will take it to her himself," he baited.
Fire Dancer glanced at him, but would not take the worm. "We go home to the village soon. I think it will be better for all of us. Your head is too full of English things, the same as your sister's."
Okonsa stroked his scalp lock of hair thoughtfully. "You are wise to take our men and sister back to the village. This talk of peace is a waste of a man's breath." He slashed his hand in the air. "There will be no peace. If we don't kill them first, they will kill us. All of us. They will take our land. Our women. Our people will be broken. I say we kill them all now while they sleep."
"That is why the chief sent me and not you to these peace talks." Fire Dancer halted at the rope that dangled from the wall. "Go, Okonsa. Go back over the white fence before you are caught and we both are hanged from our gizzards."
"What? You do not come?" Okonsa mocked. "Do not tell this man you court the white woman with the fire hair."
"Good night, brother."
"Aieee!" Okonsa grinned. "You like her too, eh?" Then he frowned. "But this man had thought he might have her for himself. She is hot for me, you know."
"You think all maidens are hot for you." Fire Dancer slapped him lightly on his chest. "I told you. Stay away from Mack-en-zie."
"Ah , so you did. So I will." Okonsa winked. Long ago he had learned to say what others wanted him to. "Good night, brother. Sweet dreams."
"Good night," Fire Dancer answered. "Go carefully and do not get yourself into trouble that you cannot find your way out of."
"Me?" Okonsa grabbed the rope. "This man does not fear. You will rescue me, brother, should I stumble." His gaze hardened. "You always do."
Then he shimmied up the rope into the darkness and away from the man he wanted so desperately to be.
Mary pressed her hand to Lieutenant John Allen's bare, hairy chest as he rolled off her onto his back on the narrow cot. The only light in the kitchen came from the coals that still glowed in the stone fireplace. In the corner of the kitchen was where she slept, on this soldier's cot Major Albertson had given her.
Mary rolled onto her side and wiped the beads of sweat from her upper lip. It was hot inside the kitchen, too hot for sleeping or lovemaking, but John refused to go with her to the open forest. Something about privacy , he had said.
Mary draped her bare leg over John's legs and leaned to brush her breast against his arm.
He sighed and tucked his hand behind his head. "Ah, Mary, you're a sweet dear." He squeezed her breast. "As sweet as any dairy maid in Sussex."
She smiled, tracing a pattern with her finger on his sweaty chest. "You are stallion, John of my heart." She laughed huskily. Truth was, his man-stick was not particularly impressive, nor was his ability to please a woman on the sleeping mat. But that came with time in a relationship, didn't it? It had been so with her husband.
Mary rested her head on John's shoulder. She wished he would bathe more often. She had even tried to get him to swim in the stream one night with her, but he'd refused. She wrinkled her nose. All white men smelled, so she guessed she would get used to it, eventually. When she lived in England across the great ocean in a fine house she would be surrounded by smelly Englishmen and their women.
"John?"
He had closed his eyes. "Mary?"
"John, it is time we speak."
He didn't open his eyes. "Mmmhmmm."
"Soon the peace talks will be over. My brothers will go back to village." She waited for a response. She didn't get one. "John?" She pushed him with her hand.
He opened his eyes. They were as blue as the Father's sky. She liked his blue eyes.
"Did you hear this woman speak? I said, soon I will have to go."
"You don't think your brothers would allow you stay through my tour? I've only another six months in this Godforsaken wilderness and then it will be home I go. Home to Sussex and my mother's pudding."
"It would not be right for this woman to stay in the fort without her brothers. Not a woman unmarried."
He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry to hear that, love." He shifted in the bed, making himself more comfortable. "I'll miss you when you're gone."
The conversation was not going as Mary had hoped. She had hoped than when she told her soldier she had to leave, he would declare his eternal love for her and offer to wed her now. Tonight. Even a promise of hands would be enough to keep Okonsa and Fire Dancer from forcing her to return to their village.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again. "John."
His eyes were closed. "Mary, be a dear and allow me to sleep an hour, no more. My watch ends at two and it's necessary that I be on the palisade to turn over my duties to the next man."
"John." She punched his arm. "Did you hear what this woman said?"
When she punched him, his eyes flew open. "Ouch!" He rubbed his arm. "You said you were going back to your village. What else would you have me hear, wench?"
She lowered her gaze. "If you are going to wed this woman, it must be soon. Word must be sent to my mother."
He sat up instantly. "If I'm going to what?"
"W . . . wed this woman. Make to marry." She rose to her knees behind him and wrapped her arms around him. He jerked away from her and climbed off the bed.
"Marry you?" He picked up his dirty red uniform breeches from the floor and pulled them on with jerky movements. "Whatever gave you the notion I intended to wed you?"
The tone in his voice made Mary reach for the holey linen sheet on the edge of the camp cot and cover her nakedness. She wasn't ashamed of her body, but she was ashamed of herself. She realized she may have made a mistake. A terrible mistake. "You . . . you told this woman you love her. You say she is beautiful. You say she is your stars in your heaven."
He tucked his flaccid stick into his breeches and yanked on the laces. "I never said I was going to marry you." He laughed. "I never said any such thing."
She watched him as he dropped his white shirt over his head. "No. You did not say marry, but you said love. You . . . you take this woman's body to be yours. In my village, among my people, if you say love, if you accept a woman's gift of her flesh, a man marries the woman."
"Well, this isn't the futtering village, and I am not one of your people." He stuffed his shirt into his breeches and reached for his redcoat, obviously in a hurry to get out. "I've already got a nag for a wife at home."
She lowered her gaze. He hadn't told her he was married. All she could think of was the grass-mat floor of her mother's wigwam. She wanted to walk on the polished floor boards John had described. She wanted to see his mother's painted china. She wanted to see the orangery, even though she didn't know what one was. "John, this woman . . . this woman would be second wife." It wasn't what she had hoped for, being a man's number two wife. The Lenape didn't usually even approve of multiple marriages, except when they were made necessary by war or famine. But it would be worth being a less important wife, if only she could live in a stone and glass house. If only she could taste butter cake.
He propped his leg on an overturned bucket and rolled up his wool stockings. He had the strangest look in his eyes. "Second wife? You think I'm some heathen that I would defy God's law? You ignorant savage. We Englishmen do not take second wives."
Savage. Heathen . She knew these words well. They were bad words. Hateful words. And they stung. "You do not take second wives?" There were tears in her eyes. "But you do make love to women when your wife waits for you in your home?" She wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand. "This woman thinks you are savage, John Allen."
The soldier slapped her hard across her face. Mary closed her eyes and lifted her palm to her cheek. His strike smarted, but the pain was not nearly as great as the pain in her heart.
Mary sat on her knees, her eyes closed. She waited until she heard him go and then she laid back on the lumpy cot. Tears welled in her eyes, but they did not flow. She would not cry for herself, only for the baby that grew inside her.
Barefooted, Mackenzie hopped from one flat rock to the next. She laughed as she splashed cool water on her legs. It was a beautiful, hot afternoon. The sun shone, but the thick foliage of the trees shaded her from the burning rays. The forest was filled with insect and bird song and Mackenzie felt truly happy.
Everything was going so well for her. The portrait of Fire Dancer was nearly complete and she knew it was the best work she'd ever done.
Each night he came to her and told her stories of his people and their land. Major DuBois would be here within two or three days. Then she would paint him. She refused to think about what would happen then. She'd not think about going home and ruin her joy.
Mackenzie lifted her blue sprigged skirt to her knees and skipped to the next rock. Having forgone her corset weeks ago, she felt carefree and cool wearing only her shift, her father's shirt, and her skirt. The women at home would have been mortified. Mrs. Faye and Mrs. Canter would probably have fainted at the sight of her dressed like this. But it was so hot and Mackenzie was so far from civilization that it didn't matter.
Fire Dancer said the women in his village wore no corset, nor any bodice or shirt at all in the heat of the summer. Bare breasted, he said they were. What would Mrs. Faye and Mrs. Canter think of that? Compared to the Lenape woman, Mackenzie figured, she really wasn't so shocking, after all.
The sound of a musical note in the trees caught Mackenzie's attention. She saw nothing, but the sound of the sweet notes of a flute were unmistakable. Mackenzie smiled. She knew who played the pipe.
Fire Dancer was a romantic suitor beyond her expectations. He sang to her in his strange language. He played his bone flute for her. He brought gifts of shiny stones and bright feathers. Last night he had brought her a fistful of flowers he picked for her in the forest. Of course, he wasn't really a suitor. Mackenzie knew that, but it was fun to pretend.
She stood on her tiptoes on the rock and pirouetted in the direction of the sound of the music. "Fire Dancer?" She didn't call too loudly for fear one of the soldiers would hear her and come running. She sneaked out the back gate to come here, hoping Fire Dancer would follow her. Seeing him only in the wee hours of the night just wasn't enough anymore.
"Fire Dancer?" She jumped to another rock, and stepped into the water to wade toward the bank. The cold water made gooseflesh on her bare legs. "If you don't show yourself," she said to the trees, "I'll go back to the fort."
She climbed up the bank and turned, resting her hands on her hips. She could still hear the magical flute music. Each note was hollow and resonant. It was one of those tunes that made a strange ache in one's heart. It had to be a love song.
"Fire Dancer," she whispered. He was so close. Where was he? Then she noticed his bare legs swinging from a tree limb on the far side of the stream, the rest of his body obscured by the leaves.
"There you are," she called.
The music stopped and in one smooth motion he leaped from the tree onto the mossy bank. "The water feels good, ah?"
She smiled. "Yes. Ah," she pronounced, proud that she was picking up a few words of Shawnee.
He pointed upstream. "Not far from this place is a pool. You would go with me?" He held out his hand.
"You mean swimming?"
"Bathing. Swimming. It is much the same to this man." He still held out his hand, beckoning her.
The notion was shocking. Tempting. It was so damned hot and sticky today. Mackenzie could imagine the cold water trickling down her back. She could imagine washing her hair in the free-flowing water instead of with a pitcher of water and a pan in the kitchen.
Then, there was another matter to consider. Alone, they could touch, they could kiss. Mackenzie spent a lot of time these days thinking of kissing . . . thinking of what it would be like to experience even more intimacy . . .
Before she could change her mind, Mackenzie grabbed her stockings and boots, dumped them into her dry water bucket and waded across the stream toward him. "You know, if my father catches us, he'll hang us both 'till we're dead, and that will be the end of the peace talks . . ."
"This man does not care to take his last breath at the end of a British manake rope." When they reached the far side of the stream, he took her hand in his. "But if this man must hang, then to hang beside you, Mackenzie, would make my heart sing."
She laughed. "You have a strange way with words, Fire Dancer. You compliment me by saying you'd like to share the noose with me." She laughed again, swinging her hand and his.
They walked along the stream bank for fifteen or twenty minutes. Mackenzie thought nothing of her father, or the fort, or even the portrait of Fire Dancer beneath her bed. She was living for the moment, today, and it was turning out to be one of the best days she'd ever had.
The terrain grew rockier as Fire Dancer led Mackenzie around a bend in the stream. The stream was wider here and the water ran deeper. She could tell by the movement on the surface of the water.
"This is the place this man likes to come when he wishes to leave the fort. This man rests here when he wishes not to think of fighting, or sickness, or the land he fears his people will lose."
Mackenzie set down her bucket and stared at the inviting swirl of water in the center of the stream. If she was going to do this, it had to be now. She couldn't be gone too long from the fort, or her father or Josh might realize she wasn't in her chamber.
Getting up her nerve to disrobe in front of Fire Dancer, Mackenzie unhooked her skirt and stepped out of it.
He stood behind her and said nothing.
She pulled her linen shirt over her head and let it float to the mossy ground. She knew he watched her. She knew how sheer her white shift must be in this bright sunlight. Slowly, she walked toward the water. She felt self-conscious, but not enough to cover herself. It seemed that their relationship had reached a point where ideas of right and wrong were no longer so easily defined. Swimming, half-naked with Fire Dancer seemed right. It was what he wanted, else why would he have brought her? It was what she wanted, else she'd not have come.
Mackenzie heard him follow behind her.
She grasped the trunk of a sapling and stepped off the grassy bank into the knee-deep water. She caught her breath as she adjusted to the shock of the cold. The water moved behind her, splashing her back as Fire Dancer approached. Nervous at the thought of him so near, and feeling vulnerable, she plunged in head-first.
Mackenzie came up for air in the center of the stream where the water was waist-deep. Soaking wet, her shift clung to her breasts. Her cold, hard nipples stuck out like raisins on an oatmeal cookie. They couldn't be missed by man or beast.
Fire Dancer waded toward her, the muscles of his bare chest rippling as he walked. He was a small, compact man compared to many Englishmen she knew, but he gave off a sense of power and confidence unlike any man she had ever known. As she stared at his bare torso, she tried not to think about whether or not he still wore his loin cloth.
She placed her hands over her breasts with a latent sense of modesty and watched him wade through the water. He was so graceful. He had such a presence about him. He truly was a prince.
At two arms' length from her, he dove under the water with a splash. Mackenzie covered her face and gave a squeal of laughter. The water was so cold that it made her teeth chatter.
A second later he came up behind her. She was ready for him. "Not so close." She splashed water at him playfully.
He tipped his head back and ran his hands from his forehead back, over his hair. The water ran in rivulets from his sleek black hair, over his shoulders, down his powerful arms.
"It is a good place?" He smiled.
She smiled back. "Ah."
They stood in the water, face to face and studied each other. The same electricity that Mackenzie had felt in her room the other night was here. It was so strong that she could feel it, smell it, taste it.
She wanted to taste him. She wanted to feel his wet skin beneath her fingertips. A part of her wanted to hide her nearly naked breasts from him, yet a part of her wanted to share them with him.
"Well, are you going to kiss me or not?" The words popped out of her mouth before she had time to weigh the consequences. This was why she had really come, wasn't it? To make love, at least in some capacity.
He waded toward her. "Only if you wish it, Mackenzie. This man would not take advantage of you. You are an innocent in the ways of men and women. Innocent of your own desires."
She felt her cheeks color at his bluntness on this subject, although she didn't know why. He was blunt about the things that proper English men and women didn't speak of. Why should this be any different?
He brought his hands through the water and rested them on her hips. She leaned forward; her arms still covered her chest. When his lips touched hers, she raised her hands and slid them over his shoulders. The water was so cold. He was so warm.
Mackenzie kissed him once, twice, three times. Her tongue tangled with his in a frenzy of passion they equally shared. When he lifted his hand from her hip to move higher, she didn't stop him. This was what she wanted. It was what she had thought of when she lay alone on her cot at night, her own hands on her breasts. She had thought of his hands down there , even.
The wet material of her shirt was rough on her nipples. She could feel her breasts responding, even before he cupped one with his warm hand.
"Oh," she sighed. She closed her eyes and pressed her mouth to his collar bone.
Fire Dancer kissed her neck and nibbled at her earlobe. He stroked her nipple with the pad of his thumb. She didn't understand how it was connected to her breasts, but between her legs she felt a pulsing warmth.
Mackenzie smoothed her hands over his shoulders, his chest. She loved the way his hard muscles felt beneath her hands. The cold water emphasized the heat of his sun-kissed skin beneath her fingertips.
She relaxed muscle by muscle. The caress of his hands made her sigh, made her moan. His touch made her want more. It made her want the world to be different. It made her wish that somehow she could be with this man forever. Mackenzie brushed her mouth against his and squeezed her eyes shut. She kissed him again and darted her tongue out to touch his.
Fire Dancer abruptly pulled away. He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth.
She opened her eyes to see the back of his head as he swam away. "Where are you going?" she called after him with disappointment. Her heart was pounding, her pulse still throbbing. "Is something wrong? Didn't you like it?
"I brought you to this place to swim, not to kiss. This man swims."
Understanding his meaning, she took a deep breath to calm herself. She was beginning to understand his Indian logic. He meant that he was afraid they were getting carried away with their emotion . . . with their feelings for each other.
He was right. Maybe it was time they cooled off, before they did something they might regret later. Mackenzie had enjoyed the touching and kissing, but she wasn't sure she was ready for anything more. To take that final step . . . to actually make love to Fire Dancer . . . there would be no way to turn back from that.
She dove into the water and joined him on the far side of the bank. They swam under water and above. They splashed each other. Once he lifted her and threw her high in the air. She landed in the center of the stream with a great splash and didn't surface until she had him firmly by the ankle and pulled him under.
Near the bank, Fire Dancer showed her how to catch minnows in her hands. He pointed out a turtle sleeping lazily on a warm rock in the sun on the far side of the stream. They kissed and laughed. They touched a little, but Fire Dancer seemed to understand her vulnerability. With some sense of honor she didn't comprehend, he took no advantage of her vulnerability, even though she half-hoped he would.
They must have swam for an hour, and then Mackenzie waded out and plopped herself in a sunny spot in the grass to dry her hair. She certainly couldn't go back to the fort looking like this.
Fire Dancer emerged behind her . . . naked as the day he was born.
Mackenzie's mouth dropped open. She should have looked away. But she couldn't. She knew full well what a man's parts looked like. It looked like something akin to a turtle without its shell, and she'd never found it particularly interesting before. But Fire Dancer's was the same bronze hue as the rest of his skin, and bigger than she'd expected.
He paid her no attention as she stared, but strode to where he had left his loin cloth and vest on a branch.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, feeling that warmth between her legs again. The warmth spread and became something of an ache. Her desire was so strong for him that she could almost taste it. Strangely, Mackenzie felt enlightened. So was this how God had meant it to be between a man and woman.
He turned his back to her and retrieved his clothing, the muscles of his taut buttocks rippling as he stepped into the loin cloth and tied it on. She was disappointed that he had covered himself, but a little relieved as well.
He walked over to her and she laid back in the grass and closed her eyes against the brightness of the sun. She knew she left nothing to his imagination as to what her body looked like. The wet, white shift clung to every curve.
Fire Dancer tossed his knife on the grass and stretched out beside her. He turned his head so that she could see into his eyes. They kissed and she closed her eyes again. Every nerve ending in her body tingled. The nearness of him warmed her skin. She wanted to raise up on her elbow and kiss him again, but she didn't. She didn't because she was afraid she'd not be able to stop herself. She was afraid she would hand this savage heathen her maidenhead right here under the open sky. She was afraid she would enjoy every moment of it. Maybe that was what she wanted, all along, deep down, for him to take the initiative. Why else would she lie here nearly naked?
Fire Dancer slipped his arm under her and cradled her against him. She rested her cheek on his broad, still damp, shoulder. He laid his hand on her rib cage, but made no attempt to stroke her.
"This man knows what we both want, Mack-en-zie. But it would not be right. I have no right. I cannot take you as my wife. I cannot take you as my lover."
A strange sense of disappointment came upon Mackenzie and she closed her eyes, afraid she might tear up. What was wrong with her? Of course, he was right. They couldn't make love. What if she became with child? Not even Josh Watkins would take a woman tainted by an Indian's seed.
She snuggled against Fire Dancer, wishing somehow that things could be different. "You're right," she whispered when she trusted herself to think. "I want you. I can feel it from the tips of my toes." She wiggled her toes. "To the top of my head." She kept her eyes closed so that she wouldn't have to meet his gaze. "But her maidenhead is the only thing a woman has to give to her husband. I doubt that I will ever marry." Now that I have met you , she thought. "But if I do, I must have that gift to give my husband on our wedding night."
"This man understands the wisdom of your words." He kissed her again. It was a gentle kiss not of passion, but of understanding and respect.
"I'm tired," Mackenzie sighed. It was so comfortable here in the grass under the hot sun, with her Indian's arms wrapped around her. Before she realized it, Mackenzie drifted off to sleep.
"Mack-en-zie."
Mackenzie felt someone shake her.
"Mack-en-zie, you must wake."
Her eyes flew open and she sat up, disoriented. They were still on the stream bank, but the sun was lower in the sky. She must have fallen asleep.
Fire Dancer strode toward a tree to retrieve his vest and belt, his knife clutched in his hand. "Hurry. You must dress."
Mackenzie jumped up. Her shift was dry but wrinkled. Her hair was a mess of dry tangles. How long had she slept? She grabbed her skirt. "What's wrong?"
He strapped on his belt and pulled a knife the length of his forearm from its sheath. "The fort. Trouble . . ."