Katari did, however, have much practice curing hides, making pottery, and sewing with tiny neat stitches. She had a steady hand. Drawing one smooth razor over a White man’s face without cutting the flesh should not prove to be too difficult. She hoped.
It was time consuming, however, when a man had as much grizzled hair as Pétant. His restless legs and fidgeting did not help matters, either. She had to scold him continually to hold still, else he be maimed for his wedding. Eventually, she finished her handiwork and wiped off his cheeks with a flourish. He was beardless, although left with extremely white cheeks that had not seen the sun in years.
Opichi squealed and clapped loudly. Even Nicholas was grinning widely with mirth. He gave a slow whistle of approval, and winked at his friend, who frowned at the jest. Katari giggled then, too.
“I’m glad you find this so damned amusing, boy,” Pétant growled. “Because now it’s your turn to sit in this chair and be shaved.”
“Like hell I will!” Nick burst out.
“Put your cul in the chair, Nick. I won’t have you standing on at my nuptials looking like a grizzly bear while I’m as bald as a bleating, new-born calf.”
The look on Nick’s face was comical, but somehow Katari managed to hold her laughter inside. She patted the chair, beckoning. She was astonished when Nicholas actually stomped over and plopped down in it. “It’s been itching me lately,” he muttered. “Too warm out.”
A sudden nervousness hit her belly with a rush as she rubbed the lather carefully over his cheeks. In the near proximity to his mouth, she could not help but to remember how his lips had felt on her last night. Very good. As good, in fact, as his warm, firm body had felt that first night in the bedroll. Truthfully, his recent kiss had been even more of a thrill with the knowledge that Nicholas had been awake and well aware of his actions. He had wanted to place his mouth on her.
Katari focused staunchly on the razor blade and the process of running it smoothly across Nick’s cheeks. The dark brown beard fell away neatly in strips. She had to lean in so closely at points that she could feel his warm breath on her skin. If Pétant and Opichi weren’t watching, would she dare to kiss him again?
As she finished his chin, she could not help but pass her eyes over those very same lips once again. They were smooth and firm, the lower slightly fuller than the top, she had noted as the hair slipped away. His chin had emerged both square and masculine. She wiped him off deftly and stepped away.
Katari blinked, and then stared again. Nicholas was nearly a different man altogether. She felt her face redden and her knees quiver as he stared back at her, with one arched brown eyebrow as if daring her to say something saucy.
But the truth was that she had no words. She had never seen a White man so beautiful. She turned away swiftly and fumbled with her instruments, and spilled the bowl of lather right down her front. “Maluwe,” she muttered in Lenape. Damn her clumsiness.
Opichi and Pétant took up a hearty clapping and cheering, but Katari did not dare to turn back around at that moment. She wiped at the lather, and only managed to smear it more.
“Well, Nick,” Pétant voiced, after clearing his throat, “I hope that this doesn’t make Opichi change her mind about her feelings for me. You are quite the dapper gent, I’d say.”
“Does our Katari not care for her work?” Nick questioned sarcastically. She felt their questioning eyes on her back.
She spun around, still feeling ruffled, red-cheeked, and very much unsure of exactly how she felt inside. The twisting feeling in her belly remained. Nicholas was watching her expression very closely now. Did he sense the reason behind her unease?
Katari felt that she needed to respond. “I like it very much, Nicholas.” Her voice cracked embarrassingly on the word much. “It is just that I am now very sticky and dirty. Opichi and I will need to bathe before her ceremony.”
Her voice strengthened as she progressed with the diversion. “Could you and Pétant find us a suitable place along the river?
Nicholas’s brow furrowed at her request, but Pétant actually stepped up and agreed with her. “Yes, I want to clean up as well. We will look for somewhere private and stand guard while you girls do your business. Then Nick and I will take a turn.”
Removing the rags from his shoulders, Nicholas rose. “I’ll be sure to bring the guns,” he muttered grimly.
“Your mood is shot to hell,” Pétant complained. “Can you not find some cheer inside until we see this day through?”
“A bucket of cheer, coming right up old friend,” Nicholas grumbled. “Let us go find the girls a bathing spot.”
~~~~~
Although a bit cool, the river water was invigoratingly delicious on her naked skin. Katari ducked under to douse the long strands of her hair that she had freed from the confinement of their braids. She opened her eyes under the water and sent a wave of bubbles forth to scare away a curious little sunfish that had drifted near. Black waves of hair swirled around her, suspended in the currents.
Katari held no fear of water creatures, save maybe for the poison and copper snakes of the water. They could be ornery when cornered, but held no danger when one was respectful of their space. She had bathed in the fresh, clear waters of the village stream called Sononjoh throughout her childhood. She was well accustomed to its icy pleasure and the feel of briskly scrubbed skin and hair daily, save for the coldest winter months.
Opichi stood in the shallows, soaping her body vigorously with the little rose-scented bar that Pétant had produced for them. “Katari,” she said, pouting, “Do you realize they have not looked at us even once? We are young and full-breasted. Are we ugly? What is wrong?”
Nicholas and Petant’s broad shoulders should side by side in the distance. They faced away, affording them both ‘privacy.’ Such a thing was unheard of by their native tribesmen and women, save perhaps, for newlyweds. Bathing was generally a social event and enjoyed by all.
Katari bit her lip, wondering. “They have different customs,” she explained. “They are doing what they think they must.”
She hoped that the words she voiced to give Opichi comfort were, in fact, correct. If not, Nicholas definitely had a woman that he wished to return to. After he had kissed her so thoroughly in front of his people, even if it was to protect her, Katari no longer believed that he found her entirely unattractive. He had slipped his tongue into her mouth, and filled her with a tingling kind of warmth that she had never before felt. That surely meant something. How could it not?
Katari turned and swam into a little alcove, thinking about Nicholas all over again. Perhaps she should question Pétant about his friend’s history. But what good would it do? She was to be returned to New Amsterdam, and reunited with her twin. Then the Coureur de bois would disappear into the forest forever while she returned to her tiny village and under the thumb of her family. Her once-in-a-lifetime adventure would be over and finished. Forever. The notion left her slightly nauseous.
The water grew noticeably colder, and Katari lifted her head to search for its source. She gasped, noticing the influx of a beautiful spring that burst forward from deep within the roots of a giant hemlock.
Katari swam toward it cautiously, for surely this was a holy place. The Minsi believed that guardian spirits, known as Manëtuwàk, dwelled within the mighty trees of the forest. Some such spirits held the strength of many generations of their ancestors. The massive evergreen was surely as strong as any she had ever before witnessed. Its laden bows draped downward, kissing the sacred waters that bubbled upward from deep within the earth.
Katari breathed in the scent of pine and fresh waters. She stopped, suddenly aware of what she was doing. She should not bathe here. This was a sacred place, blessed by the Creator, meant for healing and for prayer.
“Wanìshi,” she whispered. Thank you. She swam back toward her waiting friend.
~~~~~
When they were dressed, Katari and Opichi headed back to the settlement on a trail
through the woods, after being curtly dismissed by Nicholas. Katari was still in good humor after her visit to the spring, and refused to let him dim her high spirits with his continued crankiness. She sang a light tune and shook out her long hair to dry in the breeze.
Opichi placed a hand on her arm. “Katari, bekaa. Wait. It is true that they did not look upon our bodies while we bathed as most men would have. But does that mean that it is wrong for us to look upon them?”
Katari stuttered. “Well, yes, quite likely.”
Opichi huffed. “I would see the body of my husband without his clothes. I will be lying with it later tonight.” The girl pulled firmly at Katari’s arm, not leaving her much room for argument.
“We will tread quietly,” Opichi whispered now. “They will never know.”
Now, Katari’s curiosity bloomed swiftly, as well. She had seen many nude males before; it was surely nothing new or wrong. The shape of one’s body was a gift from the Creator, and there was no shame in it.
However, Katari had never seen a naked White man. Where they so hairy everywhere? Where they that different from Native men? Her heart tripped along as they slipped into the bushes along the river’s edge.
Opichi peeked through first. Katari heard her intake of breath. “Eee, their rods are large,” she whispered heatedly.
Katari surged forward to thrust her head into the bushes just in time to watch Nicholas dive under the surface. Pétant had waded in far enough that the waters rose above his waist. His chest was as huge as a one of the White barrels of spirit-drink.
Nicholas swiftly emerged from the grey-blue water and swept back his hair. It had grown long enough since its last shearing to hang just below his muscled shoulders. Katari liked it this way, for it reminded her of her own people. But that was where the similarity ended.
He was much broader of chest than any man she knew, save for Pétant. His male muscles were taut and corded down his arms and back much like the most practiced of warriors. In truth, his body was not very hairy at all. There was a smattering of it on his chest, right between the place where his nipples puckered from the coldness of the waters. A line of it descended down past his ridged abdomen and into the water, exactly where his-
Katari bit her lip to stem the image, still waiting. “Come on,” she whispered encouragingly.
“It was large, I tell you,” Opichi voiced knowingly.
Katari glared at her. “I did not get to see it!” she exclaimed in agitation.
“Both men are well-made,” Opichi continued. “I am pleased with my man. Are you with yours?”
Katari stared at her young friend, embarrassed. “He is not mine, you know this,” she returned after a moment’s pause.
“Ha,” Opichi stated with a smug grin. “If I were you, he would be, and quickly. He called you his Country Wife, and kissed you full upon your mouth in front of all.”
“That was in jest,” she sputtered.
“Such a heated kiss was in jest, you say?”
“Yes!”
“Ha,” was all Opichi said in return.
The men spotted them both at that moment. Pétant cupped his large hands around his mouth and yelled, “Come here then, girls!”
Giggling, Opichi spun around and dragged her friend from the bushes. Together, they sprinted for the room.
~~~~~
The nuptials were a quiet affair before a balding court official for the town of Beverwijck. He wore a funny little cap on his head, and looked at them all dourly through bow-shaped spectacles that were wedged on the bridge of his beaked nose. Marriage proper was apparently not a common occurrence in the Dutch town, especially between a Frenchman and a Native girl, but Pétant was adamant that the man give in to their wishes.
Nicholas and Katari stood off to their left, leaving Katari available to help Opichi with translation whenever it was needed. It was Nicholas’s opinion that the man shortened the process quite more than necessary, given that they had paid him three guilders in coin.
When it was finished, Pétant kissed Opichi gently on the lips. “Now it is proper, and forever,” he told her staunchly. “Your name shall be Opichi Robin Mollier, and you are my woman.”
After they had left the building, Pétant pulled Nicholas aside. “I spent a few of the guilders on an additional room,” he whispered. “No offense, boy, but I want our first few nights to start off the right way.”
Nicholas smiled and clapped his friend on the back encouragingly. Inside, he worried anew. The next few days might be bliss for Pétant and Opichi. Listening to Katari’s pure and lilting laughter as she embraced the couple, Nick knew that for him, they would be complete hell.
Chapter 10
Katari helped her friend to pack up her belongings. Opichi was flushed and quite excited, and near to bubbling over in the warm, evening air.
“Are you frightened at all, Opichi?” Katari questioned, thinking of the brawny size of the girl’s new husband. The older woman of the Minsi tribe enjoyed coaching a new bride if she had questions or fears. Opichi was on the young side, but certainly, not beyond the realm of normal age for marrying. Although Katari herself was two years older, she simply had no real words of wisdom to present her with.
Opichi shook her head. “I have been hurt by many men, Katari. Yet, Pétant has always been gentle and kind, no matter how loudly he appears to bark. My older sister once said that bedding can be extremely gratifying with the right man. I know in my heart that Pétant is this kind of man.”
Katari swallowed. “Those are wise words for one so young. I wish I could advise you of more, but I know nothing.”
“Yet, you knew how to kiss Nicholas, did you not?” she returned slyly.
“Yes,” she admitted. But it was merely an instinctive thing, I believe.”
Opichi laughed. “Then perhaps you already know quite a bit more than you think, deep inside, don’t you Katari?”
As she chuckled back in the face of Opichi ‘s wit, Katari pondered the strange longing that had only grown since she had awoken from the accident, wrapped in Nick’s arms. Even feverish, it had felt right, and blissful even, to be nestled there. She sighed, wondering just how hard it would be to say goodbye to him, and return to her people with real joy in her heart.
She thought that it might be growing more difficult with every passing day.
~~~~~
Katari popped a sliver of roasted duck in her mouth while she stirred her bowl of msíckquatash, or cooked corn and beans succotash, allowing it to cool off a bit more. Earlier, Nicholas had provided her with some freshly churned butter, a substance which she had found to be an amazing addition to nearly any recipe. She had hoped to collect several pounds of it for her mother, but Nicholas informed her that it was difficult to keep firm in the summer months.
Opichi and Pétant had departed with a flurry of chatter and activity, leaving the room behind filled with silence. The mood was suddenly awkward and subdued. Nicholas did not speak much, and for the first time ever, she struggled to make conversation. Eventually, she had just busied herself with preparing the meal.
Over the rim of her mug of water, Katari watched Nicholas eating his own portion. She wondered if he felt the same as she did right now. When the couple left, arm in arm, she had subsequently been filled with a jealous longing over their new-found happiness. She now felt bitterly empty inside. These were feelings that caused her great shame. To covet another’s good fortune, especially someone you cared for, was a dishonorable trait in any man or woman.
Nicholas’s face was grim and he seemed to be struggling with some inner pain as well. Was he missing loved ones? Could she help him through his pain? Or did he wish to find an enduring love, too? She worried her lower lip, wondering how to broach the subject.
“Nick?” she ventured cautiously.
“Yes, Kat?” He looked at her with his direct, blue-grey eyes. She still marveled over the new shape of his face and its extremely pleasing lines. When her gaze remained on him too long,
however, that tickling in her stomach always grew, just as it did right now.
She cleared her throat and drew a breath. No longer would she hesitate, she would just be forthright. “Nicholas, do you have a family waiting for you? And am I keeping you from them?” she asked directly.
Katari was startled at the way his eyes darkened like a rain cloud, swirling deeper with grey. She was dismayed to realize that the question had actually given him more pain.
“Pétant is my only family,” he eventually replied in a hoarse voice. He took a swig of the honeyed ale he had purchased in heavy, wooden jug. “He raised me, in a sense. Before Pétant, in truth, I was no one at all.”
“How could a little boy be no one?” she asked in confusion.
“I was no one,” he repeated.
Nick turned abruptly, and walked over to his guns, where he sat to begin the slow process of cleaning them. Katari had grown used to the nightly procedure, but she still disliked it very much. It made the room smell repulsive, and the scent often lingered on in the locks of her hair. When Nick cleaned his guns, she and Opichi usually sat on the outside stoop and waited. But she did not feel like leaving him alone right now. Or like being alone.
“Can you not do that on the morrow, when we can open the door and the window to air things out?” she suggested hopefully.
Nick pounded a fist unexpectedly on the table, making Katari jump at the sharp noise. “What would you have me do for you this eve, Katari, braid your hair with ribbons?”
“Well…perhaps we could return to the Inn together?” she offered hesitantly.
“Like hell we will! You’ll end up in the lap of some drunken fool, and I will have to beat his cul senseless to save you.”
Katari stared off toward the hearth, recalling the series of fuzzy events that had transpired on the previous evening. It had not exactly ended well. Yet, she had been having such tremendous fun before it all fell apart! She was discouraged by his curt reaction to her suggestion.
Savage Journey Page 9
