by Nan Ryan
“My love,” he murmured on an exhaling breath of contentment.
They lay as they were for a long, lovely time, holding each other, savoring the bliss, basking in the hazy afterglow and peace that comes from beautiful lovemaking. Maggie fondly stroked Shanaco’s deeply clefted back and pressed kisses to his bruised jaw. Shanaco buried his face in her wild red hair and inhaled its clean scent. For both it was the sweetest of restful interludes and each was reluctant to move and break the spell.
Still, as they clung to each other, a troubling thought went through Maggie’s mind. This serenity, this happiness was not to last. Just days from now Shanaco would be gone and they would never see each other again.
Shanaco slowly raised his head, looked at Maggie, and in his beautiful eyes she saw her own melancholy reflected there. She knew that he was thinking the same thing she was thinking.
He started to speak.
She stopped him.
“No, Shanaco,” she whispered, “don’t say it.”
He nodded his understanding and replied, “Kiss me, sweetheart. Just kiss me.”
Thirty-Two
Monday morning at ten minutes of eight Maggie hurried toward the schoolhouse.
She was nervous. Shanaco had assured her there was nothing to worry about. She hoped he was right.
Maggie steeled herself to maintain her composure when, at straight up eight o’clock, she entered the classroom. The children were unusually noisy and nervous. All were up out of their seats, huddled about in clusters, talking excitedly.
Maggie knew that the subject of their conversations was Shanaco.
Word of his alleged crime had quickly spread and had become the main topic of gossip in every dwelling both on and off the reservation. Everyone, even the children, had heard about the shocking events. The grown boys, those who were fifteen and sixteen, talked knowingly among themselves, discussing the rape of the white woman and of Shanaco’s daring escape.
The girls, some red-faced, all shocked and disappointed by Chief Shanaco’s behavior, whispered and shook their heads sadly. The little ones, like Bright Feather, didn’t understand what Shanaco had done. Bright Feather knew only that the tall Comanche chieftain who paid attention to him, and whom he liked so much, had been punished for something bad that he had done. He knew as well that Shanaco had escaped and that the troopers were searching everywhere for him.
Maggie raised her hands for silence. “Students, take your seats, please.”
It took a few moments for everyone to settle down and stop talking. When finally everyone was in their seats and looking at her, Maggie felt it necessary to address the issue. She glanced at Old Coyote and saw the worried look in his eyes. She could not tell him or indicate in any way that Shanaco was safe. She could not give him a reassuring look, lest one of the students read her meaning. Old Coyote would have to wait.
“I want to say a few words regarding Chief Shanaco,” she began in a soft but firm voice. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her chin lifted slightly. “Despite what you’ve been told, or may have heard, no one knows for certain what actually happened last Thursday night. As you know, Chief Shanaco is no longer here on the reservation. But let me remind you that his absence does not mean that he is guilty of anything.” She looked from face to face and concluded, “All I am saying is that you should not judge Shanaco without knowing all the facts. None of us should. If you admired him before, and I know that many of you did, I would not let this awful allegation change the way you feel about him.” She uncrossed her arms, smiled and said, “Let us now turn our attention to today’s lessons.”
For the next four hours Maggie patiently taught her students. She listened as, one by one, they stood and struggled to read aloud in halting English. Then she nodded and praised them when—a half dozen at a time—they went to the blackboard, picked up new pieces of chalk and wrote the latest English words they had learned to spell.
Maggie conducted herself as she always did. She behaved as if what was taking place in this classroom was the only thing on her mind. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Try as she might to keep her mind on the reading and spelling, her thoughts kept returning to Shanaco.
More than once she felt a delicious shiver skip up her spine at the vivid recollection of their lovemaking. She counted the minutes until she could return to him. Time had never dragged so slowly before. Maggie kept glancing at the big clock mounted above the blackboard, wondering if noon was ever going to come.
At last it did.
The children jumped up out of the seats and rushed from the room. Maggie fought the impulse to beat them to the door. She didn’t move, but stayed right where she was, calmly waiting as the room emptied of all students save Old Coyote.
“He’s safe,” she then said without preamble. “At my cottage.”
“He was badly hurt.”
“He was, but Shanaco is a young, vigorous man. He is already better. Much better. He’s going to be all right.”
“How he get to your house?” Coyote asked.
Maggie knew he was eager to hear everything, and would appreciate the story as much as Shanaco had, so she told him exactly what had happened. Old Coyote’s eyes twinkled and he smiled broadly and clapped his hands together as she related the snowy midnight rescue.
“Now,” she concluded, “tell me what you have heard. What are they saying? What’s going to happen?”
“Is said that Major Courteen back in hospital, very sick. Pneumonia. Hear nothing else. Nobody talking much, but mounted troopers have ridden all over reservation, stalking unannounced into every tepee and lodge. Tribes are infuriated.” His old eyes again lighting slightly, he added, “Some of the young angry braves get away, leave reservation, not come back ever.”
Maggie was not surprised, but she hated to hear it. Still, she fully understood their wrath.
“In a few days Shanaco must leave,” Maggie stated. “You and I, Old Coyote, will help him escape.”
“I do whatever you tell me.”
“I know you will. Now, go and don’t worry. Soon Shanaco will be able to travel.”
“Where he go?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Have no idea. All I know is that he is innocent and you and I are not going to let him pay for something he did not do.”
“I tell no one where he is,” Coyote promised, then smiled and asked, “You take good care of Shanaco?”
“I will,” Maggie said, and hoped she wasn’t blushing guiltily.
Thirty-Three
Maggie threw on her heavy woolen cape, rushed out of the schoolhouse and hurried across the parade ground. Teeth chattering from the cold—and from rising anticipation—she rounded the corner of the bakery and dashed the last few steps to the teacher’s quarters with Pistol racing ahead of her.
At the door she pointed a finger at Pistol and said to the wolfhound, “You stay right here on the porch and guard us with your life!”
She didn’t wait for his response, but opened the door and burst inside on a blast of frigid air. She slammed the door in Pistol’s face, locked it, turned about and leaned back against it.
She looked across the room and felt her breath grow short, her cheeks get warm. Shanaco was sitting up in bed, sheet resting at his waist, raven hair loose and touching his bare shoulders. He was smiling. A lazy, sensual smile that instantly burned away any traces of lingering cold.
Maggie shrugged out of her long cape, hung it on the coat tree and immediately started undressing. Too eager to bother with being her usual orderly self, she discarded the garments where she stood. In seconds she was as naked as Eve in the garden and the handsome man in bed was staring fixedly at her, a hot light burning in his eyes.
Knowing that he liked her hair down, Maggie took out the pins as she crossed to the bed. She shook her head about and allowed the long tresses to spill around her bare shoulders.
“Miss me?” she said, and put a knee on the mattress. Shanaco threw back the
covers.
“What kept you?” he teased.
To which she smartly rejoined, “You going to talk all afternoon?” And she quickly got into the bed.
Shanaco laughed heartily, kissed her and drew her into his arms. Each was so hot for the other, they had no time for sweet preliminaries. At once Maggie was beneath Shanaco, sighing with pleasure as he swiftly came into her. They made ardent, anxious love, kicking off all the covers, rocking the bed, climaxing almost immediately. Quickly sated, they sagged limply into the softness of the mattress.
After only a few moments’ rest, they made love again.
This time in a slow, dreamy fashion. It began with kisses. Soft kisses. Sweet kisses. Worshipful kisses. Slow, burning kisses. Long, drugging kisses. Hot, invasive kisses. Fierce, demanding kisses.
Throughout the ever-changing kisses, they kept switching positions. First Maggie’s head rested on the pillow while Shanaco leaned over her, kissing her, his lips slanting across hers, his tongue tasting and teasing. Then they languidly rolled over and it was Shanaco’s dark head on the pillow and Maggie leaning over him, kissing him, licking his lips, thrusting her tongue into his mouth.
Then they’d change again.
And yet again.
Until Shanaco, lying on his back, head resting on the pillow and Maggie pressing kisses to his lips said softly, “I don’t think I can hold out much longer, sweetheart. I want to be inside you. Now.”
“I want it, too,” she whispered, and made a move to stretch out on her back.
“No,” he said, gently gripping her arms, stopping her. “I’m lazy today, sweetheart. Let me lie here and you get on top.” Maggie gave him a questioning look. He smiled. “Climb astride me, Maggie, and do the honors.”
Eager to do any and everything with this handsome lover of her dreams, Maggie agilely rose up onto her knees, threw a leg over and sank down onto his pelvis. Her positioning was perfect. Just right. His awesome erection was snugly fitted between her open thighs, its heavy hardness reflexively surging up to seek her warmth.
Maggie exhaled heavily, clasped Shanaco’s ribs, settled herself comfortably upon him and smiled down at him. “May I play for just a while?”
A muscle danced in his lean jaw. He raised his arms over his head and, as she had done the night before, wrapped long fingers around the rungs of the iron bedstead.
“I’m yours to do with as you please,” he said. “Play. Experiment. Torture me. But don’t make me wait too long.”
Maggie nodded, slowly bent forward, flipped her hair down over her head so that it spilled forward into his face and across his shoulders and torso. She lowered her lips to his chest. While the silky ends of her hair tickled him pleasantly, she began brushing kisses to his naked flesh. She loved the way his body responded.
The muscles in his powerful chest and bulging biceps tautened and his abdomen tightened until it became concave.
Heady with feminine power, Maggie teased and tormented Shanaco, hearing him groan, feeling his body vibrate as if it were a fine instrument and she the talented artist.
She unhurriedly swished her hair back and forth against his chest. She kissed, licked and nipped at the smooth bronzed skin. She boldly bussed a circle around a flat brown nipple and heard him emit a strangled sound from deep in the back of his throat.
Placing an angel-soft kiss on that masculine nipple, Maggie raised her head. She sat up, raked her hair back off her face and gazed at Shanaco with a wicked gleam in her eyes. She rolled her hips provocatively and slid slowly up and down his throbbing erection, teasing him, toying with him.
She saw a vein on his forehead stand out and pulse, watched his jaw grow rigid with the fierce clenching of his teeth. She took pity and extended a hand to him.
Shanaco released his hold on the bedstead, let his left arm drop to his side and gave her his right hand. Maggie took that hand in both of her own and guided it down to where she sat atop him. She released him.
“Touch me, Shanaco,” she whispered. “Touch me and tell me. Tell me if I am ready.” She placed her hands on her spread thighs and waited.
Shanaco agilely rolled his shoulders up off the mattress and sat up. He wrapped one long arm around Maggie’s waist, laid her back against that supporting arm and put his hand between her legs. Looking directly into her eyes, he dipped his fore and middle fingers into the silky wetness flowing freely from her. He caressed her while she squirmed and sighed and anxiously rubbed herself against his loving hand.
Shanaco toyed with her until his fingers were soaked with her liquid heat. Then he took his hand away and spread that moisture over the tip of his erection until it gleamed wetly.
“You are,” he said huskily, “almost as hot as I.”
He lay back down and folded an arm beneath his head, determined to have her make love to him. He swallowed hard when Maggie rose up onto her knees, wrapped her fingers around him and carefully guided the gleaming tip of his throbbing shaft up just inside her.
She then let go, gripped his ribs lightly and slowly, carefully lowered herself down onto him.
When he was fully inside her, she released her breath and began the slow, rhythmic rolling of her hips.
“How’s that?” she whispered, squeezing him artfully, thrusting her pelvis forward, her breasts swaying seductively with her movements.
“Ah, Maggie, promise you’ll stay right where you are all afternoon,” he murmured, his eyes glazed with passion, his hands again wrapped around the rungs of the bedstead.
“I promise,” she said, and meant it.
But too soon incredible heat and joy washed over them both. They moved together as if they were one body; she rocking and rotating her hips, he surging and thrusting his pelvis. She breathlessly lunging. He zealously plunging. She setting the pace. He patiently following. Loving each other, thrilling each other. Pleasing each other until finally the splendor was too great. The pleasure too intense.
“Shanaco…I…I…can’t…wait…” Maggie gasped, her burning body no longer under her control.
“Let go, sweetheart,” he murmured, huskily, taking his hands from the bedstead to hold her hips. “I can’t wait, either. Let it come, baby, let it come.”
Then he groaned in his own shuddering release as Maggie cried out his name in ecstasy.
Thirty-Four
“All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”
Maggie smiled dreamily as she murmured those words. She then raised her head and gazed fondly at Shanaco.
They lay stretched out on the bed, talking quietly, touching, kissing as the hour grew late. Both sleepy. Both hating to say good-night.
“I must admit to being quite impressed that afternoon at the poetry picnic when you recited those lines from Poe,” she said, touching Shanaco’s smooth bare chest with her fingertips and feeling it all the way down to her toes.
Shanaco covered her hand with his own. “Had I chosen to do so, teacher, I could have quoted the entire poem.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she replied, freeing her hand to again lightly stroke the granite muscles of his chest.
“From the time I was a small child,” he said, “my mother taught me to appreciate poetry and literature. She had no books, but she had memorized favorite poems and stories and recited them to me. Then when I went to live in the white man’s world, I bought books, books and more books.”
Maggie listened, entranced, as he spoke of the genteel woman who had raised him and was responsible for his being much more than a fierce warrior like his Comanche father.
When Shanaco finally fell silent, Maggie asked softly, “Was your mother content to live among the Comanches? Didn’t she want to go home?”
“She was home.”
“You know what I mean.”
“She was given the opportunity and turned it down.” He lifted a thick lock of Maggie’s heavy hair and fanned his fingers through it. “One morning she was with several women at Lagunas Sabinas. They were
getting water from the creek when a trio of Texas Rangers came upon them. The Rangers immediately saw that my mother was white. They offered to take her back to her family. She refused to go.”
“Were you there with her that morning?”
“No. Miles away with my father on a buffalo hunt.”
“That’s why she wouldn’t go with the Rangers,” Maggie reasoned aloud. “She couldn’t bear leaving you.”
“That was not the only reason, Maggie. She loved my father very much. She was his only wife and they were devoted. They even died within hours of each other.”
“Were they…?”
“Killed by the whites? Yes, they were. A surprise attack in the Red River campaign.”
“How awful. I’m so sorry, Shanaco.”
“At least they died together.”
Continuing to stroke his chest, she ventured, “And since their deaths, you’ve lived in the white man’s world.”
“Off and on since I turned sixteen.”
“Have you ever looked up your mother’s people? They’re your blood kin so surely you…”
Shanaco’s eyes darkened to the color of smoke and he interrupted her. “I did visit them once, when I was eighteen. I learned from the Bureau of Indian Affairs where they lived. I rode down to see them that summer.”
Maggie waited breathlessly.
Shanaco said no more.
Curious, she prompted, “And? Your grandparents? Aunts or uncles? Were they there? Did they…?”
“The entire Cooper family was there,” he said in a low monotone. “My mother’s father and mother, her two brothers and their wives and children. All living on the Cooper farm six miles from the settlement of Decatur.” Shanaco paused, toyed with a strand of Maggie’s hair and smiled sardonically. “I was not welcome. I introduced myself, but the family wanted nothing to do with me.” He laughed and added, “They strongly requested that I leave and never return. My maternal grandfather backed up that request with a loaded rifle.”
