Reckless Love

by Madeline Baker

  Turning my head, I kissed Shadow, letting my lips linger on his. With a low groan, he returned my kiss, his mouth hard and warm, sending shivers of delight racing along my spine. He whispered my name again and again as his strong brown hands caressed my face, my hair, the curve of my back. As always, his touch filled me with a wondrous sense of peace and contentment even as I felt my body began to tingle with desire.

  Soon we were lying naked beneath our sleeping robes, our bodies pressed close together. There was no room for sadness now, no time for regrets or sorrow or thoughts of what might have been. My hands moved restlessly over Shadow's firm flesh, loving the sleek smoothness of his copper-hued skin, loving the way his muscles bunched and relaxed beneath my questing fingertips.

  I ran my hands along the insides of this muscular thighs, smiled as he groaned low in his throat. His manhood throbbed against my leg, hard with desire, exciting me.

  Wanting to see him, I threw back the buffalo robe and sat up, letting my eyes wander over his broad chest, flat belly, and lean flanks. I grinned as my eyes lingered on the evidence of his growing desire.

  Shadow looked up at me, his dark eyes dancing with amusement as my eyes boldly roved over him. When he tried to draw me down, I batted his hand away and straddled his hips. Slowly, I bent down and kissed him, my breasts rubbing against his chest, the soft abrasion of flesh against flesh igniting my longing for the man lying passive beneath me.

  I ran my tongue across Shadow's lips, and he swore softly as he reached up and grasped a handful of my hair, his mouth grinding against mine as he pulled me down on top of him.

  I gave a gasp of pleasure as he thrust into me and our bodies began to move in the magical, age-old rhythm of mating. I closed my eyes, lost in the scent and touch of the man I loved above all else . . .

  The changing leaves announced the changing seasons as late summer, which the Apache called Thick with Fruit, gave way to fall, the time When the Earth is Reddish Brown.

  I loved the glorious golds and reds and rich browns of autumn, the sound of leaves crackling merrily beneath my moccasined feet as I gathered firewood. The air was brisk, exhilarating, the sky a deep and vibrant blue.

  Flower Woman was pregnant again, and we began sewing things for the new baby, which would be born the following spring. Calf Running was thrilled with the prospect of having another son; Flower Woman hoped for a daughter. I shared my friend's joy in the coming child and secretly hoped that someday soon, I, too, would carry a new life under my heart.

  It was hard to believe that my babies had grown so fast. Mary was a delightful child, always cheerful, her eager hands always exploring, her dove-gray eyes alight with the joy of each new discovery.

  Heecha had turned five in October, yet it seemed like only yesterday when I had held my son to my breast. Where had the years gone? Already, he was learning many of the skills a boy needed to know to become a warrior. Daily, Shadow and Calf Running took the boys into the hills, teaching them to hunt and track, to read the moon and the stars and the signs of the seasons. Heecha had been strutting around like a veteran warrior ever since the day he killed his first rabbit. Young as he was, he already showed signs of being a proud warrior and I wondered if that air of manly pride and self-assurance was an innate quality common to all Cheyenne males.

  As the nights grew longer, we spent more time inside. Calf Running, Flower Woman, Shadow and I passed many a night playing poker after our children were asleep. The Indian people loved to gamble and both Calf Running and Shadow were excellent poker players. Shadow won the most often as he had a wonderful knack for bluffing. There were many times when he won a hand on guts alone. I usually lost. But then, I could not keep a poker face when I had three aces and a fourth in the hole. Maddeningly, my Indian husband and friends had been trained since early childhood to conceal their emotions so I was at a decided disadvantage, never knowing if they had a pair of deuces or a full house. Calf Running hated to throw in a hand and would bet heavily even when he knew he was beat.

  When the snow came, we had snowball fights and built huge snowmen. We went sledding on sleds made from the bones of the buffalo we had killed in the summer. Heecha and Mary and Nachi loved the snow and they played in it like frisky puppies, running and jumping in the drifts, or digging long tunnels.

  When Christmas came, I insisted on a tree and we decorated it with pine-cones and rawhide cutouts dyed red and green. I told Heecha and Mary the Christmas story, and Mary cried softly because the baby Jesus had no home. Our gifts to the children were homemade. Shadow made Heecha a small bow and a half dozen arrows, as well as a deerskin quiver. He worked on the bow and arrows for weeks prior to Christmas. The bow, a smaller version of Shadow's, was made from juniper wood. The bowstring was made from sinew. The arrows were made from the straight shoots of the red willow. Shadow labored over these small shafts as carefully as he labored over his own, making sure the proportions between the shaft, head, and feather were just right. An arrow too light in the shaft would not fly straight, an arrow that was too heavy would not carry far enough.

  Mary's gift was a rag doll and several dresses for the doll. I also made Mary and her doll matching dresses and ribbons for their hair. I made new moccasins for everyone.

  We sang "Silent Night" and other carols and ate wild turkey with sage dressing for dinner.

  Later, as we sat around the fire, Heecha pestered Shadow for a story. "Tell about Heammawihio and how he created the earth," Heecha begged. "It is a good story."

  Shadow smiled fondly at his son. Then, gathering the children to his side, he began.

  "Once, many many years ago, a Person was floating on the water which covered the whole earth. There were no other people, no land, just water and many kinds of ducks and geese and swans. The Person called to the water birds and asked them to look for some earth. One after another the different birds dived into the water to try and reach the bottom so they could find some earth for the Person, but none was successful until a little mud hen dived very deep and came back with a little mud in its bill. The Person took the mud from the bird and worked the wet earth in his fingers until it was dry. Then he placed little piles of dry earth on the water around him and these little bits of earth spread out and became land.

  "After the earth had been made, a man and a woman were created and placed upon it. The creator, Heammawihio, made the man from a rib taken from his own right side. The woman was made from a rib taken from the left side of the man. After the man and the woman were created, they were separated. The woman was placed in the north where it was cold, and the animals and birds which were made in that part of the world were different from those made in the warmer part of the world where the man was. The woman was given control of Hoimaha, the storm. She had gray hair, but she was not old, and she never grew older.

  "The man in the south represented summer. He was young and he grew no older. The woman in the north controls the cold and snow, sickness and death. The man in the south controls the thunder. He gave man fire as a weapon against the cold. When the woman and the man went to the north and the south, Heammawihio was alone again, so he created other people. These people multiplied and became the Tsi-Tsi-Tsas, which means those related to one another. Later, our brothers, the Dakotas, would call them, Sha-Hi-Ye-Na, meaning people of alien speech. The white man would pronounce it Cheyenne, and that is what they call our people to this day."

  Heecha sighed as the story ended, his eyelids fluttering down. Mary was already asleep, her head pillowed on Shadow's lap.

  Carefully, I lifted Mary and placed her on her own bed while Shadow carried Heecha to his bed on the other side of the fire and covered him. My heart swelled with emotion as Shadow stood there for a moment, his dark eyes warm with love for his son. He was a good father, patient and kind. He never got angry with our children, never punished them, never raised his voice. When they did wrong, he explained why their behavior was not acceptable. Always, he was gentle and understanding, listening to their questio
ns, giving them honest answers they could easily understand.

  Bending, Shadow reached under Heecha's bed and withdrew a beautifully embroidered shawl. "Merry Christmas, Hannah," he said, and kissed me as he draped the shawl around my shoulders.

  I knew the shawl had been stolen from some store or clothesline across the border, but I did not chide Shadow for stealing it. Once, long ago, I would have been shocked at the very idea of accepting stolen goods, but the Indians considered raiding and stealing from the enemy an honorable trait, and so I smiled at my husband as I murmured my thanks.

  My gift to Shadow was a new shirt. I had tanned and worked the deerskin until it was the color of fresh cream, as soft as velvet. Footlong fringe dangled from the sleeves. The back was embroidered with a red-tail hawk, wings outstretched in flight, talons curved.

  ''It is beautiful, Hannah," Shadow said, pleased. "Truly a fine gift."

  "Put it on."

  Shrugging out of his old shirt, Shadow slipped the new one over his head. My heart began to flutter wildly as I looked at him. How handsome he was! The soft cream-colored buckskin emphasized the blackness of his hair and the dark bronze of his skin. The soft cloth hugged his broad shoulders and powerful arms, and I felt a quick surge of desire as he bent his head over mine.

  "Haho." He whispered the Cheyenne word for thank you as his lips brushed mine.

  I clung to him, feeling my knees go weak and my blood turn to fire as his kiss deepened. Once I had thought such volatile feelings would mellow with age and the passage of time, but I knew now that even when I was old and gray, Shadow's touch would still have the power to ignite the passion in my soul and leave me breathless with desire.

  I protested when he took his lips from mine, but he only grinned at me as, carefully, he removed his shirt and neatly folded it and put it away. Then, dark eyes alight with desire, he reached for me again. I melted in his arms and as his mouth closed over mine, I had the best Christmas present of all.

  III

  Spring 1884

  It was the Time of Little Eagles when they rode into our valley, forty warriors ranging in age from sixteen to fifty, and one woman. The Indians were mounted on weary ponies, their copper-hued faces streaked with dust and old war paint, their lances and rifles glinting in the light of the rising sun.

  I felt a cold chill skitter along my spine as I recognized the squat, flat-faced warrior riding in front. Geronimo. I glanced at Shadow, standing beside me, my fear plainly etched on my face and in my eyes.

  "Stay here," Shadow cautioned, and went out to meet the fierce Apache chief and his men.

  "Welcome, Geronimo," Shadow said, raising his right hand in the universal sign for peace. "What brings you to our valley?"

  I did not need to hear Geronimo's answer to know they were on the run. His warriors had the wary look of hunted men about them. It was a look I had seen many times in the past.

  "We are seeking shelter on our way to the Cima-Silkq," Geronimo replied, confirming my fears. His flat black eyes moved over our lodge, missing nothing, then darted to Calf Running's wickiup, which was set up a short distance from ours.

  "Ho, brother," Calf Running called as he emerged from his lodge. "It is good to see you again."

  "It is good to see you, Calf Running," Geronimo replied in greeting.

  "Come, step down and eat with us," Calf Running invited. Unconsciously, he slipped into his native tongue as he spoke to Geronimo. It was a harsh, guttural language, one I had never fully mastered.

  Geronimo nodded curtly as he stepped down from his paint pony. This was a man who had known war for most of his life. He was a Bedonkohe Apache who had lived a life of peace until his family was murdered by Mexican troops, and then he turned into a man of vengeance. It was the Mexicans who gave him the name Geronimo. In the 1860's, he had married a Chiricahua woman and lived with her people, according to Apache custom. When Cochise decided to try the path of peace, Geronimo left the Chiricahuas and continued to ride the warpath, raiding into Mexico and Arizona. Now, at the age of fifty-five, he was still at war.

  His warriors and the young woman warrior known as Lozen, dismounted and squatted on the ground, their faces devoid of expression. Lozen, I later learned, was so honored and respected by the Apache warriors that she was granted a place in their tribal councils. A rare honor, for an Apache woman.

  Flower Woman came to stand beside me, her lovely black eyes mirroring my own concern. Geronimo was on the war trail again, and his presence in our valley could only mean trouble for us sooner or later.

  While Flower Woman and I sliced and cooked a deer Shadow had killed the day before, the men sat in the shade, smoking and talking. Life on the reservation was no good, Geronimo said, his voice bitter. Apaches were meant to live free in the Cima-Silkq, the Sierra Madre Mountains, not to live like cattle penned up on a reservation waiting for the white man to feed them. There was never enough food or blankets. The old people died of sickness, the children cried for food, the women grieved for their dead. And the warriorsthey chafed at the enforced inactivity. Denied weapons of any kind, they could not hunt for meat to alleviate their hunger. It was a bad way to live. It was not honorable, to sit passively by while your women and children cried and your old ones died of hunger and disease. A man had to defend his honor, to fight for his freedom, or he was not a man. And Geronimo meant to fight. He had left the San Carlos Reservation in the fall of 1881, taking 310 men, women, and children with him. Among those who had fled the hated reservation with him were Victorio, Old Nana, Juh, and his son, Delshinne. They had been raiding on both sides of the border ever since, using the Cima-Silkq as their base. In the two years since their escape, Victorio had been killed in a Mexican ambush at Tres Castillos, and Juh had drowned while crossing a stream. Many warriors had been killed.

  But the fighting went on.

  "Will you join us, Two Hawks Flying?" The question came from Geronimo, and I felt my insides turn to ice as I waited for Shadow's reply.

  Slowly, Shadow shook his head. "No. I will fight no more. We have made a good life here, and here I will stay. Nohetto."

  Geronimo did not like Shadow's answer. His displeasure was clearly reflected in his flat black eyes, and in the way his mouth went white around the corners.

  "And you, Calf Running," Geronimo asked gruffly. "Will you fight with your people, or have you grown soft and weak like this yudastcin Cheyenne?"

  Shadow's face grew dark at the brazen insult. His hand moved toward the knife sheathed on his belt, and only Calf Running's restraining grasp on Shadow's arm prevented violence from erupting in our valley.

  Calf Running's dark eyes met Geronimo's in a bold stare. "I will stay here," he said clearly, "with my Cheyenne brother and his family."

  Geronimo glared at Calf Running. For a moment, I thought the war leader would kill us all. Then, slowly, he turned his bull-like head toward the hills.

  "This is Apache land," he said curtly, his eyes burning into those of Calf Running. "You will not tell anyone we have been here."

  "I will not tell."

  Shadow's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he glanced from one trail-weary warrior to another. "You are being followed." His voice was thick with accusation and anger as he faced Geronimo.

  The old Apache chief nodded. "Nantan Lupan trails us. He is using Apache scouts to track us."

  Nantan Lupan meant Gray Fox. It was the name the Apaches had given to General George Crook. Crook was a formidable opponent, a renowned Indian fighter, yet it was said he was sympathetic to the plight of the Apache.

  "And you led him here!" Shadow glanced at our snug lodge, at our garden growing along the riverbank, at the meat drying on the rack beside our lodge. And then, with one hand shading his eyes against the bright morning sunlight, he glanced into the hills. Whatever he saw made him swear under his breath, and I could not help smiling faintly as I heard him mutter one of my father's favorite cuss words.

  "Hannah, pack whatever you can carry. Flower Woman, you had
best do the same."

  The note of urgency in Shadow's voice sent a ripple of unrest through Geronimo's warriors. They rose to their feet, their weapons at hand, their hooded eyes scouring the countryside.

  My heart was pounding with an old familiar fear as I ran into our lodge and began to stuff our clothing and cooking utensils into Shadow's war bag. Heecha woke up as I moved about the lodge.

  "What's wrong?" he asked sleepily.

  "Get up," I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. "We're leaving. Can you catch up the horses for me?"

  "Yes, nahkoa."

  "Put on your heavy shirt first."

  Wordlessly, my son did as bidden. I felt a quick surge of pride as his stout legs carried him out of the lodge. How grown up he was! He did not waste time asking questions as so many boys his age might have. Instead, he went quickly to do as told.

  I packed a change of clothing for each of us, some jerky and pemmican, the shirt I had made for Shadow, the shawl he had given me. When I had packed everything I thought essential, I went outside. Mary trailed at my heels, one hand entwined in my skirt. Geronimo and his men were mounted, their faces inscrutable. Lozen swung aboard her calico pony, her face set in fierce lines.

  I searched for Shadow and Calf Running and saw them standing near Calf Running's wickiup, their heads close together. Flower Woman threw me a shaky smile as she gathered Nachi in her arms, and I knew she was as nervous and upset as I was.

  The tension in our little valley was so thick I wanted to scream. Someone was up in the hills, waiting, watching. Was it Crook? I knew George Crook only by reputation. He was a redoubtable Indian fighter, feared and respected by all the tribes. In 1852, he graduated from West Point, ranking 38 in a class of 43. In '76, he had fought the Sioux and Cheyenne at the Rosebud and been defeated. The Indians had considered it a great victory, to out-fight "Three Stars." It was said that Crook rarely wore his Army uniform, preferring to wear a canvas hunting suit. He had one other peculiarity in that he preferred to ride an old gray mule, appropriately named "Apache," rather than a horse, maintaining that mules had more sense than horses, were better gaited, and more sure-footed.