by Karen Kay
He smiled, a temperate half smile. “Not in words.”
She froze, mortified. “You misunderstand my intention. I only mentioned that you had once offered to marry me. I did not mean that I was seeking that sort of thing from you now.”
“Were you not?” He grinned again. “It does not matter. I would not take you as a man does a woman he loves unless we were married. One does not linger over a good woman without justification.” His eyes darkened, if that were possible, with an emotion that was silent and defeating at the same time. He said, “Do not think that I would not like to have you in the way of a wife. I would like it very much; it is only that I cannot. I am Indian. You are white. Perhaps we should seek a mate, when the time is right, from within our own people.”
Stunned even further, Alys could do little more than stare at him, barely able to utter, “You…you are prejudiced.”
He shrugged. “I could be.”
She backed away from him, but even embarrassment couldn’t keep her from asking, “Then while you were ill and were teasing me, and now here today, how you touched me, the things you said to me; have you only been pretending your affection?” Mortified, she couldn’t help the sob that escaped from her throat.
He moaned, and at last his gaze came up to study her. It was only then that he looked at her, really looked at her. She would never know with certainty what he saw, but, as though suddenly beside himself, he closed the distance between them.
He took her in his arms, preciously folding her back into his embrace, murmuring, “Alys, my good Little Brave Woman, you misunderstand,” he explained, mumbling into her hair. “I know that what I am saying is not easy to bear. But do you honestly think I could pretend such eagerness with you? Hear me now and do not mistake me again. It is because I care deeply for you that I am trying to show you the respect you deserve. It has been wrong of me to tease you these past few weeks. I knew it even when I was doing it; knew it was a path I should not take with you, particularly since it is you who always comes to my rescue. But it cannot now be helped. I can, however, keep myself from making a worse mistake.”
Her chin trembled. “What do you mean, worse mistake?”
“Making love to you would be a terrible mistake on my part.”
Alys gulped. Whatever gladness his speech had at first inspired died a quick and silent death.
She felt foolish, uncertain, and particularly childish all at the same time. How could she have misinterpreted him so completely? She went rigid, although, contrarily, her knees began to quiver.
“You are shaking.”
She couldn’t respond.
“I know that this is hard to accept, if you will try to think as I do, you will see that as you grow older, you will be happy that I was strong at this time of your life. After all, would you have me treat you as one would an unfaithful wife? You,” he pushed his hands through her hair, “whose delicate care has saved my life not once, but twice.”
With all her will, she stepped away from him, out of his reach, and said, “But you saved my life tonight and so we are even.” Her composure was shattered, and she turned her back on him that he might not witness her humiliation.
“That is not the same thing,” he said as though those simple words would explain it all. “Tonight was my duty.”
Duty? Was that all she was?
She whispered, not even glancing over her shoulder, “As it was mine, to save yours.”
“No, not duty. What you did came from the heart, a very good heart. One I will not spoil.”
She heard his breathing behind her, could feel the nearness of him by the tingling sensation upon her skin.
And then the worst thing happened. She sobbed. She couldn’t help it.
She didn’t want to cry, didn’t want him to witness the weakness in her. But she couldn’t help it, and her shoulders shook with the force of her feeling.
Maybe he would leave. She desperately hoped that he would, that he would allow her enough time to collect herself.
But he didn’t. All at once, he closed what little distance still remained between them and took her in his arms, though her back was still toward him. He proffered, “I do not mean to hurt you.”
“You do not.” Her voice trembled with the lie.
“Haiya, this is not easy for me, either.”
An unwanted tear fell down her cheek, but she tried to hide it, bending her head forward and letting her hair fall over her face. She couldn’t speak, and it didn’t matter that she told herself to be strong, that she understood why he was doing what he was doing. She did.
Such things, however, did not matter. She felt mute. So she nodded as though to say, “I know.”
“Haiya,” he uttered again, his hands beginning to assuage her, roaming up and down her, massaging over her stomach, while the hard imprint of his masculinity pressed up against her back. He murmured into her hair. “Do not feel bad.”
“I—I don’t,” she lied again. “Please,” her voice trembled, while another whimper escaped her throat. “Please go,” she managed to say. “I will be fine. Ju-just leave.”
He should have gone while he had the chance. He should have just walked away. But he didn’t. Instead, he tried to console her, saying, “It was wise of you to go your own way all those years ago, I think. Our worlds are too far apart.”
She nodded. Another lie.
“We cannot belong to each other. You know that, do you not?” But his touch on her told her that these, his words, might not be true.
She moaned, and she tried to nod again, but she couldn’t even manage that. And she knew that if he wouldn’t, she should be the one to leave.
To her credit, she tried to do it; tried to force herself to pull out of his embrace and walk away, but she couldn’t find the strength. Not right now. Instead, she did her best to keep her wits about her.
She shook her head, as though that action might give her courage. And when she spoke, her voice was no more than a whisper. “But we already do belong to each other.”
She cringed. Had she really said that? What was wrong with her?
He, however, agreed. “Aa, yes, you are right,” he said. “We do belong to each other, but in spirit only, I think. You must know, however, that I am not talking about that. I am speaking of the physical act of love. We must not do that, despite—”
“Moon Wolf, please,” she protested, finding her voice at last and keeping it steady for all that she trembled. “You must stop this. You talk about the act of love being the worst thing you could do with me and yet you continue to hold me. Please, speak plainly with both your body and your tongue, for you are confusing me.”
He groaned. “I know,” he said. “I know. I am confusing myself, too. Try to understand that I am attempting to keep your own good in mind…despite myself.” He said the words clearly, although his hands didn’t relent in their touch.
She swallowed before she dared to point out, “Then you must cease what you are doing.”
“Aa, yes,” he agreed, though his actions further rebutted him. “I must stop.”
She nodded. “Please.”
He did try, albeit, being a bit more successful than she had been earlier. He let her go and stepped back, while she squared her shoulders and lifted her head.
She took a deep breath, saying, “I must see to the wolf,” and took a jittery step forward, only to have her knees give out beneath her. She fell forward.
At once, he was there beside her, holding her up, turning her around to face him, his hands rubbing her back to give her comfort. He muttered, “The last thing I want is to see you hurt.”
She agreed, nodding, although she could barely think. He had pulled her in close, his lips above her ear, kissing it, kissing her, rubbing his face into her hair, inhaling deeply as though he were memorizing the very scent of her.
He said, “Know that I would only hurt you if I take you as my own.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want this.”<
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“Neither do I,” she said, but she didn’t mean it. She wondered if he did.
He pulled up her shirt, his hands coming at once to her breasts, while she melted. He said, “Know that I will not allow you to masquerade as the Wolf Shadow again.”
“I know.”
“Know that I am not certain where we will live together.”
She nodded.
“Know, too, that I will not plant my seed in you even though I take you for my own.”
What did that mean? She wasn’t certain, but she nodded all the same.
“We will do the honorable thing.”
“Yes.” The shirt was quickly lost.
“And know that I do not pretend affection for you, have never done so.” The words caught in his throat. “Any fondness you have seen from me, have experienced from me, is real…very real.”
“Moon Wolf.”
“Do not say my name like that unless you agree to take me, too. Do you not know what it does to me to hear your voice filled with?…”
Take him? As husband? Dare she believe this is what he spoke of? “…Moon Wolf.”
That was all it took. He swept her off her feet, pressing her into his arms as gently as a man with his strength could, and carried her to his bed of softened blankets and downy pillow, there within the cave.
Laying her down upon it, he began to make a feast of her, his lips showering kisses over her body, suckling her breasts, down further to her belly button, over her stomach, down further and further.
“Moon Wolf! What is it you do to me?”
“I am making love to you as a man should to a woman as virtuous and as good as you, a woman who is to become that man’s wife.”
“But—”
“Shh. You will enjoy it. And it will make you my wife without…” He didn’t finish.
His lips had moved downward until they’d found her most secret spot. And though she knew she ought to murmur some word of protest, she remained silent. Soon, where his lips kissed, his tongue followed, and quickly he discovered her most private, ultra moist recess.
She whimpered, never having experienced the exhilarating sensation of such raw sexuality. Heady emotion flooded through her, while blood pumped fast and strong within her, seeming to center itself around her naval, and she could no more have pulled away from Moon Wolf at this moment than she could have grown wings and flown from this cave.
She arched her back, aware of a strange fulfillment washing over her. So, she thought to herself, this was love; this, the ultimate of physical expression between two people.
She wondered briefly if she could create the same sort of desire within him if she were to reciprocate? The thought was wickedly stimulative.
But even that consideration dissipated as the frenzy of first discovery began to overwhelm her. A need had begun to build up, down there where he held her, its demand consuming and overpowering her. She thought she might scream with the passion of it.
She did scream, after all, and as she did so, she felt herself spiraling upward, out of her body, free and disentangled from all things physical, at least for a moment.
No wonder, she concluded, two people made a habit of loving one another if this were the result. No doubt this explained why songs and tributes, down through the ages, had been written toward the object of one’s affection.
One’s lover; one’s husband.
She smiled leisurely at the thought, at last content. And on this most wonderful insight into humanity, she drifted lightly back to earth.
Chapter 9
He welcomed the cold spray of the water upon his heated flesh. He had fled, practically flown, the distance up to this waterfall. And it hadn’t mattered what his sweet Alys had thought of his actions.
He had to think, and think clearly, without the sweetened fragrance of her to disturb him. For he had now committed more problems than he could easily solve; big problems.
What had he done? He had gone and married her, that’s what he’d done; going so far as to make love to her, although he had yet to feel the release of his own passion from that union. He threw himself farther into the icy water.
He, who had no need for a wife. He, who knew not from one day to the next if he would live. He, who had no right to marry at all, now had.
He stood silently beneath the falls. And, as he had predicted, as his ardor began to cool, so, too, did his reasoning return.
He had been consumed by passion, by love, too. These were his excuses. But now?
Had she understood that they were married? She had mentioned something of a…certificate, whatever that was, which was needed in the white man’s world. Was it possible that she could not be married without one?
He would have to ask her, not that it would make any difference to him. He had committed himself to her. He would not back out of it now.
It was not as if he would never have desired to marry her. If his circumstances were different, if he had certainty of his future, he would have been greatly pleased to have her, particularly if he were white, or, failing that, if she were of his tribe.
But it was not the way of things. She was what she was. While he was the Wolf Shadow…his life was not his own. It might never be. He had committed himself to this purpose years ago…
It had happened in Moon Wolf’s eighteenth year, in the season when the leaves change color. Many of the warriors, seeing what was happening to the people, had begun attacking the bull trains that traveled over the whiskey trail. Charging down upon the trains, destroying their kegs of liquor, and taking any other goods carried on those schooners, the warriors had kept the intoxicating brew from causing too much harm.
But then the bullies had come, guarding the whiskey trains, disregarding the rights of the Blackfeet and killing any Indian on sight, be they man, woman or child. Too many lives had been lost, and the warriors had been given no choice but to stop the assaults or to attack only those few trains that were either very small or not so heavily guarded.
As a result, whiskey had begun to flow too freely; too many men were getting drunk, having too many arguments, the end always being the same: innocent people were killed. That winter so many lives were lost that even the old men could not remember a time when the grieving wails of the women had been heard so long or so incessantly.
And so it was that in this time period, it happened. A Black Robe staying with the people had asked Moon Wolf and two friends to deliver to Fort Benton a message requesting food and blankets.
He and his friends had been joyous.
“I bet I can drink more whiskey than you,” Lone Owl, brother of Moon Wolf’s more-than-friend, bragged.
“No, it is I who will show both my friends how to drink and how to have many great visions,” Charging Boy responded.
Moon Wolf grinned, but remained silent. After witnessing so many deaths from the white man’s firewater, he had no wish to imbibe.
They entered the fort easily enough, their weapons confiscated as was usual whenever an Indian penetrated the inner sanctum of the white man’s shelter; there was no need to be alarmed.
They tread through the fort much as they had on other occasions.
“We should go first to the general store and deliver this message for the Black Robe,” Charging Boy said. “Then when we have the white man’s money in our hand from completing this task, we will go to the traders and ask for the white man’s drink. What say you?”
Lone Owl agreed, while Moon Wolf again remained silent, voicing no argument.
Suddenly Moon Wolf heard an explosion, only to witness Charging Boy fall to the ground, a bullet through the head.
Another explosion quickly followed, as Moon Wolf grabbed Lone Owl and pulled him into the shelter of a building.
There they huddled together, Moon Wolf recognizing the terror in his friend’s eyes.
“We must find a place to hide,” Moon Wolf said. “I know of such a place. After the next shot is fired, follow me.”
Lone
Owl signed agreement, and they waited. Yet no more shots came.
“Perhaps the white men have grown tired of watching for us,” Lone Owl said. “Let us sneak from here and escape to your place now.”
“No. It is not safe yet. They are expecting us to do exactly that. They cannot see us here; they would have been firing on us, if they could. We will wait.”
Crouched in the shadows, filled with panic, suddenly they heard footsteps off to their left, then to their right.
Moon Wolf shot his friend a look of concern, signing that they were going to have to run. He pointed in a general direction and signed again for his friend to stay close to him. On signal, they burst from their hiding place, sprinting across the open streets as fast as they could.
Explosions sounded everywhere. Moon Wolf ran and ran, without stopping.
Up ahead loomed a row of bushes. He sprinted for them and dove into them head first, expecting to hear his friend do the same.
It never happened. Looking back, Moon Wolf spied Lone Owl sitting in the dirt several yards away, clutching his leg. On the verge of running back to rescue his friend, Moon Wolf froze when several white men ran over to the boy and shot him five times through the head. The other white men whooped and hollered and laughed.
Moon Wolf would never forget it, nor would he ever forgive.
He had escaped, hiding out until dark and then fleeing through the tunnels.
He had returned to his people and, his heart heavy, had demanded revenge. But the chiefs would not let him, nor would they allow Moon Wolf’s more-than-friend, Never Laughs, to honor his brother’s death through retaliation. The chiefs had given their word to their Indian agent to seek justice only in the white man’s way, and no amount of talking would convince these wise old men that their sense of honor, their oaths of allegiance, fell on deaf ears.
Yet treachery, once practiced, does not breed honesty. And so the chiefs had gone to the white man’s forts, had demanded the white man’s justice. All to no effect.
