Cherokee Storm

by Janelle Taylor

  In another time, when snows were deep and blizzards roared down from the north, early hunters had driven herds of deer to their deaths off this ledge. It was said that desperate women, whose men died young, came to this spot to leap to their deaths. Many testified that the meadow and thin line of woods were haunted, and that they had seen and heard the weeping ghosts.

  Few Tsalagi would dare to come here, but Gall knew that Cardinal was bold and feared nothing she could not touch. It was a good place to meet without fear of others seeing and listening.

  He saw her the instant she moved from the shadows of the trees. “Here,” he called. “I am here.” And when she came closer, he asked, “Did anyone see you? Are you certain you’ve not been followed?”

  “No, no one saw me.” Cardinal’s voice came high and breathy. “I could have driven a white man’s wagon through the camp, and no one would have noticed. They are all talking about her stealing the Corn Mask and desecrating it.”

  She had always been a quiet woman, calm, Gall thought. Perhaps she did fear this place. He rose and went to her and took her hands. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing. It was her. The yellow-haired witch. She stole the Wolf Clan’s mask and—”

  “Save it for the council. You lied. You took the mask yourself, didn’t you? Stole it and smashed it.” He chuckled. “You really don’t fear the spirits, do you?”

  “I do.”

  He felt her tremble.

  “I dropped it by accident. I wanted to hide the mask where it would be safe and quickly found, but it was dark in my aunt’s cabin, and I stumbled over a hearth stone.” She tried to pull her hands free, but he held her tightly.

  “Why didn’t you do as I asked? I would have thrown her off Ghost Ledge, and we would have been rid of her.”

  “I couldn’t be a party to murder.” She wiggled one hand out of his grasp. “I thought they would send her back to her own kind. She isn’t one of us. I didn’t think they would judge her as they would a Tsalagi.”

  He pulled her so close he could feel her breath on his forehead. She was tall, like most of the Cherokee women, taller than he was. He didn’t like that. It made him feel small and less a man. “If your conscience bothers you, you should tell what you’ve done. Explain that it was you who stole the mask—who broke it.”

  Cardinal shuddered. “Then I would stand trial. This is all your fault, Gall. If it wasn’t for you, I would have let him have her.”

  He wrapped his arms around her so quickly that she was trapped. He laid his head on her warm breasts. “What have you been doing, my pretty bird? You’ve been with a man, haven’t you? I smell his juice on you.”

  “None of your business.”

  He slid one hand down her back to stroke her shapely buttocks. “You’re still wet from having sex, aren’t you?”

  “No. You’re mistaken. I’ve been nowhere but here. Let me go, Gall.”

  “Who was it tonight? I know you prefer married men, men who cannot sully your name. But Rattlesnake would. He’s the one who had your sweet plum when you were barely thirteen. And Pine Squirrel. Such tales he tells.” He caught the neckline of her vest and yanked it down so that one ripe breast glowed in the darkness.

  “Stop it.” She kicked his ankle hard enough to make him see stars.

  He couldn’t let her know that she’d hurt him. “What of Buffalo Hoof? Is he lying too?” The sight of her breast made his mouth water. He would suck it until she screamed with pleasure.

  “No! Let go of me.” She struggled against him. She was strong, this woman. Determined. But not as determined as he was to gain something from this meeting.

  Her movements excited him, made him hard as bone. He fisted his fingers in her hair and forced her head down so that he could grind his mouth against hers.

  “Stop that!”

  When she opened her mouth, he plunged his tongue deep, then withdrew as she tried to catch him between her sharp teeth. She thrust an elbow sharply into his ribs and brought up a knee to strike his crotch. “Let me go!” She panted. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m your friend,” he argued. “You owe me something if you want me to keep quiet about this. All I want is a little of what you’ve been giving other men so easily.”

  She freed one arm, brought it up, and stuck his chin a hard blow with the palm of her hand. His head rocked back. He lost his balance, staggered backward, and she broke loose from his grasp.

  “How dare you?” she cried. “Dog vomit. Limping worm. Half-breed!”

  “Close your mouth, woman!”

  “Son of Big Pascal with the tiny root. I hear he likes it with men as well as women. Are you the same, Gall? Do you want Storm Dancer for yourself?”

  “Stop!”

  “I would never lie down with you,” she taunted. “No decent girl in the camp would. You’re the laughingstock of the village. Don’t you know that? Everyone talks about you—how they’d like to be rid of you.”

  White-hot anger churned in his chest. “Hold your tongue or I’ll cut it out of you.”

  But she would not be still. “Sneaking around. Betraying your cousin,” she went on in the shrill, mocking voice. “Pretending you’re hurt worse than you are so that you wouldn’t have to join the war party with the other men!”

  She turned to flee, but he ran after her and knocked her to the ground. She yanked her eating knife from her sheath and drove it into his arm. The pain shriveled his shaft, and he bit the side of his mouth to keep from crying out.

  “Female dog.” He twisted the knife from her hand. The wound burned like fire. He felt light-headed, but he held on to her with the tenacity of a weasel. He sunk his fingers into her shoulders and shook her until she screamed.

  “You will share your thighs with me!” He ripped her skirt aside, pushed her legs apart, and slammed himself on top of her.

  His shaft remained flabby. She clawed his face, as he grabbed his cock and tried to jam it in her. She was hitting him with both fists. She struck him full in the nose, and he felt the bone crunch. Pain rocked his head.

  He half rose on his knees. She tried to get away, and he shoved her back so hard that her head bounced.

  “Dirty whore!” he shouted.

  Cardinal lay still.

  He called her another name, even more vile. She didn’t move. Gall got to his feet, stuffed his manhood back into his loincloth, and kicked her in the ribs.

  “Get up. I didn’t hurt you that bad.” He leaned over her, pressed his face close to hers, and felt the stir of breath on his cheek. “I said…”

  He shook her. She didn’t respond.

  He rolled her over and felt the back of her head. Had she struck a rock? It wasn’t until he ran his hand lower, skimming her shoulder and back that his fingers encountered the knife handle protruding from her bleeding flesh.

  Instinctively, he jerked the knife out. It wasn’t a big knife. The blade was narrow and short, a woman’s eating knife. No man would enter a battle with such a weapon.

  Blood oozed from the hole.

  Cardinal was hurt. Not dying. Hurt. If he carried her back to the village, the shaman could treat her—probably save her life.

  But she would tell. Everyone would know.

  Sadly, Gall gathered Cardinal in his arms and walked through the trees to the edge of Ghost Ledge. No one could fault him. Cardinal had caused this herself, and the village would believe she’d killed herself because Storm Dancer had deserted her for a white woman.

  It was the only way….

  Chapter 25

  Shannon, a prisoner, paced the confines of her rocky cell. Storm Dancer’s mother had ordered the women to take her into a cave near the village and lower her into a deep pit in the earth.

  “There you will remain until the trial,” Firefly said. “You must think on what you have done. You must pray that the spirit of the Corn Mask will forgive your ignorance.”

  “I did nothing wrong,” Shannon had repeated over and over
.

  “Then you will be found innocent,” Firefly said. “And you have no reason to worry.”

  She hadn’t been physically harmed in any way. The women had given her food, a blanket, water and fuel, and flint and steel to make a fire. But she was trapped here, encased in a cocoon of silence. Around her, walls of sheer rock rose. Below, stretched unfathomed depths of stone and earth. The ceiling of the cavern hovered far above, cloaked in darkness.

  Shannon could hear nothing but the crackle of her fire and the pulsing of her own heart. There was no breeze, no drip of water, no human voice or footfall, although from time to time, she fancied she heard the faint flap of wings and shuddered to think she might be sharing her tomb with bats.

  Her conscience was clear. She wasn’t a thief. This was either a clever trap or a mistake. And, even though she had done nothing wrong, she could imagine what it would be like for a guilty man or woman imprisoned here. Fear would radiate through every drop of blood, and the walls would surely close in around them. The sheer weight of rock and mountain would crush the sanity from a guilty prisoner long before the Tsalagi judgment.

  How had this happened to her? What would they do to her? Would she live to see Storm Dancer return? Or would he come home to find her bones already stripped of flesh by carrion eaters? And who had destroyed the Corn Mask? Could Firefly be so determined that her son marry Cardinal that she would condemn the woman he loved to death on a false charge?

  The day passed and the day and night after that, the time broken only by silent visitors who lowered baskets of food and pulled up the pottery container they had provided for her bodily wastes. Her captors provided fresh water, enough to drink and to bathe, and changes of clothing, warmer garments than the skimpy skirt and vest she’d worn on the day they’d placed her here. And on the third day, someone tossed down a bearskin, so that she didn’t have to sleep on the hard rock.

  “I will not go as mad as Oona,” Shannon vowed. “I will not.” Repeating the statement every few hours seemed to help. How long she would wait for this trial, she didn’t know, but when the Cherokee council women came for her, she was determined to have her wits about her. She would defend herself.

  She was innocent. She was the one who had been wronged. She’d never seen the mask before they’d displayed the broken pieces at the creekside. And she had never stolen anything in her life—not a penny, not a crust of bread.

  Maybe time wasn’t her enemy, Shannon thought on the fourth day. If enough time passed, Storm Dancer would return. He would know that she’d been falsely accused. He would come to this place and rescue her.

  He must.

  He would, wouldn’t he? He loved her. He’d said he loved her. Unless, it was all a lie…. Unless Storm Dancer had lied about losing his knife…unless he had been the one who killed her father…. Storm Dancer hadn’t waited for Oona. Was it because he knew she would be safe? Or was it because he knew she could condemn him for murdering Flynn and burning the trading post?

  Shannon pushed away the ugly doubts. Storm Dancer could never do those terrible things. Even imagining that he might do them was as wicked as what the council women had done to her. He was as innocent as she was. He had to be.

  She kept count of the days by marking the wall with a burnt stick. She also drew pictures and wrote the lines of old Irish poems that she remembered from her childhood. She sang the lyrics of story-ballads and repeated riddles merely to hear the sound of her own voice. And she named her children, children she would have someday with Storm Dancer…boys and girls with skin the color of wild honey and eyes like fallen angels.

  By the fifth day in her pit prison, Shannon was holding long conversations with her dead friend, Anna. Shannon hadn’t lost her wits yet. She knew that Anna was dead and she was alive, but it was comforting to think about Anna and imagine that she was listening.

  She told Anna all that had happened to her in the months and years since they’d been so cruelly parted. She even laughed with Anna about the antics of Betty the cow, and Badger the big-headed pony that Storm Dancer had given her. She didn’t tell Anna about her father’s death. Anna would know, and talking about Da would only make her sad.

  She didn’t tell Anna about Storm Dancer’s knife either. To do so would be a betrayal of the man she loved. Anna might not understand. She might think that Shannon’s fears had substance…that Storm Dancer could do such a terrible thing. Anna might suspect Storm Dancer of murdering Da. And so, Shannon had to keep those thoughts secret.

  It was the sixth day, or perhaps the seventh. Shannon couldn’t remember if she had marked the day twice or not, that the routine was broken by a small, serious face fringed in black hair peering over the edge of the pit.

  “Are you there, yellow-haired ghost?”

  Shannon started. Goosebumps rose on her arms. She hadn’t thought to speak to Woodpecker, even though the boy was as dead as Anna. What did it mean that he’d come to her on his own? Had she lost her mind? Had she died?

  “Woodpecker? Is that you?” she called.

  “Yes!” he cried gleefully. “It be Woodpecker. Are you well Sha-naan-O-Say?”

  “I don’t think so.” Shannon rubbed the base of her skull. “I’m talking to you.” She added more sticks to the fire. She had carefully measured out her wood supplies every day so that there would be no chance of the fire going out, but she wanted a better look at the child’s specter.

  “Be happy. Do not be sad. I do not believe you are a breaker of sacred things. And my mother does not think so either.”

  “Your mother? I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was killed.”

  A woman’s face appeared next to his. “Do not frighten my son with tales of dying,” she admonished. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you were his friend.”

  Shannon felt light-headed. She sat down on the bearskin and tilted her head back to look at the woman. She was a stranger. Why would the ghost of a woman, one she’d never met in life, come to talk to her? “I don’t understand. Aren’t you dead too?”

  The boy laughed. “My mother is here. She be Blue Sky of the Paint Clan. I am holding her arm. Why do you say my mother is dead?”

  Shannon took a deep breath. Maybe the water they’d been bringing her was poisoned. Or the food…“You’re dead, though. A white man killed you the night the village was attacked. I saw the feathers in your scalp.”

  “Stop it,” Blue Sky ordered. “Stop frightening Woodpecker or we will go away. No one else will talk to you. I’ve only come because my aunt asked me to bring you word.”

  “Your aunt? Who is your aunt?”

  “Snowberry. She is my cousin’s mother on my father’s side, not really an aunt since she is Deer Clan and not of my mother’s Paint Clan. But Snowberry has no family left, but Cardinal and her mother, Corn Woman. And Cardinal has run away with Gall.”

  “Snowberry sent you?”

  “Yes!” Woodpecker cried. “Aunty Snowberry. She likes you.”

  Blue Sky continued. “She wanted me to tell you that your little mother, called Oona, is here in this village. She knows you were worried about her.”

  “But how?” Shannon demanded. “We left Oona at my father’s trading post, many days’ travel away.”

  “Whistler and his wife found her near Turkey Gap. They brought her to our new village.”

  “We are of Split Cane’s town,” Blue Sky explained. “My mother, Story Woman, knew Oona as the wife of Truth Teller, your father. But Oona was not sick in her head the last time she saw her.”

  “My grandmother heard from Sings Twice that Storm Dancer was bringing you here. So—”

  “So we brought Oona to you,” Blue Sky finished for her son. “Oona is not Tsalagi. She is Delaware. Split Cane feels that it is your duty to care for Oona, since she is sick, whether your father is dead or not.”

  “If you don’t want her, we will keep her,” Woodpecker said. “We like her. She has two puppies, and she lets me play with them. I think she will give me one when the
y are old enough to leave the mother.”

  “Oona is here?”

  “Are you slow-witted?” Woodpecker’s mother asked. “My son is alive and well and so am I. Some were killed on that dark night, but we survived. It is bad luck for you to keep saying—”

  “I’m sorry,” Shannon said. “I thought…I saw a child’s scalp with black and white woodpecker feathers—”

  “Ahhh.” The woman nodded. “Now, I understand. It was my son’s friend, Tadpole. He was struck down and scalped by white barbarians. It was his hair that you saw, not my Woodpecker’s.”

  Shannon closed her eyes. The child wasn’t dead. The little boy staring down at her was alive. Emotion made her tremble. “I didn’t know.”

  Woodpecker sniffed. “Tadpole wanted to tease my grandmother. I put the feathers in his hair as a joke. We thought she would think he was me. My old grandmother, Story Woman, does not see so good, but she makes the best sweet cakes.”

  “I’m sorry for Tadpole’s mother and father, but I’m glad you’re alive,” Shannon said. “And I’m so happy that my father’s wife is here. Of course, I will take care of her. Why didn’t she come with you?”

  “She doesn’t talk,” Woodpecker said. “My aunt Snowberry gave her soup and put her and the baby to sleep. She is sad, but she has a good pony. Maybe she will let me ride it.”

  Shannon hugged herself and chuckled. “A pony? Does he have a big head?”

  “He does,” the child agreed, “but his nose is very soft, and he likes sweet cakes.”

  “His name is Badger,” Shannon said. “And he likes everything but work.”

  “We must go now,” Blue Sky said, “but we will be back with your evening meal.”

  “Please, is there any word of the war party? Any news from our braves?”

  “No. Nothing. We must wait to hear, and that is always hard. Is there anything you want?”

  “To get out of here. I haven’t done anything wrong.”