Savage Hero

by Cassie Edwards

  And she had not given up on seeing her sweet son again. She . . . would . . . never give up!

  “It is time for you to dress in your special attire, while I dress in mine,” Brave Wolf said, leaning Mary Beth away from him so they could look into one another’s eyes. “You will go with Dancing Butterfly to her lodge. There she has laid out the most beautiful doeskin dress for you to wear. I shall go to my . . . no, our lodge and prepare myself for you.”

  Mary Beth’s heart was singing. She giggled with happiness, then looked up at Pure Heart, who was just now entering her lodge carrying the cat. She felt good about having found a way to help the elderly mother of her beloved Brave Wolf cope with the loss of a son she more than likely would never see again.

  “Come now,” Dancing Butterfly said, taking Mary Beth by the hand. “It is time!”

  Mary Beth’s heart raced with excitement. She had never thought she could love a man so much.

  But she did, and he loved her in return. And they were going to become man and wife only a short while from now.

  “Is this really real?” she said, drawing Dancing Butterfly’s eyes to her. “Is this truly happening? I am soon to be married to Brave Wolf?”

  “It is all very real,” Dancing Butterfly said, her eyes no longer filled with tears, but instead, laughter. “Ah, what a wonderful man you are getting, and what a wonderful woman he is getting in you.”

  Mary Beth blushed. “Thank you,” she murmured, then followed Dancing Butterfly into her tepee. She stopped and stared disbelievingly at the dress that was spread out for her.

  She had never seen anything so beautiful!

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Lo, this is she that was the

  world’s delight.

  —Swinburne

  There was still a steady throb of rawhide drums outside the lodge where the newlyweds lay on a bed of thick pelts. Delicate asters lay close by, the flowers chosen by Mary Beth to hold during the wedding ceremony.

  The air was sweet with incense that Brave Wolf had tossed into their lodge fire. That fire lapped slowly now around the logs, like fingers caressing them, giving off a soft light and creating dancing shadows along the inside walls of the tepee.

  “I shall never forget this day,” Mary Beth said as she lay beside Brave Wolf. “It was as though I was walking on clouds as I stood beside you during the ceremony. And the dress. Ah, the dress. It was almost as white as linen and so beautifully trimmed with ermine and ornamented with porcupine quills and beads. I especially loved the necklace of rock swallow feathers that your mother gave me to wear. I felt like a princess.”

  She snuggled closer and giggled. “I still do,” she murmured. “I am dizzy with happiness.”

  Mary Beth ran her fingers through Brave Wolf’s loose and flowing raven-black hair. “And you,” she murmured. “You were so handsome in your fringed doeskin attire, with your hair in braids bound in otter fur. I loved your hair that way, but I must confess, I like it much . . . much better loose and flowing.”

  She leaned her face into his hair. “I love its smell,” she murmured. “I love its thickness.”

  He took her hand and kissed its palm, then held it over his heart. “Dancing Butterfly was making that dress for our ceremony before she knew you, and before Night Horse left to join the whites as a scout,” Brave Wolf said. He released her hand and leaned on an elbow so that he could get a full look at his new bride.

  She was so beautiful, the very sight and nearness of her spread fire throughout him.

  “Even when Night Horse disappeared from Dancing Butterfly’s life, she continued making the dress,” he went on.

  “Then why did she give it to me to wear?” Mary Beth asked, gazing into her husband’s eyes. “Does she not have hope of one day marrying, herself?”

  “She gave up that hope when Night Horse walked out of her life,” Brave Wolf said, reaching a hand out to gently cup one of her breasts.

  “Do you mean the first or the second time he left?” Mary Beth asked softly.

  “When he left the first time, she finished the dress and stored it away, but vowed even then she would not wear it on her wedding day, if ever should there be one for her,” Brave Wolf said, leaning down to brush soft kisses across her brow.

  “Then even if Night Horse had stayed this time and married her, she would not have worn this beautiful dress?” Mary Beth asked.

  “Ka, no, she wouldn’t have. She had decided never to wear it at all, for when she designed it and began making it, it was for only one purpose— for her wedding day with my brother,” he said. “And I do not mean a possible wedding day should he return, as he did for a while. It was made for only that one special planned wedding, one of innocence and sweetness before Night Horse became someone none of us knew anymore. To wear it after he had returned would not have been the same. His leaving to fight alongside whites had tarnished the memory of why she was making the dress in the first place.”

  “Yet she gave it to me to wear,” Mary Beth said.

  “Perhaps I should not have told you the story of the dress,” Brave Wolf said, placing a finger under her chin and turning her eyes back to his. “Does it make it less special in your eyes to know why Dancing Butterfly did not plan to ever wear it?”

  “It is still special to me, even more so, because I now know just how special it was to her at one time,” Mary Beth murmured.

  She moved so that her body was molded perfectly against his, laughed softly, then sighed with pleasure when he suddenly took her gently by the waist and swept her beneath him.

  “You are such a beautiful bride,” he said, his eyes filled with adoration as he gazed down at her.

  The startling beauty of her nakedness caused the fires within him to build to an almost feverish pitch.

  He placed a knee between her legs and parted them, her thighs opening to him as he placed his maleness perfectly within her.

  “Let us not talk any more about dresses,” he said huskily. “Let us just feel tonight, my sunshine. Let us just feel the wonders of our bodies joining as not only man and woman, but as husband and wife.”

  “I love you so,” she whispered as she twined her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. “Mihigna, husband, fill me with your heat. Take me with you to paradise.”

  “Tawicu, wife, I am already there,” he whispered against her lips. “Being with you is paradise.”

  He touched her lips wonderingly with his, then swept his arms around her and held her close as he kissed her long and deep, until her lips quavered with passion against his.

  Waves of liquid heat pulsed through Brave Wolf as he thrust into her over and over again.

  He slid a hand between them and filled it with one of her breasts, feeling her nipple tighten against his palm.

  His hand kneaded her soft fullness, his tongue now lightly brushing her lips as his body moved faster in quick, sure movements.

  Mary Beth clung to him, oh, so lost in waves of ecstasy. She could feel the pleasure building and spreading within her, her passion almost cresting.

  “Do you feel my hunger . . . my need?” Brave Wolf whispered against her lips as he leaned back only far enough to be able to look into her passion-clouded eyes. “Do you feel how badly I want you?”

  “I feel it . . . I know it . . .” Mary Beth whispered back, her face hot with a flush of building excitement. “Do you feel my need of you? Can you feel my undying love?”

  “I feel it, and I see it, and I taste it when I kiss you,” he said huskily. He leaned low and swirled his tongue across one of her breasts, causing Mary Beth to cry out with rapture. She sighed deeply as he took her nipple into his mouth and began sucking.

  She arched her back and untwined her arms from around his neck, now clenching her fists at her sides, for the pleasure was so overwhelmingly beautiful, she knew she could not go on much longer without letting herself go over the edge into total ecstasy.

  When he moved away from her, then knelt over
her, she questioned him with her eyes.

  He smiled down at her, then stroked her body with his lips and tongue, descending from the taper of her neck to her breasts, where he moved from one breast to the other with soft, warm kisses.

  When his tongue swept downward, across her tummy, Mary Beth groaned with pleasure and closed her eyes at the bliss of the moment.

  When he touched her private place, where only he had been, and his warm tongue caressed her there, she at first thought to brush his head aside. But she could not deny that his caresses were wonderfully pleasing, and allowed them.

  She licked her lips.

  She sighed.

  She twined her fingers through his hair to encourage even more of what she had at first thought might be wrong.

  Then just before she leapt over that last barrier into the final throes of ecstasy, he blanketed her body with his again, penetrated her deeply, and began hungry, deep thrusts.

  They clung to one another as they came to that place where stars seemed to explode inside their heads, and where their bodies blazed with joyful bliss.

  Afterwards, when they were lying side by side again, only their hands intertwining, Mary Beth gazed over at him. “How could it ever be any more beautiful than it was for us tonight?” she murmured, her face still hot with the aftermath of lovemaking. “Everything within me came alive with passion. I was far beyond coherent thought when you took me over the edge into ecstasy.”

  “As was I,” Brave Wolf said, chuckling. “At that moment I was not a chief, I was a man . . . a mihigna, a husband.”

  “But you are a chief, a beloved one at that,” Mary Beth said, leaning up on her elbows as she gazed admiringly at him. “As you are now a husband, also a beloved one. And soon you will be a father, as I will be a mother again.”

  She sighed and rolled back onto her back. “Again,” she murmured. “Oh, how I wish that David could have been here to make this day one hundred percent perfect.”

  “My sunshine, do you not know that he was with you?” Brave Wolf said as he moved to his side and placed a gentle hand over her heart. “In there, my sunshine. In there. Your son is always with you in your heart.”

  Tears came to her eyes. Not sad tears, but happy tears that came from realizing just how wonderful a man she had found and married. “Only you would think to tell a woman that on her wedding night,” she murmured. “That proves that you are unselfish in your thoughts. Tonight you could be demanding so much more of your wife. You are so sweet and special, my husband. I hope I never disappoint you.”

  “You could never disappoint this husband,” Brave Wolf said, sitting up. He placed his hands at her waist, drew her up and arranged her on his lap, facing him. “You are so radiantly beautiful tonight. It would be so easy to make love over and over again, but I also see some weariness in your eyes. It has not been an easy time for you these past days. My wife, let us sleep. Let me watch you sleep. I doubt that I can go to sleep just yet. I am so full of you, oh, so full of you.”

  “As I am you,” Mary Beth murmured. She leaned forward and twined her arms around his neck and gave him a sweet kiss. “My mihigna, I hunger for more tonight than sleep. It would please me so if you would take me on that road to paradise again.”

  He smiled into her eyes, then gently rolled her beneath him again.

  Their bodies came together with the magic only they could create for one another.

  Chapter Thirty

  I’ll woo her as the lion

  woos his bride.

  —John Home

  The sound of a cat meowing outside their lodge awakened both Mary Beth and Brave Wolf.

  Mary Beth sat up and listened more carefully, then hurried into a blanket-robe and went to the entranceway. She slid aside the flap when she heard the cat’s soft cry again.

  It was early dawn and there was just light enough for Mary Beth to see the beautiful calico cat, its green eyes gazing up at her as if to say I belong to you, not Pure Heart.

  Then Mary Beth saw something else. A mouse, and not any ordinary mouse. It was white-footed. She saw it was dead and also saw the cat’s teeth marks in its bloody side. She gasped softly when the cat gazed down at the mouse, slapped at it with a paw, then looked up at Mary Beth again.

  “What is it?” Brave Wolf asked as he came to Mary Beth’s side with his breechcloth on. He followed her gaze and saw the cat and then the mouse.

  “The cat seems to have brought me a gift this morning,” Mary Beth said, smiling at Brave Wolf.

  “A mouse?” Brave Wolf said, arching an eyebrow.

  “This is the way a cat shows its affection . . . its fondness for someone,” Mary Beth said. She reached down and swept the cat into her arms.

  When it snuggled close to her and began purring, she knew that her reasoning was correct. The cat had chosen her to be its master over Pure Heart. The mouse was its way of delivering the message of ownership to her.

  Brave Wolf went outside, took the mouse by its tail and tossed it away. He washed his hands in a basin of water that was kept outside, then went back into his tepee and knelt beside Mary Beth. She was sitting beside the glimmering embers in the firepit, slowly stroking the cat.

  “I’m not sure what I should do about this,” Mary Beth said, glancing at Brave Wolf. “The cat is so content when she is with me. I feel that I should accept her as mine, since it is so obvious that she prefers me, yet what about your mother? The cat seemed to help take away some of the loneliness that Night Horse’s departure caused.”

  “She is a caring, understanding woman,” Brave Wolf said, reaching over to stroke the cat’s soft fur. “She would not want the cat to stay with her if the animal prefers you. She would want the cat to be happy.”

  He ran his hand gently over the cat’s tummy. “And there soon will be kittens,” he said, smiling. “Mother can have her choice of . . . how did you call them?”

  “The litter,” Mary Beth said, still stroking the beautiful animal. “Pure Heart can have her pick of the litter. Perhaps she can take more than one if that is her preference.”

  “Then that should settle it,” Brave Wolf said. “That should make her happy enough.”

  “How do I tell her?” Mary Beth said.

  “I shall go and explain it to her,” Brave Wolf said.

  “I truly hope she won’t be too sad over this,” Mary Beth said. “Yesterday she was so brave and courageous about accepting her loss all over again. She was even a part of our wedding ceremony, though I know that she was hurting deep inside herself.”

  “My brother knew that it was best for him to leave, yet I regret the hurts he caused all over again,” Brave Wolf said, combing his fingers through his hair to straighten out its morning tangles. “My mother is not doing as well as Dancing Butterfly. She carries her hurts more deeply. I understood why she went back to the privacy of her lodge immediately after our wedding vows were spoken. Did you understand, as well?”

  “Yes, very much so,” Mary Beth said, sighing. “She has lost her son again. I lost mine only once. I would hate to think of the heartbreak if I had him back and then he suddenly disappeared again. As it is, both your mother and I carry empty spaces inside our hearts over such grievous losses.”

  “Brother?”

  The voice brought both Mary Beth and Brave Wolf quickly to their feet. Mary Beth clung to the cat as she hurried to the entrance flap beside Brave Wolf.

  Her eyes widened when she saw Night Horse standing there, and not alone!

  She recognized the man who was tied up and whose eye was swollen shut and bloody.

  “Blackjack Tom,” Mary Beth gasped out, stunned.

  “Night Horse, who is this?” Brave Wolf asked, stepping out of the tepee with Mary Beth beside him.

  “My brother, when I left yesterday, I planned to stay away, but I could not,” Night Horse said, his voice full of emotion. “I kept thinking about the hurts that I was again leaving behind. Yet I saw the strain I put on everybody when the soldiers came. H
ad they known I was here, things would have been different. The soldiers might not have helped you, but instead seen you as an enemy because you were harboring a man they now suspect. I thought everyone would be better off without me, but my heart would not allow me to stay away. My woman . . . my mother . . . my brother . . . my people seemed to call to me. I had to return. I shall face all questions, either from whites or my brethren, and pay whatever price I must pay, but I am tired of causing hurts by disappearing.”

  He gave Blackjack Tom a shove, causing him to fall on his knees.

  The man with the beady black eyes looked humbly up at Night Horse, then lowered his eyes to the ground.

  “This man, whom I know as Blackjack Tom from my acquaintance with the white pony soldiers, was lurking directly behind your lodge, my brother,” Night Horse said venomously. “He had a knife. Had I not come along when I did, I believe he would have entered your lodge from the back by slicing his way through the skins. I did not know why he would do this, or whom he planned to kill, until I forced answers from him.”

  “And what did he say?” Mary Beth asked, her voice breaking, for in her mind’s eye she was reliving that night all over again, how the dark shadow of the man loomed over her as his hands tightened around her throat!

  “He said nothing at first, but when I placed his own knife at his throat, he spoke loudly and clearly of wanting to kill you, Mary Beth, and then my brother Brave Wolf,” Night Horse said, his voice tight. “When I heard his plan, I could not help hitting him.”

  “After I gave him information, he shouldn’t have hit me,” Blackjack Tom whined.

  “He should have done worse than that,” Mary Beth said angrily. “You are a filthy, cold-hearted man. You are a coward, for only a coward would enter a woman’s room at night with plans to kill her. I am so glad that Night Horse found you. I hope you hang.”

  She looked at Brave Wolf. “You will take him to Fort Hope, won’t you?” Mary Beth asked softly. “Colonel Anderson will see to it that he gets what he deserves. I . . . I . . . don’t think you should take on the responsibility of doing anything, yourself. If word spread that you did something to a white soldier, even though he deserted his post and is wanted by all of the United States cavalry, the government would not take kindly to your handing down his punishment.”