“If the Cherokee thought so much of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, why then did they choose to fight for the South, instead of the North?” Lauralee asked softly.
“My people met in council and made this decision as though we were all one mind and heart,” Dancing Cloud said, in his mind’s eye recalling the day that he had sat beside his father in council, his heart already knowing with whom be wanted to fight. With Boyd Johnston’s regiment. How could he choose differently? He had known Boyd since he was eight. He had looked to him as a second father figure.
“Was my father among those sitting in council?” Lauralee asked, recalling the very day her father had left to travel to the mountains to meet with Dancing Cloud’s chieftain father.
“Yes, Boyd was there. Your father explained many things while in council that day. We came to realize that we could not be sure how the North would treat our people during such a vicious war that had been started between the white people. The South had at least some feelings for the Cherokee’s way of life.”
He paused and inhaled a quavering breath, these remembrances of a time that had then seemed exciting, now like a hot brand upon his memory, so vividly remembering the bloody trail of the Civil War.
“Our people also knew that it was not a war fought for free soil or dignity of the farmer,” he then said. “It was fought for things only whites ever fight for—power and profit. The Cherokee did not want to see that gained at the expense of our people!”
He paused again, then said, “On October seven in the year 1861 a treaty was concluded by which all Cherokee cast their lot with the Confederacy,” he said softly. “The Cherokee nation always strives faithfully to uphold its treaty obligations.”
They had been so drawn together into conversation they had not noticed that the sky had lost its lustrous stars. Thunder trembled the ground beneath them and lurid streaks of lightning flashing across the dark heavens sent Lauralee and Dancing Cloud quickly to their feet.
With the help of Dancing Cloud, Lauralee soon had everything back in the wicker basket and secured at the back of the buggy.
Just as the heavens opened up, and the rain came down in a blinding rush, Dancing Cloud led Lauralee into a cave, two blankets thrown across one of his arms.
When he noticed that Lauralee was trembling he took one of the blankets and placed it around her shoulders.
“Where on earth did this storm come from?’” Lauralee asked, shivering. She peered through the sheet of rain and saw that the campfire had been quickly extinguished. “And what if it rains all night?”
Dancing Cloud lit a match and looked into the depths of the cave. He discovered that others had used it for lodging. A circle of rocks held within them a pile of cold, gray ash. Not far from where a campfire had been built, several logs had been stacked, unused.
“We shall make camp in the cave for the night,” Dancing Cloud said, already laying the logs on the circle of rocks. “When I first noticed the cave I thought it might be best to sleep there, anyhow. I had just not yet had the chance to tell you about it.”
Lauralee turned and looked warily around her, the campfire just now taking hold as the flames cast dancing shadows along the wall of the cave. “When I think of a cave, I think of bats,” she said, again shivering, not from the cold, but from the thoughts of a bat suddenly swooping down on her, tangling itself into her thick hair.
“Do not fear bats,” Dancing Cloud said, spreading the other blanket out beside the fire. “They fear humans. If there are any bats in this cave, they will stay hidden.”
Smiling weakly, Lauralee sat down on the blanket beside Dancing Cloud. She reached her hands over the fire and absorbed the warmth into her flesh. “Dancing Cloud, I have been wondering about something,” she said, glancing over at him.
“About what?” he said, nudging the blanket back into place on her shoulders when it began slipping down her arms.
“When you see poison ivy, why do you always address it as though it is your friend?”
Dancing Cloud chuckled. His eyes danced into hers. “In the old, innocent days of my youth, I was taught that poison ivy is feared by all Cherokee, and being polite to it is a way to conciliate it . . . to gain its goodwill,” he explained. “I have carried that teaching into my adult life. It is a habit I shall never break, it seems.”
A great crash of thunder and a fierce bolt of lightning that was so bright it lit up the entrance of the cave caused Lauralee to lurch with fright. When Dancing Cloud’s arm snaked around her shoulders, she tightened inside. She feared disappointing him again.
But a kiss? she wondered desperately to herself as his lips moved toward hers. What harm is there in just one little kiss? She so badly wanted to feel his lips upon hers again. He had such beautiful lips, so soft and gentle.
Dancing Cloud framed her face between his hands and gazed down at her. “O-ge-ye, my woman, allow my kissing you,” he said huskily. “Passion is not so much an emotion as it is a destiny. It is our destiny, o-ge-ye, to come together, as one.”
Lauralee’s heart pounded fiercely within her chest. Her throat was dry. Her knees were weak. She prayed to the good Lord that Dancing Cloud’s kiss would not once again bring horrid memories to destroy this moment.
She wanted to enjoy the kiss.
She wanted to enjoy him.
All of him!
She closed her eyes and laced her fingers through his hair as she urged his lips to hers. When he kissed her, everything within her melted into a wild bliss, the urgency of wanting to be free to love giving way to a dismayed, wonderful pleasure.
And then, like those flashes of lurid lightning that were erupting along the sky outside, came the face of the blue-eyed Yankee. His laughter rushed through her like a black dread. Her mother’s screams swept through her like wildfire.
Lauralee shoved Dancing Cloud away and grabbed up her blanket and rushed away from him, stopping where the light of the fire still reached and lit up the dank gloom around her. She lay down on the blanket and pulled its corners around her. She curled up on her side, trembling, her eyes wild.
Dancing Cloud sat in a stunned silence, thinking that she was lost to him, forever. Never again would he attempt to kiss her, much less anything more sensual. He was anxious now to get her to Mattoon. He would leave her there and never look back, yet knowing that his heart would remain there with her. He doubted that he could ever love again, for she would always be there in his memory, so beautiful, so gentle, so sweet.
And so totally frightened, he thought despairingly to himself.
Chapter 8
All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine,
To consecrate this sanctuary of bliss.
—CHARLES SWAIN
Lauralee fell into a fitful sleep, then awakened quickly when she heard something that sounded like the rush of wind approaching her. She turned over and noticed that the fire had died down to glowing embers. She could hear that the rain had stopped outside the cave. And Dancing Cloud was asleep on a blanket several feet away from her.
The strange sound that awakened her grew closer and louder. Lauralee clasped her blanket up tightly beneath her chin as she rose slowly to a sitting position.
A scream froze in her throat and her eyes grew wild and wide when she finally discovered what was making the sound.
Bats!
Hundreds of bats were entering the cave in a massive cluster of black. The embers of the fire gave off just enough light for her to make them out in the semidarkness as they swept by her overhead. A dizziness overcame her when she realized that they were so close she could reach up and touch them.
Never had she been as afraid.
She could not move.
No sound would come from her throat.
The thunderous roar of the bats flying overhead awakened Dancing Cloud. He sat up quickly and looked in awe at the flying creatures as they continued to sweep past.
Then he shifted his eyes quickly to Lauralee. Earlier she h
ad spoken to him of her fear of bats. He could see the fear in her eyes now, the wildness, as she stared up at the rushing throng of black creatures.
Although he could see that she was stiff and pale from fear, he could not go to her. He knew the dangers of making any movement. If even one bat became alarmed and flew away from the others, that could possibly change the direction of the rest of them.
They might even be confused and fly around in a frenzy, attacking anything they might come in contact with.
Yet Dancing Cloud saw that he must go to Lauralee, to assure her that he would protect her. Although she had given him good cause to ignore her, his love for her sent him quickly to his feet.
He kept himself bent low as he moved slowly and stealthily around the glowing embers of the fire. When Lauralee turned her frightened eyes toward him, he gave her a look of warning. If she jumped to her feet without thought, she could alarm the bats into a wild frenzied flight of fright.
“Do not move,” Dancing Cloud whispered. “I will come to you. Stay quiet, Lauralee. Just . . . stay . . . quiet.”
Lauralee tremored as she waited for him to reach her. She hugged the blanket around her shoulders, her eyes again on the bats. How could there be so many? They just kept coming and coming!
Warm, comforting arms were soon around her shoulders, enveloping them. As Dancing Cloud knelt down over her, she turned to him and clung desperately to him. “Thank you for coming to me,” she sobbed. “I’m so frightened.”
“The bats are returning from their nightly feeding,” Dancing Cloud whispered back, slowly and comfortingly stroking her back through the blanket. “The storm must have interrupted their return to their home. They seized the opportunity now since the rain has stopped.”
He paused and squinted his eyes as he looked farther into the cave. “The cave is deep,” he then said. “Soon we will not even be aware of their presence. They will reach their resting places.”
“We must get out of here as soon as possible,” Lauralee whispered shakily, gazing wild-eyed up at Dancing Cloud. “I don’t want to chance them discovering us here. There are so many. They could surely kill us.”
“If you wish we can leave the cave,” Dancing Cloud said, gently framing her face between his hands. “But I can assure you that we are safe here. You will be much more comfortable in here out of the dampness that the rain has left in the grass, trees, and air. The embers of the fire in the cave will be enough to give us lasting warmth until morning.”
Lauralee looked up at him a moment longer, then lowered her eyes when she recalled only awhile ago when she had fled from him as though he were a monster.
“How can you be so kind to me after . . . after . . . I . . .” she started to say, but was stopped when Dancing Cloud placed a finger to her lips, gently sealing them.
“Do not fret so about something that you were driven to do because of something that is troubling you,” he said thickly. “No matter what you have done, we still remain friends.”
Dancing Cloud having put it to her in such an impersonal way, that he now only classified himself as her friend, made Lauralee’s insides quiver with a warning. Had she lost his love after having only gained it?
“Dancing Cloud, I’m sorry for my behavior,” she said, her voice breaking. “I never wanted to hurt you. Dancing Cloud, I love you so much. I . . . I . . . need you. But I’m afraid of this need. How can I learn not to be afraid to show my love for you? Or is it too late? Has your love for me turned into something else?”
Dancing Cloud wove his fingers through her silken coppery-red hair and drew her lips close to his. “I shall love you forever,” he said huskily. “Even if you are not there to return the love. A love as powerful as mine is for you can never be cast aside into the wind.”
He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid that doing so might set off something within her mind that would send her away from him again.
He uncoiled his fingers from her hair and started to lean away from her.
But her arms were there too quickly locked around his neck for him to move.
“The bats are gone,” she murmured. “I feel much more relaxed now. Will you please kiss me? Will you please teach me how it feels to be loved? I want you. I need you. Please teach me how not to fear these feelings I have for you.”
“You have always fled my arms when I have tried to become close to you,” Dancing Cloud said, smoothing her hair back from her face. “How can you be sure you will not leave me again, as frightened? I want to make love to you. Yet I fear this want, as you do. I fear you denying again that which I want to share with you.”
“I want you too badly now ever to run from you again,” Lauralee said, her hands already slipping his fringed shirt over his shoulders. “If I start recalling the past, I shall not allow it to devastate me again.”
“Your past? What happened in your past that is so ugly to you? I know of your mother’s death. Was there something else? Do you carry invisible war scars in your memory that you do not even wish to share with me?” Dancing Cloud asked, his insides quavering as her fingers moved along his chest, and across his flat stomach, stopping at the waist of his buckskin breeches.
“You truly don’t want to know,” she murmured. Her fingers trembled as she dared to lower his breeches. Yet she knew this was the only way to prove to herself that her feelings for him could overcome her remembrances of her ugly past.
“Did a man force himself on you?” Dancing Cloud asked, lifting her chin with a finger so that her eyes would lock with his.
“Not I,” she said, swallowing hard. “My mother. I witnessed my mother being raped. A Yankee. During the war, a Yankee raped and killed my mother.”
She could hardly believe that she had actually told someone besides her father and the priest with whom she had confided everything all of those years ago the terrible secret of her past.
And now that she had purged herself of the ugliness, she truly felt as though she might be able to leave it behind her.
“You have carried this with you since you were five?” Dancing Cloud said, then drew her gently into his arms and held her close. “No wonder you have been too frightened to allow yourself to feel anything for a man. O-ge-ye, my woman, I will show you how it should be between a man and a woman who mutually love each other.”
“You will be gentle?” Lauralee asked, her pulse racing at the thought of actually giving herself to a man sexually. But she felt that if she didn’t do this now, she might not only lose Dancing Cloud. she might never find the courage ever to make love to a man.
She hoped and prayed that she would not be stifled again by the thoughts of the rape.
Especially not while searching for bliss within the arms of the man she loved.
She wanted it behind her.
Once and for all!
For as long as Dancing Cloud would love her.
For forever!
“Ii, yes, gentle,” Dancing Cloud said, his heart pounding. “I shall show you how it should be between a man and a woman in love. Just relax. Allow it.”
“Yes, I will allow it,” Lauralee said, drawing a ragged breath of anticipation. “I want it.”
Dancing Cloud’s eyes swept over her with a silent, urgent message, then he tilted her chin and touched her lips wonderingly with his.
Cradling her close, he kissed her softly at first, and then his mouth seared into hers.
Lauralee moaned against his lips, a wild, exuberant passion spinning through her veins. Her hands sought out the feel of his sleek back, then moved around. She ran them over his smooth chest, her fingers lightly pinching his nipples until he groaned with pleasure.
When her hands roamed lower and she felt something hard and long pressing against the inside of his breeches, she fought off the alarm of realizing what it was. She refused to allow remembrances of another man, another time, enter her consciousness. This was Dancing Cloud. He had promised her that he would be gentle.
Wanting to prove to hersel
f that she could continue with what had started between herself and Dancing Cloud, she shakily placed her fingers over the swell of his manhood and slowly caressed him through the thin fabric of buckskin.
She did not flinch and draw away when he began moving his body in rhythmic motion with her caressing hand.
She kissed him long and hard. She could tell that she was giving him pleasure by the way he occasionally emitted soft moans and groans against her lips. She found it hard to understand, but she was getting pleasure from giving it to him.
Her whole insides warmed to the ecstasy that was pressing forth within her. She came alive in ways never known to her before.
And then she drew her hand away. She became stiff when Dancing Cloud backed away from her and she was the reason why. He needed room between them to loosen the buttons of her white cotton blouse.
She scarcely breathed when he swept her blouse away from her shoulders, her breasts now fully exposed to him.
She felt the heat of his gaze as he looked at her breasts, aware herself of her erect rosy nipples that had stiffened from desiring his hands on them.
And when he cupped them in his hands, his thumb slowly circling the nipple, Lauralee closed her eyes, her knees almost buckling beneath her from the rapture. A kind of slow fire was beginning to lick through her body, burning where his fingers touched. The heat was tiding through her, flowing everywhere.
When he bent to flick his tongue around one of her nipples, the feeling of wild bliss came at once, startling her. And then she was aware of another new sensation after he skillfully, quickly finished disrobing her. One of his hands swept down where curls of coppery-colored hair hid the secrets of her womanhood. Lauralee sucked in a wild breath of pleasure as one of his fingers delved into her clasping, moist inner flesh.
Wild Abandon Page 8
