Brian Brave Walker had been an object to his father, an object for loathing, nothing more. He had not guided him into ways of other children Brian Brave Walker’s age. He had never been alone with his father.
In truth, Clint McCloud was Brian Brave Walker’s father by blood only. Not by emotions and bonds of loving and parental guiding.
Brian Brave Walker wanted desperately to live up to the name that his mother had given him when he had been born. Brave. He had to be brave! Or he might not survive living alone without the guidance and loving of a mother.
Tonight the air was cool, causing goose bumps to rise on his flesh. He hugged himself as he fought the dense thickets of briars and creeping vines. He flinched when a sound behind him made him think that perhaps his father might have decided to come for him after all.
“He sent me away. He will be glad to be rid of me,” Brian Brave Walker said in a harsh whisper. “I do not have to worry about him coming for me. My mother’s pleas for him to come and search for me will fan on deaf ears.”
His spine stiffened and his jaw tightened when he thought of what his father was perhaps even now still forcing on his mother. McCloud would always be gone for several weeks or months, but when he returned to his cabin he would wreak sexual havoc on Soft Wind’s body for endless days!
“I wish to release her from her life of slavery to that man,” Brian Brave Walker whispered as he stepped high over a slender fallen tree. “But I do not dare try.”
He would never forget his father’s threats.
“And he means everything he says,” Brian Brave Walker said, his voice breaking.
Determined to get farther and farther away from the home that was never a haven, the young Cherokee broke into a mad run. He knocked limbs away overhead as they bumped into his face. He groaned when briars pierced his flesh through his buckskin breeches.
Then he crumpled to the ground, panting, exhaustion overcoming him.
He curled up on his side on the dried-up fallen leaves of last autumn.
Sobbing, he fell into a restless sleep.
In his dreams, a Cherokee warrior came to him out of the clouds in the sky. The warrior rode a magnificent white stallion. His horse had beautiful, translucent wings. Ah, but how majestically it moved its legs as it traveled down to earth.
The warrior swept Brian Brave Walker upon his saddle with him. The Cherokee warrior held him within his powerful arms as he rode away, Brian Brave Walker finally feeling some semblance of peace, and of being protected....
He awakened with a start and rose quickly to a sitting position. His eyes darted around him, his heart pounding.
A dream?
Oh, surely it had not been only a dream.
It had seemed so real.
He could even now feel the strength of that warrior’s arms around his waist. He could feel the protectiveness that those arms had given him. He had belonged on that magnificent white steed with that noble warrior!
Sudden sobs racked Brian Brave Walker’s body. It had been only a dream.
He was still alone.
The night was dark and filled with mystery.
A sudden owl’s call a short distance away was hauntingly real.
He lay back down and pulled himself into a fetal position. Feeling way less brave than what he wished, and more lonesome than be ever thought possible, he sobbed himself to sleep again.
Chapter 26
The bond of nature draws me to my own,
My own in thee, for what thou all is mine.
—JOHN MILTON
The air was crisp and fresh as a sweet breeze swept down over the pine-covered hills. Dancing Cloud led the way up the steep incline on his white stallion, his other horse straying behind on a rope, Lauralee following. They had left the meadowland below them some time ago and had entered the enchantment of cool, green pines where a film of haze hung low over them.
Having entered into an existence that was beyond her wildest imagination, Lauralee clung to her reins as she took everything in. “The Great Smoky Mountains,” she whispered to herself as she continued studying the quiet landscape.
The path led upward, winding through trees and around rushing streams and beautiful waterfalls. She had read books about these mountains and their sheer majestic beauty and mystique. They were a range of the southern Appalachian highlands that stretched from North Carolina into Tennessee.
She was witnessing this grandeur today, the mountainside containing spectacular scenery. The summits and ridges were crowned with giant forests of red spruces.
At the lower elevations Lauralee had seen many flowering dogwood, redbud, and the serviceberry. She had felt that she might have died and gone to heaven when she had ridden past dense stands of mountain laurel, white-blossomed rhododendron and azaleas, which had formed almost impenetrable thickets.
She tensed when through a break in the trees she saw a black bear standing on a ledge far to the right side of where she was traveling. In only the short time she had been riding up the mountainside she had seen much wild life. Not only black bears, but also white-tailed deer, foxes, bobcats, raccoons, ruffed grouse, turkeys, and a variety of beautifully colored songbirds.
Dancing Cloud looked over his shoulder at Lauralee. “Do you not see now what, besides my people, has drawn me back to these mountains?” he asked, his voice echoing into many voices as it spun into the clear, quiet air around them.
The path was wide enough for him to edge over slightly, to give Lauralee room to catch up with him. When she reached him, she sidled her horse beside his.
“Is not my mountain paradise, my o-ge-ye?” he said thickly.
“I’ve never seen anything as beautiful,” Lauralee said softly. “When I was a small girl in Tennessee I could see this stretch of mountains from my bedroom. I often gazed upon the mystical haze that hung over them, wondering what lay beneath it. I always thought that the mountains were smoking. I am so thrilled now to finally know what truly lies here breathlessly beautiful beneath the haze.”
“Your father traveled this path often when you were a child,” Dancing Cloud said. “He was an Indian agent who cared for those he served. That is why, at eight winters of age, I grew so fond of, and so admired, your father. He and my father became as close as any brothers who share their lives.”
“And now both of our fathers are gone,” Lauralee said, a sob catching in her throat. “Wouldn’t it have been wonderful for them to have seen the depths of our love for each other? And to see that their bonding continues on now, even though they have passed on to the other side?”
“They are with us now,” Dancing Cloud said. He reached a hand heavenward, then swung it slowly from one side to the other, encompassing everything around him. “Do you not feel their presence in the breeze and in the warm touch of the sun upon your flesh? Do you not see them in the flowers? Their spirit path will always be ours to follow. They embrace us as we move into our future as one heart and soul, my o-ge-ye.”
“You always have such a beautiful way of expressing yourself,” she said, sighing.
“You bring forth from deeply within me feelings that normally I would not express aloud,” Dancing Cloud said. “With you, I feel such inner peace and happiness.”
“As I feel the same because of you.” She paused and enjoyed the call of the birds and the hum of the bees. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the flowers that clung to the mountainside. She again absorbed the glories of her surroundings.
“How long now until we reach your village?” she finally blurted, anxious, yet afraid, to arrive there. If it were possible, she would postpone ever leaving this beautiful place where it seemed no other people existed except for herself and her beloved.
She could not stop being afraid of Dancing Cloud’s people’s reaction to her. Her heart thumped wildly at the thought of moving among them, their eyes intent on her, perhaps hating her. . . .
“My village lays beyond that rise yonder,” Dancing Cloud said, pointing. “Long
ago my Wolf Clan of Cherokee settled in a valley where they were sheltered from the worst harshness of winter and the intrusion of those who might be our enemy.”
“Yet even that did not stop the damn Yankees as they wreaked their treachery during the war,” Lauralee said solemnly. “No one could escape their plundering it seems. Both of our lives were altered because of the Yankees’ hunger for blood and power.”
She hung her head as thoughts of her Uncle Abner swam through her consciousness. He had been a Yankee and he and Nancy were precious to her. It seemed impossible that she could separate her feelings for them from those she had always felt for anyone who lived in the Union states, yet she had.
And she could not help but recall the kindness of Noah Brown and his son Paul, nor the doctor who had saved Dancing Cloud’s life. They were all Yankees and she had warm feelings for them all.
The war, she despaired to herself.
The Civil War had not only left confusion in its wake all those years ago.
It did so even now.
A sound, like the small, faint cry of a child, drew Lauralee’s head up. She looked quickly over at Dancing Cloud. She could tell by his guarded expression and wandering eyes as he peered slowly around him that he had also heard the sound.
“Dancing Cloud, could that . . .”
She got no more words out. Suddenly before them was a small child stumbling in a drunken stupor toward them. Although his skin was copper, it was ashen in color, and his eyes were sunken. He was gaunt and thin, as though he hadn’t eaten for days.
Lauralee and Dancing Cloud slid quickly from their saddles. Lauralee took the horse’s reins and secured them beneath a boulder on the graveled path, then ran to Dancing Cloud and knelt down with him before the boy.
Dancing Cloud gently steadied the small child between his strong hands as he clasped them onto his frail shoulders.
Brian Brave Walker blinked his eyes as he stared up at Dancing Cloud, then over at his white stallion. This warrior! This horse! He had seen them both in his dreams!
Then he looked questionably at the white woman. This was not the way it was supposed to be. She had never appeared to him in his dreams. She was not supposed to be with the noble warrior on the white stallion.
For sure this was not a dream.
This was real!
Brian Brave Walker’s dark eyes widened with fear. Again he looked quickly from Lauralee to Dancing Cloud, then tried to wrench himself free.
Lauralee wanted so badly to go and draw the child into her arms and comfort him. It was plain to see that he perhaps trusted no one.
“We are friends,” Dancing Cloud reassured, releasing one of his hands to talk in sign language with the boy in case he could not understand English. He pointed to himself with his right thumb, then pointed to Lauralee in the same way, meaning “we.” He then clasped his hands together and shook them, meaning “friends. “
“My name is Chief Dancing Cloud.” He motioned toward himself with a hand. Then he gestured toward Lauralee. “Her name is Lauralee. What is your name?”
Deep inside himself Brian Brave Walker was glad to have finally found someone who might give him directions to any Indian village. He had given up hoping that he would find the one in which his mother had lived as a child before the Civil War. As he had wandered, searching, he seemed to have gone in circles.
Until now, until he had come across these two people, he had begun to think that he might die on this mountain. He had fled from more than one bear. Now he was too weak to flee from anything, or anyone.
He was glad to know that this brave whose skin color matched his own was declaring himself a friend.
He looked guardedly over at the woman. She was most beautiful! Yet her skin was white. He hated all whites. In them he always saw his father! He could not look at a white-skinned person and at the same time think “friend.” His very own father was his enemy and he was white-skinned!
“My name is Brian Brave Walker. I speak English well,” he said, giving Lauralee another insolent stare. Then he gazed up at Dancing Cloud. “But I also speak in Cherokee. Do you know the Cherokee language?”
Dancing Cloud’s eyes lit up. “I am Cherokee,” he said proudly. “You are also Cherokee?”
“Partly,” Brian Brave Walker said, lowering his eyes with shame to ever have to admit to being part white. His little, thin legs gave way beneath him. He sucked in a quavering breath when Dancing Cloud caught him, preventing the fall.
“How long has it been since you have eaten?” Lauralee asked, reaching a hand to the child’s face to smooth a fallen lock of coal-black hair back from his eyes.
She gasped when he flinched at her touch, wondering how he could hate her so quickly?
“I have fed off berries,” Brian Brave Walker said, looking up at Dancing Cloud as though he had asked the question. He wanted to ignore Lauralee as though she were not there. “My stomach hurts from the berries. I . . . I . . .”
He jerked himself away from Dancing Cloud and stumbled behind some bushes.
Dancing Cloud and Lauralee exchanged quick glances when they realized what the child was doing in private. The single diet of berries had caused him to have a bad bout of dysentery.
Lauralee’s heart went out to the child when she heard him groan with pain as he continued to stay behind the bushes.
Dancing Cloud was torn with what to do. He wanted to go to the boy and comfort him. Yet he did not want to embarrass him while he was in such a terrible state.
Then they heard no more noises. Everything had become stone quiet. The boy no longer groaned and moaned. There was no more sounds of his overactive bowels. There was a sudden strained silence.
“Child?” Lauralee said, trying to get the boy’s response. “Are you all right, child?”
When he did not respond nor reappear, Dancing Cloud and Lauralee ran behind the bushes.
Lauralee felt faint at what she saw.
Dancing Cloud saw the danger of the boy’s condition.
“He’s unconscious,” Lauralee cried, placing her hands to her throat at the sight of the small child lying in the filthy mess, his breeches wrapped around his ankles.
“We must see to him quickly,” Dancing Cloud said, grabbing the boy up into his arms. He looked around, searching with his eyes. Through a break in the trees a short distance away the shine of a rushing stream caught his quick attention.
“O-ge-ye, get one of my shirts from my saddlebag,” he said in a rush of words. “The child will wear that once he is bathed. You will bathe him while I search the forest for the skullcap herbal plant that can be used to better his condition.”
“Dancing Cloud, I’m afraid that he is already too dehydrated to . . . to . . . possibly survive,” Lauralee cried.
Breathless and fear gripping her heart for the child, she ran to Dancing Cloud’s stallion and grabbed a shirt from the saddlebag. She also yanked a blanket out of the bag.
Then she ran and caught up with Dancing Cloud just as he broke through the denseness of the trees and reached the stream. She was glad that the ground leveled off somewhat beside the water. She would be able to minister to the child more easily.
Dancing Cloud lay Brian Brave Walker beside the stream, then turned and left without saying another word.
Lauralee removed the child’s soiled clothes and pitched them into the weeds. She recalled the inner strength that she had learned to grasp onto when she had taken care of the men at the veterans hospital, and drew from it today as she bathed the child and dressed him.
She scooted away from Brian Brave Walker when Dancing Cloud returned and managed to force some of the herbs that he had smashed into a fine powder down the boy’s throat. He followed that with small trickles of water, stopping when the child coughed or sputtered.
Lauralee’s heart skipped a beat when Brian Brave Walker began coughing more earnestly, his arms flailing wildly in the air. “Oh, Lord, he’s choking,” she cried.
She went to him an
d lay him over her lap and hit his back with the palm of her hand. When he began crying and speaking incoherently to her, she knew that at least he was finally awake and that the herbal mixture had made its way on down to his stomach.
“Help,” Brian Brave Walker cried weakly, dizzying even more as he tried to open his eyes. “Help me.”
Dancing Cloud placed his hands beneath the young brave’s arms and drew him over onto his lap. “You are going to be all right,” he said, slowly rocking Brian Brave Walker back and forth. “We will make you well. Then you can tell us where you came from and where your parents are.”
Lauralee jumped with a start when the mention of his parents caused the child’s eyes to open wide and wild.
“No,” Brian Brave Walker cried. “I do not talk . . . about . . . parents . . . ever to you.”
Brian Brave Walker was still afraid to draw any attention to his mother. He always had to remember that her life was in danger so long as the threat of his father was there.
He glowered over at Lauralee. “Especially to her,” he said, his voice weak, yet noticeably filled with a venomous hate. “She . . . is . . . white. I . . . trust . . . no whites.”
“Her skin is white, yes,” Dancing Cloud said, glancing over at Lauralee. “But never equate her with those who are evil. Lauralee’s heart is pure and sweet. She is loved by me, a Cherokee chief. So, Brian Brave Walker, you must see that she is deserving of more than hate. And know this, young brave. She is to be my wife.”
Brian Brave Walker’s lips parted in a disbelieving gasp.
Then he drifted off again, finding peace in the black void of sleep.
“Let us move onward and get him to my village,” Dancing Cloud said, rising to his feet. “I will carry him in my arms.”
When Lauralee said nothing back to him, Dancing Cloud kissed her softly. “Do not fret over this young brave’s misguided feelings for you. Once he is awake and lucid for clear thinking, he will learn quickly the sweetness of your heart.”
Wild Abandon Page 25
