Wet with perspiration, her breathing erratic, Lauralee rolled from beneath Dancing Cloud.
He moved to his side, his eyes never leaving her. “My o-ge-ye, I had no true life before you,” he said, smoothing his hand down the flat plane of her stomach. “You fulfill my every want as a man.”
“The days, especially the nights, seemed so long without you,” Lauralee murmured. She moved next to him, so that his hard body encompassed hers. “I missed you so.”
“There will be times when we will be apart,” Dancing Cloud said, his fingers weaving through her silken hair. “But only physically. In spirit, I am always with you. Remember that when you are lonely for me. If you allow yourself, you will feel me with you, though you cannot see me. You will reach out into the darkness of night and my hand will be touching yours.”
“I shall try and remember that,” Lauralee said, smiling over at him.
He drew her lips to his. “Let us not talk anymore,” he said huskily. “Let us make love again.”
“Shouldn’t we discuss Brian Brave Walker?” Lauralee said, her heart racing as his hands swept over her in a slow caress.
“This child is not feeling everything that he pretends,” Dancing Cloud said, kissing her eyes closed. “Deep down inside his heart he knows the goodness in you. Did you not nurse him back to health? Did you not sit with him day and night while he was so ill? He cannot forget who was so kind to him. It is just something in his past that causes him to hate whites so much. In time we will find out who. Then pity the man or woman of his past who has mistreated him. This Cherokee warrior will make them wish they had never put such a dread in the child’s heart.”
“And if we never find out who did this to him?” Lauralee asked, slowly losing her senses to his caresses.
“We truly do not need to know who, to make him forget,” Dancing Cloud said, brushing soft kisses across her throat. “He will learn to love just as a child learns how to talk, run, and laugh. Who could have a better teacher than you?”
“You have such faith in me.” Lauralee sighed. “But I . . .” He sealed her lips with a kiss, stopping her worries and her fears, again propelling her to a place where all question and doubt was left behind, to a place of flaming passion.
Chapter 28
Our love, it was stronger by far than the
love of those who were older than we.
—EDGAR ALLAN POE
The region in which Dancing Cloud and Lauralee were traveling was beautiful with its myriad bright-tinted blossoms and sweet wild fruits.
Lauralee clung to her horse’s reins as she guided her steed down a narrow path beneath the towering trees, ducking now and then so that a low limb would not knock her from her horse.
The sounds were soft and quiet in the forest, as though the birds were distant, instead of overhead. Squirrels scampered up the trees, some seeming to take wing as they jumped from limb to limb, tree to tree.
“I’m so glad that you allowed me to come with you today,” Lauralee said, smiling over at Dancing Cloud. “I just wish Brian Brave Walker could have joined us. I feel that this length of time away from him will erase perhaps what closeness that may have begun to form between us. I would hate to think that I would have to begin all over again trying to draw him into liking me.”
She paused. “Yet I truly see that it is best that he not accompany us,” she said contemplatively. “His fear of traveling to the trading post seemed so intense. What do you think he fears there? When asked, he always shies away from answering.”
Dancing Cloud’s eyes narrowed with thought, then he turned to Lauralee. “It is someone he fears, not something,” he said thickly. “I gather from this that perhaps the person or persons he has fled from trades also at this trading post. If so, and this person came to trade at the same moment we were there, and he saw Brian Brave Walker, the child’s life might have that quickly been put in danger.”
He sighed heavily. “We must protect this child from all harm, especially those who have filled his life with hate and fear,” he said, leaning over to pat his stallion when it gave off a nervous whinny.
Lauralee sensed something might be wrong. Her own horse reacted to it. She turned halfway around in her saddle as did Dancing Cloud. She looked slowly through the tangled underbrush and trees.
When she saw nothing, she gazed at Dancing Cloud. “I’ll be glad when we get to the trading post,” she murmured. “Although beautiful, there is something eerie about how everything is kept so shadowed from the lack of the sun’s ability to penetrate the thick foliage overhead. Anyone or anything could be lurking in those shadows. Perhaps even the very person Brian Brave Walker fears.”
“Do not allow your imagination to work overtime,” Dancing Cloud said, chuckling. “I have traveled this very path many times before. Never have I been accosted.”
“I would have thought there would have been others traveling with us today,” Lauralee said, taking another nervous glance over her shoulder.
She could not shake the feeling of being stalked. She blamed her insecurities on Clint McCloud. It was not all that foolish of her to worry about him, much less think that he was possibly there, stalking her and Dancing Cloud. Her Uncle Abner had told her that Clint McCloud now made his permanent residence in North Carolina. She prayed that his home was far from these mountains.
If not . . . ?
She was glad when Dancing Cloud interrupted her troubled thoughts.
“The others made trade while I was gone,” Dancing Cloud said. “What I trade today is what I had accumulated before I received word from your father, requesting my presence at his bedside. It has kept well in my absence. I need supplies now. So now I make trade.”
“What do you plan to get today for your trade?” she asked, herself having made a list of household goods that she needed for cooking.
“Many things,” he said, his eyes dancing into hers. “And what do you plan to take from the shelves at the trading post?”
“Many things,” Lauralee teased back, envisioning herself making pies and other surprises for Dancing Cloud. While she had lived at the orphanage she had been assigned several days in the kitchen to assist the cooks. She had learned at age ten how to make her first pie. “I think it will be fun to gather kitchen supplies for special meals that I plan to make for you, my handsome Cherokee.”
“And so you also cook as well as you make love?” he teased.
Lauralee blushed and laughed softly.
Dancing Cloud chuckled at her innocent bashfulness. He then gazed around him, his eyes feasting on the beauty of the mountainside. “The mountain has been good to me this trading period,” he said, his horse stepping high over a fallen tree branch. Lauralee’s horse followed his lead. “I have much ginseng and other medicinal herbs this time to trade.”
“I am surprised that ginseng is found in these mountains, and that this very ginseng will go as far as China for use by the Chinese,” Lauralee said.
“‘Sang,’ it is called by some. But my people usually call it atali-guli, which means ‘the mountain climber.’ My favorite name though is ‘Little man, most powerful magician. ’” Dancing Cloud smiled. “I have heard that the Chinese people will trade silver for this little man.”
“Why do you call the root a man and a magician?” Lauralee asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Because the root often has the shape of a man, with arms, legs and a head,” Dancing Cloud explained. “Some of my people even believe the root has a magic power that makes it invisible to those who are unworthy of collecting it. I do not believe this superstition, but still, I always show respect to the little man. When I am gathering ginseng, I leave the first three plants I find, only digging up the fourth. I say a prayer of thanksgiving to the atali-guli, and drop a bead into the hole as an offering to the plant spirit. In this fashion, there is always more ginseng to be found in the woods where I hunt.”
Lauralee looked blankly at him.
Dancing Cloud recognized the
puzzlement in her eyes. “You will learn in time everything about my people’s beliefs that for now puzzles you,” he said. “The white man looks simply at things. The red man sees the mystery about life and learns from it. The white man seems not to care. They just take and rarely give back.”
“I care about every living thing,” Lauralee said softly. “My feelings run deep for everything and everyone. And I am eager to learn, Dancing Cloud. Please teach me that which I never learned while I was packed like a sardine among a countless number of other orphans at the orphanage. No individual time was taken. I am free now not only to love, but to learn.”
“See the cedar trees?” Dancing Cloud said, gesturing toward a grove of trees at his right side. “It is held sacred above other trees. Its small green twigs are thrown upon the fire as incense in certain ceremonies, to counteract the effect of harmful dreams. It is believed that malevolent ghosts cannot endure the smell, but the wood itself is considered too sacred to be used as fuel. According to myth, the red color comes originally from the blood of a wicked magician whose severed head was hung at the top of a tall cedar tree.”
He gestured toward another tree, where strips of bark lay feathered on the ground at the base of its trunk, leaving long stretches of the tree bare. “Lightning has struck that tree,” he said solemnly. “But it has not died. Because the tree had the strength to survive the lightning, we believe it can convey that same fortitude to others. When our men prepare for Cherokee games of competition, we burn branches from such a tree and then use the coal to paint designs on our bodies. The force of the thunderbolt will then bring us victory in the contest.”
Lauralee smiled at the innocence of these practices, then turned her eyes straight ahead when the barking of a dog a short distance away made her horse jerk its head with a start. She yanked on her reins to steady her horse.
“It is only the dog that belongs to Pierre, the owner of the trading post,” Dancing Cloud said, as he steadied his own steed. “It is a way to let Pierre know someone is advancing on his cabin. It is good that he is cautious. The pelts and the ginseng at his trading post, if stolen, could make a white man wealthy in the way white men measure wealth.”
“How can the dog know if whoever is approaching the cabin is friend or foe?” Lauralee said, her eyes wide as she watched the large German shepherd run toward them.
“You will soon see,” Dancing Cloud said, drawing his steed to a halt. He dismounted and settled on his haunches as the German shepherd came to him, his tail wagging, his tongue searching out Dancing Cloud’s hand, licking it.
“Good dog,” Dancing Cloud said, smiling up at Lauralee. “He can tell by smell and attitude if he is among foe or friend.” He gestured with a hand for Lauralee to come to him. “Come. Pet him. You will have a friend for life.”
Remembering another day, another time, another dog, a beautiful collie, brought Paul Brown to mind. She would always remember Paul Brown with much affection. If she had not already met Dancing Cloud she could have felt so much more for Paul.
Deep down inside her heart she knew that she had for a brief moment allowed herself to love him. She would never forget his mesmerizingly blue eyes nor his gentle kindness.
She wished everything good on this earth for him.
Casting thoughts of another man from her mind, not wanting guilt for having thought of Paul Brown to ruin this day for her, Lauralee slid from her saddle to the ground. She went and knelt down beside Dancing Cloud, giggling when the large dog’s tongue soon found her cheek and eagerly licked it. She wrapped her arms around its neck and gave it a hug.
“I’ve always wanted a dog,” she murmured. “A dog all my own. There was one at the orphanage. Only one for so many people to love and hug. I scarcely ever got my turn before the dog was taken back outside to its pen.”
“You will no longer be deprived of anything,” Dancing Cloud said, swinging himself back in his saddle. “Stay. Enjoy the dog’s company. But don’t wait long. Come to the trading post soon. I’ll go on to Pierre’s cabin and start unloading my horse.”
Lauralee nodded. She watched him ride away, then hugged the dog and played with it, laughing.
Then recalling her fears earlier of feeling watched, she pushed herself to her feet, grabbed her reins, and walked toward the cabin that she now saw in the clearing up ahead.
She paused again to pat the dog’s head, then gave it another hug.
But she drew sharply away from the German shepherd when it suddenly bared its teeth and growled low and menacingly.
“I thought we were friends,” Lauralee said, slowly backing away from him.
The dog made a lunge.
Thinking it was toward her, a scream froze in Lauralee’s throat.
She was surprised when it jumped on past her in several wide bounces.
Just as she turned to see what it might be after, thinking perhaps it was a squirrel or some such forest animal, Lauralee felt faint when the dog was stopped in midair by a knife as it came whizzing through the air.
“No!” Lauralee cried, as the German shepherd fell heavily to the ground, the knife lodged in its right shoulder.
She moved to her knees beside the dog as he lay panting, its eyes hazed over with pain. She started to touch him, to try and comfort him.
Lauralee sucked in a wild breath of terror when the one who had done this to the dog stepped out into the clearing, his blue eyes almost hypnotizing her.
She didn’t have time to get up and run.
Nor did she have time to scream.
Clint McCloud was there too quickly.
Leering down at her, he lifted his rifle and brought the butt end of it down across the back of her head.
Lauralee’s body lurched from the blow. She grabbed at her head, then sank to the ground, unconscious.
“Got’cha!” Clint snarled.
He gagged Lauralee with his handkerchief and tied her hands together behind her, tied her ankles together, then grabbed her up into his arms. He carried her through the thick underbrush until he reached his tethered horse.
After tying Lauralee behind the saddle, he mounted his horse and rode away.
Laughing to himself, he couldn’t get over being this lucky! He had built his cabin not that far from the mountains upon which he had left a massacre during the Civil War.
But never would he have guessed that the Indian of his past, the Indian who had wounded him during the Civil War, lived among those Indians.
He had not realized this until today—until he had seen Dancing Cloud and Lauralee come from the path that led down from the mountain.
He laughed into the air. He now had a way to finally get back at the damn Injun. This woman. She would be the way to repay the Injun for burdening him with a wooden leg for the rest of his life.
“He’ll never see her again,” Clint grumbled to himself.
He rode hard through the forest, ignoring Lauralee’s moans behind him.
* * *
Pierre kept Dancing Cloud occupied by talking in his rapid way of speaking in his mixed language of French, English, and Cherokee, while Dancing Cloud unloaded his bags on the Frenchman’s counter. The cabin was rich with the smell of leather, bear skins, and raccoon pelts, and countless other items that had been brought to the Frenchman for trade. A lone lantern lit the dark cabin, a cat snoozed near the fireplace where a lazy fire sent off a soft glow.
“Did you say you had a lady with you today?” Pierre asked, raising his eyebrows and peering toward the door. He twisted the ends of his narrow black mustache as he looked back at Dancing Cloud. “Where is she, this woman?”
Dancing Cloud’s eyes widened. A warning shot through him as he turned on a heel and looked toward the door.
He saw nothing.
He heard nothing.
The dog?
Lauralee?
Where were they?
He ran from the cabin. He stopped and gazed around him, his right hand going to the pistol holstered at his waist.
“She is where?” Pierre asked, coming from the cabin. He scratched his brow. “And my dog? He is gone also.”
Now knowing for certain that something had happened to Lauralee, Dancing Cloud mounted his horse in one leap. His pistol held poised in one hand, he flicked his reins with the other and backtracked.
When he saw the dog lying in the path, lifeless, with a knife in its shoulder, his insides ran cold. Someone had knifed the dog. Someone had abducted Lauralee!
The heavy Frenchman came huffing and puffing on his horse, then emitted a loud shriek when he discovered his dog. He dismounted and fell to his knees beside the German shepherd. He cradled the dog’s head on his lap.
“He is not dead,” Dancing Cloud said, shouting over his shoulder as he rode away. “Remove the knife. See to the wound. He will be all right.”
“But what of your woman?” Pierre cried after Dancing Cloud.
Not knowing the answer, and hell-bent on finding Lauralee, Dancing Cloud’s jaw tightened. He knew that he could not follow any tracks that would lead him to Lauralee. There were too many tracks going in too many directions. His only hope was that he had not waited too long to discover her gone.
* * *
Clint wheeled his horse to a shuddering halt before his cabin. He slid clumsily out of his saddle, cursing his wooden leg as it again failed to cooperate with him, then looped his horse’s reins around a hitching rail. He could feel the eyes of his wife on him as she stood at the door. He ignored her presence.
With trembling, eager fingers he untied Lauralee from the horse. She was awake now. He smiled into her wide, fearful eyes as he carried her toward the cabin.
“What have you done?” Soft Wind asked, her voice shrill and afraid. “Who is that? Why have you brought her here?”
Clint brushed brusquely past her. He carried Lauralee to his bed and threw her on it.
Soft Wind ran to him and clutched at his arm. “Why are you doing this?” she cried. “Why would you bring this woman to our house? You have never done this before. Please let her go.”
Wild Abandon Page 28
