Wild Abandon

by Cassie Edwards

  She jumped with alarm and almost fell backward down the ladder when Brian Brave Walker glared up at her, his eyes and pursed lips revealing how he still hated and mistrusted her.

  Dancing Cloud was as stunned as Lauralee by the intensity in which Brian displayed his hate for Lauralee. It was hard for Dancing Cloud to accept, or overlook. He wanted to shake the child and scold him for treating Lauralee in such a callous way.

  But he knew that this trust and loving had to be learned, not forced on him.

  Lauralee stepped slowly around Dancing Cloud and Brian Brave Walker. “Take him downstairs and I shall see to Soft Wind,” she said, her voice breaking. “I shan’t be long.”

  “No! No! Leave her be!” Brian Brave Walker screamed, trying to jerk himself free from Dancing Cloud’s tight clasp so that he could go to his mother again. “It’s your fault that she’s dead! Why did you not do more for her? You were supposed to heal her! Instead, you killed her!”

  Lauralee grew dizzy beneath such a horrendous tongue-lashing and accusations. She grabbed for her head, her heart racing so fast that she felt it might leap from her throat.

  “Brian Brave Walker, you . . .” Dancing Cloud began, but Lauralee interrupted him.

  “Leave him be,” she said, stepping past them, toward the ladder. “I shall go and inform those who will prepare Soft Wind’s body for burial that she has left us.”

  Dancing Cloud’s eyes were soft with love for her as he nodded and watched her go down the ladder.

  Then he knelt down on his haunches and turned Brian Brave Walker to face him. “You are filled with much hate,” he said, his voice firm, yet gentle. “Do you realize the strength of such hate and what it can do to a a-s-ga-ya, man?”

  “A . . . man . . . ?” Brian Brave Walker said, his eyes widening. “You are talking to me as though I am a man?”

  “Do you feel deeply within your heart that you deserve to be called a man who would one day be a great Cherokee warrior?” Dancing Cloud asked softly.

  “Ii, I wish to one day be a Cherokee warrior,” Brian Brave Walker said anxiously. He wiped his eyes dry with the backs of his hands. “I wish to be called a man.”

  “Can you say that moments ago when you were shouting at Lauralee and saying unkind words to her that you were being a child, or a man?” Dancing Cloud said. “Did saying such things make you feel big, or little?”

  Brian Brave Walker sighed heavily. He shuffled his feet nervously. “I do not want to hate,” he said, glancing over at his mother who lay peacefully and as lovely as he could ever remember. “Mother would not want me to hate. She never even instructed me to hate my father. She said that hate is like a sore that spreads and spreads.”

  He looked into Dancing Cloud’s eyes once again. “I want no sores within my body, especially my heart,” he said innocently.

  “Then you must place your hate for Lauralee behind you, my son, for it is very misplaced as it is,” Dancing Cloud said thickly.

  Brian Brave Walker hung his head for a moment, then he moved slow eyes up at Dancing Cloud. “But I do hate her so much,” he said, his voice breaking.

  “And why do you think that you do?”

  “I do not think. I know.”

  “Search your heart, Brian Brave Walker. Search long and hard. Do not tell me now what you find. I will wait for you to tell me later.”

  Brian Brave Walker nodded. He went to his mother’s bedside and gave her a lingering stare, then turned and took Dancing Cloud’s hand and looked trustingly up at him. “Please teach me about the spirit world and how my mother will get there,” he said softly.

  “Come,” Dancing Cloud said, walking toward the ladder.

  Brian Brave Walker followed Dancing Cloud down the ladder.

  “Dancing Cloud?” Brian Brave Walker asked softly.

  “Yes, my son?”

  “Can you also teach me how not to hate Lauralee?” Brian Brave Walker asked, placing his feet on the floor and gazing up at Dancing Cloud. “Because of you I do wish to know how to like her.”

  Lauralee had just entered the cabin with two women and had heard Brian Brave Walker. Her lips quavered as Dancing Cloud turned and gave her a soft, reassuring smile.

  Brian Brave Walker clung to Dancing Cloud’s hand, his eyes wary as he looked over at Lauralee.

  He turned again to Dancing Cloud. He tugged on his arm so that Dancing Cloud would lean down close to hear what he had to say. “She is almost as beautiful as my mother, is she not?” he whispered.

  “Yes, I would say so,” Dancing Cloud whispered back.

  “It should not be all that hard to like her, should it?” Brian Brave Walker whispered again, giving Lauralee a quick glance over his shoulder.

  Dancing Cloud chuckled.

  Lauralee sighed with relief, for Brian Brave Walker’s whisper had not been as much of a whisper as he would have liked.

  She had heard all that had mattered!

  For now, that was enough.

  Chapter 31

  What’s the earth with all its art,

  verse, music, worth compared with

  love, found, gained and kept.

  —ROBERT BROWNING

  Soft Wind had been buried. The journey to and from the orphanage was behind Lauralee and Dancing Cloud. When they had arrived there, Lauralee had been thrust back in time as she had walked the corridors. While looking into the rooms, seeing the children, it had been reminiscent of times not that far past. She could see it in the children’s eyes as they gazed back at her that they envied her and wished to be taken away to a different world where they would find a true home filled with love.

  There had been no way they could have known that she had been one of those children at another time, in another orphanage, with her own dreams, with her own envies.

  She only wished that she could have embraced them all and brought them back to the village with her, to offer them the sort of life that she had found among Dancing Cloud’s people.

  All of the Cherokee children had been taken from the orphanage and were even now with various families in this village.

  Lauralee and Dancing Cloud had taken one child to raise as their own. She gazed down at the tiny bundle that she held in her arms. Her eyes sparkled with tears as she unfolded the blanket and looked at the tiny copper face that was framed already by straight, black hair.

  “We found her on our doorstep only recently,” the superintendent in charge of the orphanage had told Lauralee and Dancing Cloud. “There was no note. Only the child lying wrapped in a blanket in a wicker basket. If she is taken now by a family, she will never know that her mother chose to give her away.”

  Lauralee and Dancing Cloud’s thoughts had been of one mind and heart. At that very moment their arms had collided as they had both reached for the infant.

  That was then.

  This was now.

  “Our very own daughter, Dancing Cloud,” Lauralee said, smiling over at him as he held Brian Brave Walker on his lap before the fire in their fireplace. “Isn’t she a small miracle? Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “She belongs in your arms as though you were the one who gave her life,” Dancing Cloud said, lifting Brian Brave Walker to the floor. He placed a gentle hand on the young brave’s shoulder. “Go. Go and see the child. You will grow up as brother and sister.”

  Brian Brave Walker shied away from the suggestion. Instead, he went and stood behind the chair so that he could not see the child.

  “Brian Brave Walker, please come and become acquainted with Hope,” Lauralee said, puzzled over why he was acting this way. Nothing about his reaction to the child was normal. He even refused to look at the baby, much less touch her. “Brian Brave Walker, Hope is so sweet. So precious.”

  “No,” Brian Brave Walker said, refusing to come from behind the chair, his attitude seeming to be steeped in a deep sadness. “I do not want to see the u-s-di-ga, baby. I wish not to hold or touch any baby.”

  Lauralee rose from the chair. She slowl
y rocked the baby back and forth in her arms. “I must take her to the loft and put her in her cradle,” she murmured. “But before long she will be crying to be fed. Brian Brave Walker, will you go with me to prepare her milk and warm the bottle for her feeding?”

  “No, I will stay in my bed while you take care of her,” Brian Brave Walker said, running now and throwing himself down on his bed. “Just leave me be. I wish never to call that baby my sister.”

  Dancing Cloud’s eyebrows arched. He rose from the chair and turned and gazed questioningly at Brian Brave Walker. He did not think that the child was jealous. There seemed to be more to his behavior than what jealousy would cause.

  Dancing Cloud could only conclude from that, that Brian Brave Walker’s behavior stemmed from something else in his past, but he could not fathom what it might be.

  As Lauralee waited for Dancing Cloud at the foot of the ladder, he went to Brian Brave Walker and moved to his knees beside his bed.

  “My son, we will talk about this tomorrow,” Dancing Cloud said, removing Brian Brave Walker’s moccasins and placing them on the floor beside the bed. He shoved the child’s fringed shirt over his head, then scooted his breeches down and covered him with a blanket.

  Dancing Cloud smoothed the palm of his hand over Brian Brave Walker’s brow. “Find solace in sleep, my son,” he said thickly. “Soon all of the battle scars from your past life will heal. Then you will accept things of your new life with much ease. Even sisters.”

  Brian Brave Walker gazed up at Dancing Cloud with defiance, then he sobbed and lunged into his arms. He held onto Dancing Cloud as if his life depended on it. “I love you,” he sobbed. “You are more father to me already than my true father ever was. Thank you, Dancing Cloud. Oh, thank you. But do not make me look to that baby as my sister.”

  Dancing Cloud held the young brave close to his heart, his hand caressing his tiny back. “If you wish, call me Father,” he said softly. “I already proudly call you my son. And I would never force anything on you. Not even a sister.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Brian Brave Walker said, looking past Dancing Cloud’s shoulder at Lauralee. His feelings for her were softening as each day passed, yet he still could not let her know that he was ready to be friends, even perhaps more than that.

  The word “mother” came to him at times when he envisioned himself in her arms.

  Then his true mother’s face would flash before him, but his feelings for her were still too intense, too real, to replace her with another woman.

  “Good night, Brian Brave Walker,” Lauralee said, smiling at him. “Sleep tight. Tomorrow is going to be a wonderful day, darling. Dancing Cloud and I are going to be married.”

  Brian Brave Walker smiled weakly at her, then eased from Dancing Cloud’s arms and snuggled beneath his blankets.

  Dancing Cloud rose from him and went to Lauralee. He started to take her by an elbow, to help her onto the ladder, then was taken aback when he saw a sudden grimace on her face.

  “What is it?” he said, taking the child from her arms. “You are in pain. Where? Tell me where you hurt.”

  Lauralee inhaled a quavering breath. Afraid of what she had felt, she placed a hand to her abdomen. Tonight she had wanted to be able to tell Dancing Cloud that she thought she might be with child. She had missed her last monthly flow.

  And, ah, what a perfect time to tell him that they would have another child, one born of their love. When they had already been blessed by two children, being able to tell him that they would soon have one of their very own would have been wonderful.

  Now, as the pain passed on through her abdomen, leaving only some small, vague cramping, she had to believe that she was going to have her monthly flow after all.

  “What is it?” Dancing Cloud persisted as Lauralee silently pondered over what had caused the pains.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, smiling awkwardly up at him.

  The pain had stopped.

  The cramping was gone.

  Surely what she had experienced had been caused by the excitement of the day, of bringing home a daughter, and seeing the other children being taken into homes where they would find the love they had never known before.

  Now feeling totally all right again, Lauralee flipped her hair over her shoulders and walked over to Brian Brave Walker’s bed. “I’m fine,” she told Dancing Cloud over her shoulder. “Go on up to the loft with Hope. I have something else to do before coming to bed, myself.”

  Dancing Cloud gazed at her for a moment longer.

  He then held Hope in the crook of his left arm while pulling himself up the ladder with his right hand.

  Lauralee knelt on her knees beside Brian Brave Walker’s bed. When she reached a hand to his brow and he flinched, she drew her hand slowly away.

  She gazed into his large, dark eyes. “I do love you, Brian Brave Walker,” she murmured. “And because I do, I wish to teach you a bedtime prayer that my mother taught me so many years ago.”

  “Is a prayer like a story?” Brian asked, leaning up on an elbow.

  “Something like that,” Lauralee said, laughing softly.

  “I like stories,” Brian Brave Walker said, scooting closer to Lauralee. “My mother told me stories at bedtime . . . stories of her people, who are also mine. Will you be telling me a prayer of your people?”

  “I will be teaching you a prayer that belongs to all people, whether their skin is white, copper, red or black,” Lauralee said, smoothing the blanket up to his chin as he stretched out on his back.

  The prayer had brought back memories of that day, when she had recited it over and over to help get her through the horrible ordeal of her mother’s rape. Now, however, Lauralee felt that maybe something as innocent as this prayer might bring her and Brian Brave Walker closer.

  As she began saying the prayer, she watched his expression softening. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep . . .” she began, smiling to herself when his eyes drifted closed. “If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take.”

  She placed a gentle hand on his brow, which he now allowed because he was asleep, then lightly kissed his lips. “Sleep well, my son,” she whispered. “Have sweet dreams of angels.”

  As she rose from the bed she grabbed at her abdomen and gasped when pains shot through it, so severe, she became dizzy.

  Then the ugly, pressing down cramping began in earnest. Soon it fully encompassed her abdomen. She teetered as she gazed up at the loft. She tried to cry out Dancing Cloud’s name.

  But her voice came out as no louder than a harsh whisper, the intense pain having robbed her of her ability to talk normally.

  Slowly, perspiration rolling from her brow, Lauralee inched her way to the ladder. She panted and sucked in a wild breath of air as she locked her hands on the sides of the ladder.

  Gazing upward, wishing that Dancing Cloud would decide to look down to see if she was coming, she began slowly climbing the ladder. She pulled herself up one rung after another. She closed her eyes and panted hard, trying to bear the pain, a pain that was now an intense pressure, as though everything within her might fall out of her at any moment.

  This isn’t any ordinary menstrual period, she thought desperately to herself.

  “Lord, surely I am miscarrying,” she whispered. Despair filled her at the thought of losing hers and Dancing Cloud’s child before having even told him that she thought she might be pregnant.

  When she finally reached the top of the ladder, Lauralee could just barely see beyond the small, dimly lit space. Then she realized why Dancing Cloud had not been aware of her efforts to climb the ladder, nor had he heard any of her muffled pleas for help. He was totally engrossed in the child. The baby was on the bed beside him, her blanket thrown aside, her fists and arms kicking as Dancing Cloud talked and played with her.

  When Dancing Cloud sensed Lauralee’s presence, he turned to her. “She is awake but I do not believe she is hungry yet,” he said.
>
  His words drifted off and he lunged from the bed when he saw the fear in Lauralee’s eyes, the sweat pouring from her brow as she tried to climb the rest of the way into the loft.

  “O-ge-ye!” Dancing Cloud cried, rushing from the bed. He bent low over Lauralee and placed gentle hands to her waist and helped her on up the ladder. “What is happening? You look as though you are in such pain. Why, my o-ge-ye? What is the matter?”

  Tears pooled in Lauralee’s eyes as she stretched out on the floor of the loft on her back. She groaned as the pain worsened. She turned to her side and hugged her knees to her chest. The bearing down pain was so bad she felt she might truly faint at any moment.

  Grabbing Dancing Cloud’s arm, she looked wildly up at him. “Warm some water over the fire,” she managed to breathe out between pains. “Bring me many towels. Many will be needed to soak up the blood.”

  Dancing Cloud paled. His shoulders swayed from dismay. “Blood?” he said throatily. “What blood?”

  Lauralee placed a hand to his cheek. “My darling Cherokee chief,” she managed in a drawn-out whisper. “I believe I am going to miscarry our first child. No . . . no . .. monthly flow has ever caused me such pain. It has to be more. I have seen it before. Miscarriages. This is the way a woman’s body reacts before aborting a child.”

  Dancing Cloud wanted nothing more than to gather Lauralee into his arms and wipe away her pain and the knowledge that what she suspected was more than likely true. She was wise in ways of medicine and health. Their child. A child he had not even yet known about. It was going to be taken from them.

  Lauralee moaned and grabbed at her stomach again. Dancing Cloud rushed down the steps. He placed a kettle of water over the flames of the fireplace. He grabbed an armload of towels from a shelf and placed them at the foot of the ladder.

  Then he went to his store of herbal medicines. He mixed up a concoction of meadow rue roots and wild alum in water, which was used for hemorrhaging.

  He carried these things to the loft. He gasped when he saw the pool of blood in which Lauralee was now lying. He panicked when he saw that she had lost consciousness.