Susan Sweet Bird once again ran her fingers over Lauralee, studying every nuance of how she had made her beautiful.
She checked to see that every lock of her hair was in place.
She checked to see that all of the feathers of her dress lay flat and beautiful against the curves of Lauralee’s body.
Susan Sweet Bird’s hands trembled as they moved softly over Lauralee’s face. “My fingers tell me that you are beautiful,” she murmured. “Are you ready now to step out and allow my people to see how wisely their chief chose his woman? Shall we walk now together to the Wolf Clan Town House?”
Lauralee nodded nervously, her eyes wide. It thrilled, yet frightened her somewhat, to know that the marriage ceremony would take place close to the sacred fire inside the Town House. She knew the meaning of that fire to the Cherokee, and she hadn’t yet seen it herself, much less been married in its presence.
Susan Sweet Bird placed an ear of corn in Lauralee’s hand, the wedding gift that Lauralee would give to Dancing Cloud as she accepted the one that he would give her.
“You have Dancing Cloud’s gift, you are beautiful, so let us go now so that my people will not have to wait any longer,” Susan Sweet Bird said, her voice filled with warmth and excitement.
Lauralee swallowed hard. She held the corn against her bosom and walked outside with Susan Sweet Bird. Her gaze went past the throng of people, to the cabin where Wilnoty would stay until after the celebration was over. Lauralee already missed her, her arms aching even now to hold her.
Wilnoty. Yes, she thought to herself, it was best that the child’s name had been changed back to her former name. For Soft Wind’s sake this had been agreed upon between Dancing Cloud and Lauralee. When Wilnoty had lived a full life, then joined her true mother in the hereafter, the mother must know her child by her name. Calling the child anything else would have been like placing one’s back to the remembrances of Soft Wind.
Lauralee’s gaze searched out Brian Brave Walker who stood with a gathering of young braves his same age. Tears stung the corners of her eyes to see how he so belonged. His smile was genuine as he gazed back at her. He was a child who had finally found his way in life, a place where he could fulfill his destiny.
Then she gazed at the Wolf Clan Town House. Dancing Cloud was already there, waiting for her arrival. Her cheeks grew hot with an anxious blush as she walked with Susan Sweet Bird toward it.
The people were quiet now. They parted and made space for Susan Sweet Bird and Lauralee to walk. Lauralee could feel their eyes on her and knew they were thinking about this white woman who would soon be as one with them. She felt a genuine friendliness reaching out between herself and Dancing Cloud’s people. She had been accepted. She felt as though she belonged.
Out of the corner of her eyes Lauralee saw Brian Brave Walker and his friends move closer to her. She could feel the sea of their proud faces tilted up to her like flowers to the sun.
Lauralee was bubbling over with joy from having finally reached this day. Now her life would finally come together.
One thing, however, would be missing from hers and Dancing Cloud’s joined futures. Their very own children born of their union. The miscarriage had been way too devastating ever to believe that she could get pregnant again.
She never allowed herself to dwell on this for long, for she would think herself cheated of the blessings that a child of her very own could bring into hers and Dancing Cloud’s life.
While she had been tormentedly alone in the orphanage, she had looked forward to having children of her own. She had vowed that she would give to them what she had so cruelly been denied as a child.
Her eyes wavered even now at the thought of not being able to give birth to a child, yet she just as quickly remembered the two children that she had been blessed with. She loved them no less than had they been formed inside her womb and nourished by her very own body. They were the world to her.
Whenever the thought of who their true father was came to Lauralee with dread, she just as quickly brushed the thought away.
Clint McCloud had been no more a father to them than had he not fathered them at all.
Lauralee regretted having not had the chance to have known their mother better. There had to be much good in that woman to have brought Brian Brave Walker up with such a caring and loving nature. His mother had truly been both mother and father to the child.
Lauralee walked up the incline that led to the Wolf Clan Town House. She sucked in a wild breath of excitement as she went inside.
Susan Sweet Bird parted from her and took her place among the others who were seated on “sophas,” or seats. Those who had seated themselves before the greatest throng of people entered, were the clansmen, elders who were spokesmen for Dancing Cloud’s Wolf Clan of Cherokee.
Lauralee’s gaze met Dancing Cloud’s as she walked slowly toward him. He sat at the right side of the sacred fire that was kindled atop a cone-shaped mound of earth in the center of the Wolf Clan Town House.
Lauralee smiled at Dancing Cloud, her gaze then slowly sweeping over how he was dressed. Her heart skipped a beat at his grandness. His attire was the ceremonial dress for a chief, a gold-dyed buckskin shirt and leggings with a matching feather headdress. He sat on a platform that was covered with beautiful pelts, autumn flowers sprinkled along the base of the platform.
His eyes were filled with warmth and pride. His back was straight, his arms folded across his majestic chest.
As Lauralee stepped up next to Dancing Cloud, she could hear the shuffling of feet behind her and knew that the Wolf Clan Town House was quickly filling with his people.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught the sight of the musicians as they gathered opposite the fire from Dancing Cloud’s platform. The musical instruments consisted of a wooden water drum, a cane flute, and several long-handled gourd rattles.
She looked beyond. People were settling down in a wide circle on blankets, leaving room for dancers who would soon perform.
Lauralee had been told that the wedding ceremony would be simple. There would be an exchange of gifts, in lieu of vows, which would last only a matter of minutes. She clasped her hand gently to the ear of corn that she was going to give to Dancing Cloud.
As he stepped from the platform and stood before her, Lauralee saw the ham of venison that he was going to give to her.
Susan Sweet Bird had explained to Lauralee earlier that the groom’s gift of venison symbolized his intention to keep his household supplied with game from the hunt.
The bride’s ear of corn signified her willingness to be a good Cherokee housewife.
They smiled into each other’s eyes as they exchanged their gifts.
Brian Brave Walker came and took the ear of corn away.
A young and beautiful Cherokee maiden came and took the gift of venison.
Both of these gifts were then taken outside and placed with the food that was being prepared beside the large communal fire, where many pots simmered over the flames.
Lauralee felt giddy with happiness as Dancing Cloud took her hands and gazed down at her with his midnight-dark eyes. She felt the intense hush behind her as the people awaited the exchange of vows between their chief and this white woman who they had finally accepted into their hearts.
Lauralee had proven time and again that she was a woman worthy of walking among them as though one with them. She had relentlessly cared for Soft Wind day and night, trying to save one of their very own women. She had taken into her heart and life two Cherokee children, to raise as her own.
Today she would bond with their chief, forever—totally, heart and soul, as if she were born Cherokee, herself.
And the people were glad. Each and everyone had given Lauralee and Dancing Cloud their blessings.
Dancing Cloud drew Lauralee close. He held her hands and gazed down at her as he began to sing. She melted inside, touched deeply by his song as she listened intently to the words.
“Ku! Listen! You gre
at earth woman,” Dancing Cloud sang. “No one when with you is ever lonely. You are most beautiful. Ha! The clan to which I belong is the one alone allotted for you. Woman, with me no one is ever lonely. Put your soul into the very center of my soul, woman, never to turn away. Your soul has come into the center of my soul, woman, never to go away. Sge!”
Tears pooled in Lauralee’s eyes. She whispered a soft thank you up at Dancing Cloud.
Then, knowing that what she had planned to say could never compare to that which had just been said to her, she hesitated.
She also briefly thought about whether or not this ceremony made her truly married in the eyes of her God. When she had worried about this to Dancing Cloud and had said that she wished to at least have a Bible to cling to during her exchange of vows with Dancing Cloud, he had said that the white man’s Bible seemed to be a good book, but strange that the white people were not better after having it so long.
She had said no more to him about the Bible, or her concerns over not having a preacher present.
It was enough that she was marrying Dancing Cloud, no matter in which way the ceremony would be performed. She felt at peace with herself; God had indeed reached down from the heavens and touched her very soul with his blessings.
Dancing Cloud’s fingers lightly squeezed hers, bringing Lauralee’s thoughts back to the present. She did not sing. She just spoke gently and lovingly as she said her piece, glad that what she said pleased Dancing Cloud.
“My sweet Cherokee,” she murmured. “I give to you today my love, my devotion, my very soul. I will never turn away from you. My heart is yours. My every thought and desire is yours. Oh, my sweet Cherokee, I give my all to you. Our love will be like the stars, undying and forever. I come to you today with my gift of corn as a promise to you that I will be as you want me to be, not only for you, my beloved, but also for our darling children. Take me, my sweet Cherokee, mold me as you wish me to be, for I wish to please you, forevermore.”
Her words warmed Dancing Cloud’s insides. “You please me as you are,” he said thickly. “My woman, my wife.”
Realizing that those exchanged words had made them man and wife, Lauralee drifted into his arms. He placed a finger to her chin and tilted her lips to his. Before his people he claimed Lauralee with a tender kiss.
They responded with loud chanting and songs, the drum and rattles now beating out a rhythm that brought dancers to their feet, the flute eerie and magical in its sound.
Dancing Cloud took Lauralee’s hand and swung her around to the platform. He made sure that she was comfortable on the plush pelts, then sat down beside her. He reached for her hand and held it on his lap as dancers began to perform, while people clapped, chanted, and sang in time with the beat of the musical instruments.
Both men and women were dancing, each dressed in their finest clothing. Some of the women wore intricately beaded and fringed dresses of fine white buckskin, while others wore gathered skirts and jackets gaily decorated with ribbon. With their bracelets and strings of beads, they made a festive sight.
But the men were not to be outdone. They, too, wore silver bracelets and wampum, but they also sported feathers in their hair and tortoise shell rattles on their legs.
Facing Dancing Cloud and Lauralee and the musicians, the women stood hand in hand in a semicircle before the sacred fire. They began moving slowly round and round in time with the music, the men joining them.
The dance proceeded beautifully and mystically while Lauralee watched, entranced by the grandeur of it all.
After closely studying the dancers for a while, Lauralee felt some unseen force drawing her to her feet. The dancers stepped aside and made room for her when she began dancing, the rhythm of her footsteps seeming to be a separate song over the drumbeat. She sometimes felt as though one foot was suspended, gliding back and forth, the other pulsing up and down, alternating, a most subtle syncopation.
Dancing Cloud’s heart raced as he watched his woman, the exquisite grace in every movement of her lithe, slender body, of the look of wild abandon on her angelic face. He watched the rise and fall of her breasts as they pressed against the inside of her feather dress. He watched her tapered ankles.
His gaze followed her superb arm gestures, her right hand upraised majestically, then swooping down like a rush of rain, and then pulling up again, like growing corn.
Male dancers who wore buffalo head masks soon joined Lauralee. Dancing Cloud rose to his feet, his spine stiff as he watched as the male dancers diagonaled away from his wife, circled back, their horned-beaded masks leaning close to her, following her smooth, dreamy movements.
Dancing Cloud entered the circle of dancers. The masked dancers fell back into the crowd. Everyone was quiet, the instruments mute as their chief picked his wife up into his arms and carried her away.
Lauralee clung around Dancing Cloud’s neck as he took her from the Wolf Clan Town House, past the fires where the wondrous aromas of cornmeal dumplings, hominy, beans, and chestnut bread were being kept warm by the hot coals, and into Dancing Cloud’s cabin, which by marriage, was now also Lauralee’s.
Dancing Cloud kicked the door closed with a heel and did not take the time to carry his bride up the ladder to their loft bedroom. He set her down before the fireplace on a thick pallet of furs.
In a frenzy, their fingers trembling, they undressed each other.
Dancing Cloud released Lauralee’s hair from the tight bun so that it tumbled free across her shoulders, a few fronds falling over her breasts.
Bending to a knee before Lauralee, Dancing Cloud gazed up at her, his eyes smoke-black with passion. He smoothed the hair from her breasts and cupped them within the palms of his hands.
Lauralee sighed, the sudden onslaught of pleasure spreading a delicious warmth through her body. As he kissed her hard and long, she closed her eyes as ecstasy swam through her in wild, warm currents.
She melted into his hands as he slid them down to her waist and lowered her onto the warm pelts before the fire. He leaned over her and made love to her as if it were their first time together.
She ran her fingers over the expanse of his copper, sleekly muscled back, then reached for his finely chiseled face and feathered her fingers across his lips.
She giggled and felt currents of rapture swim through her when he sucked one of her fingers between his lips, his tongue wrapping it inside his mouth.
“It has been so long, my o-ge-ye,” Dancing Cloud said huskily, his body momentarily pausing in its movements. “It has been hard waiting for your body to heal.”
He gazed at her small, ivory-pale breasts, then down at the cloud of shadow between her legs, and up again where her ribs were brushed with the softness of the fire’s glow.
Lauralee tremored beneath the scrutiny of his eyes, seemingly being touched by them, as if they were hands, themselves, stroking her.
“Do I look well enough now for lovemaking?” she murmured. She ran her fingers through his thick, black hair. “It is so wonderful, my darling, to feel your body next to mine.”
“You look and feel well enough for this that we are now sharing,” Dancing Cloud said, leaning a soft kiss to her brow.
And then his mouth covered her lips. His body moved rhythmically against hers again, his kiss deepening, almost frenzied.
“My wife,” Dancing Cloud whispered as his lips now rested against the long, delicate column of her throat. He kept his steady pace within her, his arms now holding her imprisoned in his embrace.
“My husband,” Lauralee whispered, the drugged passion making her blood quicken. She laced her arms around his neck and whispered against his cheek. Her voice quivered emotionally in her excitement. “Oh, how I adore calling you my husband.”
Dancing Cloud’s mouth brushed Lauralee’s cheeks and ears and lightly kissed her eyelids. His fingers reached up and entwined them in her hair as he brought her mouth to his again. His mouth forced her lips open as his mouth grew more and more passionate. Desire shot thr
ough him, acutely aware that the urgency was building inside him. His head began to reel.
He held her close as her body answered the call of his. She swayed and rocked with him into paradise.
Soon Dancing Cloud rolled away from her and lay on his side facing her. He reached for her and drew her next to him, sculpting himself to her moist body.
“And so it begins, ah, it truly begins,” he said, smoothing some locks of her hair from her eyes. “Our future and that of our children.”
He paused and kissed her softly. “The damn Civil War was good for something, after all,” he said. “Though under tragic circumstances, it brought us together.”
“I am so very thankful that you were my father’s best friend,” Lauralee said, cuddling close. “If not, we would have never met. Ah, the trust that man had in you. I am certain that he is smiling from the heavens even now, Dancing Cloud, to see just how devotedly you looked after me since his death. How more devoted than to take me as your wife?”
“And the children,” Dancing Cloud said, leaning away from her, to gaze into the fire. “Our destinies also included the children that we now call ours.”
“Ii, yes, that is true,” Lauralee murmured. She cast her eyes downward and placed a hand on her flat tummy. “There could have been another child. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
She cast him a half glance. “My darling, can you truly accept that you will never have a true son, one who carries your blood through his veins?”
“I have a son,” Dancing Cloud said, turning to give her a soft smile. “As I see it, as I feel it, Brian Brave Walker is my son in every sense of the word. He will be raised in my image. And, yes, that is enough. I would never risk losing you just to gain a child.”
Lauralee drifted into his arms. She lay her cheek against his chest. She loved the smooth texture of his skin, and the swish-swishing sound of his heartbeat. “You are more than wonderful,” she murmured. “I am so blessed to have you.”
He lifted her chin with a finger. His mouth covered hers with a gentle sweetness that made her insides melt. Trembling, she wrapped her arms about his neck and returned the kiss.
Wild Abandon Page 33
