Cherokee Storm (6 page)

“Mary Shannon!”

She turned at the sound of her father's voice. He and two Indian men were walking down the trail toward the pool. The Cherokee were leading the three horses. She could see that the animals wore heavy packs. “Here, Flynn.”

He smiled at her. “Runs Alongside Bear, Ghost Elk, this is my daughter,” he said. And then to her, continued, “I see you've already met Gall.”

“Yes,” she answered, “and he tells me that he is a cousin of Storm Dancer.”

Ghost Elk frowned and said something to his companion in his own language. Runs Alongside Bear, a stout, middle-aged man with a wide band of red cloth tied around his head, kept his features immobile.

Her father's mouth tightened, and then he chuckled with a forced sense of heartiness. “These men tell me they speak no English. They are some of my best customers.” He turned and repeated his words in Cherokee. “But they are good bargainers.”

“Very good,” Gall said.

“Oui.”
Ghost Elk signed with his hands. “No Englaise.” Ghost Elk was older than Gall but younger than Runs Alongside Bear. He was short and muscular with a broad face and three dots tattooed down his chin.

“Don't bet on it,” her father said with a wink. He shook hands with each man in turn and presented them with a small cloth bag of tobacco as a gift. “Next time you come, I'll try to have that red cloth.”

A few more pleasantries were exchanged in a mixture of English and Cherokee, and then the three Indians mounted and rode off through the woods. Before they vanished into the trees, Gall turned and waved at her, and she returned the wave.

“Best not to mention Storm Dancer to anyone,” Da said quietly. “He's not in favor with the council according to Ghost Elk.”

“Gall said that this pony belonged to his mother's friend, a woman named Corn.” She took hold of the animal's halter. “I feel guilty about keeping him. Gall thought…”

“Don't put too much stock in what Gall says. He's half-French. Cherokee are devious, but a half-breed is worse.” Her father shook his head. “Gall is way too talkative for a Cherokee. He pretends to be a harmless fool, but I think he's far from it.”

“Da.” She stared at him. “It isn't like you to judge someone by the color of their skin.” She thought with a start that men would label Da's child with Oona that name—
half-breed.
She wondered if it was fair to bring an innocent baby into the world where it would never truly belong to white or Cherokee.

“It's not the Indian half I worry about in Gall,” Da said. “It's the French half. The boy's never done me wrong, but I never feel quite easy with him. Oona don't think much of him, I can tell you.” He turned back toward the house.

Leading the pony, Shannon fell into step beside him. “I gathered that much—that Oona didn't like Gall.” She kept thinking of the baby, her new brother or sister. Would it look Indian or Irish? She vowed to love it, no matter. A mixed-blood child would face prejudice from all sides and would need all the champions he or she could get.

“Oona's a pretty good judge of character,” her father mused.

“I don't think she likes me.”

“Give her time. Oona doesn't know you. She's never known any white women. She's just shy.”

“I hope you're right.” Shannon didn't think it was shyness…more like jealousy. “I want to…Oh, I forgot the bucket of water.” She glanced back. The bucket was lying where she'd dropped it near the spring. “Can you take him? I'll get the water.”

“Come back to the store after you fetch the water, and we'll get started. I want to give you the prices on our bestselling trade goods. Some things are locked up for safekeeping.” He pulled a rawhide cord from under his shirt and showed her a key. “I do the trading for powder, shot, and steel hatchets.”

She nodded and walked back toward the pool. She was eager to learn all about the business. Buying and selling goods had always interested her, although she'd had little chance to develop her skills at the tavern. She didn't want to be a burden on her father.

She picked up the bucket and carried it to the spot where clear water rushed and bubbled out of the rock. She rinsed out the container and began to fill it, conscious of the tranquility and beauty of this spot. How many times in the past years she had wished she was here…a child again without worries or fears…an only child who knew how much she was loved by both her parents.

It seemed to her as if the trees were bigger here than in Virginia…their branches more massive…the leaves greener. Even the sky seemed larger…higher…the blue more intense. She closed her eyes and drank in the familiar scents of the warm rock, the lush moss, and wildflowers spilling down the hillside. Maybe her father was right…maybe this was the closest either of them would ever be to heaven.

Sighing, Shannon opened her eyes and held the bucket under the spring until the water reached the rim. Why, she wondered, had her mother never fallen in love with this unspoiled wilderness? Why had she longed for the dark, crowded streets of her native—

A voice tore her from her reverie.

“I have thirst. Will you let me drink from your spring?”

She whirled around on Storm Dancer so fast that water spilled down her dress. He stood only a few feet behind her. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“What were you doing with Gall?”

“We were talking. And what business is it of yours?”

“You should stay near your father when he is here. Gall can be dangerous for a woman.”

She glared at him, refusing to be intimidated. “He said the same of you.”

Amusement twinkled in Storm Dancer's eyes, as if he knew some secret, but wouldn't explain it to her. That infuriated her. Was it some joke on her?

She clutched the dripping bucket to her chest, making it a solid barrier between them. “It was good of you to let me borrow your pony,” she said, “but you can take it back now. I don't need him anymore.”

A muscle twitched at the corner of his thin lips…lips that had thrilled her only yesterday. “Why would I take your pony? He does not belong to me. He is yours.”

Had she forgotten how tall he was? How she had to tilt her head to look into his fierce black eyes? How broad his chest? His lean muscular body? He could break her in those strong hands…hands that had touched her so gently. She shivered, despite the warmth of the sunshine. “I don't want him,” she lied. “He's…he's ill-mannered. And his gait is as rough as a mule's.”

He shrugged. “Then eat him. He is fat.”

“That's savage. We don't eat horses.” Her voice sounded high and foolish in her ears. Thoughts tumbled in her head. She had to get away from him. If he didn't let her pass, she'd shout for her father. He'd come and see that Storm Dancer was here. He would make him go away.

“Horse meat is very sweet.” Storm Dancer reached out and caught a lock of her hair. He rubbed it between his fingers. “So fine.”

She stepped back, yanking her hair free, splashing more water down the front of her dress. “Your cousin said that he knew this pony, that it belonged to a friend of his mother's.”

“Yes, Corn Woman. I traded a bear for him.”

“You killed a bear?”

His eyes gleamed with amusement, but his words, when he answered, were solemn. “This is not the time for hunting bears. They are thin and sour in summer. When the snow flies, in the Trading Moon that you call November, I will track
yona
and bring him down. I will take the rich meat and the thick winter bearskin to Corn Woman. It is a good trade.”

“I don't want you to kill a bear for me, and I don't want your gifts. I want you to leave me alone.”

His expression hardened. “I would do that, but I cannot.”

“I don't understand.”

“It is not a good thing, that we should come together. It means trouble.”

“Yes, exactly,” she agreed. “Not a good thing. So go away. Go, and don't come back.”

She tried not to stare at him. Today, he wore a short open buckskin vest, fringed and decorated with porcupine quills, over a short leather kilt and high moccasins. Six inches of muscular chest gleamed bare between the fringed seams. She fought the urge to caress that copper skin, to move so close that her thighs would press against his naked ones.

He touched her face, lightly grazing her lips and chin with his long fingers. The bucket fell out of her grasp, splashing them both. Her senses reeled, and she shuddered, conscious only of her pounding heart, of the bright sensations running through her veins.

“Please…” she begged. “Don't…”

His almond-shaped eyes pierced her. “I thought of you many times since you go away to the East.”

“I never thought of you,” she lied.

“You did,” he corrected. “Your spirit calls to mine. It always has.”

“No, that's not possible.”

“When I first saw you as a woman grown, it was in teeth of a great storm.”

“At the cave.”

He nodded. “In the strike of lightning. It was a sign.”

“No, it wasn't. I was chasing a cow and got lost. How can that be a sign?”

“Shan-nan!” Oona's voice. “Shan-nan!”

“I have to go,” she said. “Please, let me go.”

“Then your spirit must cut the bond between us.” He stepped aside and she dashed down the path without looking back.

Oona waited at the bend in the trail. “Your father is asking for you,” she said. “Why did you not come?”

“Tell him that,” Shannon said, suddenly breathless. She pointed back along the path toward the spring. “He's here. Storm—” She glanced around. He was gone. “He was there,” she insisted. “Storm Dancer was here.”

“I do not see him,” Oona said.

“No, he's not here now. But he was. Don't you believe me?”

“I think you play with fire, Shannon O'Shea.”

“What fire?”

The Indian woman's sloe eyes narrowed. “Storm Dancer is not for you. Do not meddle with what you do not understand.”

“I'm not meddling. Don't you understand? It's him. I've done nothing wrong.”

“You did not bring the water. I need water for the house.” Oona brushed past her. “I will fetch it.”

Frustrated, Shannon stalked toward the cabin.

“He is a prince among the Cherokee,” Oona called after her. “A great one.”

“I don't care,” Shannon flung back.

“And he is promised to another.”

“He's nothing to me! Nothing.” But even as she shouted the words, she knew she was lying. And she knew because her stomach knotted and she could see that the sunlight had gone out of the morning, leaving all the brilliant greens and blues and browns of the forest muted and gray.

A week passed, and then two, as Shannon eased into the daily routine of her father's trading post. She became accustomed to the luxury of sleeping in a bed and having a room all to herself without being awakened by someone snoring or the stench and tinkle of another woman using a chamber pot inches from her head. If she heated water at night, she was free to drag the big copper washtub into her private space and bathe from head to toe with real soap.

A handful of beeswax candles hung in a leather case on the wall near her window. Shannon could read by candlelight with ease instead of squinting until her eyes ached, as she had for so many years. At the tavern, where she'd been apprenticed since she was thirteen, the only light after dark was a fireplace or tallow burning in a smoky Betty Lamp. And, to her delight, Flynn had given her the silver-backed antique hand mirror that her mother—afraid it would break—had carried from Baltimore every step of the way over the mountains from the coast when they'd first come to Cherokee territory. Shannon could gaze into the precious mirror as often as she liked, squint her eyes and imagine she could see her mother's beloved reflection staring back at her.

Shannon felt like a princess in one of her father's old tales. Each morning, Oona prepared a hot breakfast for the three of them, and Shannon was encouraged to eat as much as she wanted. She could put honey on her hot-cakes and stir fresh berries into her porridge. No one tossed leftover scraps retrieved from tavern customers' plates into a pot of soup for her to share with the other serving girls, and no one watched to see that she didn't take a second helping of bread. And after she and Flynn and Oona had eaten, he would take her to the store to teach her the art of trading.

Soon she'd realized that the post's account book was a mess. Flynn was repeatedly making errors in his arithmetic, and his handwriting was so bad that often he couldn't read it. Was that
“8 trade mirrors”
or
“no trade mirrors”?
Zero pairs of French scissors remaining or nine?

And the picture darkened once Shannon began taking inventory of glass beads and trinkets, clay pipes, cheap cloth, men's hats, and bottled medicinals. It was obvious that the store had far too many boxes of those frivolous items gathering dust on the shelves, while the trade goods the Cherokee seemed to desire most, such as steel knives, hatchets, needles, powder and shot, were in short supply.

Worst of all, Shannon found lists of customers who bought supplies
on ticket
and never paid with the promised furs or gold nuggets. Some debts went back a decade, and others were simply written off. Shannon had even discovered sales of gunpowder or knives that were marked
“no charge.”

In theory, the isolated trading post was a solid business. No other store existed for days in every direction, and her father had enjoyed the friendship of the prosperous Cherokee nation for many years. But the account books proved that Da had made less profit every season for the past five years. And the money he'd paid to buy her indenture and pay her passage west had cost him most of his savings.

When Shannon questioned him about the problems, he laughed off her concerns, saying that she was like her mother, thinking she could teach a rooster how to crow. He knew the Cherokee, he insisted, and he knew his trade. Some customers might be slow to make good on their promises, but in the end, most would honor their obligations. As for the items he'd given away, the recipients were on hard times and needed assistance rather than a debt. That was the Cherokee way, and to live among the people, he was expected to adopt some of their ways.

In those two weeks, while Shannon struggled to understand her father's business sense, they had no visitors. And although Storm Dancer continued to invade her dreams and her pulse became erratic every time she went to the spring to fetch water, she saw no sign of him in the flesh. Neither she nor Oona told her father about Storm Dancer's visit that first morning. At least, Shannon assumed that Oona had kept her secret, because Da said nothing to her about it.

And as for her lustful dreams, they were most disturbing…so lascivious, that an unwed maid should be ashamed of knowing such behavior between a man and woman existed, let alone being party to it in her mind. If her bedroom door hadn't been barred from the inside and her window too small to admit a grown man, she would swear that Storm Dancer had been with her in her bed every night. She would swear that Storm Dancer had licked and nibbled and kissed every inch of her body from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, and that she had eagerly done as much to him.

She wondered if she were bewitched. Was she too weak to resist the temptation of her nightly fantasy orgies? If she couldn't banish the dreams, decency should have compelled her to try to stay awake, to sit late by the kitchen fire, refuse to lay her head on her pillow and give herself over to her wicked imagination. Instead, to her shame, she welcomed them…seeking her bed early and savoring the licentious memories the following day.

And worse, after she'd gone to bed, in the moments before she fell asleep, she would touch herself…rubbing her nipples until they tingled…massaging the mound where her nether curls sprang…sliding her fingers into her woman's cleft until she shuddered with pleasure.

Usually, her dream lover came to her in her soft featherbed within the four posters, but sometimes the two of them sought out secret places in the mountains. There, they would swim naked in the creeks or race hand in hand into an enchanted hollow where wild strawberries and violets grew thick and the air smelled of perfume.

There, with trees for walls, sky for a roof, and thick moss for their bed, Storm Dancer would sprawl on his back and she would fling herself on top of him. They would kiss and fondle, tease and play until desire would not be denied. Then, wet and eager for his love, she would spread her legs for him and he would enter her.

She had never known a man, yet in her dreams she was wanton. In her dreams she cried out with passion and urged him to plunge deeper ever deeper inside her. In her dreams, she not only touched his sex but fondled…even kissed it as it swelled and lengthened. It was her shame and her glory, and she had to accept her bold nature or believe herself to be a wicked and sinful creature.

Did other decent women have such dreams? Never had she longed so much for her friend Anna from the orphanage. She could have asked Anna anything, told her any secret, knowing that Anna would never judge her, never mock or reproach her. But Anna, dearer than any sister, was lost to her, and she was alone. There was no one to ask, least of all her father's disapproving woman.

Oona might not have told Shannon's father about seeing Storm Dancer with her at the spring, but that was her only kindness. No matter how Shannon tried to fit in, the woman remained as distant and disapproving as she had been the first night they'd met. She rarely spoke, rarely smiled, and almost never sat still. Even after supper, when Flynn would stretch out in his chair before the fire and smoke his pipe, Oona sewed or ground corn kernels into flour, or worked on her baskets.

Shannon had never seen a woman work so hard. After a full day of cleaning, cooking, washing, and tanning hides or smoking meat or fish, Oona would weave intricate reed baskets to sell at the store. The dyes she brewed herself from forest plants and minerals, and she decorated the containers with beautiful geometric designs, beads, and feathers. So tightly woven were the seams of Oona's baskets, that some would hold water. Shannon had offered to help one evening and been firmly rebuffed.

Oona's eyes had widened in shock at the suggestion. “Never. Two people cannot make a basket,” she said, making a hand sign that Shannon had come to understand would ward off evil. “Each basket has a spirit,” Oona whispered. “If two women try to weave the same one, the basket spirit will wither and die.”

“I could learn,” Shannon suggested. “You could teach me, and I could weave my own basket.”

“You are too old,” the Indian woman dismissed. “My mother taught me when I was a child.”

“I'm hardly in my dotage. Two of us could make twice as many baskets, and—”

Flynn stood up, frowned first at her and then at Oona, and walked out of the cabin without saying a word. All three dogs trailed after him. Oona uttered a sound of amusement and bent over the basket in her lap.

Shannon threw down her book, followed her father outside, and found him leaning against a porch post, tamping down the tobacco in his pipe. “Da, I mean Flynn, I—”

“Settle it between you. I won't take sides between my womenfolk.”

“She hates me!”

“She doesn't.”

“I'm not welcome here.”

“I don't believe that.” He drew on the pipe until the tobacco glowed red. “Oona's got her funny ways, certain. She won't even let me touch her baskets until they're done. Superstitious as a Galway Bay sailor.”

“I just want to be of help.”

“Aren't you putting my accounts to right? And didn't you find those playing cards I've been missing for over a year? I've had three customers wanting a deck, and couldn't find them.”

“Cherokee play cards?” One of the hounds nosed her ankle, but she paid the bitch no heed.

He chuckled. “No, not them. Great gamblers are the Cherokee, but they prefer their own games of chance. I'm meanin' His Majesty's finest from Fort Hood. Only three days away by horseback. I get soldiers every couple months, pockets heavy with shillings. And they'll pay dearly for fresh cards.”

“Da, when I was young,” she replied, “I remember you saying that a trader had to be fair, and he had to be friendly. But most of all, he had to be a good businessman. If you give away your profits to the Indians, the sale of ten decks of playing cards won't save you.”

He sat down on the porch, let the dog curl around his ankles, and dug a piece of smoked meat from his pocket. He fed the treat to the hound and stroked the animal's head. “Maybe I did say that,” he agreed. “I thought that way then, but after you and your mother left, I realized there was more to life than turning a coin. Family, and conscience, and friendship matter more to me now. Knowing I might be a better father to the babe comin' than I was to you, that's important.”

“You could end up old and poor, Flynn.” She sat down beside him.

“I've been poor before, and there's worse things.”

“Worse than going to bed hungry? Worse than seeing your mother go into a pauper's grave because there's no money for a church funeral?”

“That too?” He sighed. “I didn't know that useless uncle of yours denied her a proper burial. I'm sorry.”

“She wasn't buried in holy ground, just a weedy field near the river.”

“Oh, child. How did you bear it and you only a little lass of nine?”

Shannon's throat constricted. “She had a priest, Da. I ran to the church and brought one back when she was dying. Uncle whipped me for it later. Said I cost him money to pay the Father, but it eased her, I think—to have the last rites.”

Flynn stroked her hair with a rough hand. “She was a lady, your mother. She married me because…”

“Go on,” she urged, certain he would say they fell in love despite their differences.

“It's no tale for you, darlin'. They were hard times.”

Not harder than the orphanage, she thought, but couldn't say so. Better for her father not to know that she'd awakened one morning when she was eleven to find the girl next to her dead, her body frozen stiff and eyes staring. Better that no one knew that a rat had chewed her friend's fingers to the bone.

“Your mother never went without food or a place to lay her head, after we married,” her father continued, unaware of her own dark memories. “You see, darlin', the man she'd wanted had died before they could be wed and she thought she was with child.”

“My mother?” Shannon was shocked. How could that be true? No more modest woman ever lived. Could she have been intimate with a man out of wedlock? A man other than her father?

“It didn't matter to me.”

“You mean…” Shannon's breath caught in her throat. Was he going to tell her that he wasn't her father? “What happened to the baby?”

He knocked out the remaining tobacco in his pipe and rubbed out the coals with the heel of one moccasin. “She got her courses the week after we were wed. She hadn't been in the family way after all.”

Relief made her knees feel weak. “So there was no child?”

“No, and none for us for years. It was a mistake between us,” he said. “She never forgave me for not being him—the man she'd loved and lost.”

“She never loved you?”

“I like to think she did, after a fashion, after we wore smooth the burrs. She loved you, though. Never think for a minute she didn't.”

“She shouldn't have taken me away from you.”

“Ah, no, you can say that. But how can you tell a mother not to cling to her only chick? We made a mess of things, but you're the best of us both.”

“And you care for Oona, don't you?”

“God help me, I do. It's been my fortune to have two women both better than me.”

She leaned close and hugged him. “I'll try harder to get along with her.”

“Good girl. She'll need you with the wee one comin'. She's like a walnut, my Oona. Hard on the outside, sweet and soft on the in.”

It was on the tip of Shannon's tongue to say what a good job the Indian woman did of hiding her sweeter side, but she didn't. She sat there beside him and watched as the moon rose higher and the stars blinked on, one after another until the sky was adorned with glittering diamonds and most of her resentment at Oona had drained away.

 

That night, the three of them stayed up longer than usual. Da was cleaning his rifle, and Oona's head was bent low over a tiny pair of moccasins she was sewing for the baby. When Shannon finally went to bed, the hands on the mantel clock showed quarter past ten. And when she went to her window to close and lock the shutters, she found a life-sized wooden bird lying on the wide sill.