Savage Betrayal (4 page)

The energetic, lusty efforts of the two started rocking the canoe. Faster and faster it rocked. Soon a large crowd had gathered on shore. People were pointing and staring, chuckling amongst themselves at this latest exploit of Limpet’s.

Suddenly, the rocking canoe lurched to one side. Sea Turtle was seen poised dramatically against the bottom of the canoe, Limpet’s arms and legs flailing madly around him, then the canoe slowly rolled over. The boat completely capsized, throwing the intrepid lovers into the cold water. They came up gasping and sputtering, sodden hair dripping over their eyes, blindly groping for the canoe, sure they were going to drown.

The crowd on shore roared with delight. Ah yes, a good tale and one still talked about among the men…out of Limpet’s hearing, of course!

Today, it seemed Limpet was outdoing herself in her sultry approach. Having lured him into her lair, she leaned back sensuously against the ratty fur-covered plank that doubled as a couch in the daytime and a bed at night. It was precariously hitched to the side of the building and wobbled a bit when she moved. Limpet had said she intended to get the bed repaired but so far had been unable to convince Sea Turtle to fix it.

“I’ve been waiting for you all afternoon, Fighting Wolf,” she said with what she hoped was a delectable look. He merely smiled, waiting to see what she was up to.

She leaned forward and began to undo the knot of his kutsack. A wicked smile curved her lips. After much fumbling and cursing under her breath, she finally got the knot undone, and lay back, propping herself against the wall. This was uncomfortable, so she slid down onto the furs, her eyes never leaving his.

“Would you like to learn something new?” she asked. She wriggled her back invitingly into the bed.

He leaned over her. “Like what?” he asked playfully.

But she wasn’t listening. She suddenly grimaced and lay still, frozen. Hastily, she pushed him off as she fumbled about behind her. “I have it!” she cried, holding up a fishhook triumphantly.

“This thing is sharp,” she complained, rubbing her shoulder blades awkwardly with one hand. “Damn that Sea Turtle! Can’t he be more careful where he puts his fishhooks?” She stared at the sharp pointed bone barb for a moment, but not one to let small things bother her, she tossed it casually to one side.

Then as if nothing had happened, she pulled Fighting Wolf down on top of her again. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. I was going to show you something new.” She puckered up her lips.

Fighting Wolf reared his head back, staring at her. “How strange you look,” he commented mildly.

“This is called ‘kissing,’ “ she said throatily. No need to tell him she had learned it from Sea Turtle who had learned it from a slave woman who had learned it from a fat white man trading kisses and furs at Yuquot.

Gently touching her lips to his, she pressed carefully, holding his head steady between her warm hands. Feeling him press back, she continued the pressure.

“Mmmm, this feels good,” she murmured. Relaxing, she kissed him slowly and languorously, until they were both breathing heavily. “You learn quickly," she acknowledged, coming up for air. She grew bolder. Pushing her tongue between his lips, she met the hard resistance of his teeth. She swirled her tongue around his lips, thrusting firmly against his teeth several times, finally prying them open. Running her tongue around his mouth, she wrapped it around his and then slid away. A soft moan escaped her. Breathing quickly now, she reached for his hand and placed it on her breast.

Fighting Wolf felt her warm lips on his. He rather liked what she was doing, and as he felt her tongue thrusting against his teeth, he decided he liked what she was doing, very much. He began to respond to her excited efforts to arouse him. His tongue darted aggressively into her mouth. They were both panting. He heard her moan with delight.

Her next moan, however, was one of pain. A sudden, loud
thwack!
shook the apartment. Limpet’s bed had collapsed. It had threatened to do so for a long time. Her moan was due to her soft lower lip being bruised by Fighting Wolf’s hard white teeth.

Lying stunned and nearly suffocating under his weight, Limpet tried quickly to save the seduction. Tightening her grasp around his neck, she pretended not to be affected by the sudden thump they had just undergone and kissed Fighting Wolf enthusiastically, if somewhat sloppily.

Fighting Wolf, however, had had enough. The sharp jolt when they fell, though he landed on top of the soft Limpet, had destroyed his sensuous mood. The pleasurable touch of her lips on his own aroused him, but the collapse of the bed annoyed him severely.

Disentangling his arms and legs from hers, he finally managed to free himself from her tight grasp. He rose to his feet in one smooth fluid motion and paused for a moment, staring down at Limpet. Suddenly the absurdity of the situation struck him. His lips twitching spasmodically, he sought desperately to stifle the strong urge to laugh that swept over him. Finding himself sputtering uncontrollably, he staggered quickly out the door clutching his mouth and stomach.

Limpet heard him coughing all the way down the path.

Struggling up, she cursed the collapsed bed. In the next breath she cast rude aspersions on Sea Turtle’s parentage, or lack thereof. Never mind, she consoled herself. She would get the damn bed fixed and try again!

* * * *

It had been an active day—one spent checking and repairing weapons, patching canoes, and drilling men, until all was in readiness. As Fighting Wolf strode through the village, he thought idly of the unknown Hesquiat woman who was preparing herself to become his mate.

He laughed cynically. No woman had appealed to him since his wife and baby son died in childbirth a bitter three years ago.

He cast his thoughts back to when his wife was alive. She had been a gentle, quiet woman. Theirs was an arranged marriage, as was proper for men and women of the noble class. During their short marriage, Fighting Wolf prospered. He increased the number of his slaves through warfare, was extremely successful in getting sea otter furs, and gave huge potlatches. Now he was a wealthy, respected man.

As husband and wife, they grew to like and trust each other and were looking forward happily to the birth of their first child. His life with her was calm and placid, but he often felt something was lacking, though he couldn’t quite place what it was. He liked her in his own way, he thought to himself.

Then one day he returned, exhausted after a long whaling hunt, to find she had died giving premature birth to their son. At times he would miss her and the quiet contribution she had made to his life but there was always a twinge of guilt…he wondered why he didn’t miss her more. She had gone from his life the same way she had entered it: quietly.

The loss of his son was, in some ways, harder to accept. Naturally, he wanted an heir, but more, he wanted a child to love. Life had looked so bright when they had been expecting the baby. True, death came often to babies on the west coast, but he had had such high hopes…

Turning his thoughts from the painful reminiscing, he resumed his tirade against the Hesquiats. He hugged thoughts of revenge close to his heart these days, he mused. It seemed there was little room left for love.

He thought of the forthcoming “marriage.” A woman of the hated Hesquiats would not appeal to him, nor warm his cold heart, he was certain of that. He could not honestly want to honor a woman of the tribe that had killed the father he had loved and respected so much.

Coming just a year after the loss of his wife and child, the murder of his father had been a devastating blow. None knew just how deeply he felt the death of his father—he tried to keep the pain to himself.

Fighting Wolf remembered the many happy times spent as a young boy with his father. They would go fishing together, paddling far out to the fishing grounds. He especially liked to seal hunt, pretending it was one of the great whales he chased, instead. One day he confided his dream to his father, who laughed.

“Concentrate on the seal. Later I’ll show you how to harpoon whales.” He was as good as his word.

How well Fighting Wolf remembered the excitement of his first whale hunt. Long before the hunt, his father had taken him to a private bathing spot, a small cove some distance from the village. From that time onward, the cove was his to use for whale hunt rituals, and later, for war chief rituals. Fighting Wolf knew it was an honor to use the bathing spot because a large supernatural shark lived in an underwater cave nearby. Nobody but his father was brave enough to bathe there—all the other men were afraid the shark would eat them. It was very powerful medicine for a mere boy to bathe there.

For eight months in succession he had prepared for the whale hunt. He and his father prayed to the Four Chiefs for a favorable hunt. The Four Chiefs were: Above Chief, Horizon Chief, Land Chief and Undersea Chief. Over the Four Chiefs, of course, and all living things was
Qua-utz
, or God.

For the first four months, he bathed in the fast flowing river. For the second four months, he bathed in the sea, at the secret cove his father had shown him, rubbing himself with stiff-needled spruce branches until his skin stung. He listened carefully to his father’s lectures on whaling. Only certain noblemen were entitled to hunt whales and Fighting Wolf, even as a young boy, was very conscious of his special heritage. He paid close attention to the whale hunt rituals his father taught him.

Then came the day of the great hunt. Even now he could remember the excitement of the chase, smell the sea as it sprayed across the bow of the canoe, feel the roll of the large whaling craft under his feet, tense with the excitement of the men around him, all of them keyed up for the great thrust.

A whale was sighted. Paddling noiselessly, the eight man crew approached the leviathan. Fighting Wolf’s father waived his prerogative to strike the giant gray whale first. Instead he indicated his son should have first chance.

The great, broad, dark back loomed off to the right of the canoe, so close Fighting Wolf could count the barnacles on its back. Fighting Wolf stood poised, deadly harpoon in hand, waiting for the critical moment.

Just as the beast began to sink under the waves for the second time, his father gave the signal. Immediately, the youth lunged with all his strength and stabbed the cetacean in the side, just behind the flipper. The boy quickly crouched down, as the cedar rope attached to the deadly barb of the harpoon paid out.

The wounded creature’s thrashings roiled the water; the steersman, at the stern of the canoe, used every bit of his skill to maneuver the craft away from the dangerous smashing flukes of the tail. The canoe shot out of harm’s way. Suddenly out of the water surged the huge bulk of the wounded whale, breaching violently to dislodge the stinging harpoon. The wounded animal fell back with an enormous splash, cold water drenching the occupants of the whaling canoe.

Now the titan dove into the depths of the sea, another attempt to lose the harpoon. The beast stayed submerged for a long time. But the hunters expected such tactics. They were not about to lose track of their prey. Four large bladder floats, spaced at intervals along the cedar line, followed the giant as it sounded, the fourth float never dunking beneath the waves. The men quickly retrieved the floating harpoon lance and affixed a second barb to it.

When the whale surfaced again, Fighting Wolf struck a second time. This was a signal to the harpooner’s aide to plant his barbs in the beast. By now, the giant was tiring; several harpoons and lines of floats blossomed from its back. Hanging on tightly to the protruding lines, the men forced the beast to tow the canoe.

The cetacean continued to dive, but was wearying rapidly. It surfaced once more. The canoe maneuvered closer. The first paddler leaned over and cut the main tendons of the whale’s flukes. The tail hung uselessly in the water. The man sliced again, deep into the flesh behind the front flipper. Hamstrung now, the great animal rolled over, spurting blood everywhere, and with a loud, fetid gasp, died.

One of the men dived into the sea alongside the whale and, taking his knife, cut holes in the lower jaw and in the upper lip, quickly tying a cedar rope through them. Once the giant’s jaws were tied shut, the men planted more floats around the carcass to keep it from sinking.

In great triumph, they towed Fighting Wolf’s first kill back to the village where it was to be cut up and apportioned out to various families.

Fighting Wolf remembered the exultant pride he felt, pride in himself and his father. In his own mind, that great hunt marked his coming to manhood. In later years, on succeeding hunts, Fighting Wolf again recaptured the sense of triumph, the essence of what it was to be a whale hunter.

Fighting Wolf shook his head at the memories. His father taught him many things, often sharing his worldly wisdom and seeking to instill an inquiring mind in the young boy. He also encouraged a sense of responsibility in the boy, knowing the Ahousat people must one day look to Fighting Wolf to lead them in war.

Yes, his father had been a good man, cut down in the prime of life by the underhanded Hesquiat bastards…

How wise his parent had been, Fighting Wolf could now appreciate. In his last year, his father had particularly warned Fighting Wolf to be wary of the white traders. Fighting Wolf accepted that advice, and, as war chief, maintained a deep interest in the recent activities of the white traders from the tall, white ships. Headquartered at Yuquot village, a three-day paddle to the north, the traders’ influence was still felt at Ahousat.