White Diamonds (18 page)

Kevin took her hand, and Malika looked down at the smallness of hers as it lay in his.  “You are quiet.”

“Yes,” she answered.

When they arrived at the tiny town of Wounded Knee, she asked to stop at the creek.

“We didn’t need to come all this way to see the creek.  It doesn’t start and stop at Wounded Knee.”

“I know.”

He found a quiet spot and parked his jeep beside the creek.  “It is shallow here.  Have you ever gone swimming in a creek?”

“No, but I was on the swim team in high school,” she said with pride.

The all familiar smirky grin began again and then he laughed.  “My dear, your pool was, how can I say it, a controlled environment.  A creek or a river follows its own rules.”

Malika had to admit that he was right.  Her life had been so protected that she felt a little ashamed for the privileged life she had led in comparison to Kevin’s.

“In that book, you know, about Crazy Horse, it said his bones and heart are buried along this creek,” she daringly blurted out.

Kevin didn’t say anything, and Malika was afraid to look at him.  What if she had made him angry?  It was a long walk back to the house and she would surely get lost out here on her own.

“Is that right?”

“That’s what the book said.  Is it true?”

Malika expected him to take off and leave her there, but instead he took her hand and ran his fingers along the back of it.

“Is that all, Malika?  And if it is, then why did you keep the book when you were forced to leave the cabin, and why were you so protective of it when you knew that I realized you had it?”

“It’s, um, the photographs in it…are nice.”

He laughed and if Malika had looked at him she was certain she would see his smirky grin.  He held her hand firmly, and with a stern voice he asked, “And what else, Malika?  What is it about the photographs that interests you?  Why did you want to come here…to Wounded Knee?”

Malika spoke in a soft voice.  “He looks like you.”

“Who looks like me?”

“The man in the pictures…Crazy Horse.”  To avoid a reprimand, Malika continued to talk.  “He was a hero to the Sioux.  The book said that he was an icon.  He stood up and fought against what he knew to be wrong.  He was like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, or kind of, right?”

Expecting laughter, Malika instead felt her body being pulled to Kevin’s side and his strong arms around her slender waist.  She laid her head against his arm.  She felt safe with him.  She felt loved.

“Yes, he was our hero.”

Malika played with the buttons on his shirt and mumbled into his chest.  “You look just like him.”

“I look just like him?”

“Yes.”

“Some would say we all look alike.  Some say Indians are all alike.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He kissed her on the top of her head.  “Crazy Horse was my great-great grandfather, I am told, though my grandmother is unsure if there is yet another generation in the lineage that would make him my great-great-great grandfather.”

Malika swallowed hard.  Kevin had hero blood in him.  He was certainly her hero.

“He never wanted his photograph to be taken, and yet, the white man is carving his likeness into a mountain.”  His voice grew strong and forceful.  “And they have him pointing!  That shows how little knowledge and respect the white man has for our people.  Pointing is a sign of disrespect, a sign of rudeness.”

Malika held tightly to her Sioux hero as he continued his story that had been passed down from generation to generation.  “Upon my brain the final words of Crazy Horse will forever be burned.”

“What did he say?”  The bright blue eyes looking into his touched Kevin’s soul.

“To a prison guard, he said, ‘My friend, I do not blame you for this.  Had I listened to you, this trouble would not have happened to me.  I was not hostile to the white men.  Sometimes my young men would attack the Indians who were their enemies and took their ponies.  They did it in return.  We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and for our teepees.  We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservation, where we were driven against our will.  At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to leave the reservation to hunt.  We preferred our own way of living.  We were no expense to the government.  All we wanted was peace and to be left alone.  Soldiers were sent out in the winter.  They destroyed our villages.  The “Long Hair” (Custer) came in the same way.  They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same thing to us had we not defended ourselves and fought to the last.  Our first impulse was to escape with our squaws and papooses, but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight.  After that, I went up on the Tongue River with a few of my people and lived in peace.  But the government would not let me alone.  Finally, I came back to the Red Cloud Agency.  Yet, I was not allowed to remain quiet.  I was tired of fighting.  I went to the Spotted Tail Agency and asked that chief and his agent to let me live there in peace.  I came here with the agent (Lee) to talk with the Big White Chief but was not given a chance.  They tried to confine me.  I tried to escape, and a soldier ran his bayonet into me.  I have spoken.”

Malika’s tears were wiped away by her hero.  “Are you tired of fighting?”

“No, Malika, I have only begun to fight.”

“You mean revenge?”

“No, Malika.  Do not confuse the two.  I do not seek revenge.  I seek freedom.  If given the chance, we can do much.  We are not a lazy people.”

“I know.”

Kevin smiled just a little and pulled Malika up and onto his lap, cradling her like a baby.  She buried her face in his chest, soaking his shirt with her tears.  A light breeze had come up and Malika shivered.  Kevin stood with Malika in his arms and carried her to the jeep.

“It’s a long way back.  We need to be home before dark.”

Malika knew what he really meant was that she should not be seen after dark.  She was the outsider in his world, in his prison without walls, the place allotted to his people after being forced from their home.

“Will I teach tomorrow?”

“No, Malika.  Perhaps the day after tomorrow.  You did inform the children, did you not?”

“Yes, but I said I would see them tomorrow.  I want them to learn, and they want to learn.”

He held her hand as he opened the door to the house.  “And they will learn, Malika.”

The council was meeting tonight, but Kevin could not and would not leave Malika home alone.  She was too precious to him.  She meant too much to him now.

“Malika, you will spend the evening with my grandmother.  I will be attending a council meeting.”

Just like that?  The king has spoken, so I must obey?  She hated this bossy side of him.  “I do not need a babysitter,” she shouted and stormed off.

She went to her room and pulled out the book about Crazy Horse.  She turned to sit down on the bed when she noticed Kevin standing in the doorway.

“Will you stop scaring me?  How do you do that anyway, just appear out of nowhere with no warning?”

The smirky grin was back on Kevin’s lips, but the man said nothing.  He just stood there with his arms crossed.  “I will take you to Grandmother’s cabin and pick you up following the meeting.”

Malika began to protest, but she realized she was talking to herself.  She could hear pots and pans in the kitchen.  Kevin had already tuned her out.

The nice woman who had met Malika on that first day welcomed her as warmly as she had then.  “My dear, would you like some hot tea?”

“Let me get it.  You stay put.”

Kevin smiled at Malika’s kindness as he closed the door.  The young woman may seem like a spoiled or pampered child, but he knew her kind and giving nature, and would he want a woman who passively obeyed?  No, he would not.  He liked the spirited Malika.  No, that was untrue.  He loved the spirited Malika.

When he arrived at his grandmother’s home after the meeting, Malika was doing something he would never have guessed her to be doing.  She was stitching a quilt block.

“Look what your grandmother taught me to do.”

“She is a natural, this Malika.”

“We must go now.”

Malika gathered her things and stuffed the block of material into her bag.  “I’ll bring it back finished.”

The older woman nodded, but Kevin was bursting with pride.  It was dark and Malika had not expected Kevin to be gone so long.  It could only mean bad news.

“So, what did you talk about at your meeting?”

“The meetings are not to be discussed, Malika, unless…”

“Unless someone was killed, right?”

Unwilling to respond to the pouting little girl inside the woman he loved, Kevin filled the bathtub with hot water, tossed his clothes on the floor, and poured his tired body into the relaxing bath.  Malika had gone to her room, but she had a few words for the man who had once again decided to be a chauvinist pig.  She turned the corner to the kitchen but he wasn’t there.  Then she noticed the open door to Kevin’s work of art, his one of a kind luxury bathroom.  She stood at the door and watched from where she could not be seen.  His eyes were closed and his large body filled the tub.  He was drop dead gorgeous, the water flowing across his torso, rising and falling teasingly across his manhood.  She wanted to jump on top of him and do it right there in the warm water.

Kevin was an unbelievable lover.  He had been so kind and gentle, and he had been her first.  She wondered how many lovers he had had and if any of them had been white women.  Did he want a “paleface” or was he simply making time with her until he found a suitable woman, a Sioux woman?  He sat up, and Malika scooted quickly away from the door.  With his back to her, Malika watched as he washed his sexy body, every gorgeous part of it.  She quietly walked away once she knew it was safe to do so.  How could she stay angry with a man who had a body like that?

She was sitting quietly, stitching more of the quilt block, when Kevin turned off the light next to her chair.  “It is late,” he said, and left her alone in the dark.  He lay in bed with his hands behind his head when Malika passed by his door.  She changed into one of her silky lingerie ensembles and pulled her breasts up a little.  She loved the sexy lingerie and had worn the little outfits since she was a teen, although she had no reason to until last night.  She thought she had been the only woman in her dorm who had been a virgin, but she didn’t care.  She had wanted to wait until she found the right man, and last night he had found her.

“Malika.”

Oh, no, what had she done?  His tone of voice indicated anger, didn’t it?  She turned off the light in her room thinking that was the reason for his tone, as he was trying to sleep.

“Malika.”

What have I done?  She slowly rounded the corner and peeked into his room.  “Was I too loud?”

He waved her inside his room and to his bed.  She stood at his bedside, waiting to be reprimanded like a child.  He took her hand and opened the blanket, and himself, to her.  He lay naked in the bed, and he pulled her in with him.  She lay beside him and he leaned over her.  “My bed is your bed, Malika.”  His lips met hers and the confused woman opened herself once again to her first lover.  She sighed and wrapped her arms around him.  Her legs parted and she felt the hardness settle between them.  He kissed her tender breasts, removing the garment from her body.  His hand in her wetness caused her to thrust toward him.  Her panties were taken quickly from her and tossed onto the floor.  From now on, she would lie naked with him every night.  His hand brought her quickly to orgasm and she gasped from the suddenness of the impact.  She moved downward, trying to grab the head of his cock with her swollen pussy lips.  He kissed her breasts and moved into her, pushing into her depths that eagerly welcomed her first lover, her only lover, and the man with whom she was meant to live forever.

The woman beneath him moaned lightly as his thrusts became more forceful.  He wrapped her hair around his hands and kissed her lips, making love to the woman who was his and only his.  Never had he felt this way with any woman before her.

Malika had never been happier.  Waking up with her lover on top of her and inside of her every morning made her feel like a real woman.  Her life on the reservation had become her little slice of heaven.  She taught her students with a new purpose, with Kevin accompanying her for safety reasons.  She spent as much time as possible with Kevin’s grandmother quilting and listening to the woman’s accounts of what she called “real” Sioux life.  She learned to cook, and she went to bed every night with the best lover the world had ever known.  She was head over heels in love with the descendant of Crazy Horse.

***

It had been three months since Malika had taken her first steps onto the reservation, and despite the scarcity of food she noticed a slight thickening across her hips and a fullness to her breasts which she had waited years to see.  She had begged Kevin to let her go jogging, but he felt it was too dangerous, but he would do anything for Malika.  He had not run in years, but he began jogging with her.  They didn’t stray far from home, but if it made Malika happy, that was all that mattered to Kevin.  After a couple of weeks of jogging daily, Kevin had lost five pounds and looked even better than he had, but Malika had gained two pounds.