White Eagle's Touch (31 page)

“Why should I not? If you are going, shouldn’t I try to ensure that you come to the least amount of harm?”

He sighed. “Who would you ask?”

“Mr. Mitchell, Prince Maximilian and his man.”

“Why would you ask these people? I know of no quarrel that they have with the Assiniboins or Cree.”

“I would ask them so that they would help you.”

“I do not need their help. I go to find your uncle and to rescue him. It is a simple task and one that does not require the assistance of the white man.”

“Please, White Eagle, do not go.”

“Why do you insist on this?”

“Because…I need…you to stay here.”

“And what would I do?”

“You could protect me.”

He began to massage her shoulders as he spoke, his lips close to her ear as he said, “Is it your wish that your uncle remain in danger, while I spend my time here with you…in leisure?”

“No, not exactly, but I—”

“And why would I need to stay here to protect you?”

She bristled. “Because I am your sits-beside-him-wife.”

“No.”

“No, I am not?”

“Yes, you are, but
saa,
no, I cannot stay here.”

“Be reasonable, White Eagle. Do you not understand that I want you to be safe? What sort of life would we have together if you insist on constantly putting your life in danger?”

He grinned at her. She could feel his smile against her cheek. He said, “You make good argument. Remind me to keep you happy in the future, so that we never quarrel. But I will still go; I must. Now, do not say any more on the subject. I have spoken.”

“Humph,” she said. “You may have spoken, but
I
have not finished.”

He laughed.

And she bridled. “If you leave, who will be here to protect me?”

“You will be safe here within this fort.”

“That is not true. There is danger here, too.”

“Little,” he said.

“Mr. Mitchell said that the Assiniboins and Cree injured, or perhaps even killed, several Blackfoot women and children who were encamped near the fort.”

“But you will be inside the fort.”

“Does it matter?”

“A great deal.”

She thrust out her chin. “What if I had been with you, and that had been us encamped near the fort?”

He grimaced. “Those people, though they are brothers and sisters to me, were not very smart, to have been up all night drinking, and with no scouts sent out to warn them of an enemy. Such is the effect of the white man’s crazy-water. Always, before the white man came to our country with his whiskey, did we keep scouts on the lookout, even when safe within our own country. I would not have been a part of such foolishness.”

“Still, it seems to me that—”

“I would have done all I could to protect you, and I do not drink the white man’s water. Too many bad things happen to our people when they come to these forts and drink this whiskey. But amongst all peoples are the weak-spirited, and there are some, white or red, who cannot resist this crazy-water.”

It was odd, but his speech, delivered to her in whispered tones, had an unusual effect upon her. It was perhaps the first time she had visualized the Indians as…people…with likes and dislikes, faults and fears, just like anyone else.

It was an unusual thing to realize. How had she seen them before, if not as people? As savages? Wild men? Even animals?

Of course, she had made an exception with White Eagle, but with him, and no other.

Until now…

“White Eagle,” she said, putting her hand into his. “Please do not leave. I do not wish to stay here without you. Don’t you know what will happen?”

“You will be safe here until I can bring your uncle back to you.”

“No, not that. Don’t you realize what will take place if we allow ourselves to be separated?”

“When we are in my camp, there are many times when we will be apart. I must go on the hunt every morning, and there are times when the journey to find food will take me away from camp for several days.”

“But what you are talking about is different. We would be a
couple,
then. We are not yet. And if you leave, and I stay…”

“I have made you my sits-beside-him-woman. When I return I will ensure that—”

“That is just it. When you return…Mr. Mitchell is already talking about sending me back to Fort Union on the next keelboat that leaves here.”

“I will find you.”

“No, White Eagle, you are not seeing the point. Right now we are together, we have one another. If I go back to my own world, I don’t know what will happen. Will I be able to leave it again to stay with you? Right now I will, I could. Would I feel the same way if I return? I don’t know. No one will approve of our union. And all my life these things have been important to me: society, approval, acceptance. I’m not sure that I could do this all over again.”

“I see,” he said, and she could feel the stiffening of his body beneath her touch. She almost cried out to him, but he continued speaking, saying, “Then you must discover this
before
you come to me. I would not have you unhappy.”

“I’m not unhappy…not now. How can I make you understand, White Eagle, that I am afraid of going back? Of being separated from you?”

He breathed out deeply.
“Aa,
I see this. And I understand it. Still, I cannot stay here while a friend is in danger.”

“I see. Then, when do you go?”

“Soon.”

“Do you leave tonight?”

“Saa,
no, I have the night to spend with you.”

She glanced up at him, at his features which looked as though they were carved from wood. “Don’t leave me here to worry for you all alone. Please, stay here.”

“Haiya,”
he said, and then he murmured, “I did not come here to argue with you, Little Moonlight. Let us have this night. Let me love you.”

She sighed, still reluctant. “I will still debate this with you later.”

He laughed gently. “Then it will be so.”

What could she say? Though she wanted to contend with him, to state her defense and her reasoning more clearly, she desired his love more than any of this…so much more. And so she found herself smiling up at him as she said, “All right, then. Let us take this night, and let us see in the morning if you can leave me.”

And, at least as regards loving her, he began to do exactly as she asked.

Chapter Eighteen

He took her in his arms. “I love you,” he said. She reclined on his lap, looking at him through the haze of darkness. She ran her hands into his long hair, her fingers touching the owl’s feather that dangled from one of his locks.

She touched her fingers to his cheek, tracing over his high cheekbones, grasping the cool smoothness of the shells that were also strung in his hair. She whispered, “White Eagle, I love you too, though I fear, if you go away, we may have no future with one another.”

“Sh-h-h. We have already had this argument.”

“But…”

“No more tonight.”

“All right.” She smiled and nodded. “Not tonight.”

He relaxed back against the wall of the room. “Do you know when I first started loving you?”

“No, when?”

“I think when you were three years old. You used to follow me, and imitate me. Wherever I would go, there you would be, with your big, dark eyes staring up at me.”

“I must have annoyed you endlessly. How could you have tolerated it?”

He grinned. “It was not so difficult.”

“And how disappointed you must have been when we first met at the fort, to learn that I no longer…”

He shrugged. “You were as I expected you to be.”

“Oh?”

“You were raised with no family around you to shelter you or teach you proper manners. You did not fool me, though, with your new ways. I remembered you and the way you used to be. I knew who you were. I only had to wait for that person to emerge again. It did not take long.”

“You make me sound spoiled.”

“You have always been full of life.”

“Is that another way of saying spoiled?”

“Saa,
no. You were simply denied love. You now have it.”

She closed her eyes. “Yes, I now have it.” And, she vowed to herself silently, she intended to keep it.

He kissed her then.

Her head spun in reaction; her senses clamored for more and when he deepened the kiss, his tongue seeking out hers, she responded with a passion that had him moaning. It wasn’t long before he took off his buffalo robe, spread it out on the floor, and placed her upon it.

She had no more than settled herself when he began kissing her face, her neck, her eyes, her cheeks, interspersing what he was doing with passionate kisses on her lips.

She whimpered, she moaned, she stirred, and she murmured, “Oh, White Eagle, how have I lived without you all these years?”

“And I, you,” he whispered against her ear. “Little Moonlight, I believe we were meant to be together. It has always been so.”

“Yes,” she said.

That simple word seemed to urge him on, and his hands ran over her cheeks, pressing back her hair, running over her lips, her eyes, his touch making her feel more precious than all the jewels of the world. And he gazed deeply into her eyes.

“I give you all that I am,” he said, as he trailed kisses down toward her neck, into its smooth curve. “You will be my sits-beside-him-woman all of my life. I think you always have been.”

“White Eagle,” she murmured, as he dropped his kisses down farther, toward her breasts, his tongue paying homage to one rosy nipple, to the other.

She squirmed. She ran her hands through his hair, on down to his smaller, though just as sensitive, male nipples, hearing him groan in response to her.

Off, in an instant, came her nightgown, and then, his shirt, breechcloth and leggings, until they both lay naked.

As his kisses ranged farther and farther downward, toward the center of her womanhood, she voiced, “Don’t let this end, White Eagle. Don’t you dare do anything foolish. I am holding you to that.”

He responded with more kisses, his tongue sweeping first to one thigh, then to the other.

She withered in the pleasure of it.

And then he kissed her, there between her legs, tasting her, loving her, bringing her up higher and higher toward a height of ecstasy, over and over until she begged him to let her show him the same kind of release.

When at last he joined with her, coming up onto his forearms over her, she knew that nothing, no power less than the Creator, could keep them apart.

It didn’t matter what she had been, or what she had thought before this moment.

She loved this man, and this was all that was important. With him, she felt she could face anything.

She said, “I will love you always, and you remember this.”

As he began to thrust into her, over and over, he murmured,
“Aisskahs,
always.”

But she’d needed no translation to know what he said.

They gazed at one another, they smiled, they laughed, they sighed, between moans of pure ecstasy.

“All my life,” she whispered, “I will love you.”

As the pleasure began to build all around her and as she became unable to think of anything more than this, he murmured,
“Nitao’mai’taki.
Now I am convinced.”

On and on they struggled, never once ceasing to gaze at one another, never once ceasing to admire the other, until the pleasure exploded within her, within him, and she cried out her release, just as he spilled his seed within her.

Their bodies wrapped together, they floated above the earth, silent, unattached, both of them, sharing the same space, closer to one another than they could have ever been physically. It was an experience such that she had never before had, and, as they both drifted gradually back to earth, she heard him murmur, “All my life, I promise you, I will love you.

I am yours.
Aisskahs,
always.”

And Katrina vowed to herself that this would be so, now and forever.

He had gone.

It was the first thing she noticed as she awoke.

What time was it? Early morning, or still night?

She couldn’t tell, since it was still dark outside; her only indication that it might be morning being that White Eagle was no longer here.

They had made love all through the night, both of them catching only occasional snatches of sleep.

Sighing, she fell back upon her pillow. She knew where he had gone, of course. He had left on the war party; left her without so much as a kiss goodbye.

She groaned and turned over in her bed.

Her bed…she had gone to sleep on a softened cushion of buffalo robe…not a straw mattress.

She sat up quickly. Perhaps he hadn’t been gone for too long. He would have had to have carried her here to this bed before he left. It would account for her sudden awakening.