Kiowa White Moon Read online

  I peeked open one eye. “If we don’t end up starving to death,” I half hissed. “You have taken all our food. You know it will not last us and your tribe over the winter.” I tried to focus my one eye on his face.

  “I will hunt,” he said stubbornly.

  “Like you were doing before you ran across us? I heard what your friends said about not being able to find any game, which is the reason you took our food.”

  “The white man has taken our land and our means of surviving,” he growled.

  “But I am not the one who did it! I am the one who saved you from dying! This is how you reward me for my kindness, by taking our food, and bringing us here to die right along with your people?”

  “We are a strong people. We will survive!” He gave me an obstinate glare.

  “But I am not one of your people. What makes you think I will survive?” I raised up on one elbow, so my face was more level with his. I managed to open both of my eyes, as I looked upon his face.

  “Because you are stronger than you think. You were brave and willing to leave your home to keep the man you should have let me kill completely, from harming you. If I had not been there, he would have taken you back with him, or shot you, possibly after he finally took your womanhood from you. He wanted to kill your family to force you to his will. You said he had killed your father. You should have let him die in that cave, and gone with me.”

  “Well, now you have me, it seems,” I said bitterly, finding my eyes wandering over his beautiful body, wondering what he planned to do with me.

  “No, you are wrong. I do not have you. I merely have you in my lodge, where you will have shelter. Don’t worry. I will not allow you to starve to death. If I have to, I will give you my share of the food to keep you alive.”

  “You would do that?” I breathed, looking up into his dark, liquid eyes, as my eyes flashed back to his face.

  “As I said. You saved my life, and now I must return that favor. I will not allow any harm to come to you. I am a man of my word!”

  Our conversation was a cross between English and Kiowa, when Muraco did not know the right words to use. Sometimes I would give him the word he seemed to be searching for.

  “There are no use for tears,” he said, at last, reaching out a finger and wiping a tear from my cheek. “I do not wish to see you unhappy, but sometimes the Great Mystery brings to us blessings, when we do not even know they are a blessing. I had been wounded, and yet the Great Mystery led me to you. You were in trouble, and was led to me again. Let Dawkee, the Great Mystery guide our path.”

  Muraco hesitated, and ran his hand down over my arm, which caused me to shiver, because he seemed way to close. I could almost feel the heat from his skin, reaching out to me. “You must cover yourself,” he said abruptly. “Your skin is so cold, and you are shivering!”

  He suddenly grabbed up a nearby Indian blanket, and threw it over the two of us, pulling me close to him. I could feel his bare chest against my cheek.

  “If you only wish to protect me, then why do you keep me tied up like a prisoner? I thought we were supposed to be guests?” I chided.

  “I know you are frightened. I know you are willful. That stubborn part of you may take over your good judgment. I am only protecting you from yourself. Once I am sure you will not try to escape to your farm, I will untie you.”

  “You mean when the snow falls so I can’t get back?” I scoffed.

  “Say you will stay, and I will untie you now,” he whispered.

  “I will stay,” I replied. “I have to stay. My family is here. You have all our food!”

  Nevertheless, in the back of my mind, I knew there was more food back in the cave. It may not be enough to last the whole winter, but we could stretch it, and do some hunting of our own, I thought. Only I would have to escape some time in the future, once I was able to make those plans with the others.

  “Then I will untie you, and hope you are a person of your word,” he said reluctantly.

  I knew he did not believe me, and he had every right not to, I thought.

  I felt him fumbling with the binds on my wrists, and once they were free, he reached his arms around me, and pulled me to him.

  “Lay close to me, so you can get warm,” he said softly.

  The feel of his strong body pressing against mine, was doing something to my senses that I didn’t quite understand. I kept thinking about his lack of clothes, and that part of him that had grabbed my attention the moment he let his clothes fall away. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help myself.

  I knew the real reason he held me to him, was because he was probably afraid I would sneak away in the night. Only I was too tired to sneak away. I was even too tired to make plans for my escape. There was still time, I told myself. All I wanted at the moment was to slip away into the world of dreams where nothing could touch me, as long as I did not have nightmares, but the closeness of him seemed to keep all thought of sleep at bay.

  Every time he moved, or his arms tightened around me, I became more aware of him. The smell of him filled my senses, and I remembered how I had held the quilt, he had used in the cave, around me and breathed his essence in.

  Now his essence was so overpowering, that it overwhelmed my whole being, and I realized that my heart was starting to beat faster, just thinking about the closeness of his strong muscular body clutching me so tightly to him.

  My hands were pressed against his chest, and the feel of his smooth skin against my palms intrigued me. I found my fingers slowly moving against his chest, just to feel the texture of his skin against my hands. I wasn’t sure why this closeness affected me in such a mysterious way, as I tried to calm my breathing.

  “Are you frightened?” I heard him asking in a husky voice.

  “You…you said you would not harm me,” I reminded him.

  “I won’t, so why is your heart beating so hard that I can feel it against my chest?”

  “I have never been this close to a man, before,” I told him.

  “But you slept with me in the cave, and you did not seem frightened then,” he insisted.

  “But now you have no clothes on,” I pointed out.

  He gave a low chuckle. “Indians do not wear any clothes when they sleep,” he informed me. “You should take your clothes off as well.”

  “No!” I squealed, trying to push away from him.

  “I am not like the man who tried to take you in the cave,” he said, almost bitterly. “Indians value a woman’s virtue. I would never take you, unless you were my woman.”

  “But I hear about Indians raping women all the time,” I accused.

  “It is permitted, if the woman is a prisoner, because she is considered a slave. Even so, you are not my prisoner, or my slave.”

  “You were going to take me as a prisoner,” I rebutted.

  “Yes, but not for that reason. Now you are our guest, so you are safe.”

  His hold on me became tighter, as he pressed my head down against his chest.

  “Sleep,” he said. “De-mau.”

  I was running, and Clinton was chasing me. How could Clinton be chasing me, I thought. He was supposed to be dead. He was yelling something at me about letting his mother starve to death, because we took all the food. I did not have time to look behind me to puzzle out the strangeness of the situation, because I knew if I did, he would catch up with me. As I had the thought, I felt his arms reach out to grab me. I started to struggle, as his hands started tearing at my clothes.

  “No, no! Do not touch me!” I cried, as I pushed violently against him.

  “Hush,” I heard him say. “You are not going to get hurt.”

  “You killed my father!” I screeched back.

  “No. You are safe.”

  I felt his lips brush against my forehead.

  “Wake up, Pi au-dau. I am here to protect you.”

  His lips touched my eyes, and then my cheek, and my eyes flew open to find Muraco, holding me to him.

/>   “What are you doing?” I snapped, as I tried to push him away from me.

  “You were crying out in your sleep. I was trying to calm you,” he insisted, refusing to let me escape his embrace.

  The dream started to come back to me, and I shivered. “We should go and bury Clinton,” I suddenly said. “If anyone finds him, they will come after you and your people.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” he agreed. “I will send one of my friends.”

  “No! We have to do it. You and I! I have to make sure that Clinton is dead, and buried. Then we have to go back to my farm and find out if Bertha is still there. I can’t just leave her there to starve. I left the horse and buggy so she and Clinton could get back to Dodge, but he is dead now, and there is no horse there for her to use.”

  “Why do you worry about your enemy?” he asked.

  “If we don’t do this, I will continue to have bad dreams.” I had to make him agree. “I will make it worth your while,” I found myself saying. “There is more food at the farm, and the pigs are there. We could get the rest of the food, and slaughter the pigs to bring back to your people to eat. We’ll take the wagon. Emmet can come with us to help with the pigs. There are more chickens too. Why leave them to die over the winter? I thought we would be able to return before winter actually hit.”

  “You have more food?” he questioned as though he didn’t believe me and thought it was a trick.

  “Yes, we couldn’t bring it all with us. We had to leave some of the animals behind, also. Bring one of your braves, if you don’t trust me, and a pack horse or something to put the pig meat on.”

  “What doesn’t fit on the wagon, we can put on a travois,” he suggested.

  “Whatever you think will work. If Bertha is gone, I will assume she made her way back to Dodge, but if not, we will have to bring her back with us.”

  Muraco gave me an exasperated look. “You ask for too many things,” he grumbled.

  “But you will get more food,” I insisted.

  All my plans of escaping and returning to the farm suddenly seemed to have gone out of my head. The dream had frightened me so much, that I was sure it was Clinton’s ghost, wanting to punish me for leaving him and his mother without any food, the way we did.

  It had only been a few days since we left them, and then traveled to the Kiowa village. She could at least survive on eggs for that long, I reasoned, and if she was smart, she would kill one of the chickens and cook it, I thought.

  “Say you will do it,” I insisted.

  “If I don’t, you will hound me about it, until I do,” he predicted.

  “In the morning, as soon as we get up,” I demanded.

  Muraco put his large hand on the side of my face, and looked down into my eyes.

  “If I do this for you, you must promise not to cause any trouble while you are with us,” he begged.

  “I promise,” I said.

  “Then lay back down beside me, and now you can have good dreams,” he murmured, pulling me against him again.

  “Yes,” I said, but I didn’t know how I was ever going to have good dreams again.

  Once again, I was overly aware of Muraco laying against me, and now one of his hands was stroking my hair, while the other smoothed over my back. He was trying to comfort me, I thought, but what it was doing to my senses was way beyond comforting.

  I started to drift away in sleep, being held snuggly against Muraco’s strong chest. I felt myself rubbing my cheek against his chest, as his hand stroked over my hair. I did not expect him to be so gentle.

  I was dreaming again, but this time I think I knew it was a dream. Muraco held me in my dream, but in my dream, I also was undressed. I was not frightened, but I welcomed his caresses, as he filled my body with rapture at his very touch.

  Why was I dreaming that Muraco was making love to me, I wondered, half awake and half asleep. I had no intentions of ever letting him touch me the way he was in my dream.

  I jerked awake, only to find that Muraco was no longer laying beside me. For a split second, I felt totally alone and frightened. I needed Muraco’s arms around me again, I thought, so I could feel safe and warm.

  His clothes were gone, so I knew he had gotten dressed, and left the lean-to. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, just as the flap of the lean-to opened. I thought it was Muraco returning, but instead, I saw it was Lomasi, standing in the doorway.

  “You have no right to be here!” she spat at me in her own language.

  I didn’t know if she knew whether I could understand her or not, but apparently she had some things she wanted to get off her chest.

  “Your fire hair, is all he speaks of! You have used your bad magic on him, and is making him your servant. A woman serves the man. The man does not serve a woman! Already, Muraco is preparing to take you back to your farm, because you ask it of him! You should stay at your farm, once you get there!”

  “I would like to,” I said, in her own language, surprising her.

  She must not have known I could understand what she was saying.

  “Tell Muraco to leave me there, if you don’t want me to return, but I will have to take all my food back, if I am to stay there.”

  “Ha! The food belongs to us now. You can go back to your house that you built on our land, and starve, for all I care! Muraco is my brave. He has always been mine, from the beginning, and then you come with your red hair to lure him away.”

  “I saved his life!” I burst. “If it wasn’t for me, your brave would be dead!”

  Lomasi’s eyes widened. “And when you did, you cast a spell upon him. I know your kind of magic! You are like all other whites. You have come to destroy us, like every other white person. But I will not let that happen. Muraco should have killed all of you, and then taken your food. Now it is up to me to do what he has failed to do!”

  Before I realized it, Lomasi had sprung forward, pulling a knife from a sheath she had at her waist. I was caught off guard, but I managed to dodge her intended blow, and the knife merely grazed my arm. I could feel the sudden sting, and then blood was dripping on my skirt.

  Before, she had a chance to strike again, two strong arms were pulling her off of me. “You shame me!” Muraco, was growling at her. “I promised Pi au-dau protection, and you try to kill her? She is not our prisoner. She is our guest! I wish you never to look upon my face again, and I shall not look upon yours!”

  Lomasi’s features looked stricken. “You do not know what you speak!” she shrieked. “This Fire Hair woman has blinded you. She did some bad magic on you when she cared for your wound. I could tell you had changed as soon as you returned.”

  “Go!” Muraco commanded. “You are escaping on a very slim thread! Next time I will report you to Dohasan, and let him decide the punishment for attacking a guest!”

  I was shaking, as I watched the two argue. She had expected to become his wife, and I had ruined that for her, I thought. I was disrupting so many lives, without even meaning to. Now Muraco would never speak to her again.

  Lomasi stormed from the lean-to, and Muraco knelt down beside me, and looked at my arm. “Rip a piece of material off the hem of my dress and bind it,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I don’t think it is very serious.”

  “She could have killed you,” he breathed. “I never should have left you unattended.” He busied himself making a bandage out of the strip he ripped from my dress hem.

  “It was not your fault. I am sure you did not know what she was going to do,” I shrugged, not wanting him to feel guilty.

  Muraco wrapped my arm in the makeshift bandage. Then, suddenly, he pulled me roughly against him, and buried his face in my hair.

  “I cannot lose my Pi au-dau,” he mumbled. “You must remain close to me from now on, until you are free to leave.”

  “But once I leave, you will lose me,” I pointed out.

  He didn’t say anything. Instead he merely held me tighter.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I
sat on the wagon bench, beside Muraco. His cousin, Inteus, was mounted on his Indian pony beside us. Emmet had refused to come, and considered me a traitor because I had told Muraco about the food hidden in the cave. We were approaching the place where we had been camping before Muraco and the hunting party ran across us. I was steeling myself for the grizzly scene I expected to see, once we reached our old camp sight.

  The sun kept darting behind dark clouds, casting shadows over us, which mirrored my own inner emotions. I was hoping there would not be a thunder storm to follow.

  When we approached, I could see from a distance, Clinton, still laying face down with the arrow in his back, and I gave a small shudder.

  “Inteus will help me bury him,” Muraco told me, parking the wagon a distance away so I would not have to look upon what they would be doing.

  He knew that, unlike the Indians, we buried our dead in the ground. He told me of how many of the Indians across the plains would often dig up the white dead, that had to be buried along the wagon train trail when they died, in order to take whatever they could find on the body that was useful to them. The thought of doing such a thing seemed morbid to me.

  Muraco lifted the shovel we had brought with us, out of the wagon. Inteus jumped down from his horse, following Muraco to where Clinton was laying. I saw Inteus start to take something from Clinton’s body, but Muraco stopped him. They argued for awhile, but Intues finally gave in and followed Muraco’s instructions. They didn’t dig a very deep grave. It would have taken a lot longer if they had, so I didn’t say anything about it.

  I sat listlessly on the wagon bench as rolling thunder could be heard, in the distance, and even some lightening flashed on the horizon, but it seemed far away, so it would probably keep its distance.

  When they had finally placed Clinton’s stiff body in the hole and covered him with dirt, they placed what rocks they could find, over the grave to keep the wild animals from digging him up. Then the two returned to the wagon, and Muraco climbed up, while Inteus jumped up on his pony.

  In the back of the wagon, along with the shovel, Muraco had placed two long poles with a buffalo-hide connected to them, before we left the winter camp. He explained it was a travois, which they could attach to Inteus’ horse, in order to transport whatever didn’t fit on the wagon, back to the village.