Apache Summer sb-3

by Heather Graham

  moving magic upon her. His kiss touched her, searingly hot. The cool

  water lapped over her feet and ankles, but the whole of her was achingly

  hot, a fire against the water. His lips touched her bare belly, and the

  arches of her feet, and her knees and her thighs. And then he kissed her

  warmly, intimately, at the very heart of her desire, kissed her body as

  he would kiss her lips, demanding all and giving her ecstasy in turn.

  And still the cool stream washed against her. In the end she rose

  against him, and they knelt together in the shallows in the night, and

  her breasts moved against his chest as their lips fused once again, and

  then the fullness of their bodies. She led him down then to the rich

  earth, and crawled atop him, her hair a blaze of sunset kissed by the

  moon, ~r movements smooth and sultry as the touch of golden locks swung

  over his chest and belly.

  In the magic of the night, to the rough and urgent murmurings of his

  husky voice, she rode the magic of the darkness, and of the man, until

  the beauty exploded within them and around them, until the sweet

  satiation and exhaustion seized them, until they were filled with one

  another. Only then did she fall against him. She didn't care about the

  future or the past; she only knew that she had come to him because she

  had wanted him. And because she loved him.

  Nothing else mattered, for she had learned that time and life and love

  were precious, and this night she had all three.

  They were silent together as the moon cast its gentle glow on them.

  He stroked her hair softly and at long last he whispered, "It's

  true--Nalte sent you to me?" She nodded happily against his chest.

  "It's true," she whispered.

  "Thank God," he breathed.

  "He's very upset."

  "He is?"

  "He doesn't like the idea that von Heusen has been causing so much

  trouble.

  He told me that the Apache raid, and that they make war, and that these

  are separate things. They raid for foodstuffs and other things they

  need, they do not raid to kill. When they make war, they do so to kill.

  But they do not kill children, and they do not slaughter animals

  needlessly. He says there is enough trouble between the 245 whites and

  the Indians. He doesn't usually have much use for the Comanche himself,

  and the tribes have warred for generations, but he cannot see the

  Comanche blamed for a white man's sins."

  "You had quite a long talk with him," Jamie commented.

  "Jealous?" she asked sweetly.

  He grunted.

  She braced her hands upon his chest, staring deeply into his eyes.

  "I

  like him, Jamie."

  Jamie laced his fingers behind his head as he watched her eyes.

  "Want to stay with him?" he asked.

  Words, gentle words, self-betraying words, hovered on Tess's lips. I

  like Nalte, but I love you, she almost said. But she could not dispel

  the memory of Eliza hanging on to him, trying to force him to love her

  in return. She would never do that, she swore. It was dangerous to fall

  in love with Jamie Slater.

  If nothing else, Tess wanted her dignity left to her.

  She forced a smile to her lips and asked lightly, "Trying to get rid of

  me?"

  "You are a hell of a lot of trouble," he told her frankly. "Yes, but

  you've already come this far."

  "So I have."

  "And I really am worth it."

  "Are you?" His eyebrows shot up.

  She nodded. Then she moved very low against him again. She let her hair

  float over his chest as she lowered her lips to his slick bronze flesh.

  She shimmied her body against him as she inched lower down the length of

  his body, her thighs locked around him, moving sinuously against him.

  She felt the quick rasp of his breath, and she let her lips linger upon

  the spot where she could hear the frantic beating of his heart.

  Then she moved lower and lower, daring to touch him instinctively,

  exploring what was intensely male about him with little subtlety and

  tremendous fascination. Her body undulated upon his. She discovered her

  own prowess and power, and drove him nearly to madness. All that he had

  demanded of her she took in return. He shuddered violently beneath her

  touch, his fingers digging into the earth when she caressed him as

  boldly with her lips and tongue as he had done to her. He shouted out

  hoarsely, and she was soon pinned to the earth as he took her almost

  savagely, with a driving, explicit hunger that seemed to rend the very

  heavens.

  And when the stars had exploded to dance within the night sky and go

  still again, he whispered tenderly against her ear, "My love, you are

  worth it indeed."

  They stayed by the water a little while longer. Whatever came in the

  future, Tess knew that she would dream of this place as long as she

  lived.

  She began to shiver, and he covered her in the doeskin dress once again,

  and then he suggested that they return to the tepee in the village.

  They slept that night alone together in the teix~ where she had been

  taken earlier that day. They slept, having shed their clothing once

  again, wound into one another's arms within the warm shelter of an

  Apache blanket.

  When morning came, they were still together.

  During the next few days, they were Nalte's honored guests. They

  attended the ceremonies for his sister, Little Flower, and Tess was

  amazed to find that she had discovered a strange peace here, living with

  the Apache. Nalte spent time with the two of them. Sometimes he ignored

  Tess and engaged in long conversations with Jamie in his Apache tongue.

  But sometimes he spoke in English, including Tess. Once, when they were

  alone, Jamie having gone to join a bunting party, Nalte took it upon

  himself to teach her something about the Apache ways.

  He explained to her about the Gan," or Mountain Spirit Dancers. In their

  masks, they impersonated the Mountains Spirits. They evoked the power of

  the supernaturals to cure illness, drive away evil and bring good

  fortune. They assembled in a cave, and under the guidance of a special

  Gan shaman, they donned their sacred costumes. They held great power,

  and therefore they were obliged to honor severe restrictions.

  They were not to recognize friends once they were in their attire, nor

  were they to dance incorrectly or to tamper with the sacred costume or

  clothing once it had been left within a secret cache. To disobey any of

  the restrictions could bring calamity down upon the dancer or his family

  or tribe. To disobey could bring about sickness, madness, even death.

  "We are a people of ritual," he told her.

  "We celebrate the Holiness Rite and the Ceremonial Relay. For the

  Holiness Rite the shaman must go through arduous procedures, imitating

  the bear and the snake, and curing the people of the powerful bear and

  snake sicknesses.

  The Ceremonial Relay tells us of our food supply--game and the harvest

  of nature. Runners symbolize the sun and the animals, and the moon and

  the plants. If the sun runners win, game will be in plenty for u
s. If

  the moon runners win, then we will feast on the harvest of the plants."

  "You live a good life here," Tess said.

  "I live a good life, yes, but I fear the day when white men come to take

  it from me."

  "But surely, here" -- "They will come, the white men will come. War will

  tear apart the mountains, and blood will stain the rivers. It is

  inevitable.

  But when the time comes, I will remember you, and Slater, and I will

  know that all whites are not the same. Yes, it is good here. Now. And

  you, I think that you are at She smiled at him.

  "I do not believe it, but yes, I am at peace here."

  Nalte stared at the fire that burned in the center of the village.

  "You might have been happy had you stayed," he said quietly.

  "And maybe not. Our women are the gatherers. The first green vegetables

  are the yucca, and the women collect them. Then they must collect the me

  seal stalks and roast them and grind them into paste. We eat the mescal

  as paste, and as the cakes you have been given with your meals. It is a

  hard life."

  "A ranch is a hard life. And so is a newspaper," Tess said softly.

  She looked at him quickly.

  "A newspaper" -- "I know what a newspaper is. I lived in a town for many

  years when I was a child. I was captured with a war party and taken in

  by a minister's wife. I learned a lot about your society. A newspaper is

  a powerful weapon."

  "It isn't a weapon at all," Tess protested. "More powerful than a gun.

  Be careful with it," Nalte warned her. Then he asked her if she was

  Jamie's wife. She flushed as she told him that she was not.

  "But you are his woman," Nalte told her.

  "It--it isn't the same thing," she said.

  The Indian was lowering his head, smiling, and she remembered belatedly

  that he had chosen to let her go because of Jamie.

  "When an Apache marries, he goes to his wife's family. If she lives in a

  distant territory, then the man leaves and joins her family. Within it

  he may rise to be the leader, then he may become the leader of many

  families, and ultimately a great chief. But always, when it is possible,

  he joins his wife's family. He works for his wife's parents and elders,

  and he is known by them as 'he who carries burdens for me."

  He speaks for her, and the man and the woman exchange gifts. A separate

  dwelling is made for the couple. She is his wife.

  "But I tell you, Sun-Colored Woman, that it is the same among the Apache

  and the whites. When a man loves a woman, when he claims her for his

  own, when he is willing to give his life and his pride and his honor for

  her, that is when she is truly his wife, in his eyes and in the eyes of

  the 249 great spirits, be they our gods or the one great God of the

  whites." He touched her cheek almost tenderly, then left her. She

  thought about his words for a long time to come, and she wondered if

  Jamie did love her. Did he love her enough to stay with her, or would he

  tire of her, as he had tired of Eliza?

  She had made love with him always of her own volition. She had wanted

  him as she had never known want before.

  But sometimes she wished that she had never given in to the temptation,

  for she felt that she had tasted forbidden fruit.

  She had found it very sweet, but she would perish when she could taste

  it no longer. ~ Nights were theirs. She never spoke, but came to him

  with her skin warmed by the fire, her body bathed by the stream, her

  hair soft and fragrant from the sun. She lay down be- side him, and she

  loved him, and she tried not to think of the future.

  On the fourth night of Little Flower's puberty rite, when the maiden had

  become a woman, Jamie was silent, holding her gently, staying

  motionless.

  Tess knew that he didn't sleep, and she shifted against him, asking him

  what was wrong.

  "We're free to go home tomorrow," she whispered to him.

  "Yes, or the next day," be said absently.

  "Nalte has been involved with his sister and us. He may be busy with

  tribal business tomorrow."

  "what difference will a day make?"

  He shook his head, still staring toward the top of the tepee and the

  poles that seemed to reach toward the stars.

  "A

  day will not make a difference. Nothing will a make a difference.

  That's the point. When we go home, Tess, von Heusen is still going to be

  there. And we still haven't any proof of what he is doing."

  "But--but Jeremiah and David kidnapped me--and they left you for dead!"

  Tess protested.

  "Jeremiah and David are dead. They can't be brought to trial, and they

  can't be forced to testify against von Heusen.

  We're right back where we started. And I know you. You'll head right

  back to that newspaper office of yours."

  "Jamie, I have to!"

  "You don't have to!" he told her savagely. "Jamie" -- "We're going back,

  Tess, and we're going to fight yon Heusen. But we have to do it by my

  rules."

  "I don't" -- "That's right--you don't. You don't make a move without

  someone by your side, do you understand me? Things are going to get

  worse. Von Heusen may be thinking right now that you and I are gone. He

  may even have had a few moments of divine pleasure, thinking that he'd

  won at last. But Tess, by now he must have discovered that he can't get

  his hands on that property, even if we're both believed to be dead and

  gone. He's going to be furious when he finds it's willed to my

  family--and he's going to be ready for a full- scale war. We've got to

  pray that we're going to be ready for it."

  "Can we be?" Tess whispered.

  "Yes, we can," he said. But then he swung around on her, staring at her

  fiercely, clutching her chin with a grip so tight that it was painful.

  "But Tess, so help me God, you'll do it my way."

  "Jamie" -- "You'll do it my way?"

  "Fine! All right!" she snapped.

  He dropped her jaw. Tears were stinging her eyes, and she quickly rolled

  away from him, furious that no matter how close it seemed they became,

  he still played the dictator. And left her frightened that she was

  falling more and more deeply in love with a man who would wage war for

  her, who would risk his life for her. And yet ride away in the end, when

  it mattered the most.

  He did not reach for her, and she did not come back to touch him that

  night.

  Her back was mid, and she drew the blanket more fully around her.

  She shivered in the night. But the distance remained between them.

  They spent one more day with the Apache, watching the sacred ritual when

  a young boy departed with his first hunting party. The boy's first four

  raids would be accompanied by ritual. This day he was instructed by the

  war shaman and accepted by the adult members of the party. He was given

  a drinking tube and a scratcher with lightning designs, and he was

  bestowed with a war cap.

  Jamie spoke to her while they stood watching. He pointed to the war cap

  and told her, "It will not yet contain the spiritual power that belongs

  to the men. He must complete his passage before
the spirits will enter

  into his cap." The men and women of the village were gathering around

  the boy to throw pollen upon him as be departed with the warriors.

  "It is a blessing," Jamie told her.

  "And we are standing here, watching this, and these men and that boy

  will go off and raid some white settlement and perhaps kill our own

  kind," Tess murmured. Jamie glared at her.

  "I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself. We're lucky to be

  leaving here alive. And, Miss. Stuart, for your information, this party

  is moving against the Comancheres. I don't believe you can feel too much

  sympathy for that particular group."

  She could not, but she didn't have a chance to tell him so. He turned

  her around and propelled her toward the tepee they were sharing.

  "Go in, be quiet. I'm going to ask Nalte if we might leave tomorrow."

  She didn't hear, that afternoon, whether Nalte gave his permission.

  She waited endlessly for Jamie to return, but he did not. When it was

  dark one of the Apache women came to help her rekindle the fire and to

  give her a plate of beef and yams and roe seal cakes. She ate

  halfheartedly and waited, but Jamie still didn't return. Finally her

  impatience brought her to the opening in the tent, and she looked out to

  see Jamie and Nalte and the victorious raiding party sitting around the

  central fire, laughing, talking, enjoying some newly arrived bottles of

  whiskey, and apparently enjoying one another as if they were long lost

  friends. In a fury she went to the fire and called Jamie's name sharply.

  Every man there paused and stared at her, none of them more surprised or

  annoyed than Jamie. Nalte shot him a quick glance and said something in

  Apache. Jamie was quickly on his feet. He replied casually to the chief,

  but two rugged strides brought him to Tess.

  Before she could move or react he had butted her belly with his shoulder

  and lifted her precariously. Her head dangled dangerously down his back.

  She screamed out her protest, but Jamie ignored her and the Apache

  laughed, enjoying the show.

  Within seconds they were back in the tepee. She landed hard on one of

  the blankets, desperately inhaling as he stared at her furiously. She

  might have thought at first that he was drunk, but the sharp fire in his

  eyes denied such a possibility. She accused him anyway before he could