Silver Thorn shifted, the better to lift her into his arms, and Nikki’s anxiety returned full force. “No! Don’t leave me! I couldn’t bear being alone in the dark again!”
“I go nowhere without you,” he crooned. Cradling her close, he said softly, “If your hand is steady enough to hold the firebrand without setting both of us ablaze, I will carry you.”
As her panic receded, reason quickly reinstated itself. “I dropped my flashlight. If you can find it for me, it will be safer to handle.”
His gaze caught the glint of the metal tube. He retrieved it and handed it to her. “Is this what you seek?”
“Yes. I just hope it still works.”
Nikki flipped the switch, which had apparently been knocked into the off position when she’d dropped it, and a welcome ray of light streamed from the lens.
Though no less surprised than he’d been when she’d lit the cigarette lighter, Silver Thorn accepted this new curiosity with more aplomb. “More of your magic from the future?” he assumed inquisitively.
She nodded. Flashlight in hand to light their way, she looped her arms securely about his neck. “Yes, but it’s not infallible and it will never replace sunlight. Take me out of here, Silver Thorn. Please. I need to see the sky, to breathe fresh air, to be in a place where there are no walls bearing down on me.”
“Twice now, you have fled from me, and twice you have become lost and courted disaster.” Silver Thorn studied Nikki, his expression somber. “Have you at last learned the danger of such reckless behavior?”
They were sitting on the ledge outside the cave entrance. The storm had passed, leaving behind the washed-clean smell of damp grass and earth. Nikki sucked in another gulp of rain-freshened air.
“Yes,” she replied shakily. Fast on the heels of her fright in the tunnel, Nikki had received another pair of shocks, and she hadn’t sufficiently recovered from any of them.
Upon reaching the rockslide blocking the entrance, Silver Thorn had intoned a Shawnee chant; and before Nikki’s disbelieving gaze, the entire pile of rocks had tumbled away from the opening and down the hillside. She still wasn’t sure how he’d done it, but she’d witnessed the startling phenomenon with her own two eyes.
Dumbfounded, she’d scarcely regained her power of speech when a large, streak of gray fur dashed past them. For a mere heartbeat, the beast stopped on the ledge and stared back at her with feral, gold eyes. If Silver Thorn had not still been carrying her, Nikki would surely have crumbled to the floor in a mass of quivering, rattling bones.
“That . . . That’s a lynx!” she’d shrieked.
“Hah-háh. Yes, the peshewa, the wildcat I mentioned to you. I call him Macate, for his pelt is the color of gunpowder.”
“But . . . but . . . they’re practically extinct, aren’t they, at least in the United States? I think they still exist in the wilds of Canada, but not around here.”
“I am saddened to hear that these creatures no longer roam our forests in your time. There must be many changes from this day to yours. I would hear of these things from you, Neeake, when you have rested and collected your thoughts.”
“You may have a long wait,” she’d informed him glibly. “At least until I finish my nervous breakdown.”
Now, as they sat outside the cave, Nikki was comfortably nestled in Silver Thorn’s lap—yet another first for her. She’d never snuggled up with a man in a breechcloth before. Maybe next year, she’d vacation in Scotland and have a fling with a guy in a kilt!
As they watched the setting sun paint the western sky in shades of red and violet, he said, “I must have your solemn oath that you will never again attempt to flee from me, Neeake. You are carrying our son in your body, and I wish no peril to befall either of you.”
“You can’t know that,” she contended. “Even with the newest test kits, it would be impossible to detect pregnancy this early. And without amniocentesis or a sonogram, it’s anyone’s guess if a fetus is male or female.”
“I know that my son grows within you at this very moment.”
“Prove it, here and now, and you have my promise that I’ll stop running away,” she offered, confident there was no way he could present evidence to support his incredulous claim.
Silver Thorn’s cocky smile shook her certainty. Without another word, he slipped his hand inside the waistband of her jeans and rested his palm low on her belly. For several seconds, nothing happened. And then she felt it. A quickening deep inside, the lightest of flutters.
“It’s just nerves,” she assured him, and herself. “Just a nervous twitch, a muscle spasm, maybe.”
No sooner were the words spoken, than she felt it again. That ticklish little shimmer. Only this time, it generated bands of heat that spread outward in warm spirals.
A feeling that could only be termed maternal coursed through her, bringing tears to her eyes. Nikki loved children. She’d always wanted one of her own. Even after her divorce from Scott, she’d often wished they’d had a child, though it would have meant hassling with her ex over custody and visitation privileges. Now, if she dared believe it, Silver Thorn was telling her that she had, at long last, conceived. But did she dare to hope that her dearest desire was coming true, simply because this man said it was so? He obviously needed psychiatric help in the worst way. And after today, she most likely did, too.
“Wishful thinking,” she concluded. “The power of suggestion. You planted the idea in my mind, and my body is simply responding to it.”
“Look at your belly, Neeake, and tell me what you see,” Silver Thorn advised. “You require proof. I give it to you.”
“I see my jeans,” she sallied.
“Beneath the trousers, woman. On your bare flesh.”
She eyed him skeptically. “Are you sure this isn’t just a sneaky little maneuver to get into my pants again?”
He said nothing, waiting patiently for her to do as he’d said.
“Okay. I’ll play along.” She unzipped her denims and hiked the material down, along with the top elastic of her panties.
Her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. There, as plain as day, was a bright blue imprint, similar to a tattoo, in the shape of an arrow.
Nikki grabbed Silver Thorn’s hand, turning it over to inspect his palm and fingers. There were no traces of ink, no markings like those on her stomach, no concealed rubber stamp.
“How?” she wondered aloud.
“It is the sign you demanded,” he told her frankly. His clear, crystal gaze captured hers, compelling her to believe. “The child will be born in the Moon of the Crow, and in honor of that bird of words and wisdom, our son shall be named Sage.”
Chapter Six
Nikki gave a lamenting groan and directed a look of helpless resignation across the fire at Silver Thorn. “Does it bother you at all to know that I have the most compelling urge to curl up in a corner and start sucking my thumb!”
He sent her that grin again—that beguiling, bewitching, totally exasperating grin that immediately took ten years off his face and made him look like a handsome “thirtysomething” devil with mischief up his sleeve. “Perhaps it is the child in you,” he quipped wryly, nodding toward her stomach.
“Oh-ho! And aren’t we the witty one?” she bantered back.
Silver Thorn continued mixing water with the dried mixture he’d poured from a leather pouch. “What are you doing?” she asked with just a hint of sarcasm. “Whipping up another magic potion?”
He laughed. “Nothing so mystical, little goose. I am preparing our meal.”
Nikki eyed the grayish gruel and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That’s our dinner? It looks like moldy oatmeal.”
“On the morrow, I will check my snares, and we will have fresh meat. Perhaps a fat squirrel or rabbit. For now, the takuwah-nepi will serve to fill our bellies.”
“Taco what?” she questioned.
“Takuwah-nepi. Breadwater, made of cornmeal and dried berries. It is very nourishing, and not at all unpleasant
in taste,” he assured her, slapping the mixture into patties and setting them on the hot rocks ringing the fire. “Once it has baked on the rocks, it will be more appealing to your eye.”
“I doubt that,” she debated. “Besides, if you’d said something earlier, I could have saved you the trouble. I have a sack lunch in my backpack.”
“You have brought food with you from your time?” he inquired curiously. “I would be most interested to see how it survived the passage from your time to mine.”
“Yeah, well don’t get too excited,” she warned him. She retrieved her knapsack and started rooting through it. “I only brought a ham sandwich, a bag of chips, two pieces of fruit, and a couple of drinks. After sitting around all day, everything is probably either stale or soggy. I just hope nothing’s spoiled. A rousing case of food poisoning is all I’d need to top off my day.”
She pulled out an insulated lunch bag, opened it, and removed the foil-wrapped sandwich. As she unwrapped it, Silver Thorn seemed more interested in the foil than the food.
“What manner of cloth is that?” he asked. “I have been to supper at the Galloway house, where they have fine linen squares called napkins, but I have never seen any so bright and shiny.”
“This isn’t linen. It’s not even cloth. It’s aluminum foil,” she told him, too hungry to argue with him now about this crazy time-travel tale. She divided the sandwich and handed him half of it. “I hope you like chopped ham and cheese.”
Silver Thorn peeled back the puffy upper bun and peered at it and the sandwich. “Fat bread,” he noted. “What is the yellow paint?”
“Honey mustard,” she replied thickly, having just taken a bite of her own portion. “It’s good. Try it.”
After sniffing it, Silver Thorn tasted the sandwich. He chewed, and nodded. “Good,” he agreed.
From the sack, Nikki retrieved a small bag of potato chips. She poured some into her lap and tossed the rest to Silver Thorn. “If I’d known I was going to share my lunch, I’d have bought another sandwich and a larger bag of chips.”
“These are called chips?” He held one up and studied it. “Do they ripen like this?”
Nikki giggled. “No, goofy! They’re made of potatoes, sliced thin and fried in oil.”
Again, he nodded. “Then I will try one, despite its disagreeable name.”
“What’s so awful about calling it a chip?” she wanted to know.
His brow rose questioningly. “Have you never heard of deer chips? Elk chips? Cow chips?”
Nikki’s face contorted as she caught his meaning. “Ooh, yuck! Gross!”
“Precisely.”
Just the thought made Nikki want to rinse out her mouth. Delving into her sack, she withdrew a can of Diet Coke and a small carton of pineapple-orange juice. “Which one do you want?” she offered.
Silver Thorn frowned at the objects in her hands. “What are these?”
Nikki rolled her eyes and strove for patience, an asset she tapped often in her capacity as a teacher. “This,” she said, holding up the white-and-gold can, “is caffeine-free Diet Coke in a tab-top can. And this,” she elaborated, lifting the second container, “is pineapple-orange juice, all natural with no sugar added, in a waxed-paper box.”
“What is the calf Coke made of?” he inquired.
“Beats me,” she countered with a shrug. “Coke syrup and carbonation and a bunch of other ingredients I wouldn’t recognize if I bothered to read the label. I will tell you that my brother once used it to clean the corrosion from his battery terminals. As much of this stuff as I drink, I’m surprised I still have a stomach lining, but what can I say? I crave my cola!”
“And the other drink? It is of some type of apple?”
“Pineapple. A tropical fruit grown in the Hawaiian Islands. And oranges. You are familiar with oranges, aren’t you?” she added cynically.
“I have tasted the orange,” he admitted, accepting the fruit drink from her and puzzling over how to open it. “The Galloway family received some at the holiday they call Christmas.”
The surname rang a bell buried in Nikki’s memory bank. “The Galloways? As in Rebecca Galloway and family?”
“Hah-háh. Yes. You know of them?”
“I’ve read of them,” Nikki corrected. “In history books. Tecumseh courted Rebecca, didn’t he?” Seeing his problem with the juice box, Nikki took it, opened it, and handed it back to him.
“Five years past, Tecumseh thought to marry her and relieve our sister, Tecumapese, of the burden of rearing his two sons, but Rebecca would have him only if Tecumseh would embrace the ways of her people. This my brother could not do, so they parted company. Tecumseh has since devoted himself to forming his confederacy.”
“I’ve always wondered what might have happened if Rebecca and Tecumseh had married,” Nikki mused. “Would he have given up his quest for an alliance of Indians against the whites? Would his views have leaned more toward peace?”
Silver Thorn, who had been glutting himself on the juice, stopped in mid-gulp. “You may have just given me a solution to my dilemma,” he announced. “Tomorrow we shall ride to the Galloway farm. I have not visited in many moons, but I know they still live there. If Rebecca can be swayed, there may yet be a chance to save my brother from his destiny.”
“You’re putting me on,” Nikki remarked. “Even if she really were living nearby, what makes you think you could convince her to change her mind after all this time?”
“There is always a possibility that she regrets her earlier decision. Also, she and her family are not only friends to Tecumseh, but to our sister and to me. It is Rebecca’s father, James, who lends me his books to read.”
“The classics?” she guessed. “Shakespeare?” Nikki baited the trap slyly. “And where did you learn to read?”
Silver Thorn evaded it with ease. “Blue Jacket taught me.”
“Blue Jacket?” Nikki exclaimed in awe, drawn into his fantasy despite herself. “The white boy adopted by the Shawnee, who grew up to be a famous chief?”
“The same.”
“Now there is a man I’d like to meet someday,” Nikki commented.
The look on Silver Thorn’s face plainly showed he was not pleased that Nikki, after mocking him, would show such enthusiasm for meeting another man, even one as fine as Blue Jacket. “You arrive three years late for that, Neeake.”
“Rats! Is he already dead?” she inquired.
Silver Thorn nodded. After a moment’s pause, he said, “Neeake, it is not our custom to speak openly of those who have journeyed to the afterworld. It is my error to have mentioned him to you, but please do not question me further about him.”
Nikki was taken aback, both at the sincere regret in Silver Thorn’s voice at the death of his friend and at her unintentional gaffe. “I apologize, Silver Thorn. I didn’t mean to hurt you by dredging up sad memories.”
She changed the subject. “You say Tecumseh has two sons. I assume, then, that he also has a wife. Won’t Rebecca balk at the idea of sharing him with another woman? As far as that goes, is it acceptable for a Shawnee man to have more than one wife?”
“It is allowed, though not all men do so, and Tecumseh has no wife now. He divorced his first wife, who bore his first son. She returned to her own village, and Tecumapese, our sister, took over the babe’s care.”
“Why did Tecumseh divorce her? Did she burn his bacon or something?” Nikki jeered, faking a look of horror.
Silver Thorn leaned closer, matching her look for look. “She was a scold, constantly discontent and complaining, never giving the poor man a moment’s peace. Much like you could be, I imagine, if I were to give you full rein.”
“He divorced her for that?” Nikki squawked. “What kind of wimp was he, anyway?”
“Wimp? What is a wimp?”
“Your big bad brother, evidently. In other words, a sissy, a pantywaist, a weak man.”
“This Tecumseh is not,” Silver Thorn declared adamantly. “Nor am I, as you wi
ll soon learn. And though I teased you, the true reason he divorced Monetohse is that she did not mother their son properly. She wanted naught to do with the infant. Thus, Tecumseh was able to invoke a long-standing Shawnee law and retain possession of his son, who would normally have gone to live with his mother.”
“He’s lucky then, because even in modern times it’s hard to prove incompetency and most judges tend to award the mother custody of the children,” Nikki commented. “But you mentioned another son. Is Mona-whoever his mother, too?”
“No. Tecumseh wed again, an older woman who bore him Naytha-way-nah and then succumbed to childbed fever. That was ten-and-seven years ago, and Tecumseh has not, in all the years since, found a woman other than Rebecca with whom he wishes to marry.”
“So his sons are young men by now,” Nikki calculated.
Another question popped into her head. “What about the women of the tribe? Do they take more than one husband?”
Silver Thorn was shocked. “Never. She who would suggest such a disgraceful notion would surely be banned!”
“Oh, so it’s the old double standard, is it?” Nikki said, her feminist hackles rising. “It’s okay for a man to fool around, but let a woman try it and she’s immediately labeled a slut. A man can have his cake and eat it, too, but a woman is expected not only to bake the damned dessert, but to serve it to her lord and master on a silver tray! Is that close enough to the truth?” she railed.
“Not at all,” he responded. “Shawnee men and women are equals in most matters. While there is a natural division of labor, with heavier tasks allotted to the male, it is not uncommon for a man to assume his wife’s duties or for a woman to perform those most usual to a man. It is customary that a husband is not condemned for seeking the company of another woman while a wife is readily denounced for the same. Still, in most matters, their authority and responsibilities, both in the home and tribal affairs, are equally shared and their opinions mutually respected.”
“Is that why you’re not married? You can’t stand the idea of sharing control with a woman?” she needled. Then, as the thought gelled, she exclaimed softly. “Or maybe you are! Lord in heaven, it never even dawned on me that you could be married, that at your age the average man already has a wife and two-point-five children! While I admit you’re not what anyone, by any stretch of the imagination, would consider average, I think you owe me the truth. Are you now, or have you ever been, married?”
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