The old chief chuckled. “I have known Silver Thorn and his brothers almost from the hour of their birth. I knew them when they were first testing their powers, and I have seen them at their best and at their worst. Nothing any of the three could do would truly shock me, though this has come near to doing so.”
“I wished only to look into the years ahead, my chief,” Silver Thorn put in mildly. “That we might see the future of our people, the better to guide them.”
“And what have you seen but tragedy?” Black Hoof countered. “Has this made you any wiser for the knowledge it brings, or any happier?”
“It has made me even more firm in the belief that the Shawnee must quit this war with the Shemanese. That it is not wise to follow the course Tecumseh has set for us. As I have told Neeake, if we can convince Tecumseh to abandon this fight, perhaps there is yet hope to save him and our people from needless disaster.”
“Many of us do not follow him now, and yet he persists,” Black Hoof pointed out.
“True, but if more of the people cease to align themselves with him, he will have no fighting force. And without warriors, there can be no battle,” Silver Thorn argued. “We must convince more of our people to forsake Tecumseh’s cause. If we embrace peace with the Americans now, perhaps all will not be lost.”
Again, Black Hoof turned his attention to Nikki. “What say you of this, Niece? You are the messenger summoned from the future. Have you any wisdom to impart?”
“I wish I did,” Neeake said with a discouraged sigh. “But I just don’t know what to think anymore. It’s always been my belief that, though you can change the future, you cannot change history. Of course, I never thought it would be possible to find myself suddenly whisked into the past and viewing my old life far into the future. Perhaps it is possible to change history, just as I now know it is possible to travel from one time into another. However, I also believe that not just anyone is capable of accomplishing this. If it can be done at all, it will be done by someone with extraordinary powers.”
“Such as your husband,” Black Hoof suggested.
“Or Tecumseh,” Nikki added. “Perhaps only he is capable of rewriting his own chapter in history, of altering his own destiny and that of his followers.”
“A provocative thought,” Black Hoof conceded. “And perhaps it will take someone just as skilled as he to sway Tecumseh.” His attention swung to Silver Thorn. “I will think on this and ask the Spirits for guidance. While we are waiting for the answer, it would do no harm to call some of our people here for a council. As you have suggested, the fewer who follow him, the fewer to fight.”
“And lose,” Nikki appended.
Black Hoof shook his head, sadness dimming his eyes. “No, my innocent. All get blamed for the deeds of a few. That is the way of life and of war, whether we speak of the Shawnee, the British, or the Americans. One side must win; the other must lose. Those who lose pay the penalty which those who win impart. It has been thus since the dawn of civilization, and will be so until the last man draws his final breath on this, our Mother Earth.”
Word went out immediately to other tribes and bands. While they waited and Black Hoof contemplated, the chief made time for several talks with his new niece. He was as fascinated with her revelations of life in the late nineteen hundreds as Silver Thorn was. He asked her countless questions about the miraculous inventions, even though he was appalled at some things she told him. Nikki demonstrated her “firestick,” as Silver Thorn had dubbed her cigarette lighter. Black Hoof was so enthralled with it that she offered it to him as a gift.
He accepted eagerly. “But you may borrow it when you need it. I hear you are not adept at starting your lodge fire,” he teased.
There were a lot of things Nikki was not adept at in this antiquated society. Trying to cook a meal over an open fire in a cast-iron kettle or on a spit or to bake muffins on a hot rock was highly exasperating. She simply couldn’t get the hang of correctly judging heights, distances, cooking times, and temperatures.
“Boy, this makes me appreciate my old oven!” she declared, eyeing in dismay the half-done, half-charred loaf of bread before her. “Its thermostat regulator might not have been right on the money, but it was a darn sight better than this! And I’d give my right arm for my trusty microwave.”
“You speak in riddles again, Neeake,” Silver Thorn commented, though he didn’t look any more enthused about eating her burnt offering than Nikki did. He was recovering from his wound, slowly but surely, and was now able to stay in his own wigewa with Nikki.
“Never mind,” she grumbled. “Just wishful thinking on my part. Even if I had my modern kitchen appliances, they wouldn’t do me a diddley dam bit of good without electricity. And don’t ask me to explain that one, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll,” she quipped. “Besides, I don’t want to get into a long-winded discussion about kites and keys and lightning, okay?”
Silver Thorn eyed her curiously. “You are in a surly mood this day.”
“No kidding, Sherlock. Is this the first you’ve noticed that women sometimes get a little bent out of shape? Didn’t your first wife ever gripe at you or get PMS?
“PMS?”
Nikki squeezed her eyes shut and muttered a quick prayer for patience, a commodity in short supply for her these days. “Premenstrual tension,” she snapped. “That week or so prior to having her monthly bleeding. Most women tend to get a little bitchy then.”
“Yes,” Silver Thorn said. “But you cannot claim that excuse now, can you?”
His superior tone grated. Nikki stuck out her tongue at him. “Everybody likes a little ass; nobody likes a smart one. Moreover, I’ve never been pregnant before. Maybe getting grouchy is part of it, along with the sore boobs.”
“Boobs?”
“These suckers!” Nikki leaned forward, cupping her breasts in her palms and almost shoving them in his face.
“Ah! Suckers!” Silver Thorn’s face lit up. “A fitting term for them, indeed.”
Nikki groaned. “I give up!”
“Then I win?” he teased. “Good. I claim these suckers as my prize.” With a swiftness that belied his injury, he flipped Nikki onto her back next to the fire and proceeded to unbutton the top of her dress.
As his mouth clamped over her turgid, tender nipple, Nikki groaned again, this time in pleasure. “You know what, Thorn? You’re dumb like a fox. Sometimes I could swear you know precisely what I’m talking about and just bait me deliberately, for the sport of it.”
He raised his head long enough to seek her other breast, “It is good then that we both enjoy this sport, is it not?”
“Practice makes perfect, so they claim,” she grated out, passion making speech nearly impossible as he laved the second nipple with his tongue. “But we can’t. . . . Your side . . . you shouldn’t. . . .”
He came up for breath once more and gave her a wolfish, toothpaste-ad grin. “There are more ways than one to skin a rabbit, wife. And, my Neeake, more than one way to cook a wild goose.”
While he was healing, Silver Thorn worked on small projects around the wigewa such as braiding a leather horse halter and restringing his bow. For days now, he’d been etching and polishing a round metal object. When Nikki questioned him about it, he shrugged off her queries, usually by changing the subject. On this day, he called her over to him.
“Hold out your arm,” he told her, indicating her left one.
She did as he requested. “What’s this all about?”
He slipped a wristband over her hand and into place. “This is my gift to you, my wife, a sign to you and to others that I hold you in high esteem and close to my heart.”
Nikki gazed first at him, then at the band on her wrist. Surprise and delight registered on her face. “Thorn! This is what you’ve been working on these past days. It’s beautiful!”
Indeed, it was wrought of silver, polished to a brill
iant sheen, and intricately engraved with flowers and geese. “Is . . . is this your equivalent of a wedding band? In my culture, when a couple marry, they usually exchange wedding rings, small ones that fit on one’s finger.”
“If by that they are giving a token of their love, then yes, this is my wedding band to you,” he replied solemnly.
She sank to her knees and crawled into his arms, her own linking around his neck. “I’ll treasure it always, Thorn. My only regret is that I have nothing of like value to give to you in return, to show you and the world how very much I adore you.”
“You have given me your heart and soon you will give me a son. That is worth much more to me than any band of silver.”
“Then it is made of silver?” she asked. “I thought so, but I can’t imagine where you would get such precious metal around here. As far as I know, silver has never been mined in Ohio. Do you trade for it with another tribe, perhaps to the west?”
“No, my curious goose. There is a place perhaps two days’ ride from here where the Shawnee have always found silver, for longer than I have years.”
“Wow! Imagine that! And the white men know nothing about it?”
“It is a secret among the Shawnee. None among us will ever reveal the source. Just as we will never tell any white man from where comes our special pain powder.”
“The one you took when you got shot? The one that has an effect similar to opium?”
“Yes, but it is not from the flower that yields the white man’s opium. Nor does it make one develop a need for it, as does opium, though it is more potent.”
“I recall you said something about the powder being made from the fruit of some tree. How is it, then, that the frontiersmen and settlers haven’t discovered its marvelous potential?”
“Because they think the product of this tree is poisonous, more lethal than the bite of a snake,” he informed her with a sly smile. “Which it is, if not properly prepared from the fruit and flowers.”
“This is just a wild guess, mind you, but did the Shawnee help to perpetuate this fear the Americans have of the yield of this particular tree?”
Silver Thorn grinned widely. “As your President Washington would say, ‘I cannot tell a lie.’ ”
“I wonder if this tree still grows in the area in my time,” she mused.
“One day soon, when I am more fully healed, I will walk with you into the forest and show this tree to you,” he promised. “I, too, would want to know if the tree still grows in your era, and perhaps you can tell me if the white man ever discovered its true usefulness.”
He cuddled her closer, nibbling erotically on her earlobe and sending quivers skating through her. “For now, enough of this talk. Would you not prefer to demonstrate to me how much you like your gift?”
In turn, she laved his ear with her tongue, laughing softly as he shivered. “I would. I shall.”
She did.
Chapter Twelve
“You missed a few plump ones on that last bush.” Silver Thorn pointed. “There, to the left.”
He and Nikki were down by the river. He was resting on the bank, watching as she picked summer berries. Those, at least, she didn’t have to cook, so there was little chance of her ruining them.
Nikki cast him a telling glance as she ripped another berry off its stem. “Big whoop!” she declared. “Who do I look like, anyway? Juan Valdez?” She lobbed the fruit at him, hitting him in the chest with it.
He retrieved the mushy tidbit and popped it into his mouth. “Who is Juan Valdez?”
“He’s this little Colombian coffee-bean farmer, who takes his donkey into the mountains and picks every swinging coffee bean all by himself, just at the peak of flavor,” Nikki intoned mockingly. “Now, unless you want to pick these berries yourself or at least provide me with a danged donkey other than your sweet braying self, stick a sock in it.”
“But the more I tease you, the more berries you throw my way,” he told her playfully.
“Which is why my basket is only half full,” she retorted.
She strolled over and plopped herself next him on the grass. “Lands, it’s hot!” She lifted an arm and tugged the wrist-length sleeves of her dress away from her armpit. “I’m wringing wet! You know, if you’d bothered to give me a little forewarning before whisking me backward in time, I could have packed an antiperspirant-deodorant in my purse. About midafternoon, I’m going to be as ripe as a three-day road-kill.”
“It would help if you would remove all that cloth from your arms,” he suggested.
“You wouldn’t mind if I ripped off the sleeves?” she asked. “You didn’t like my other clothes, so I thought maybe it would be a little immodest, according to the standards of your era.”
“Not for the Shawnee,” he informed her. “Have you not noticed that our women’s garments do not cover their arms? In winter, yes, but not in summer.” Unsheathing his knife, he offered, “I will aid in ridding you of your discomfort, if you wish.”
“Please do, before I melt into a stinking puddle!” she exclaimed gratefully. “If you can just help loosen the seams near the shoulder, we can rip the sleeves off without too much damage to the dress.”
“Why do white women need to cover their bodies from neck to heel?”
Nikki shrugged. “Presumably, because their stupid husbands don’t want other men seeing their bare flesh. Or perhaps it’s the only way to keep their skin from being exposed to the sun. Lily-white complexions were prized in the old days, and maybe they had the right idea after all. In my day, we dress much more comfortably, but we also risk skin cancer, which has become increasingly prevalent. But you can give me a cool pair of shorts and a camisole any old day instead of this.”
“You could ask Konah to show you how to make a dress of doeskin.”
She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “I’ll consider it, but I have a hunch this cotton is cooler, not to mention easier to launder. If I ditch the petticoats, it would be better yet.”
“Why do you not?” he asked.
She grinned at him. “Because at the first hint of a breeze, my nipples would show.”
He shook his head. “No, only the form of them, as your breasts do already. They would still be clothed.”
Nikki glanced heavenward. “Thank you, Lord, for such a wise and understanding husband. At least this one has some common sense.”
They sat for a time, enjoying the breeze wafting in from the water. Looking out over the landscape, Nikki said, “Sitting here, I can almost picture in my mind where I would be in my own time. This tree might be one that still stands beside the river. Behind us, Blackhoof Bridge would span the Auglaize, and there, at the crest of the slope, would be a line of stores and shops along Blackhoof Street, with their back doors and parking lots facing the river. I figure the spot where the Council Lodge stands now, is approximately the location of the new antique mall or maybe the bank; and just about where that tall shrub is, would be the old dime store. It’s vacant now, but in the early eighteen hundreds there was a mill there, built and run by the Quakers and used by both white settlers and Indians to grind their flour.”
“Perhaps your history is again mistaken,” Silver Thorn put in. “We are now in the early years of that century, and there is nothing built here by the white men, Neeake.”
“There will be, in just a few years. Probably as soon as this war is over. You mark my words, Thorn. It will happen.”
“The beginning of the end,” he said sadly.
“No, just its inevitable progression,” Nikki corrected softly. “The beginning was long ago, at Jamestown and Plymouth, when the first pilgrims stepped ashore. I’ve always thought the Indians should have greased that damned rock at Plymouth and let them all slide into the ocean.” Having read the history in James Galloway’s books, Silver Thorn was inclined to agree with Nikki’s assessment.
Still, he couldn’t help but laugh at the way she chose to express it. “I am beginning to suspect that my life before you arrived wa
s very dull compared to what it will be from this day forth.”
She raised her palms in a gesture of innocence and smiled guilelessly. “What can I tell you? You asked for it; you got it.”
There were numerous other differences between the Wapakoneta of her time and his. For one, life was so much simpler here. Children under six or seven years of age ran about naked, their sturdy nut-brown bodies sun-kissed from head to toe. There was an easy order to the day. When the sun rose, so did the Shawnee. When it set, villagers retired to their wigewas, enjoyed their meal and a few hours with their families, and went to sleep. In the hours between, they performed their various chores, visited back and forth, and often found time to play—adults and children alike.
Much as Silver Thorn had said, the work was shared by one and all. Despite what some history books had claimed, the Indian women were not relegated to a slave-like status while their men lazed around being catered to the day long. The men hunted, but so did some of the women. Many baited their own snares. What a person caught, he skinned—be it fish, fowl, or beast. Often, the men prepared the meat, salting and drying it in long strips.
Hides were scraped and softened and smoked, and again both sexes were engaged in the process. A man or woman might skillfully cut and sew it, mostly depending on what was to be made of the skin. If it were destined to be a knife sheath or a quiver or the covering for a saddle, the men usually took charge. If the hide were to become a garment, most often the women would sew it.
Crops, already planted and sprouting, were tended. Here, even the children were useful at pulling weeds. Nikki was amazed at the variety of cultivated plants. Not only were there tender shoots of corn poking through the soil, but pumpkins, squash, a type of bean, melons, and turnips. Even wild onions had been transplanted to a location more convenient to the village. At harvest time, every ablebodied Shawnee would help reap the produce, gathering and preserving all they could to hold them through the long winter months.
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