by Karen Kay
It was true that sometimes a man took on a jealous wife, making his and the rest of his family’s life a misery. But such incidents were few. Usually the first wife welcomed each new addition to the family, more than willing to share her workload with another—as well as her husband. Such had been the way of things within his tribe since “time before mind.”
She had asked him if he loved her and he had purposely dodged her question. He hadn’t known what to say, and yet as he had watched her, memorizing the way her golden hair fell around her shoulders, the way her amber-colored eyes lit up with passion, he’d debated what to tell her. It was then that he’d realized: he might already love her.
It had come as a revelation to him. All these months he had supposed he was merely attracted to Rebecca. She was, after all, pleasing to the eye, and of a pleasant disposition.
But he’d been growing closer and closer to her all the while, without even realizing it. At first he had admired her beauty, then he had recognized a kindred spirit in her and had admired her for it all the more. Now he had bridged the distance between them and had held her in his arms, had tasted her sweet nectar. And he wanted more. Much more.
But he could have none of that.
In truth, he wanted her to be the first thing he awoke to in the morning, the last thing he held before he fell asleep at night. He wanted her in his arms. He wanted to kiss her, to tell her of his desire for her whenever and wherever he pleased. He wanted to hold her through the night, to make love to her. And he wanted these things for many, many years to come.
Yet it could not be.
Not if she believed that she could be his one and only wife. He had made a pledge to another. He could not take back the vow. It would be the height of dishonor.
Yet had he ever loved Blue Raven Woman? He certainly had never felt with her as he did with Rebecca.
Of course, he could always force Rebecca to become his bride; he had the right since he had saved her. By all the laws of his tribe, she belonged to him, was his to do with as he pleased.
But he knew he would never force her into his lodge. If he were going to have her, he would have her with him willingly.
Which left him with a terrible problem. He wanted her, but he couldn’t have her.
The more he thought about it, the more he began to despair. How could he keep her near, yet have her so far? He would have to hold her and sleep with her each evening while they remained traveling. It would be the height of delight, yet also an exercise of pure misery.
He could not even take the cold bath with her now, not even to still his passion. Not if she were anywhere within his vicinity. If he attempted it, he was certain that not even the freezing water would hide his desire from her.
There was nothing for it. He would have to put her from his mind…somehow.
But as he listened to the sounds of the water splashing, there against her body, envisioning the image of her, he couldn’t begin to conceive of how he could stay away from her.
Taking a deep breath, and focusing his attention on the familiar scents of prairie grass and pure night air, he jerked his head to the left in a self-conscious gesture and sighed.
“That’s a lovely butte, now, isn’t it?”
Rebecca saw Night Thunder look briefly to where she was pointing. Their party had stopped earlier than usual to set up camp for the evening. “Will we be crossing that river that runs next to it?”
“Aa, yes.”
“I see. What is the name of the river, so that I might remember it?”
Night Thunder made a gruff sound, deep in his throat, before answering, “We call it Onuhkis.”
“Onuhkis,” she smiled. “What does it mean?”
“Milk River.”
“Milk River?” She glanced toward the river and frowned. “It doesn’t have the appearance of milk.”
He looked away from her. “It is not so named because of its likeness to milk.”
“Why do you call it Milk River, then?”
He shrugged before he asked, “Are you certain you want to know?”
“I wouldn’t ask, if I didn’t, would I?”
His gaze came back to her as he caught and held her stare. And several moments passed before he voiced, “If I tell it to you, it is possible I might embarrass you. Be certain, then, that you are willing to hear this before you ask me to explain it to you.”
“Speaking in riddles, are you, Night Thunder? I’d not ask you if I didn’t want to know.”
He shrugged as though to say, “So be it,” and pointed toward the river. He said, “Do you see that butte that runs close to the river?”
She nodded. “Aye.”
“Tell me, then, what does the butte look like to you?”
“Look like?” She stared at it. “I don’t understand.”
“Look and use your imagination.”
“I don’t see…”
“A part of a woman’s body,” he encouraged.
“A part of a…oh,” she gasped, suddenly silent. A breast. It looked like a woman’s breast. As he had predicted, embarrassment swept over her. With the sun setting behind the butte, the shape was clearly outlined against the sky.
Despite herself, Rebecca became suddenly conscious of Night Thunder, of herself, of her own breasts straining against the material of her dress.
“Onuhkis means milk in my language,” Night Thunder was saying. “Onuhkists means breast.”
“Oh,” she said simply, flustered beyond belief.
“Say it,” he said.
“Say what?”
“Say the words. Onuhkis and Onuhkists.”
“I…I don’t believe that—”
“It is important that you learn my language.”
“But—”
“I think,” he said, giving her a sly look, “that you are afraid. Or is it because yours are fuller than even the outline of that butte, that you did not recognize the look of it at once?”
Had she heard him correctly? Had the man actually asked her such a thing? She should slap him. She knew it, and had she been in civilized society, she might have done just that. But this was not simply any man. This was Night Thunder, the man who had rescued her, the man who had been her friend for so many months. Still, he went too far.
Picking up her skirt, she moved away from him, saying at the same time, “I don’t know how you can be thinking that you have any right to speak to me in this way, but I can assure you that my…body parts are not yours to speculate upon, and I would appreciate it if you would keep your thoughts to yourself.”
He simply smiled at her. “I think yours are better than the look of that butte. Firmer.”
She gasped. “You have not even seen me—”
“At the river.”
“At the river you were not supposed to be looking at me.”
“I stood there that night, telling you that I would. Say them.”
“What?”
“Say the words, Onuhkis and Onuhkists.”
“Why?”
“Because it is important that you learn my language. And because if you say them, I will stop trying to embarrass you and bring color to your cheeks.”
She sent him a mock serious look. “You will?”
He nodded.
“All right,” she conceded. “If I must, I will do so. Onuhkis,” she repeated once, then, “Onuhkists.”
“Which means?”
“I don’t think that I need to—”
“How do I know that you understand the difference between the two words?”
“Night Thunder, I think that—”
“If you say the meaning, I will stop tormenting you with the knowledge of how you look naked.”
“Naked? That is not possible. You have not seen me naked.”
His eyebrows shot upward. “Did you not know that the thing you wear beneath your clothes disappears against your skin when it is wet?”
She drew in a deep breath and frowned at him. “Why did you not tell
He sent her a mocking smile. “I am Indian,” he said, “not stupid.”
She almost smiled, but she held herself back from doing so. The man was bold beyond belief.
“Say them,” he reiterated.
“All right, then. Onuhkis means milk, and Onuhkists means…br…brea…a woman’s bosom.”
“Humph,” he grunted, then grinned at her. “I will teach you my language while we are on the trail, for you must learn to speak it well. You will wish to talk with others besides myself once we come to my village, will you not?”
“Aye,” she said, “your village.” It meant she would come face to face with his fiancée. She groaned. “What is the name of the girl you are going to marry?”
“Is it important, since you are not truly to become my wife?”
“I think that it is. You are going to be telling the people in your camp that I am your wife. I am thinking, then, that I have the right to know who else it is that you intend to marry.”
He stared off toward the sunset for a moment, the humor leaving his eyes. Several moments passed in silence before he at last made to move away from her, having said nothing to enlighten her further.
“Night Thunder,” she called to him, reaching out to touch his arm, staying him. “I think I have a right to know.”
He stopped and glanced down at her hand where it brushed him, then back up at her face, before he responded, “Blue Raven Woman is her name.” He frowned.
Rebecca gasped, not because of the woman’s name; rather, because of the sudden tension she witnessed in Night Thunder’s eyes. From her touch? Or because she had asked about his dearly beloved? She had no time to ponder the question, however. Night Thunder had already turned from her and was striding away, leaving Rebecca to wonder what it was she had said or done wrong.
Her fingers still tingled with a life of their own, she noticed.
Another set of complications to add to her long growing list of problems: she was fast becoming enamored with this man.
And Night Thunder? He was clearly sensitive about his intended, which meant what?
That he loved her?
Why, she wondered, as she turned to watch him leave, did she have to care?
Chapter Eight
Night came swiftly. Rebecca sat around the small fire, a buffalo robe across her shoulders. Night Thunder reclined next to her, chipping monotonously at the point of a stone arrowhead. He seemed unaffected by her presence, entirely caught up in his work. Rebecca, however, could think of nothing more than the sleeping robe she would have to share with this man yet again tonight.
Except for an Indian sentry sitting lookout, all the other warriors had long since gone to sleep.
It was a quiet evening, save for the ever present sounds of the prairie. Off in the distance a coyote howled, answered by the wail of a wolf, while closer to them, a brook murmured in its haste to find a larger body of water, its rhythm seeming to keep time with the sighing wind rustling through the trees. These noises were somehow romantic. All were sounds she didn’t need to hear.
To add to her discomfort, the ever present breeze had become so cold this evening that she shivered as she sat within the confines of the robe, knowing warmth and comfort sat only a few feet away from her if she could only bring herself to go willingly into Night Thunder’s arms. But she couldn’t. Not when he intended to have two or more wives.
The earth felt cold beneath her, reminding her all the more that without Night Thunder’s body heat to warm her, she would get little sleep this night. Even the crisp scent of the air, in combination with the fragrances of dried grass, leaves, and sagebrush, conspired against her, bringing to her mind images of family and home; images of love.
Things she dared not remember. Not now.
Soon she would have to go to bed with this man. Soon she would have to feel the warm pressure of his body next to hers. And too soon, she knew, she would hear the call of his body to hers.
Idly she wondered why the knowledge that the man had a woman waiting for him in his camp didn’t dampen her desire for him. It should, shouldn’t it? Yet it hadn’t. To tell the truth, his integrity in wishing to do the right thing by her, within the confines of the beliefs of his culture, caused the opposite effect: she admired him.
But she would never let him know it. To do so might mean more danger to her heart than she cared to contemplate.
She knew he was waiting for her to go to bed. Patiently, with no attempt to rush her, he waited. Yet she couldn’t make herself say anything to him or force herself to move.
She felt petrified. But soon his silence began to irritate her.
“Why don’t you go to bed?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
He stopped his work, looking over to her before he said, “Because it would be bad manners for me to go to the sleeping robes and lie down before you.”
She groaned. “Even if I want you to go?”
He nodded. “Even then.”
She inhaled deeply. “I can’t lie with you this night,” she said at last. “When we began our journey, I thought I could do it so as to avoid a problem, but now I don’t think that I can.”
“Humph,” he said, and nodded. “I thought as much. It is why I believe we should both go to bed fully clothed, as you once suggested.”
“I don’t think I can do it even then.”
“I will not try to…violate you, I vow this to you. Now that we understand one another, and our differences, we know that we can never come to be man and wife in truth. It would be wrong, then, of me to tempt you, and I will not do it. Will knowing this make it easier for you?”
Would it? She would still have the warmth of his body against hers, the scent of his skin to inhale with each breath, the feel of his arms beneath her head to cushion her. Plus, he would have to contend with the same things from her. Could he really ignore her so easily? Somehow, she didn’t like the idea that he could.
“I’m not certain that I can sleep next to you. Maybe if I were so tired that I would have no choice but to fall asleep at once. Maybe then.”
“Haiya,” he said, “I can do no more than I have already offered this night. Perhaps tomorrow I should try to make you walk farther than today so that you will be too tired to think of anything else but sleep.”
“Perhaps, but that doesn’t help us tonight.”
“Possibly you are right. But maybe we should walk now. Will that not tire you enough to sleep?”
“Perhaps.”
He set down the arrowhead and said, “Let us do it.”
Without another word, he arose immediately and set off ahead of her, his footsteps making little noise against the grasses. He didn’t look back at her, either. Was he assuming, Indian-like, that she would follow him?
She did, too. Shaking the stiffness out of her legs and holding the buffalo robe firmly around her shoulders for warmth, she ran after him, her own pacing making enough noise for the two of them combined.
It was a beautiful night. The breeze was cool, but the moon shone above them as a tiny sliver of light, the stars twinkling like shimmering jewels set against a backdrop of black velvet. The prairie stretched out before her, seemingly to infinity. She felt a part of all this, somehow; a part of the magnitude of the universe. It was a good feeling, one that she could not remember having felt before this moment.
Would she have come to think this way if she hadn’t been stolen away by these Indians? Not a pleasant thought, yet it remained as a possible truth. She thought of her old life, of the drudgery of the meager existence she’d known since her parents’ death over five years ago.
Katrina, though, had offered to pay Rebecca’s debts in exchange for her services as maid and her company on this trek into the wilderness. Only Katrina had offered relief.
Rebecca owed a debt of gratitude to Katrina. Without her, Rebecca would have never had the opportunity to come to know this place, to know Night Thunder.
She glanced up, realizing that Night Thunder’s path had changed, his footfalls leading them to the river where the water ran smooth and fast, gurgling in its hurry. They crossed over the water to the other side, then back again, the river being narrow enough to step over in parts. Willow trees dotted the bank on each side of the water, the smell of their leaves scenting the air. Rebecca let out a gasp as a white-tailed deer flitted in front of them, heading for the hill which hid the stream from the prairie. Huge cottonwoods, their bark worn thin from where buffalo had rubbed against them, stood as though they were solitary sentinels on duty. Off in the distance a herd of antelope poised near the river, their hoofs making a solid thud against the earth as they fought for position to drink at the stream.
Night Thunder led her to the hill, climbing up onto the plains, where she stood looking toward the heavens in awe, so grandiose loomed the starlit sky above her.
“Looking up like this,” she said softly, “gives a person the feeling he is the only living being on earth, doesn’t it?”
“Aa, yes, it is so. But we will go back into the coulee a soon as we pass the antelope down there.”
“I see,” said Rebecca, gazing back at Night Thunder. “But tell me, why is it that we are skirting around them from up here?”
“To go among them now would startle them and make them stampede,” he said. “If there were an enemy nearby, it would betray our presence to them. I do not believe there is an enemy here near us, but why should we take the chance?”
“Aye,” she said.
He glanced over his shoulder at her and she caught her breath. Why did he have to look so handsome? And why did she have to notice things about him, like the way the moonlight shone on his hair, the way his skin glistened under it, the regal way in which he walked, in which he held himself, as though he had the grace of a panther? She glanced away hurriedly.
“All day long,” she said, a little out of breath, “we’ve been avoiding or killing rattlesnakes that we run across in our path. Isn’t it feasible that we could come across one?”
She could see his head nod as he agreed with her. “That is always possible,” he said, “but do not fear. It is why I go ahead of you. So that if we do run into something which is harmful, it will get to me before you, giving you a chance to escape.”
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