They now rode through a thicket and trees toward a cliff.
“Come and let me show you the beauty of my land, and then I will collect sweet medicine,” he said huskily.
“Sweet medicine?” Kaylene asked. She swung her horse to one side and again rode beside Fire Thunder.
“That is another term for Solomon’s seal,” Fire Thunder said, smiling over at her. “Other than tobacco, Solomon’s seal is by far the most highly regarded and magical plant among the Kickapoo. It can only be harvested when the moon is full. That is when the plant’s complete potency is assured.”
When they got a few feet away from the cliff edge, Fire Thunder drew a tight rein.
Kaylene followed his lead, and before she could dismount, he was already there, his powerful hands at her waist, lifting her to the ground.
Hand in hand, they walked to the edge of the cliff and stood on a prominent shelf that jutted out. He gestured in a slow, wide swing of his other hand toward that which lay below.
Kaylene gasped. Now that they were this high, and were standing out on this cliff, she could once again see, way in the distance below, as though they were no larger than ants, Fire Thunder’s people’s huge herd of longhorns.
Elsewhere, the land was rippled and dotted with plant life. She took in the grasses and pines, content to absorb the panorama.
“It is beautiful,” she murmured.
She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the air. She closed her eyes, envisioning a perfect world while standing there with the man she loved.
She would not allow the circumstances that had brought them together to enter her mind.
She would not let anything spoil this moment, especially now, when Fire Thunder was placing his arms around her, drawing her close to his hard, perfect body.
“We have time before I collect the sweet medicine to do something my body hungers for,” Fire Thunder whispered huskily.
He grazed her mouth with his, brushing teasingly soft kisses across her willing, parted lips.
“Tell me how I can feed your hunger,” Kaylene whispered to him, her pulse racing.
“You tell me what you wish to do,” Fire Thunder teased back, his fingers now on the hem of her blouse, lifting it slowly upward.
He nuzzled her, kissing the corner of her throat, flicking his tongue against the delicate column.
Kaylene felt the soft caress of the breeze touch her bared breasts as Fire Thunder continued to lift her blouse. When his trembling lips sucked on one of her nipples, her heart leaped with passion.
She closed her eyes, wove her fingers through his hair, then sighed languorously when he slipped his arms beneath her and lifted her and carried her away from the cliff edge.
“I need you so much my insides are aflame with the longing,” Fire Thunder whispered as he lay her on a soft bed of grass. “My woman, I do not need you to tell me how much you desire me.” He knelt down over her as she tossed her blouse aside. “I see it in your eyes and by the blush of your cheeks that you want Fire Thunder’s heat.”
“Don’t you think that I might even want you more than you want me?” Kaylene asked, smiling devilishly up at him as she reached her arms out for him. “I feel wicked, yet deliciously so. All I want is you, Fire Thunder. My mind, my heart, my thoughts are full of you, only you. I cannot help but love you.”
“You are in love with your enemy?” he whispered as he slowly raised her skirt up past her knees.
“Yes, and the most handsome enemy I have ever known,” Kaylene said.
She smiled seductively up at him as she reached down and slowly shoved his breeches down past his hips.
She sucked in a wild breath of pleasure when she saw how ready he was for her.
It shocked her to realize just how much she desired this part of him, when until Fire Thunder, she had never even had a fleeting desire to see a man unclothed.
Now she did not only want to see this part of him, she wanted to touch him, to caress him.
Fire Thunder blanketed Kaylene with his body. He moved erotically against her.
And as he kissed her, his hands caressing her breasts, she reached down between them and gently clasped one of her hands around his heat.
Fire Thunder groaned with pleasure against her lips as she moved her hand on him, slowly up and down, until his whole body was moving with her, keeping rhythm with her strokes.
His kiss deepened. His fingers circled her nipples, softly pinching. And then he slipped his hands down her body and placed them beneath her.
“Part your legs,” he whispered against her lips. “Open yourself widely to me. I want to fill you more deeply than ever before. Rock with me, my woman. Move with me. Let us travel the road to paradise again.”
“Yes, yes,” Kaylene whispered, her cheeks hot with anticipation.
She spread her legs and felt his hands beneath her hips, guiding her upward to meet the probing of his heat.
When he plunged into her with one insistent thrust, withdrew and plunged again in even deeper thrusts, she gasped with rapture.
Kaylene closed her eyes as once again he bent over her and pressed his lips softly against hers. Then he covered her mouth with his lips in a fiery kiss.
He cradled her close, his steel arms enfolding her as their bodies strained together in hungry motion.
Frantic with need of her, Fire Thunder’s strokes speeded up, becoming deeper and deeper.
She clung and rocked with him, his fingers now caressing one of her breasts.
Kaylene sucked in a wild breath of rapture and a tremor went through her body when his mouth lowered and he rolled her nipple with his tongue.
Fire Thunder could not hold back the pleasure any longer. His temples were pounding. His body was on fire with the building rapture.
Again he kissed her.
His hands went beneath her and lifted her tightly against him as waves of tremors went through his body as Kaylene’s body exploded in spasms of desire along with his.
Afterward, they lay side by side, clinging. “Oh, what you do to me,” Kaylene whispered, cuddling closer. “I wish we could stay here forever, in our own little private world.”
Fire Thunder started to respond, but his horse neighing nervously and pawing the ground with a hoof drew his quick attention.
His smile faded. His heart grew cold.
He leaped quickly to his feet and grabbed his breeches, his eyes darting all around him. “My horse might sense a mountain lion,” he said. He gave Kaylene a quick glance as she straightened her skirt, then slipped the blouse over her head. “Stay close.”
He moved stealthily to his horse and eased his rifle from the gunboot on the saddle.
His eyes narrowed as again he looked around him, into the dark-shadowed trees on one side, and into the shade of the jutting rocks on the other.
The Kickapoo learned at a young age how to distinguish various animals in the dark shadows, by the color of their eyes and the movement of their heads.
Fire Thunder knew that the deer’s eyes lit up a bright yellow. The coyote, whose eyes were blue, moved their heads from side to side as though seeking to escape. A cougar’s eyes were small and red. When it was detected, it lowered its head as though trying to hide in the ground.
“I see nothing, nor hear anything,” Kaylene whispered as she moved closer to Fire Thunder, staying protectively at his side.
“Nor do I,” Fire Thunder whispered, puzzled when he saw no signs of any animals lurking close by.
And then his heart lurched. The Kickapoo believed that by an animal’s behavior, they could perceive something was wrong.
And since there was nothing here, he had to think that it had to do with something at his village. Perhaps something was wrong there. They must return.
But first, he had to collect the Solomon’s seal. He could not wait until the next full moon, for his supply had dwindled too much now, as it was. He had to have enough of the sweet medicine for the upcoming ceremonies.
“Wha
t is it?” Kaylene asked, seeing Fire Thunder’s troubled expression, even though they knew there was nothing there to threaten them. “You look as though you may have seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost, but a premonition,” Fire Thunder said, thrusting his rifle back inside its gunboot.
“Of what?” Kaylene asked. She hugged herself when the breeze grew damp and colder as it whipped through the pines.
Fire Thunder saw her discomfort. He took the time to reach into the parfleche bag at the side of his horse and take a blanket from it. “My horse is restless,” he said as he gently slipped the blanket around her shoulders. “I fear that my horse has perceived danger. Perhaps back at my village.”
“Then you won’t be gathering the Solomon’s seal, after all?” Kaylene asked softly.
“I must take time to gather sweet medicine,” he said, grabbing a buckskin bag from the side of his horse. “Come with me. We are where I can find it quickly. Then we shall leave.”
Kaylene followed Fire Thunder for a while, in and around the tall pines, and short, stubby shrubs, until she saw the most beautiful flowers growing from thick, tall, drooping stems. In the leaf axil of the plants were clusters of greenish-white flowers, surrounded by red berries. The leaves formed two rows along the upper part of the stem.
“Only I can gather the sweet medicine,” Fire Thunder said over his shoulder at Kaylene. “I will not be long at doing it.”
Kaylene sat down on a large boulder and watched him, taken anew by his customs, and the seriousness with which he went about things. He knelt on the ground before the Solomon’s seal plants.
After taking a small pouch from his front right breeches pocket, and opening it, he sprinkled some tobacco on the plant closest to him. He asked the plant’s permission to gather others in the area.
After placing the small pouch back inside his pocket, he wandered onward a few feet.
Kaylene stayed on the boulder and watched him meditatively gather the lovely flowers, as well as the leaves, and parts of the stems.
Then her stomach lurched and she saw his quick reaction, how he bolted suddenly to his feet, when somewhere in the distance a fox cried out three times.
Fire Thunder, carrying the bag of Solomon’s seal in his right hand, went to Kaylene and took her hand and urged her in a brisk walk toward their horses.
“Muy malo, very bad,” he said, obviously even more distressed than earlier. “The cry of the fox is very bad! Do you recall my telling you that the cry of a fox foretells a misfortune? Today the cry was three times! There is no doubt that trouble has come to my people!”
So caught up in everything, with being with Fire Thunder again sensually, and watching him as he gathered the sacred plants, Kaylene had not thought to become alarmed over the fox’s cries. Nor had she noticed an approaching storm. She only now heard the low rumblings of distant thunder.
When she looked over her shoulder and up at the sky, a lurid streak of lightning suddenly raced across the dark heavens, causing her to flinch.
“It’s going to storm,” she said breathlessly, when they finally reached their horses. “Perhaps that is what unnerved your horse. Perhaps that is what caused the fox to cry.”
“I cannot count on as simple a thing as that to be the cause,” Fire Thunder said, tying his bag of Solomon’s seal next to his saddle bag. “We must hurry back to my people.”
The storm was racing closer by the minute. The thunder became large, deafening crashes as lightning bounced from one side of the sky to the other.
Kaylene slipped the blanket from around her shoulders and gave it back to Fire Thunder, quickly aware of her discomfort without it.
But she had to forget herself for the moment. She could see that Fire Thunder’s concerns were mounting by the minute.
And although she did not see how his premonitions of doom could actually be real, she knew that his distress was.
The rain began in a slow drizzle. Kaylene huddled over her horse and rode beside Fire Thunder down the small mountain path.
Then the rain came down in heavy torrents, the drops so large, they felt like bee stings as they hit Kaylene’s cheeks.
“We must find temporary shelter!” Fire Thunder shouted at her above the loud crashes of thunder.
He led her to a wall of stone, above which was a large overhang of rock. She quickly dismounted along with him. They held on to their horses’ reins and huddled against the rock.
The wind was violent, snapping trees off at their trunks. Kaylene screamed and clutched Fire Thunder, welcoming his arm around her as a bolt of lightning downed another tree not that faraway.
Fire Thunder looked heavenward.
Kaylene stared disbelievingly at him when he pulled out a tiny buckskin pouch from his front breeches pocket, where he kept his Indian tobacco.
He sprinkled some of the tobacco in his left hand and offered it to the heavens.
“Go away!” he cried. “Grandfather, send the lightning and thunder away! Do not allow them to harm us!”
Kaylene was stunned to see that, as if by magic, the storm quickly abated. The clouds rolled away. The sun came out. The only sounds were the rivulets of rain running down the rock at their sides.
Her lips parted, her eyes wide, Kaylene stared at Fire Thunder.
A tremor ran up and down her spine. Was this man she had given her heart to bewitched? He had asked the storm to stop and it had, as though controlled by him.
She felt humble and afraid in his presence as they mounted their horses and rode onward.
Chapter 18
O memory, ope thy mystic door;
O dream of youth return.
—DAVID GRAY
Chilled to the bone, shivering, and aching from being on the galloping horse for longer than her weakened body could stand, Kaylene saw Fire Thunder’s village a short distance away. Her heart lurched when she saw several men on horseback approaching the village on the opposite side from Kaylene and Fire Thunder.
“Do you see those men?” Kaylene shouted at Fire Thunder as he was bent low over his mustang, determination etched on his sculpted face.
“Yes, and I also see the rifles that are in their hands instead of in their gunboots!” Fire Thunder shouted back. His eyes locked with Kaylene’s. “You stay behind. I do not want you to enter the eye of danger.”
“No!” Kaylene cried. “I can’t just stay here and watch your people get attacked. I can fire a gun. I want to help.”
“Look at yourself!” Fire Thunder argued, his jaw tight. “You are wet. You are cold. Surely you are weakened by this hard ride on the horse.”
He held on to the reins with one hand, while with his other he grabbed the blanket from his saddle bag.
He tossed it over to Kaylene.
She caught it clumsily.
“As I ride onward, you stop and stay here,” he flatly ordered. “Warm yourself with this blanket. Only come into the village when you see that those men are gone.”
Before Kaylene could say anything to him, he sank his heels into the flanks of his proud steed and thundered away from her, his rifle drawn.
Kaylene drew a tight rein. Her mare came to a shuddering halt, as she watched Fire Thunder as he drew closer and closer to the village. She then looked at the men as they almost reached the very outskirts of the Kickapoos’ homes, where the Kickapoo thought they were safe from all intruders.
When gunfire broke out, she saw that it was from the assailants, not the Kickapoo. Kaylene’s insides turned cold.
For a moment she watched the men randomly firing their weapons all about as the Kickapoos scattered in all directions away from them.
And then she caught sight of Fire Thunder again as he entered the far side of the village. She gasped when he raised his rifle and fired as he approached the men on horseback, then slid from his saddle and joined his warriors in a stand against the intruders.
Fear of Fire Thunder possibly dying grabbed Kaylene in the pit of her stomach. “I won’t stay her
e and only watch!” she whispered harshly to herself. She tossed the blanket aside. “I must go and do what I can to help!”
She snapped her horse’s reins, sank her heels into its flanks, then rode onward. She had to go to Fire Thunder’s lodge and get a weapon. She felt lucky that, thus far, the main part of the fighting was on the other side of the village away from Fire Thunder’s cabin. She hoped and prayed that Little Sparrow and Midnight would remain safe in the cabin. And Running Fawn! What about her? Her cabin was way too close to the battle scene.
She raised her eyes heavenward and whispered a prayer, asking the good Lord to, above all else, keep Fire Thunder safe!
As she rode into the village, she made a sharp left on the mare and rode only a short distance, then drew a tight rein before Fire Thunder’s cabin.
Kaylene quickly dismounted. Breathing hard, panting, her wet clothes clinging to her flesh like a second skin, she ran into the lodge.
Frantically she searched for Little Sparrow, cold inside when she didn’t find her. If she was outside, watching, she might be shot!
Then she breathed easier when she suddenly remembered that Little Sparrow was staying with a friend and her family. Their cabin was far from the gunfire. Surely she would be safe.
Kaylene went to Midnight. She could tell that the gunfire was affecting him. Although he was tied up, he was pacing nervously back and forth, straining on the leash when he could go no farther.
“I know that you are frightened, but I can’t stay with you,” Kaylene said, giving Midnight a quick, reassuring hug. “I must go and help Fire Thunder. Stay, Midnight. Whatever you do, don’t break that leash and come outside where you might be shot.”
Then she rushed to Fire Thunder’s store of weapons. She grabbed a Smith & Wesson rifle. She smiled smugly. She knew this weapon well. She knew the power of this gun. Her father had taught her how to fire his. She would never forget his wicked laugh when she had been knocked to the ground upon firing it the first time by the kick of the firearm.
“Yes, this will do quite well for this occasion,” Kaylene whispered. The rifle could throw its bullets with accuracy a distance of four hundred yards.
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