Wild Whispers

by Cassie Edwards

  “I do not like tattoos,” Pedro growled, taking her hands from his face. He looked over at his friends. “Señorita Running Fawn, we should go. We have stayed too long as it is.”

  “Coward,” Running Fawn hissed out, her eyes narrowed. She rose to her feet in a huff and placed her hands on her hips. “How could I have fallen in love with such a coward?”

  Pedro rushed to his feet. He took her by the wrists and yanked her close. He glared down at her. “I am no coward,” he said tightly. “I just do not like tattoos.”

  “If you do not allow me to place a matching tattoo on your leg, then you will not see me ever again,” Running Fawn said, lifting her chin haughtily.

  “Coward!” the three other girls chimed in. “Pedro is a coward!”

  His eyes wavering, feeling as though he was quickly losing face with these beautiful señoritas, Pedro stepped away from Running Fawn. “All right,” he said, idly shrugging, “to prove that I am no coward, you can tattoo me.”

  Running Fawn’s eyes lit up. She grabbed Pedro and hugged him. “I knew that you would let me,” she said, snuggling her body against his. “After I have tattooed you, then we can make love.”

  “That is my reward for proving I am no coward?” Pedro said, chuckling.

  “Something like that, my handsome Mexican lover,” Running Fawn said, inching from his arms.

  “Let’s get it over with,” Pedro mumbled.

  “Sit down and roll up your pants leg as I gather the poison ivy,” Running Fawn said, giggling when she saw how the words “poison ivy” made Pedro grimace. She leaned into his face. “Are you going to change your mind? Are you too cowardly to let me touch you with the poison ivy?”

  “Poison ivy,” Pedro grumbled. “Whoever heard of using poison ivy for a tattoo? Only Indians would think up such nonsense as that.”

  He nodded toward Running Fawn. “Get on with it, Señorita Running Fawn,” he grumbled. “Or I just might decide you are not worth all the worries you put me through.”

  He sat down and rolled up his pants leg as he watched Running Fawn go to a thicket and pluck several twigs of poison ivy. He scarcely breathed when she came to him and began squeezing the juice of the poison ivy carefully along his flesh in the design of a dog.

  After Running Fawn was finished, she tossed the poison ivy aside. “Now when the sores are gone, and the scarring is left behind, you will have yourself a tattoo just like mine,” she said, smiling at him.

  Her smile faded when Pedro started to gasp for breath, his eyes wide with terror. She backed away from him when he began clawing at his throat.

  “I . . . can’t . . . breathe!” he choked out. “My heart! It is racing so much I feel I might pass out!”

  “Why?” Running Fawn cried. Fear circled her heart as Pedro crumpled to his knees, his hand now clutching at his swollen leg where the tattoo was inflamed. “What is happening, Pedro?”

  “He is having some sort of a reaction to the poison ivy,” Miguel shouted. He went to Pedro and held him. “We must get help for him. Running Fawn, your village is closer than San Carlos. Go for help. Surely your people will have something to counteract the reaction. Go! Find out! Pedro might be dying!”

  Running Fawn felt as though she was being squeezed from both sides. She was torn with what to do. If she went to her village and let them know about Pedro, then she would forever be condemned in their eyes! Oh, surely she would be banished, a shamed person forever in the eyes of Kitzhiat.

  “Running Fawn. . . .” Pedro managed to say in a whisper as he reached a hand out toward her. “Señorita, I’m . . . dying.”

  “But, Pedro, if I go to my village—” she began, but stopped when he began choking again, his eyes wild as he stared up at her.

  “I will get you help,” Running Fawn said, knowing that she had no choice. She loved Pedro. She would sacrifice anything if it meant that he would live. “I will bring my shaman to you.”

  “No, there is not time,” Miguel said. “We will take Pedro there. We will follow you, Running Fawn. Lead the way.”

  “But, my people are celebrating the New Year,” Running Fawn cried. “I cannot interrupt the celebration. Let me just tell Bull Shield. Is that not enough?”

  “Look at Pedro!” Miguel cried. “He is now unconscious. He may not have long to live. We must take him to your village.”

  Tears flooding her eyes, her heart pounding with fear of her father’s and her chief’s reaction when they saw her and her three friends enter the village with the four Mexican men, Running Fawn broke into a mad run through the forest.

  She could hear the harsh breathing of Miguel as he followed closely behind, Pedro in his arms.

  She glanced over at her friends whose faces were pale with fear.

  They all knew what the result of today would be—banishment!

  Chapter 22

  I will not let thee go,

  Ends all our month-long love in this?

  Can it be summed up so?

  Quit in a single kiss?

  I will not let thee go.

  —ROBERT BRIDGES

  Now at the end of the festival, as food and drink were being shared by all, Kaylene felt a delicious warmth inside herself, to know that she was being accepted by these people who would soon be truly a part of her life by marriage.

  As she sat beside Fire Thunder, eating the delicious venison and corn, and listening to the gay laughter all around her, Kaylene felt strange longings inside herself again, which made her feel as though she was already a part of the Indians’ lives, as though somewhere in time she had been an Indian.

  She scooted her empty wooden platter aside, confused anew about these feelings which would suddenly come upon her like a mighty embrace. She reached over and took Fire Thunder’s hand.

  Fire Thunder looked at her and saw something new in the shadows of Kaylene’s eyes. “What is it?” he asked, placing his own empty bowl aside. “There is something mystical about the way you are looking at me.”

  Kaylene was distracted for a moment by Dawnmarie’s quiet, sweet laughter as she sat amidst the other Kickapoo women. She glanced over at her, seeing the radiance that seemed to glow around her in her happiness to be there with her true people.

  Kaylene glanced then at White Wolf, as he sat by his wife, watching her. She could see the adoration he felt for her, and hoped that Fire Thunder would still love her as much, after they had been married for many years.

  “Kaylene?” Fire Thunder said, placing a finger to her chin, bringing her eyes back around to meet the question in his. “Moments ago you seemed filled with laughter. Now? I sense there is something troubling you.”

  “I . . .” Kaylene began, as she felt it would be good to inform him of her sudden strange feelings, but stopped when a commotion outside the lodge drew her eyes to the door.

  Running Fawn suddenly appeared, her eyes fearful, her face flushed with color. Kaylene’s insides turned cold. Something had to be terribly wrong for Running Fawn to just suddenly appear like that, and let everyone know that she had not been among them all along, enjoying the festivities. Until now, no one had questioned her absence. Now, everyone would.

  Kaylene started to rise to her feet, but Fire Thunder’s firm grip was too quickly around her wrist, stopping her.

  She turned questioning eyes to Fire Thunder.

  His response was a sullen glare and a slow shake of his head.

  Swallowing hard, Kaylene nodded and stayed beside him as Black Hair rose and went to his daughter.

  Cold with fear, Running Fawn gazed up at her father. She could see his anger by the way his jaw was so tightly set and by the way his eyes seemed to brim with fire. She wanted to retreat to the forest, to hide, but Miguel’s voice behind her, urging her onward, caused her to grab her father’s hand.

  “Father, please come outside with me,” she asked softly. She looked past him and felt the eyes of everyone on her. Her presence had even stopped the soft thumping of the drum, and the rhythmic s
hake of the rattles.

  Everything seemed stopped in time, except her rapid heartbeat and the fear that was building inside her.

  Black Hair didn’t budge. He doubled his hands into tight fists at his sides as he looked past her and saw the other three Kickapoo women, and then the young Mexican men, one of them carrying General Rocendo’s son, Pedro.

  He then glared down at Running Fawn. “You are a disgrace,” he hissed out. He ignored Pedro’s groan as it wafted through the air toward him. He flailed a frustrated hand in the air as he leaned his face down into his daughter’s. “Where have you been? Did you not know that you were expected to be here as we brought the New Year in for our people? You and your friends were, instead, with Mexicans?”

  Running Fawn lowered her eyes. “Yes, and I am sorry, Father,” she whispered. Then she lifted fearful eyes up to him again. “But, Father, now is not the time to scold me.” She turned to Pedro, wincing when she saw how his face was now so swollen, his eyes hidden in the deep folds.

  She turned back to her father. “Pedro is ill,” she blurted out. “Please let our shaman see to him. If you do not, I fear Pedro will die.”

  “Let him die,” Black Hair growled. “He has sinned with you. He deserves not to live!”

  Having heard everything, and deciding that it was not best after all to let Black Hair handle this awkward situation that had become a show for all of his people to view, Fire Thunder rose quickly to his feet and hurried to Black Hair’s side.

  Worried about Running Fawn, and her father’s anger, Kaylene hurried after Fire Thunder and stood at his side as he intervened.

  Kaylene gave Running Fawn a sympathetic look. Although she knew that Running Fawn had been wrong to go against her father’s wishes, she saw that her fears were confirmed about Running Fawn’s trysts bringing her trouble. Kaylene looked outside and saw the young man being held in the arms of another young Mexican man. His face was swollen grotesquely. He lay limp and unconscious in the arms of his friend, perhaps near death.

  Panic seized Kaylene at the thought of the young man dying. Running Fawn would not only be in trouble with her people, but also with the Mexicans.

  Things had gone beyond trysts. Way beyond.

  “Black Hair, let us deal with your daughter later,” Fire Thunder interceded. “Look at the young man. He is in trouble. Our shaman must take a look at him.”

  Black Hair gave Fire Thunder a sullen stare, then nodded. He went to Bull Shield, who sat quietly among the other men.

  After hearing about Pedro, Bull Shield left the lodge with them to take a look at Pedro.

  “What happened to send the young man into an unconscious state?” Bull Shield asked, looking from one young Mexican man to the other, then glaring at the girls who stood there, their eyes downcast.

  “Poison ivy, I believe!” Running Fawn cried. “I . . . I . . . made a tattoo on his leg with poison ivy. Soon after he became ill.”

  “I see,” Bull Shield said, kneading his chin thoughtfully. “He has reacted badly to the poison ivy. I have seen this before. I have a remedy—a medicine that will counteract it.”

  He gave Miguel a quick glance. “Young man, come,” he said flatly. “Follow me. Bring the ailing one to my lodge. Leave him there. I will do what I can to make him well.”

  Pedro was taken there. After he was stretched out on a pallet of furs beside the lodge fire, the Mexican boys were made to stand outside.

  Fire Thunder, Kaylene, Black Hair, and Running Fawn were allowed to stay, silently watching as Bull Shield concocted his medicine from several small vials of liquid.

  Once the concoction was poured down Pedro’s throat, and Bull Shield shook his rattle over him and chanted, it was only a short while afterward that Pedro came to.

  His breathing was even again. The flush to his face had softened into something more normal. He was awake enough to see Running Fawn, and then her father, standing over him.

  He gasped. His eyes grew wide with fear.

  “Do not allow yourself to get upset by anything right now,” Bull Shield said, as he noticed Pedro’s reaction to seeing Black Hair glaring down at him. “Young man, you are not well enough to make the trip down the mountainside to San Carlos. You will spend the night in Bull Shield’s lodge. I will keep watch on you. Tomorrow, perhaps, you can return home. But not until then. Do you understand?”

  Pedro nodded and turned his eyes away from Black Hair.

  Kaylene clung to Fire Thunder’s arm as she watched Black Hair grab Running Fawn by the arm and take her outside.

  She gazed up at Fire Thunder. “What’s going to happen to her?” she asked softly, not wanting Pedro to hear.

  “Now is not the time to discuss that,” Fire Thunder said. He thanked Bull Shield for giving of his time and medicine to cure the young man, then stared down at Pedro for a moment. Fire Thunder felt lucky that he and General Rocendo were close friends, or this incident with his son might have caused war between the Mexicans and Kickapoo.

  As it was, Fire Thunder would have only explanations to make, and then he would have the perpetrator daughter to reprimand. He knew almost for certain the punishment he was going to hand down to her and her friends. He had hardly any choice in the matter since they were grossly disobedient, not only to their families, but also their chief.

  “Come, we will go to my lodge,” Fire Thunder said, taking Kaylene gently by an elbow. “I no longer wish to join the festival activities. I need to be alone with you. My heart is weary for that which lays before me.”

  “You are speaking of Running Fawn’s punishment?” Kaylene asked, fearing his answer.

  “Yes, I must make the decision,” Fire Thunder grumbled. “Being chief is many things to me. I am rewarded often by my people for my tendering to them. Then there are times like this, when I am faced with the bad side of chieftainship . . . when the fate of four beautiful young women lies in my hands.”

  “Fire Thunder, can’t you be lenient this time?” Kaylene asked, her eyes wavering from his when he turned her way.

  “And what is lenience when it comes to more than one of our young people being so blatantly disobedient?” he said, his voice drawn. “That young man could have died. Those young girls could have been taken by the Mexicans and tried for murder. What I will do will be way less harsh.”

  Kaylene felt that she had said enough for now. She could tell that he was heavily burdened by his decision. She did not want to make it worse by being a nag. She had to put his feelings before those she felt for Running Fawn.

  She followed Fire Thunder into their cabin. She stood over the fire as he closed the door. She watched him as he knelt before the hearth and shoved more firewood into the fire.

  Then he rose to his feet before Kaylene. He framed her face between his hands and drew her lips gently to his. “I need you,” he said huskily. “My woman, help me forget for the moment the chore that lies before me.”

  Her knees weak with desire for Fire Thunder, Kaylene didn’t have to be asked twice. Her fingers trembled with anxiousness as she undid his breeches and put her hands down the front of them.

  She could feel his breath quicken when she circled her fingers around his throbbing member.

  When she began moving her hand on him, and he gyrated himself against her hand, she felt the heat rise within herself, as her own needs blossomed within her.

  Their kiss deepened as he ran his hand up the inside of her leg. He splayed his fingers across her buttocks and shoved her against his hardness as she slid her hand free of his breeches.

  “I need you,” she whispered huskily as his lips slid down and he nibbled at her neck. “Now, my darling. Please make love to me.”

  He swept his arms beneath her and carried her to the bed, where Midnight lay beside it in a deep snooze.

  Afraid that someone might come in his lodge before they were through, Fire Thunder kicked the bedroom door closed.

  His passion-filled eyes smiling down at Kaylene, he quickly disrobed.
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  Then he knelt down beside her and hurriedly took off her clothes.

  Silkenly naked, Kaylene ran her hands across Fire Thunder’s muscular chest, then down lower, across his flat belly.

  She then wove her fingers through the shock of hair between his thighs, where his manhood thrust out away from it, powerful, thick, and long.

  “Come to me,” Kaylene whispered, guiding him over her, so that he straddled her.

  She opened her legs to him and closed her eyes in ecstasy when, with one powerful shove, he was inside her.

  Kaylene wrapped her legs around his waist and moved rhythmically with him. She twined her fingers through his hair and brought his lips down to one of her breasts.

  She sucked in a wild breath of rapture when his tongue circled the nipple. Then his teeth nipped at it until she felt as though she would die with pleasure.

  He licked her breasts with his tongue. He licked and sucked every inch of them.

  Then he caught her throat in his teeth, groaning as she lifted her body to meet the rhythm of his thrusts.

  She responded to him, heart and soul, his lovemaking leaving her breathless when it was over.

  “Why must it end so quickly?” she whispered as she cuddled close to him.

  “So that we will leave some for tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that,” Fire Thunder said, stroking her tender flesh between her legs, where she still throbbed from the aftermath of having flown with him to paradise.

  Then she giggled when she felt something else on the bed with them. Midnight leapt at her feet and stretched out, purring.

  “I fear someone feels neglected of late,” Kaylene said, glancing down at Midnight whose green eyes were watching her. She moved to her knees and crawled to Midnight. “My sweet pet, I hope you aren’t missing the cheer of the carnival crowds. Never again will I ride you.”

  “Why not just one performance?” Fire Thunder said, sitting up in bed, resting his back against the headboard. “For me? In this room? No one but us will be the wiser.”