Proud Wolf's Woman

by Karen Kay

  Julia frowned. It was true. She was lost—hopelessly so. And she didn’t know what to do about it except to keep going on in the same direction she had been traveling all along. Sooner or later she would run into something, or someone—or so she hoped.

  She remembered Neeheeowee saying that Bent’s Fort lay in this direction. He had also said it sat within walking distance of the Arkansas. If all that were true, it made sense, she kept reminding herself, that if she kept on her course and followed the river westward, she would eventually find the fort.

  She didn’t feel the mounting panic that some associated with being lost. In some ways she felt she knew where she was, and she did—somewhat—as long as she had the river beside her.

  Besides, somehow she always had enough to eat, firewood for her camp each night, and water for cooking. In truth, she’d had little to do each night but pick her campsite, build a fire, eat, and go to sleep.

  It seemed awfully suspicious to her, and she wondered if Neeheeowee were somehow following her, providing her with her needs. She hoped so. But she could find no trace of him to confirm her speculations even though it seemed more than likely, and so she continued on her journey, pretending that Mother Nature truly wielded a helping hand.

  She found a wonderful camping spot, in a shaded area under a huge cottonwood tree that looked as if it had been transplanted from a land of giants.

  “This tree must be ten feet across,” Julia said, voicing astonishment. “Why, I can hardly see to the top.”

  Suddenly Julia had the odd sensation of feeling as though she were in a park back East. She looked around her, half-expecting to see a dozen or more people using the “park” as a picnic area. But as she gazed around, she realized she was quite alone, and so she went about setting up camp.

  “Indians have been here at some time,” Julia murmured aloud. It was easy to see, she realized, from the circle of stones they had left behind—the stones used, she knew, to hold the tepee down against storms and high winds. She moved around her new campsite, matting down the grasses and collecting up all the branches and small trees for firewood.

  She would start a fire early, she decided, and eat a meal, leaving the evening free to indulge in a leisurely bath. She almost sighed contentedly. A bath would be heavenly.

  In truth, the “park” was so nice, she thought about resting here for a few days, but she ruled out the idea almost as soon as she’d thought it. Indians had been here. Indians would be back. And she had no idea what tribes she could expect to find here.

  Something caught in her peripheral vision and Julia quickly turned her head. She looked back toward the fire, smiling.

  Ah, she thought, Just as I’d suspected. Neeheeowee trails me.

  She’d just caught sight of his dark hair, blowing in the breeze.

  Elation filled her and she sat back in relief. She had feared she’d never see him again. It was nice to know she’d been wrong.

  Neeheeowee surveyed Julia from the confines of his own campsite. He was quite pleased with himself. So far today, he’d had no scrapes with wolves, nor snakes, nor even bears, and the scratches on his body were beginning to heal.

  He’d also been able to leave Julia a good amount of food, including the tree ears, or tree mushrooms, which grew in such abundance here on the cottonwoods. He’d also left a buffalo calf lying at the side of her campsite, making it appear as though the animal had died from a struggle with wolves. Although this would fool no Indian, Neeheeowee knew Julia would hardly question it.

  And so Neeheeowee relaxed, content merely to watch Julia with only half an eye cocked to her whereabouts.

  He’d almost been asleep when it happened. One moment she’d been sitting quietly in camp, the next she’d gotten to her feet, walking slowly toward the river, shedding first her shoes, then her leggings, then her dress; up, up and over her hips, over her breasts, her head, until she stood in nothing save the chain of beads around her neck.

  She turned around, so that she was facing him, then she stretched, leisurely, almost as if…Neeheeowee sat up at once. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that she flirted with him. But she couldn’t know that he was here…or did she?

  He groaned. It didn’t matter if she knew he was there or not. He would not stay hidden very long, not when she looked like that.

  He crept down toward the river, hoping to observe her a little more “close to hand.” She droned a song as she washed first her hair, scrubbing it with sand from the river bottom and then her face, her neck, her arms, her breasts, her…

  Neeheeowee gazed all the harder, not needing his body’s reminder to tell him he found her attractive. She had finished her washing, and Neeheeowee thought she might leave the water at once. But she didn’t.

  She flung a glance in his direction, then turned onto her back, floating in the water like some shimmering goddess, a patch of evening light following her as though it had nothing to do but watch over her. Neeheeowee groaned and shut his eyes, but he didn’t turn away. He couldn’t. And as he opened his eyes to catch her glimmering beauty, he knew he would not make it through the evening without going to her.

  The game was up. He would have her tonight.

  She stood now within the water, her hair flowing down her back in a cascade of wet curls, and Neeheeowee thought he would go insane with the wanting of her. His desire was worse now than it had been when they had first traveled together. He’d made love to her now. He knew the warmth of her response, the fleeting caress of her fingers. And he wanted her; oh, how he wanted her.

  He would go to her now. He would tell her the truth, that he could not let her go, that if necessary he would take her captive, and he stood up out of his cover just as she gained her footing in the water.

  That’s when he saw it. There in the trees. A movement. Something watched them—or someone.

  Neeheeowee crouched back down, looking out toward Julia, who hadn’t yet become aware that danger lurked close by. What was it? Animal or man?

  He caught a glimpse. A Comanche brave, he identified. He let his senses scour the surrounding area. How many were there and where were they? Neeheeowee waited, counting two, unmounted. Because of the Kiowa alliance, an uneasy truce existed between the Comanche and the Cheyenne, but Neeheeowee would not put it to the test. These men meant harm, and he would not allow it.

  He waited. Let them make the first move. His would be a maneuver of surprise.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Yelping and hollering both men stood at once, brandishing their arms and running down to the river toward Julia. Julia screamed, and, plunging down into the water, struck out toward the other shore.

  War paint streaked from the Comanche’s faces and Neeheeowee read the symbolic slashes there in the black, snagged edges of the paint. He grimaced. These warriors were on a mission of revenge. Unless victorious, no one who met these men would live to tell of the encounter. It meant that if they caught her, Julia would die.

  He watched them. He waited, until the men were at last within range of his bow and arrows. Neeheeowee stood up, screaming out his war cry and firing within seconds first one, another, another, and another arrow all in an arch calculated to hit the two Comanche. He’d sent up eight arrows into the sky before the first one even fell, hitting its mark without error.

  One Comanche fell. One Comanche injured and running.

  Neeheeowee charged, screaming, his lance held high. He paused just long enough to throw it, missing his opponent only because the Comanche, dumbfounded by Neeheeowee’s ferocity, ran away in the opposite direction as fast as he could. Neeheeowee shot another round of arrows into the air, the scream in the distance testifying to the accuracy of his aim.

  Neeheeowee ran down to the first man, taking the warrior’s hair off as trophy before running off in the distance toward the other Comanche warrior, returning to Julia, two greasy, black scalps in his hand.

  Julia still hugged the farther shore, her look at Neeheeowee more one of disbelie
f than pleasure.

  “That’s disgusting,” she said in English, as though the crimes here in this camp were his, not the Comanche. Then she switched to Lakota. “How could you do this to me?”

  Neeheeowee didn’t say a thing, not knowing to which of the things he had done she referred. He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  “You have followed me,” she said. “At first I was elated to find that you were with me, but now, I do not know. You have been with me all along, have you not?”

  What else could he do? He nodded.

  “You have tricked me. You have led me to believe I could survive out here on the prairie all alone, and I have not, have I? It is you who has been putting food in my path. It is you who threw firewood along my way as though such things were natural. It was you who slaughtered the buffalo calf. What was your intention? Did you think to play me the fool?”

  He didn’t get a chance to defend himself, and, in truth, what could he say? He understood her reaction, her fear, her need to strike out at something after having experienced an attempt upon her life. But to Neeheeowee’s utter amazement, as he stood there, bewildered, wondering what to say, how to speak to her to make it better, she cried.

  “I owe my life to you,” she whimpered between sobs. “What would I have done if you hadn’t been here? And yet you don’t want me as your wife and I do not know if I can…” He couldn’t understand the rest, for she now spoke in a tongue he could not comprehend.

  Neeheeowee raised his eyes to look at the tall trees above him. And suddenly he knew what he would do.

  Throwing down his weapons, his trophies, he advanced out into the water, toward her; there to take her in his arms and comfort her until the tears went away.

  And when she hiccupped, “What has happened to you?” seeing all his scratches and bites, Neeheeowee merely smiled, shaking his head and picking her up to trudge back through the water to the other shore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “By thuneder, did ye iver see such a sight?” Neeheeowee saw that Julia almost raised her head, but at the last moment, she stopped, focusing her gaze back toward, the ground as he had instructed her to do earlier. “What be it? Injuns?”

  “I couldna rightly say. But if ye’re askin’ me, I’d say it most likely looks like fire.”

  “In the spring?”

  “Thar’s what I said. Did ye iver hear the tale ’bout the man jist beginnin’ the business of trade an’ the fire he lit? Why, the way I heard it…”

  Their words were lost to Neeheeowee as the two men passed by as though they didn’t even see the two young people. Neeheeowee let out his breath, knowing his ploy in making Julia look Indian had worked.

  And why not? Hadn’t he taken the time this morning to braid Julia’s hair; two plaits, one on each side of her head, meticulously fashioning them and tying them?

  He thought back on their morning, on their evening just passed. After the attack by the Comanche, Neeheeowee had held Julia in his arms all night. He hadn’t said much, nor had she. He had wanted to tell her many things; he said nothing. He wanted to tell her he wouldn’t let her go, but instead he had just held her and Julia, after a while, had relaxed, accepting his embrace.

  They needed to talk, he knew it, yet he couldn’t bring himself to speak of the things that he must; of captivity, of kidnapping, of sabotaging her attempt to find the white travelers. He still hoped Julia would decide on her own to stay with him. It would be best if she did. And though it seemed unlikely that she would settle in his favor, he patiently awaited her decision. He merely declined to tell her it wouldn’t matter: He would not let her go.

  He knew he took a chance in bringing her to Bent’s Fort. He knew that white people might discover Julia and try to take her from him, but he had little choice in the decision. He could not leave Julia alone upon the prairie, there being too many other dangers to consider. He had business to attend to with Little White Man, business involving Julia’s future, and he could not delay his visit. That left him only one solution to the problem of Julia, and that had been to make her look as Indian as possible. That way, when he approached the fort with her, perhaps no one would notice that he led a white woman in an Indian’s place.

  To this end, he had taken his time with her this morning, fixing her hair, dressing her in the style of the Plains Indian. And, in truth, he had enjoyed himself. He had adorned one of her braids with a patch of rawhide and had hung a shell from the other, finishing the job by smearing vermillion paint down her center part and over her cheeks and brow.

  He frowned. He remembered it now, their morning together. He had paid her the highest compliment possible by combing and fashioning her hair.

  But Julia, perhaps unknowledgeable of this Plains Indian custom, didn’t understand what Neeheeowee did, didn’t know that he performed a very husbandly duty for her, one known to the Plains Indian as that of bestowing great affection and honor.

  And so she didn’t acknowledge his actions, and though Neeheeowee tried not to, he knew his attitude conveyed his disillusionment.

  “Neeheeowee,” she asked sometime later. It had still been early morning when they had stopped by a stream on their way to Bent’s Fort so that she might bathe and wash her clothes. “Have I done something to injure you?”

  Neeheeowee hesitated to answer. He wasn’t certain Julia had recovered from the attack by the Comanche. True, she hadn’t been harmed, but she had been frightened, and he did not wish to burden her with criticism so soon after a shocking incident, not when she might still be weak from fear. Although perhaps he shouldn’t worry overmuch. She appeared more angry with him for what she thought was his deception than upset with the Comanche for threatening her life.

  And so he thought for a little while and then, gazing away, he answered her question with a shrug, returning his attention back to the task at hand, that of scraping and polishing his bow. He made no other comment.

  “Neeheeowee, what have I done?”

  He put down his equipment, looked over to her, and gave her a half smile. At last he said, “Please excuse my ill manners if I have made you feel that you have injured me. Our customs, yours and mine, are different. There is no reason for me to assume you know mine. And it is a man with no honor who constantly corrects another.”

  Julia snorted. “How am I to know your customs if you do not tell me?”

  Neeheeowee rose up onto his haunches, and poked a stick at the fire, turning it round and round as though it held interest for him. At length he said, “It is true that you are new to the way in which I view things. There are some things you do that I do not understand and there are things that I do that I know you find incredible. And so I will tell you this once about a custom we have within our tribe.” He stopped, he rose to his full height, backing away from their camp to lean next to a tree. He smiled slightly before saying, “I performed a husbandly act with you this morning by combing your hair, one that is reserved for married couples who love each other deeply.”

  Julia gasped and threw down the clothes she’d been washing. She swung around, coming up onto her knees. “You did?”

  He nodded.

  “What does that mean, Neeheeowee?” she asked, and Neeheeowee, staring at her, wondered at the look he saw in her eyes. Was that love that he saw there? It seemed incredible. She had walked away from him, causing him to believe she did not feel deeply about him, and yet…

  He grinned all at once. “It means that I think of you more and more as my woman,” Neeheeowee said. “It means that I honor you and that…Nemene’hehe, tell me, how a woman honors her man in your culture.”

  Julia paused, but after a moment, she got to her feet, and, straightening her skirt, she tread slowly toward the spot where Neeheeowee stood. “Well,” she said, her gaze never leaving his, “if she really loves him, she will cook for him and wash his clothes.”

  Neeheeowee glanced to the fire where a stew brewed over the open fire, then to the water where Julia had been working o
ver his leggings. He sent a startled glance back to Julia, asking, “And what else does she do for him?”

  “Well,” she said, pacing closer and closer to him, and Neeheeowee prayed she would not see him shudder, a reaction to her nearness. “If she is wise,” Julia continued, “she lets him take her into his arms from time to time.” She stepped right up to him. She teased him with her closeness, she played with his necklace and Neeheeowee, a willing victim, at once encompassed her within his embrace. “And,” she said, her lips no more than a hairbreadth away from his, “when a woman really loves a man, she’ll let him kiss her.”

  Neeheeowee brushed her mouth with his, his teeth nibbling at her lips. It was the first kiss they had shared since their recent trouble with one another had started.

  “Julia.” He gasped for breath all at once, his hands running quickly up and down her spine. “Julia,” he said again, then deepened the kiss, his tongue finding hers, tasting her over and over, deeper and deeper, until breaking off the kiss, he whispered, “Julia, I need you. I want you. I—”

  Julia cut him off by the simple action of reaching up to untie the strings of her dress, letting the dress fall to the ground.

  She stood before him then, in all her feminine allure, and Neeheeowee sucked in his breath, his response complete. He waited only a moment, looking at her, and, then he felt her everywhere. He couldn’t get enough of her, his hands roving over her back, her buttocks, her breasts.

  “I cannot wait, Julia, I—”

  “I want you, too, Neeheeowee, please.”

  He didn’t need any further urging. He pulled her up to him, taking her full weight upon him and, pushing back his breechcloth, he drove into her. He gazed, at her all the while, at all her beauty, as he reveled in the warmth of her body surrounding him, her inner spasms mixing with his, and Neeheeowee thought he might burst.

  He tried to hold back, but as he watched her, she smiled at him before sighing and moving over him, meeting her own pleasure. “Julia,” he cried, echoing her own response. “Julia,” he wailed again, releasing himself into her. On and on it went, Neeheeowee wondering if he had ever felt anything more intense, more enthralling.