“A little less of it, please, sir,” Cashman sighed. “Our minds are quite overwhelmed already, don’t ye know. Give us a rest, eh?”
McGilliveray got the hint and directed his conversation solely to Mr. Cowell after that, or to the various Indians who had condescended to eat at their fire for Cowell’s edification.
Alan tucked into his supper with a strong appetite, not without casting his gaze about to see if he could spot the Cherokee girl named Rabbit, and he finally saw her off in the dark tending a cooking pot at another fire where the women had done their work and were now taking their own victuals. She sat a little apart from the accepted Creek maidens, and was not included in their conversations except to be directed to fetch something now and again. But when left to her own amusements, he was gratified and thrilled to see how she looked up and met his gaze with a fawn-like, trusting smile of welcome. And when his plate looked to be empty, she rose quickly and brought a platter of smoking venison to refill it, kneeling down before him gracefully and playing flirtatious looks at him from beneath her down-turned face. By firelight, she gleamed copper, and when she leaned close, she smelled fresh and clean and … foresty was the only term he could think of.
“Looks like you’ve made a conquest, Alan,” Cashman said, giving him a nudge.
“I certainly bloody hope so,” Alan agreed, not taking his eyes off her. “Rabbit,” he whispered, and gave her his best smile.
“Ah … Arhlan,” she attempted in a voice so soft he was not sure his ears weren’t playing tricks on him. Then she was gone back to her fire, stifling a girlish giggle and looking over her shoulder at him.
After supper, there were pipes to be smoked while the women gathered up the cookware. Alan noted that they had been served off tin or pewter, with only rarely a well-crafted native pot or dish being seen. Although some Indians ate with their hands, there were a lot of spoons and knives in evidence to dip into pots or spear a slice of meat with. More wood was laid on the fire in a circular pattern, spiralling outward from the center, and some powdered tobacco was cast into the flames, which were already redolent with cedar and pine resins. The night was now fully dark, and the sky was ablaze with stars above the swirling motes of sparks from the fires. The air was still humid, but cool and pleasant on the skin.
“Best we turn in early,” Cowell finally said, his eyelids heavy after such a repast. “We shall have to bathe in the morning, and then attend the square-ground council while all the mikkos are still here. ’Twill be a busy day for us, gentlemen.”
“Andrews,” Alan called to his senior hand. “Bed your people down.”
“Aye, sah. Come on, lads.”
“You be needin’ anythin’, sir?” Cony asked.
“No, you turn in, Cony.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Alan sat by the fire a while longer, puffing slowly on a pipe to develop the knack of doing so, killing time as the others drifted away. He looked over to the other fire, and saw that the Cherokee girl was the last one left, given the task of tidying up for her betters.
“Where’s the necessary closet in these climes, McGilliveray?”
“Back in the woods, if you must. Be sure to dig a small hole and bury it when you’re done. And don’t use just any leaves. Some of the plants cause painful rashes. Ask the girl for some dry corn husks.”
He rose to his feet and wandered over to the other fire, bent down and picked up some husks while she sat on her knees and looked up at him. He walked away into the darkness at the back of the compound where it butted up against some trees and bushes.
A few minutes later, he stumbled his way back towards the fire, and she was there, stepping out from between some corncribs and small storage huts in the darkness. He stopped and stood very near to her, and she turned sideways to the fitful light from the fire. The light accentuated her wide and high cheekbones, the sparkle in her brown eyes, and the way her skin shone. He put out a hand gently, not knowing what the custom was, and stroked her arm with unaccustomed shyness. She stepped up to him and pressed her slim body to his, looking up into his eyes from her short stature, about five feet and no more. Those magnificent young breasts brushed his shirt, driving him mad.
He slipped an arm about her waist and she leaned into him, rubbing her loins against his with a lazy, circular motion. Her face was close to his chest and her breath raised goose-flesh as she inhaled him and gently blew air on his skin.
He bent to kiss her, and she leaned back, unused to the custom, but gave him another smile to let him know that all was still well. He took her hands and she dragged him back between the corn-cribs out of the light, where they could embrace fully, and he could stroke that incredibly firm but downy body. He placed his lips on her shoulder, and she writhed in delight. His searching hands found her breasts and lifted them, rubbing his work-hardened palms across her large dark nipples, and they sprang erect and shivery to his touch. He bent down to kiss and tongue them, and she shuddered and gave a small yip of glee.
He showered kisses along her upper body, across her nose and cheeks, and brushed his lips against hers fleetingly, working slowly at finally bringing their mouths together, and this time she was not startled, but brought her face up to his, her mouth slightly open as she discovered a new thing. Her breath went musky, and her scent of arousal wafted over his senses as he groped a hand under her loose skirt to stroke her firm young buttocks. She reached away from him and fumbled with the latch-peg to one of the corn-cribs and drew him into the dry, moldy-smelling structure, where they sank to the mats on the earth in between large cane baskets of kernels. He kicked the door shut and undid the buttons of his breeches. They rolled back and forth, first one atop then the other as he fought his way out of his clothing, and his hands found the way up between her slim thighs to press against her belly. There was very little hair at all when his fingers found an entry to her body, and it drove him even more insane with wanting her. She rolled onto her back and raised her legs about his waist, reaching down to touch his member, and gave a gasp as her fingers wrapped around it, drawing it to her belly and stroking the tip against her swollen clitoris. She bit her lower lip and cried out softly as her namesake before he lost all control and forced himself against her. She was incredibly moist, yet almost too snug to take his first thrust, and for a moment, he thought it would end right there as he struggled to enter her fully. He tried thinking of the exact wording of the Articles of War.
“‘An Act for Amending, explaining and reducing into one Act of Parliament, the laws relating to the Government of His Majesty’s ships, vessels and forces by sea!’” he gasped as she writhed up at him, lifting her legs around his chest and spreading them wider to allow him easier entry. Her fingers were digging into his shoulders and she was moaning with total abandon by then. “‘Whereas the several laws relating to the Sea Service, made at different times, and on different occasions, have been found by experience not to be so full, so clear, so expedient or consistent …’ Ah, Jesus God Almighty, what a snug’un you are!”
But finally, he was completely within her and forced her to lie still for a moment by putting all his weight on her to hold her down before she bucked him off. After a half-minute’s pause in the proceedings he began to thrust gently into her, and lifted himself up to allow her to move. She clung to him like a limpet, grunted and puffed and met his every thrust, squeezing his member like a firm handshake until finally she cried out and mewed in pleasure, and he followed her into bliss.
Except for a few times during the night when she had to run her errand to check the cooking fire and keep it smoldering, they were in each other’s arms, napping lightly now and again, but mostly going at it like a pair of stoats in heat. For one so young, she was expert as all hell, and eager to meet his every desire, as he was hers. They did not share a single word in common, but they giggled and teased and tried to talk between their waves of passion. Alan finally dropped off for what seemed an hour or so, and then she was nudging him, rolling over
on top of him and molding her maddeningly lovely body to his for warmth in the grey pre-dawn light of a foggy morning.
“Arhlan,” she whispered, kissing him. “Go.” She exhausted her tiny vocabulary of English words and lapsed back into Creek or Cherokee, he had no idea which.
“Rabbit,” he sighed, wrapping his arms around her with his eyes still shut. “Soft rabbit. Bunny.”
“Boony,” she mocked.
“Soft. You say soft?”
“Soff?”
“Like these,” he said, brushing her deer fur braids. “Soft.”
“Soff,” she repeated, nodding to show she understood at least the sense of what he was saying.
“Soft Rabbit, you. Soft Rabbit.”
“Soff rabt,” she parroted. “Arhlan. Go.” She made a gesture and touched her chest.
“See you tonight, yes?”
She gave him a smoldering kiss and knelt to wrap on her skirt.
He got into his clothes and staggered outside into the thick mist of a river-bottom dawn, almost unable to find the winter house for a moment. People were already stirring, at least from the Indian side of the compound, while a soldier nodded on guard before the low fire of the night before.
“Morning, sentry,” he said to alert the man before he jumped up from his nap and shot him.
“Mornin’, sir!” The man leaped to his feet like a signal rocket.
“Anyone else up?”
“Nossir, not yit, sir!”
A minute later, while Alan stood there yawning and stretching the kinks of too-little sleep on too-hard a ground, McGilliveray came out of the winter house. “Good, you are up. We go to the lake and take bath. Wake your people, if you please.”
“They’re not going to be awfully keen on it, mind,” Alan told him. “It’s barely past first sparrow-fart, and the water’ll be cold as charity.”
“We agreed, Mister Lewrie,” McGilliveray carped like a tutor who had caught him scribbling in the margins of his books again.
“Alright, alright,” he said, leaning into the house and duck-walking through the low entrance. “Wakey, wakey, lash up and stow! Show a leg, show a leg, all hands on deck!” After being pestered to death by heartlessly cheerful bosun’s mates chanting that dreadful tune aboard ship for years, it did his spirits good to finally get a chance to use it himself. Hmm, just as good I said show a leg, he thought. That part was to determine, when the ship was out of discipline, which occupant of a hammock or pallet on the deck was a hairy male liable for duty, and who was a hairless (mostly) female doxy or “wife” who could sleep in and not be tipped out or roused roughly. The hands had found their own arrangements with the Creek girls during the night, it seemed, privacy be damned; it had been dark enough inside the fireless winter house to allow everyone willing to enjoy a grope on the raised cots the chance to do so, and several cackling young women made their way outside, leaving their men to grumble their way awake.
“Outside and down to the lake, lads,” Alan called with false cheer. “Into the water for a dip before breakfast. I know, I know, but the Indians do it, so we have to as well, long as we’re here. Nobody ever died of a little less dirt. Let’s go!”
“Ah, fook t’Indians,” someone groused in a whisper.
“You already have. So let’s get down there and see how pretty the rest of ’em are with their clothes off.”
It amazed him that sailors could get soaking wet during a turn on deck, could kneel and scrub with “holystones” and “bibles” every morning and revel in the sluicing of a washdeck pump, but would turn their noses up to anything that smacked of getting wet on purpose. They stripped reluctantly, covered their privates with a sudden surge of heavy modesty, and waded into the water an inch at a time, yipping and shying as the coolness crept up their bodies.
Alan walked out, wincing with chill but determined not to make a sound, feeling the soft lake bottom ooze between his toes, stumbling now and then on a twig or reed on his unprepared soles.
Damn fine show, though, he thought, taking in the view.
Indians of every stripe and condition were splashing into the water, the children yelping and making great water-spouts as they dove in. Men congregated to one end of the bank, women much further down, and the negotiating party about midway between, far enough away from the females so they would not enrage a wet husband.
“Please, sir, kin we get out now, sir?” one of the men said shivering with cold, his arms wrapped around his chest.
“Scrub, dunk and get the worst smuts off,” Alan said, staring at the dirt that was floating off the man. “Scare the lice and fleas if nothing else. Get your hair wet, it won’t kill you.”
“Aye, sir,” the man sighed, looking down at his own scum as if he expected to be drowned in three feet of water. He held his nose and dropped out of sight, to come up puffing and blowing a second later as if shot out of the water. “Oh, Gawd!” he cried miserably.
“Hot breakfast waiting for us, lads. Get dry and we’ll eat.” Alan came out of the water, shivering like a dog. He saw his girl trotting off towards the town to be the first to help with the cooking, and he waved at her. She stopped and waved, and he blew her a kiss, and she parroted his motion, laughed, then ran on to her never-ending labors, which raised a laugh out of his miserable crew, at any rate.
“Gawd, sir, yer a ram-cat, sir!”
“And it didn’t even cost tuppence,” Alan boasted. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do, I’ve heard. Especially if they enjoy it.”
Chapter 6
The square-ground, where they assembled for their negotiations, was a series of open-sided sheds that faced inward towards each other, like huge three-walled chickees elevated the usual three feet off the ground, but with tiers of seats added which made them appear like the seats of a European theater. The inevitable fire was burning in the center of the square-ground’s sandy expanse which had been trodden bare of weeds or growth; a fire laid out in a circle that would burn from the outer spiral into the center. Alan could only assume that once the fire in the center burned out, the talks were over for the day.
McGilliveray turned up in a pale, almost-white deerskin shirt trimmed in beading and embroidery. He led them to the eastern end of the council ground and sat them down on the front row of the tiered seats.
“On the north side there,” he lectured, “that’s where the warriors sit. It is called the Red Shed. The mikko and some of his Second Men sit on the west facing us, with the principal chiefs in the center shed.”
“I thought the mikko were the chiefs,” Alan commented.
“No, they are the chiefs’ principal ministers, usually from one of the White Clans, dedicated to peace. They are to run things evenly, and keep order. If things go badly, they can be replaced without the hereditary chief being blamed.”
“Politicians, leaders of the Commons,” Alan speculated.
“If you like, it is an apt simile. Now to the south, that’s the sheds for the Second Men, who brew the white drink, and that is the white shed side. And scattered on every side are the Beloved Men. The Beloved Men are very old, very wise.”
“What’s the difference, then, Desmond?” Cowell asked.
“Second Men are officers responsible to the mikko who see to the well-being of the tribe, and of the settlement. Beloved Men perhaps once were Second Men, but they could have been Great Warriors or retired mikkos. Maybe members of the chief’s clan. There are only a few of them held in such regard for their wisdom and good works at peace or war at any one time. You see,” McGilliveray said with that smug snoot-lifted expression of superiority that they had all come to know and love, “Indian society is much more organized and thought out than is commonly known, much like your own political systems.”
It took a boresomely long time for things to get organized, though, with leaders and warriors and old codgers milling about and saying their hellos right and left. Delegations from other Lower Creek towns had to be seated, and the touchy Seminolee had to be give
n good seats. Finally a servant came from the south, or white, shed with a conch shell dripping with some hot liquid and presented it to the chiefs and mikkos on the west side, crying out “Yahola!”
“The White Drink,” McGilliveray told them. “You must drink it so the council can be properly purified in spirit.”
When the conch shell was refilled and brought round to them, Alan was repulsed by the smell of it, and said so. “White drink, mine arse, it’s black as midnight! What the hell is it, liquid dung?”
“White men call it Black Drink. It is a tea, or a coffee, if you will. It is bitter, but it must be drunk, I told you. Now, Lieutenant, will you please shut up and don’t cause a reason to break off the talks?” McGilliveray snapped.
“Lewrie, you and Cashman may run things military, but this is my responsibility, and if you cannot go along with us peaceably, then you had best go back to the house now,” Cowell uttered in a low growl.
McGilliveray drank of it, then Cowell, then Cashman, each keeping a grim, set expression on their face at the taste. The conch shell was presented to Lewrie, and he tipped it up cautiously. Damned if it didn’t smell a little like coffee, he allowed grudgingly. It was hot, and it was indeed bitter, and it was all Alan could do to screw up his mouth as though he had just bitten into a lime.
“Manfully done, sir,” McGilliveray whispered.
“I still say it tastes like boiled turds,” Alan whispered back. “I just hope I don’t give way.”
“It is better if you do,” McGilliveray instructed. “And when you vomit, try to do it in a great arc, far away from you. You will impress them no end.”
“Mine arse on a band-box!”
“The White Drink is very strong,” McGilliveray whispered with evident signs of glee at Alan’s discomfiture. “A physician would say that it is an excellent emetic and diuretic. You will begin to sweat, and you may feel the need to vomit, since you are not used to it. It clears the thoughts and stimulates the brain, you see, so that decisions are better thought out. They will pass the shell all during the council.”
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