She thought about her Mother’s French trapper. A white man. So old Otter was not really her father. She had wanted to press Wagnuka for more information, but dared not. It had hurt her mother enough to tell what little she had revealed.
One Eye rubbed his scarlet eye patch as he quickly told her the details of how he had spoken words of praise and defense for the white soldier.
Humming her spirit song for comfort, Kimi approached the white. “My mother would speak with you.”
Hinzi looked questioningly at One Eye, who grinned at him. “It is really not proper for you to meet with Wagnuka. Usually a friend or relative meets with the girl’s male relative.”
“She wants to meet with Hinzi,” Kimi insisted stubbornly.
One Eye nodded and strode away.
Kimi bit her lip. “I know now why Mother distrusts wasicu so. I am fathered by a white trapper, a Frenchman from the Grandmother’s Land.” She gestured toward the north–Canada, the whites called it.
He started to say something, shrugged. “I will be at the big council fire for the feasting and dancing soon. Now I will meet with Wagnuka.”
Wagnuka looked up as he entered and sat down cross-legged. He was indeed handsome, she thought, even more handsome than the brown-eyed Frenchman she herself had loved so many, many years ago. “I do not give my approval that you take my daughter as your woman.”
“I come to offer gifts,” he said and his face was stubborn. “I will have her whether you wish it or not.”
“You are forward and not respectful,” she snapped.
He peered at her across the fire as if trying to see her soul. “You set me up, woman, tried to lead me into a trap and get me killed. Do you hate me so much?”
“It is not that I hate you but that I love Kimimila,” she said without guilt. “I knew as long as you drew breath, you would be a danger to her.”
“My intentions are honorable. To show you I speak with a straight tongue, I offer a major gift; ten ponies.” He paused. “I give all I have captured.”
She was impressed. “There are many girls in this camp whose parents would be pleased with a gift of three.”
He smiled and she saw the wanting in his pale eyes. “But they are not the parents of Kimimila.”
“Well spoken.” She softened a little in spite of herself. “It is not right that you make arrangements through her mother.”
He shrugged. “You have no male relatives to do this thing for you?”
She shook her head, feeling very old and ill. “You will take her in your blankets whether I say yea or no.”
“I will take her, yes.” His jaw looked firm, his mouth a grim line. “The little butterfly is a fever in my blood that can only be quenched by putting my body into hers, feeling her naked against my skin.”
“A white man once said something like that to me,” she said and her voice sounded bitter as gall in her own ears. “Once I was young and pretty, too, but he threw me away.”
“Why do you lie to Kimi?” he whispered.
She felt the blood rush to her face. “I do not know what it is you speak.”
“You make her think she is a half-breed, fruit of your own,” he insisted, “but I see that she is white as I am. Kimi is trusting and believes you. I say she has not one drop of Sioux blood.”
If at that moment she had had a knife, she would have driven it into his heart to make sure he did not reveal what he knew. “I had a half-breed child,” she began uncertainly.
“Not Kimi,” he insisted, “Besides, you are too old to be her mother.”
Wagnuka glared at him across the fire. “You see too much, soldier. Yes, you are right on both counts. Long before Kimi’s time, I had a son by a white trapper. When the son was weaned, he took the boy and traded me for a new rifle to another wasicu at a trading post. He wanted a son; squaws he could get anywhere.”
The soldier’s eyes softened in sympathy. “I might have guessed. What happened to the boy?”
Wagnuka shrugged. “I never knew; I never saw him or his father again. Somewhere he is a grown man, this handsome, half-breed son, if he yet lives. I do not even know that.” The tears came to her eyes unbidden but she blinked them back. She would not be shamed before this white man.
“How came you by Kimi then?”
He would not stop until he knew; she could tell that by the stubborn glint in his eyes. “All who know are long dead. You are right, soldier, I am too old to be her mother, but innocent and trusting as she is, she has never questioned anything I tell her. If I tell you, will you promise not to take her from this camp or tell my secrets until I am gone?”
He hesitated. “Yes, old woman, I promise, but for myself, I must know. Somewhere a white family looks for her.”
Wagnuka shook her gray braids. “I think not. I think her family is long dead out on the plains south of here.”
“A raid?”
“No. This is a very strange story I will tell, but if I must, I will bite the knife to prove that what I speak is true.”
He sat silently, waiting.
“After the white man threw me away, I was a whore for a white trader until a warrior named Otter rescued me. My son was gone and Otter and I never had any of our own who lived.”
“And?” he prompted.
She listened to the chanting and the drums drifting faintly from outside. There would be feasting and dancing tonight to celebrate the victory. And then Hinzi would take her daughter as his own into his lodge, no matter what an old woman said.
“I was past the age to produce children for Ptan and had long ago given up hope. Then one night I dreamed a butterfly lit upon my hand out on the prairie and whispered to me that Wakan Tanka was sending me a girl child to be my very own.”
In the silence, the fire crackled and the white warrior waited, patient as any Lakota brave.
“I dreamed I said to the butterfly, ‘how will I know this is a child for me’? ‘Because she will be different than other children; she will have eyes the same color as those of the sacred White Buffalo Woman of Sioux legends. When the girl speaks, you will know Wakan Tanka sent her to you.’ ”
“Kimi,” Hinzi murmured.
Wagnuka nodded. “Our people were on a buffalo hunt far from here. The next day, Otter and a hunting party ranged a long way off. He told me they found white people scattered over a very far distance as if they had tried to walk from somewhere and gradually, as their strength failed them and their water ran out, they fell one by one and died.”
The soldier looked puzzled. “Where did they come from?”
“We never knew. There weren’t that many, and no one was sure where they came from. The oxen and a few horses they had were not enough to take them very far and those, too, had died.”
“It was not near a white town?”
“No,” she shook her head. “The area is very desolate and short of food and water. No doubt somehow they had strayed there and finally realizing they were lost, they made one last desperate attempt to walk out.”
“And Kimi was the only one alive?”
“The man who carried the child in his arms was barely alive and yet he protected her with his body. His eyes were green as new grass and he whispered a word, ‘kimimila,’ before he died.
“But how would a white man speak Lakota?” His handsome face grew puzzled.
“I only tell you about spirit medicine, I don’t explain it,” Wagnuka said simply. “In his pocket, the man carried a round, gold thing. Its heart beat when Otter held it to his ear. Otter was afraid of its magic and he hit it with a stick until it was crushed and its heart stopped ticking.”
“A watch,” Hinzi said.
She didn’t know what that was. “The medicine object that Kimi wears around her neck was attached to it.”
“A watch fob,” he muttered. “White gentlemen let it hang from their vest pocket. When did this take place?”
Wagnuka wrinkled her face thoughtfully. “The year my people name the Time the Cro
w Held the Sioux at Bay.”
She could tell by his expression that he did not understand winter counts. The Lakotas kept a calendar on a buffalo hide and each winter was noted by something outstanding that had happened that year.
“Tell me about the child,” Hinzi insisted.
“Nothing more to tell. She was so young, maybe not more than two or three winters. The only word the child said was the same one the dying man used, ‘kimimila.’ Otter took this as a sign from Wakan Tanka that this was the child the butterfly had promised me. The war party buried the scattered white people where they lay, afraid that the Lakota would be accused of killing them. We never knew any more than that.”
“But one of the women must have been the child’s mother.”
She nodded. “Probably. There was no way to know which of the several dead women scattered down the miles of trail was the mother.”
“And you kept Kimi as your own, hiding her whenever whites came near?”
“I knew they would take her from me.” Wagnuka swallowed hard. “They would not understand that Wakan Tanka had given her to me; otherwise, why would she know a Lakota word?”
He looked puzzled, too. “It is indeed a mystery. Perhaps you are right; perhaps her people are all dead. Maybe no family searches for her.”
She wished she could read the white man’s thoughts and know whether his heart was good. “You will not tell Kimi of this talk?”
He hesitated. “Not as long as you live, old woman, you have my word.” He stood up slowly.
“One more thing,” she said. “Now that I am to be your mother-in-law, it is not a custom to speak to your mother-in-law among our people. This is the last conversation we will ever have.”
“You will not try to stop me from taking Kimi as my own then?”
She shook her head, wishing her ambush had worked and that the soldier had been killed. That way she would not have to worry about him taking Kimi away. “Easier to stop a river at spring flood than hot blood pulsing on a warm spring night. Go to her now.”
He nodded and stooping his tall frame, left the tipi. Wagnuka looked after him, feeling very old and sick, thinking of the white man she herself had loved so many years ago and wondering what had ever happened to her half-breed son. Perhaps she would never know. Tonight she missed old Otter very much and she wrapped her withered arms around herself and rocked back and forth, keening a grief song. She did not trust this Hinzi, but she was helpless to stop him. Sooner or later he would return to his people, to a place where Kimi would not fit in even if he took her with him. Wagnuka saw nothing but trouble and heartache on the horizon for the white child she had raised as her own. She said a prayer to Wakan Tanka to protect Kimi from the soldier’s lust.
Ten
Kimi served the men as they sat around the big fire, modestly keeping her eyes downcast. Hinzi sat in a place of honor next to One Eye, watching the scalp dancing as celebrations went on around the hair of the Crow enemies he had helped slay.
She wanted very much to know what he and old Wagnuka had discussed. Certainly he had looked both annoyed and relieved as he swaggered from the old woman’s lodge and strode to join the crowd gathering around the big camp fire.
Now as she served him meat into a gourd, he said softly, “She has agreed. I gave her a gift of ten ponies.”
Next to him One Eye laughed good-naturedly. “Ten ponies? Tomorrow everyone in camp will know. There are many pretty girls among the Lakota you might have had for two or three ponies.”
Hinzi caught her eye and looked at her solemnly. “I would have given twenty to claim Kimimila.”
She felt the blood rush to her face, knowing some of those around him had heard and tomorrow it would be told through the camp that the white warrior was so smitten with Mato’s widow that he had given a great bride gift to get her. For a white man to think so highly of a Lakota girl complimented her and raised Hinzi in the tribe’s opinion.
White man’s whiskey had been passed around the warriors and One Eye frowned. “This drink brings us only trouble.”
She watched Hinzi take a big drink, the whiskey running from the corners of his mouth, dripping on his bare, brawny chest. “Kentucky bourbon,” he drawled, “it brings back a lot of memories.”
She wondered then if he thought of the other girl, but said nothing as she sat down on the ground near him.
The dancing grew more lively, the people writhing to the rhythm of the drums, throwing grotesque shadows in the firelight. The drums beat a rhythm that felt like the beating of her heart. Finally, after a few more sips of whiskey, Hinzi, at the urging of some of the other braves, moved to dance in the circle.
He was as graceful as a cougar, Kimi thought admiringly, despite his size. He danced with a natural ease and rhythm that any warrior might envy. When he looked across the big fire at her, his eyes sent her a message as primitive as time itself. Without realizing she did so, Kimi moved to dance about the circle with him, chanting and twisting to the beat. She took a deep breath and was aware of the scent of the fire and his warm skin. Her own body felt warm beneath her doeskin sheath–or maybe it was only the way Hinzi’s pale blue eyes swept over her. There was no doubt in her mind what he wanted.
They danced around the fire, moving gradually to the shadows. Already couples were drifting away to their tipis or to lie on soft buffalo robes out under the stars.
Hinzi reached out and caught her arm. “My body has need of you.”
When she hesitated, he swung her up in his arms. “You are mine now and I will have you. I have thought of nothing else since last night.”
She opened her mouth to say that she was not yet ready to leave the dancing, but his hot mouth covered hers, thrusting with an insistent blade of tongue, making her breathe faster.
He smiled ever so slightly. “You want me too.” With that, he carried her through the camp and into his lodge. He stood her on her feet.
She hesitated, looking at him across the fire. “Oh, Hinzi, are you sure? Sure you want to stay among the Lakota?”
He stripped off his buckskins and stood there naked as some primitive savage in the firelight. His erect manhood would have done justice to a stallion, and the pale light gleamed on his rippling magnificent body. “I must be three kinds of a fool to lust after one so young,” he muttered. “I only know that I want you under me; I can think no further than that. Tomorrow must take care of itself. Still I have never known such freedom,” he whispered. “To live as a warrior without the restraints of civilization, wild and free. This is what every white man secretly dreams of.”
She looked at him, big and virile and all male. He was what every woman dreamed of, she thought. To be carried off by him and pleasured without thought of anything but the ecstasy and the passion. She would not think past this moment or worry about what would happen in the future.
Very slowly, she took off the doeskin shift and stood there naked.
“Take down your hair,” he commanded.
She did as she was bid, letting the waist-length, ebony locks cascade down over her breasts and back.
“Sweet butterfly, you are the most desirable woman I have ever seen,” he whispered. “Turn around slowly; let me look at you.”
Kimi took a deep breath, knowing it caused her proud breasts to thrust forward as she slowly turned for his inspection. His look almost seemed like a caress against her bare belly and thighs as he stared at her.
“Now come here.”
She obeyed and without realizing she did so, she knelt submissively before him. He reached out, stroked her long black hair. She wrapped her arms about his hips, pressing her breasts against his powerful thighs, and then she kissed his manhood in complete surrender to the symbol of domination it represented.
She felt him draw in his breath sharply, and she knew the touch of her mouth gave him pleasure. She pressed her breasts against his thighs harder, took him deep in her mouth, running her tongue along the pulsating steel of his rod.
H
e groaned and held her face against him, urging–no, demanding–still more. The taste and scent of his seed excited her as she had not realized she could be thrilled. “Sweet butterfly,” he whispered, “I am still your slave.”
He reached to swing her up in his arms, kissing her face, her eyes, her lips. “Let me show you how much I desire you!” He lay her down on a soft buffalo robe and began to caress her with his mouth, tasting and kissing her bare skin. His tongue laved her breasts and the hollow of her belly She felt the heat of his breath on the inside of her thigh.
Surely he wasn’t going to ... ? And then he did. She tried to protest, tried to pull away, but he was insistent and very strong. Who was the slave? All she could do was gasp and arch her back, spreading herself in complete surrender to his dominance as he tasted and caressed where he would. She had not known the forbidden thrust of a man’s tongue could send such shivers of passion from where he kissed all up through her body.
When he kissed her mouth, she tasted herself on his lips as his hands sought her breasts, pulling her astride him. After that, she forgot everything except the feel of him throbbing deep inside as she used him for her pleasure . . . and his. In that moment when they reached the zenith of passion together, she forgot that he hadn’t said he loved her or that this was an impossible alliance. Kimi remembered only that he was made to fit her sheath and she could not stop herself from urging him to plunge his great dagger deep.
When she lay spent in his arms, listening to his gentle breathing as he slept, she remembered again her mother and wondered if this was how it had been with Wagnuka and her white trapper. Yet knowing that this could not last, that there was a white girl waiting for Hinzi and that someday he would surely leave, Kimi could not force herself not to love him, not to desire him. She would live one day at a time, savoring each moment as long as the white warrior was among the Sioux. Tonight she was the white warrior’s woman. She would face the reality of his leaving on the day that it happened and not borrow tomorrow’s worries. Promising herself that, despite grave misgivings, Kimi curled up in his strong, protective arms and dropped off to sleep.
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