by Zoe Saadia
Knees suddenly weak, he sought her lips, and this time she didn’t move away but pressed closer, her kisses as sweet as last night, but more ardent, more demanding, setting his body on fire, making his limbs tremble and out of control. He just had to feel her and not the soft leather of her dress, with all the beads and the fringes getting in his way.
“I don’t think we should…” he mumbled when they slipped down, onto the welcoming softness of the grass, but she pressed her lips against his, wriggling to make herself comfortable.
“We made the promise,” she whispered, and her eyes beamed at him, glowing happily. “And we will seal it in the only way that will make it real.”
His breath caught, he stared at her for a heartbeat, taking in the beauty of her features, now ethereal, shining with an impossible light. Having difficulty forming words, he just stared, marveling at this gift that the Great Spirits had given him, the wonderful, thrilling, breathtaking gift worthy only of warriors and heroes.
“You will never regret this, never,” he muttered, before giving way to the wonderful wave of warmth, of happiness, of the delightful pleasure with no misgivings, no fear, no pain, and no longing for home.
The time seemed to stop as they turned into one, one with the sky and the trees and the rustling wind, one with all the good uki who had surely inhabited this wonderful clearing, and most importantly – one with each other, their entwined bodies committed, belonging to one another forever.
***
The growling of the thunder grew in frequency, drawing closer, bringing along the scent of the nearing rain. He felt her stirring, raising on her elbow, his shoulder still numb from the weight of her head where it had lain earlier, leaving its print.
“It’s Heno. He is giving us his blessing,” she whispered, beaming at him, her hair falling over her shoulders, hiding the roundness of her breasts.
“Yes,” he said dreamily, still floating, not wishing to come back to the real world. “He is not angry with us. He understands.”
“Oh, yes, he does. Before he was allowed to marry his Rainbow Goddess he had to overcome many difficulties. So he always helps lovers in trouble.”
“Did he?” He pulled her closet, enjoying the sight of her but wishing to feel her back inside his arms.
“Oh, yes. Don’t you know this story?”
He shook his head, shutting his eyes in order to feel her better.
“What is your real name?” she whispered.
He didn’t hesitate. “Tekeni.”
“Tekeni,” she purred, rolling the word around her tongue. “Tekeni.” The touch of her fingers sent shivers down his spine as she slipped them along his chest, avoiding the crusted cuts, lingering around them. “The annoying old bear was very thorough. Promise not to challenge any more monsters from such close proximity.”
“I promise,” he said, laughing. “But I told you before. It was not of my choosing.”
“I don’t know. First, you bragged that it was all of your choosing, because it was too easy to kill the beast, so you wanted to challenge it properly. Then you said you were scared.” She beamed at him, the tip of her tongue slipping out, sliding between her lips, teasing. “I don’t know what to believe, so I choose to think that my man has no fear.” Her eyes flickered. “And not much good sense, either.”
He could not help but to double with laughter. “It was not like that at all. I have fear and I have sense. And I have the prettiest girl, too.” He raised his head in his turn, eyeing her thoroughly, making her blush. “I don’t know about the Rainbow Goddess, but my woman is as beautiful as the Sky Woman herself. And as courageous.”
Her smile shone at him, wonderful in its open delight. “Do you think so?”
“Oh, yes, she is! Her eyes are shining like stars, and her body is beautiful and strong, fitting the brave woman who created our world and all that it has, even the Great Spirits. If this girl I love would have to create another world, she would do it easily, I know that.”
“But she won’t have to, will she?” She almost purred, her delight at his words too open to conceal. “You will not grow jealous as her divine husband did, throwing her through the hole in the sky and onto our earth?”
“No, of course not. He was stupid to do that. I’m sure he is regretting his deed until this very day, angry and alone in his Sky World.”
“Yes, he must be feeling this way.” She stretched and half closed her eyes. “You will not treat me badly. You will always trust me, won’t you?”
“Yes, always.”
The fresh gust of wind brought the first drops, and they looked up, but the sky was still clear if now grayish in coloring, with the sun diminishing, hurrying toward its resting place.
“We better make ourselves presentable.” She sat up and looked at him, eyes glittering. “You look as though your bear just came back, and this time to chase you all over the place, rolling down the hills.”
He regarded her with a glance, unable to suppress his laughter. “I can imagine that while looking at you. So very proper and prim, an impeccable member of the Beaver Clan, with all those leaves in her hair and the earth smeared all over her body.”
“Oh, so that was the end of the pretty talk? Stars for eyes and all the beautiful colors, eh?” She narrowed her eyes and looked even funnier in her half amused indignation. “Maybe I should use some of my divine powers against you.”
Chuckling, he tied his loincloth in place, slipping his girdle on, making sure the sheath with his knife was again within easy reach, as always, just in case.
She was smoothing her hair, trying to braid the wandering tendrils. Picking up her trampled dress, she shook it to clean it of leaves and small insects, who seemed to be happy to find a home in its folds.
“It hurts?” he asked guiltily, seeing her face twisting when she got to her feet, remembering nothing but the divine pleasure. He should have been thinking about her too, should he not?
“No, not really.” She smiled demurely, eyes gleaming with smug female superiority. “But they say the first time is never the best for the girl. I’m yet to enjoy our lovemaking better.”
“Yes, I heard that, too.” He frowned. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t notice…” For the life of him, he could not take his gaze away, although he now really wanted to. “I’m sorry.”
But she came closer, her smile wonderful, brushing his guilt away. “Of course not. You had done it just the way I wanted to. I loved the way you loved me. It was inspiring.” Tilting her head, she regarded him with a measuring gaze. “I shall make a beautiful quill ornament for your moccasins, that inspired I feel. And, although I may have some difficulty working the fields tomorrow, I know our Green Corn Ceremony will be better, thanks to the inspiration you gave me.”
He grinned in spite of himself. “I will give you more inspiration every time you will need one.” Sobering, he pressed her closer when she tried to break free. “So what was your plan? What do we do with the Mothers of your Clan?”
“We just won’t hide our feelings,” she said, sobering in her turn. “We will go on with our lives, loving each other and not hiding it, until they give up. They can’t go on refusing us for summers on end. Some time their resistance will crumble.” Her smile turned smug, pleased with herself. “Until then, you will prove yourself more and more, and will be accepted and loved, and I will gain more influence in our clan because I won’t be such a young girl anymore. You see? It’ll work.”
“It’ll take summers to happen,” he stated, his mood deteriorating, reminded of his troubles back at the town, mounting with every passing day.
“Maybe a few summers, maybe less.” Smiling into his darkening face, she kissed him lightly, suggestively. “And in the meanwhile, we will love each other in the woods, every time one of us will need an inspiration. How about that?”
“It can work, yes.”
He bent to pick up her prettily embroidered girdle, wishing to conceal his expression. Summers upon summers? It didn�
��t seem like a very alluring prospect. In fact, the prospect of going back to the town now was not truly beckoning. Maybe he would better bring her back and then go to talk to Two Rivers as he promised. The sun must have already been nearing the trees on the other side of the lake, but if they hurried he may not be too late. The strange man would surely linger, remaining on his favorite spot for some time, for the entire night most likely.
Her gasp jerked him back from his reverie, making him straighten up so abruptly his head reeled. He didn’t waste his time glancing at her. Instead, his eyes darted toward the place where his instincts told him there was a foreign presence, taking in the silhouettes, counting them before his mind could absorb this information, his senses screaming danger.
The men came closer, sure of themselves but wary, watching them like hunters watching their prey. Stomach filling with ice, he recognized Yeentso’s tall, arrogant bearing before being able to see the man’s face. Others, two more of them, were coming from among the trees, in a perfect arrangement of hunters closing on a trapped deer.
“Well, well,” said Yeentso, slowing his pace, as though wishing to see them better, to take the whole picture in. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!”
He laughed, and the other men joined them, three more voices and not two. There was another man coming from behind, realized Tekeni, his hand straying toward the sheath of his knife.
“It’s not going to help you, wild boy. You realize that, don’t you?” The tall man laughed again. “Better drop it now. Drop it!” The laughter died away, replaced by the curt order. “Yeandawa there behind you has an arrow pointed at you, so if you don’t throw away that pitiful knife of yours in two more heartbeats, it’s going to flutter in you. Or better yet, in the pretty back of your girl.”
He could hear Seketa swallowing a gasp, but what made him release his grip and let the knife slip was the look in his rival’s eyes. The man meant what he said.
“Good. So now we have the wild boy disarmed and as harmless as a newborn spawn of a forest rat.” Yeentso didn’t move, savoring the moment. “Then let us hear what do you think is going to happen now, pretty boy? Eh? Let us hear what you think.”
He tried to make his mind work, his body frozen, turned into stone, the tickling in his palms and feet the only sensation making it alive. He was going to die, of that he had no doubt. And it wouldn’t be an easy death, either. Would he manage to die in dignity, like a captured warrior, or would he scream and cry and beg for the final blow, shaming himself before these people? And before her, too.
The thought of her made his heart leap in fright, bringing him back to his senses. He needed to make her go away, somehow. These men would harm her too, especially the dirty Yeentso who now took his eyes off him and was staring at her with an unpleasantly strange, playful grin on his lips.
“So, as the boy seemed to lose his ability to speak, maybe you, pretty Seketa, will tell us what was happening here in the woods just now? Such a prim, upright girl of the Beaver Clan, have you been teaching the filthy foreigner good manners?”
The other men laughed again, but it was a forced laughter. He could feel that most clearly. Glancing at the man nearest to him, he saw him frowning, holding his bow, ill at ease.
“Come on, pretty girl, have you lost your tongue, too? You always have something to say, don’t you? Running all over our longhouse, righteous and irreproachable, the model of behavior, always knowing what should be done and how. Unlike this friend of yours, that other girl, the one who is not above sneaking away for an occasional kiss with boys, and even men. What is her name?” He turned to his friends. “Have any of you enjoyed the kisses of that other girl? I bet you did.”
One of the men chuckled. “Be sure of that. And she is good at it, too.”
“And the other favors?” The smile of pure satisfaction was stretching the man’s lips as he turned back at them. “Like the ones our Seketa was bestowing on the filthy cub. Have any of you enjoyed that?” The silence lasted for only a heartbeat as the question was clearly rhetorical. Why would anyone admit that? They were all married men. “So, today we learned that the appearances can misleading, and that our virtuous, impeccable Seketa was the one doling out her favors with a true generosity.” Shaking his head in an exaggerated manner, the man turned to his friends again. “Who would have thought the haughty thing could turn out to be such a loose girl?”
With their tormenter’s attention temporarily away, he leaned toward her, feeling her numb, frozen by his side.
“Run the moment we start fighting,” he breathed, trying to will her back to life with the sheer power of his words. “Run like you have never run in your life.”
She seemed to awaken all at once. “No!”
The short word echoed between the trees, startling them all. He wanted to scream with frustration.
“No?” Yeentso’s attention was back on them. “Oh, so the honorable member of my wife’s clan had found her tongue, and she is pleading that she has not been lying around with men, although caught all disheveled and hardly dressed, with none other than the filthy foreigner, spreading her legs—”
“It is not of your filthy interest!” she cried out, clenching her fists. “And if you will not let us go now, you will be in trouble because I’ll tell our Clan Mothers everything that happened here, everything down to the last tiny detail. I’ll tell them how you tracked him down, looking for him in the woods in order to kill him. I will tell it all, and I will be believed. You know I will be. They know me, and they know you. And they will believe me because you are a filthy liar and murderer and a lazy troublemaker, too. They don’t need people like you in our clan. They will throw you out like the dirty piece of excrement you are!”
Fists clenched, she advanced toward Yeentso, trembling with rage, magnificent in her fury. The silence prevailed, interrupted by the growling of the nearing thunder.
His breath caught, Tekeni watched her, along with the rest of them, but when Yeentso took an involuntary step back, his full attention on the girl, he scanned the ground with a glance, spotting a pile of stones not far away from where he stood.
Counting on the eyes of the others to be upon the furious girl, he took a small step toward his discovery, then another, his heart beating fast.
“If you don’t let us go right now,” she screamed, shaking her fists. “I swear I will make you sorry, sorry that you had ever been born. Even if takes me my entire life to do that.”
“Stop your blabbering, you dirty forest rat,” roared Yeentso at last.
Leaping forward, he grabbed her by her shoulder, but she squirmed out of his grip, slapping his hand, sinking her nails into it in the process. He cried out and caught her again, more successfully this time.
“Don’t you dare to touch me,” she screamed, squirming and kicking wildly, but now, having her in a firmer hold, the man relaxed enough to enjoy the situation.
“Not so haughty anymore, are we?”
She kicked again, and as his palm clapped her face, trying to turn her head toward him, she sank her teeth into it, and the man howled, releasing his grip, if only partly.
Seeing his chance, Tekeni darted toward the pile of stones, picking one without looking, throwing it with not much of an aim, more careful not to hit her than to hurt him. Too small to do a real damage, the stone nevertheless brushed against the tall man’s forehead, making him reel.
“Run,” he screamed wildly, seeing her free for a moment, stumbling but holding on. “Run for the cliff.”
He didn’t dare to shout any more directions, as not to give them the idea of her possible destination, but he hoped she would understand. Two Rivers was not far away, certain to be still there, upon his favorite cliff. Barefoot, she had not much chances of reaching the town before they would catch her, but reaching Two Rivers might help. And also maybe, just maybe…
He had no time pondering his possibilities. Snatching another, heavier and better stone, he darted aside in time to avoid a smashing
blow from behind.
A club swished beside his ear, and it made him shudder, his senses panicking, his fear sudden and paralyzing, the horrible memories of the only battle he had been a part of two summers ago surfacing all of a sudden, terribly vivid.
Turning around, he watched the man nearing, wielding his club again, but it was Yeentso’s scream that brought him back to his senses.
“Yeandawa, get her, you stupid lump of meat. Don’t let her get away.”
The sounds and the smells came back in force, making his heart leap, his instincts deciding for him. From such a short distance his stone could not miss, crushing into his attacker’s face heavily, making a smacking sound.
The man collapsed at once, like a cut down tree, to lie on the ground in a heap of limbs. Elated, Tekeni rushed to retrieve his fallen rival’s club, forgetting about the rest of the attackers, until a blow from behind sent him head first into the sprawling man.
Disoriented for a moment, he still had enough presence of mind to roll away in time to avoid a vicious kick. His eyes caught the sight of Yeentso and another man towering above, and his knife lying in a tempting proximity.
He calculated frantically, scrambling to his feet, knowing that he had no chance, not with the two warriors’ full attention upon him. Indeed, another blow sent him back onto the ground, gasping amidst a wild outburst of pain.
“Not so fast, wild boy,” Yeentso was growling, his weight now upon him, pressing, interrupting his ability to breathe. He felt his head yanked backwards, then pushed into the mess of roots and stones, making the breathing into a yet more difficult affair.
The pain exploded prettily, like a colorful ball. He choked and fought to break free from the sticky earth, desperate to gulp the air for which the supply had been cut off so suddenly. The world swayed and the sounds receded, still he struggled on, terrified, absorbing kicks but caring only for the opportunity to breathe again.
Finally, the pressure lessened and he had been jerked around, to feel the clearness of the breeze and the rain in it, still not falling but already present in the air. It made him feel better.