Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  When Sakote carried her across the threshold of the cabin, as the miners had told him was the custom, Mattie blushed. It wasn’t from the thought of being carried in such a fashion in front of the men. It wasn’t even because of the bed that waited in conspicuous invitation. But as soon as he nudged the door open, Mattie remembered the sketch staring blatantly down from the wall.

  Sakote grunted as he spied it by the light of her flickering oil lamp. Then he kicked the door closed behind them, shutting out the prying eyes of the miners.

  "Who is this fierce warrior that hangs over the bed to frighten my kulem?"

  She smacked him lightly on the chest. "You know it’s you, Sakote."

  His half-smile told her that indeed he knew, and that he was pleased, too pleased that it was hanging in such a place of honor.

  He set her down, took the lamp, and moved to take a closer look. Then he frowned. "This face is hard and angry."

  "It was the first I saw of you. I drew it from memory." She came up beside him and ran a finger playfully along his arm. "And as I recall, you were hard and angry. I suppose you thought the wild and wicked white woman might hurt your helpless little brother."

  Mischief glimmered in his eyes. "Wild and wicked? No. You were frightened. And willful."

  She smirked and crossed her arms. "Frightened? I wasn’t frightened in the least," she lied.

  "No? You should have been." He answered her with such a smoldering gaze that it made her knees wobble.

  Her reply came out a hoarse whisper. "And I’ve never been willful in my life."

  "Never?" His eyes never leaving hers, he placed the lamp upon the table. The shadows of the room danced and then settled. Without a word, he began to slowly strip off his clothes. A self-assured smile played upon his lips as he moved languorously, like a cat, clearly relishing the idea of seducing her in this way, one garment at a time. He managed to tug the coat down over his shoulders and past his elbows, but once he reached his forearms, the sleeves inverted and bunched around his wrists, trapping him. He scowled.

  Mattie’s lips quivered as she tried valiantly not to giggle. Sakote’s eyes narrowed, and his chest rose and fell with an impatient sigh as he struggled against the cloth bonds to no avail.

  Finally, Mattie took mercy upon him. She worked the coat back up over his shoulders and helped him slide out one sleeve at a time. When he would have ripped open the shirt, sending buttons flying everywhere, Mattie intervened, unfastening the garment with greedy fingers.

  One glance at Sakote’s pleased face told her he had no intention of letting her stop. With quivering hands, she gingerly unbuttoned his trousers and slid them down over his lean hips. She gasped at his blatant display of arousal, and his answering chuckle came from deep in his chest.

  "See what you’ve done," he purred, "willful woman."

  Mattie didn’t feel willful at all. She felt as weak as a lamb.

  How Sakote managed to undress her in turn without tearing the gown, she didn’t know, for the way he stared at her, his eyes molten with desire, made her limbs go as limp as boiled cabbage. Soon she stood before him, naked, unashamed, filled with longing.

  He touched her first with only his eyes, like an artist preparing to paint her.

  "You’re beautiful," he murmured, "like the aloalo blossom."

  Her cheeks warmed with pleasure, but then the corner of her mouth drifted up in a smile to mimic Sakote’s. "And what’s an aloalo blossom?"

  A guilty twinkle lit up his gaze. "Noa says it’s the most beautiful flower in Hawaii. He says it’s..." He screwed up his forehead to think. "Dang purty."

  Mattie fought back a grin. "Dang purty?"

  He nodded. Then he reached out a hand to brush her hair back from her neck, and all thoughts of levity left her. His fingers felt warm and sure upon her skin, and she closed her eyes to savor the sensation.

  His hand slipped around the back of her neck, and with gentle pressure, he pulled her closer. His other arm crossed over her back and completed the embrace. She groaned with the ecstasy of flesh against flesh as her cheek brushed the hollow of his shoulder, her breasts pillowed against his chest, and she felt the blunt desire of his man’s-knife against her belly.

  His lips found her forehead, and his warm breath misted her face as he trailed kisses along the line of her hair. The pads of his fingers branded her, moving languidly over her body, first as lightly as a breeze, then with the strength of a river current.

  She opened her mouth, and he came to her, teasing her with delicate flicks of his tongue, drawing her lips between his own, then enveloping her in a kiss so deep, so complete that she wound up draped around his neck like one of those monkeys she’d seen clinging to the trees of Panama.

  She moaned. Her breasts tingled with yearning, and the throbbing between her legs intensified to an aching need. His body was so hot, so sleek, so strong. His long hair fell upon her face and softly lashed her bosom as she drank and drank of his kisses, insatiable.

  She would have sunk to the floor, made love to him on the rough planks of the cabin at once, but he wrapped his arms about her and lifted her to the bed.

  "Tonight I’m the husband of the white woman," he explained, his voice rough with lust. "Tonight we will join here."

  She opened her eyes to slits and gazed at him as he loomed over her on the bed. The lantern’s glow lit up his face, accentuating the wide set of his cheekbones, the proud arch of his nose, the lush lashes that swept his cheek as he tossed his head back and closed his eyes in brief prayer to his Creator. Ah, God, he was handsome. A wave of joy washed over her as she thought about the child she carried within her, the babe who would bear its father’s beautiful features.

  And then her tender thoughts fled as he lowered himself to her, leaving her breathless. The weight of his body pressed her gently but firmly into the mattress, and the heat of him sent a roar like fire through her head. His hands cupped her face as he opened her mouth to entwine his tongue with hers, and she sank urgent fingers into the supple muscle of his back. His hair tumbled forward, blotting out the light of the flame until he flung it aside to whisper in her ear. This time he didn’t speak to her in his native tongue. This time she understood every word.

  "Don’t leave me again, Mati, my beautiful wife," he murmured. "It makes my heart sad. Don’t leave me."

  His words, so simple, so forthright, touched her deeply. She answered him around a sudden thickening in her throat. "Never."

  He bathed her face with kisses then, until the knot of her emotions dissolved into giggles of delight.

  When his kisses slowed and moved lower, beneath her chin, in the hollow of her throat, across her bosom, she sighed and arched toward him. He chuckled low, kissing his way around her breasts, laving her lavishly with the soft underside of his tongue, then finally took her nipple into his mouth.

  Restless, she writhed beneath his onslaught, shivering as the back of his knuckles skated along her ribs on their stealthy path toward the burgeoning desire centered between her legs. His fingers tangled in her curls, brushed the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, dipped into the dampening crevices of her womanhood. To her mortification, she longed to shove her hips up against him, to press that part of her into his palm, his thigh, any piece of him.

  He kissed his way across the spot between her ribs where her heart throbbed, dipping into her navel, then along the ticklish recesses of her hips. But when he moved even lower, she sucked in her breath and made fists of her hands. Surely he didn’t intend...not by the full light of the lamp...

  He grazed the skin of her thigh with his teeth, and she smothered a cry. His breath was warm upon her. His lips were soft. And his tongue...

  She bolted up with the intensity of his touch, shocked and amazed and so full of that single incredible sensation that she grew blind and deaf to all else as his tongue danced over her flesh. If she screamed, she never heard it. If her expression revealed her untempered passions, she never realized it. There was only Sak
ote and her and a whirlwind of fire spiraling out of control.

  Then, for one wonderful, terrible moment, she couldn’t breathe. And didn’t care. Her fingers snarled in Sakote’s hair, her mouth gaped open, and her eyes flew wide in astonishment. Like an eagle, higher and higher she seemed to rise on a wild wind of desire until she rose so high that her feathers ruffled in the thin air and she dove, shuddering, toward the earth.

  "Sakote!" she cried as her body bucked violently from the bed.

  But he rode her down, staying with her, guiding her, comforting her until the spasms subsided and she settled gently upon the mattress again.

  She wanted to avert her eyes. She was ashamed of her unconstraint, of what he might have seen. But he wouldn’t let her turn away. His eyes full of earnest wonder, he captured her head between loving hands, demanding her gaze, and blessed her with a single absolving kiss.

  Sakote licked his lips. He liked the taste of Mati in his mouth. And he liked the feel of her in his arms, especially when her spirit left her for that dangerous moment to soar among the clouds. It filled him with pride, for it meant she trusted him. And it filled him with desire as well.

  His man’s-knife poked at her already, rude and impatient. But she didn’t appear to mind. And even that warmed his heart.

  "Oh, Sakote," she breathed, and his name had power upon her lips. "I want you."

  He saw her swallow and knew it had been hard for her to say. Maybe it wasn’t the white way to speak of such things. But she was changing, growing closer to the way of the Konkow, to the way Wonomi had made her.

  "I want you, too, Mati."

  Then, watching her eyes smolder as he did so, he eased his man’s-knife slowly into her. Sweat trickled down his cheek as he forced his body to forbear. But when he at last joined completely with Mati, her gaze of pure passion drove him to abandon patience.

  He mated with her gently at first, but soon the movement became a dance of their spirits’ making. The ropes of the bed squeaked as they thrust together with more force. Mati moaned beneath him, firing his blood, and the growl of the bear came from his own throat in answer.

  His man’s-knife swelled, and he squeezed his eyes shut, overcome with lust. Sweat dripped from his brow, and the cords of his arms tensed like the sinew of his bow as he held his body to keep from crushing Mati. All at once, the world stilled, and Sakote felt as though he floated on the smoke of the dream pipe. He saw a vision, as clear as the water of the creek. Mati sat before an evening fire, laughing, with a baby in her arms.

  Just as suddenly, the vision splintered. With a great roar, he plunged into Mati, shuddering as desire crashed over him like the cascades of the waterfall, draining him of all strength, all will.

  When he rolled to Mati’s side, she curled up around him, as content as a well-fed squirrel. But he still shook. Not only from what they’d done, but from what he’d seen.

  "Mati," he whispered, "what did the big man mean when he said I put a...a papoose in your belly?"

  She told him.

  He was sure that in his village, a world away, they could hear his great whoop of joy.

  CHAPTER 29

  Hintsuli didn’t understand all the excitement. Mati wasn’t the first woman to make a baby. Even the animals could do it. But watching the anxious white men outside Mati’s cabin from his hiding place in the manzanita, it looked like they waited for the creation of Onkoito, the son of Wonomi himself.

  Sakote was inside the cabin with her. She hadn’t wanted to have the baby outside like the rest of the Konkows did. And instead of having an old woman assist her, she was aided by the healer of the mining camp, the white man with the hat. How strange their ways were, he thought.

  A branch poked him as he shifted on his haunches, and he grunted. Since ko-meni, winter, had stripped the leaves from the bushes, it wasn’t as easy to hide in the woods. But the miners were too distracted to notice him, doing their strange ritual dance before the cabin—marching back and forth, puffing on pipes, and pulling out the toys Noa called pocketwatches. Even the man who came on the lyktakymsy, riding-dog, the man who brought the supplies from far away, stayed to see what would happen.

  Hintsuli wondered if the man would notice if he sneaked over to that lyktakymsy and looked in his pack. Sometimes the man brought toys. He came more often now, and Mati always gave him bundles of her sketches. She said the man sold them to the whites who lived far away. She said the pictures of Hintsuli had traveled across the sea on a ship. He’d tried to brag of it to his friends from Nemsewi, but they hadn’t understood.

  He spent more time with them now, his big Konkow brothers from the other village, Win-uti and Omi. They didn’t speak any more about their little brother, the one Mati’s husband-to-be had killed, and they no longer wished to fight Sakote. Hintsuli liked them. They spoke to him as a man. Win-uti had shown him how to smoke the dream pipe, and Omi let him shoot a rabbit with his punda, bow. Not like Sakote, who ruffled his hair like he was still a little boy.

  Hintsuli squinted his eyes and picked a curl of bark from the manzanita trunk. Sakote had no time for him now anyway. He was too busy talking to the elders about something the whites called a treaty, too busy with his woman and the important baby everyone was so excited about. He’d even forgotten about Hintsuli’s upcoming rites of yeponi.

  The lyktakymsy stamped its back hoof, and Hintsuli counted in his mind how many steps it would take to get to the animal. He was almost ready to steal forward when the cabin door burst open.

  He couldn’t understand the excited words of the man with the hat who carried a bundle in his arms. But the white men suddenly crowed like warriors successful in the hunt, tossing their hats into the air and slapping each other on the back. Hintsuli scowled in disgust. The miners hadn’t done anything. Why did they make the cry of victory?

  Besides, their shouting frightened the baby. It began to whimper. And then Hintsuli noticed a strange thing. There were two voices. He parted the branches to peer closer. It couldn’t be. He’d never seen such a thing. But it was so. The man held two bundles. Mati had made two babies.

  Sakote stepped from the cabin then, and the expression on his face made Hintsuli freeze on the spot. The miners, too, fell silent, until the only sound was the thin crying of the two babies. Hintsuli felt his heart thump against his ribs. His older brother looked pale, as white as the men around him, not like Sakote at all, but like the kokoni of Sakote. There was no happiness in his face like the healer had, only an expression Hintsuli didn’t understand—anger or sadness or fear. But whatever it was, it made Hintsuli’s heart beat faster in dread. What if Sakote saw him and was angry with him for coming to the willa camp?

  He was afraid. He didn’t like to see his brother looking that way.

  Breathing rapidly, he waited until Sakote hung his head and turned away. Then Hintsuli tore off, racing through the woods toward Nemsewi, to Win-uti and Omi, who would have time to listen to his story about the two babies and who never got angry with him.

  Mattie bit back tears as she tucked the two babies into the double-sized cradle Swede had made for them. It was only fatigue, she told herself, buttoning up her dress. After all, it had been just five days since she’d given birth. A milky film of moonlight filtered in through the linen curtain, just enough to make out the dark heads of her beautiful sons, sleeping now that their bellies were full.

  Sakote had gone home to his village. He’d said it was tradition. A new Konkow mother was supposed to be left undisturbed by her husband for several days after childbirth. But Mattie missed him terribly, especially late at night like this, when the floor felt cold upon her bare feet and even the moon’s light was eerie.

  Too restless to sleep, she lit a candle and pulled out her sketchbook. Carefully scooting the cradle to take advantage of the candle’s glow, she began to pencil in with a delicate hand the features of her slumbering twins.

  They had no names. Though Sakote had bent to her will regarding the delivery of their childr
en, he stood firmer when it came to naming them. Of course, Mattie intended to change his mind. She refused to have her little boys running around nameless for two or three years.

  Still, she thought, penciling in the feather-fine dark hair atop baby number one’s sweet head, she’d agree to anything if Sakote would only return to her.

  It wasn’t just his physical distance that left her melancholy. It was his emotional distance as well. Something had happened when the babies were born. Sakote had been with her, holding her hand, giving her strength, praying to his god. But after she’d delivered the twins, he’d grown silent, solemn. He’d left her. At the time, she’d thought it might be some Konkow custom of respect.

  But even when he returned to her side, touching her flushed cheek, brushing the damp hair back from her forehead, his smile of joy was tinged with something else, something almost tragic.

  And now she couldn’t even ask him about it. The point of her pencil broke as she scrawled her name at the bottom of the drawing, and she sighed. She supposed some of her frustration was caused by what Tom Cooligan liked to refer to as feminine humors. Her breasts were sore from suckling, she was exhausted from wakeful nights, and her composure seemed to slip along the surface of her emotions like a graceless skater on thin ice.

  One of the babies stretched in his sleep, and Mattie smiled as his tiny fist poked at his brother’s chin, making the boy’s lip pout. How could she be unhappy, she decided, when such a miracle slumbered before her? They were her sons, hers and Sakote’s, beautiful and whole and healthy, and they were going to grow into strong warriors as handsome as their father.

  She glanced one last time at the sketch before setting it aside, then blew out the candle and burrowed under the blankets of her bed. Sakote might not be with her now, but he would return. And then they’d have years and years together to grow into a real family, she and Sakote and their sons.