Sunflower

by Jill Marie Landis

  “Why?”

  “I guess ponies do that.” She shrugged.

  “No, Anja. I mean, why did you come here?”

  He watched her blink twice as if unsure of his question, or perhaps, unsure of her answer.

  “You already know why I came here: I came to find Meika.”

  “How did you know she was here?”

  “I knew because of what I saw in your eyes, what you did not tell me. I knew that you had seen her, but trapping Hardy was more important to you than freeing my sister. So I came to get her myself.”

  He sat beside her, drawing her into the circle of his arm.

  “Why do you always rely only upon yourself, Anja, never anyone else?”

  “I am used to having only myself to rely on.”

  “When will you realize that has changed?”

  “You told me Meika must wait, Caleb.”

  “And I would not have forgotten my promise. Now I must get you out of here before Red Dog changes his mind.”

  She sat up straight and looked into his eyes again. “He said I could go?”

  Caleb felt her shiver and rubbed her arm. She leaned against him and curled her legs beneath her.

  “Not in so many words, but he didn’t say I couldn’t take you out of here.”

  “You told him I was your wife? Did you have to tell him what you are really doing here?”

  He looked down into her eyes. There was so much to explain. “No. I didn’t tell him you were my wife and I didn’t tell him why I’m here. I bargained for you; I reminded him that he owed me a life.”

  Analisa was silent for a moment, gauging his words. “So ... he gave me to you?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “For ...” she asked.

  “For whatever I wanted to do with you.”

  She turned to him then, her breasts brushing against his naked chest. Caleb caught his breath as he looked down into his wife’s eyes.

  “You would probably like to beat me.” A tear slipped over her lower lashes and ran down her cheek. “Caleb, I’m so sorry.”

  He reached out and held her chin in the palm of his hand. With his thumb he gently brushed away the tear and then used both hands to lift her hair away from her face. His fingers caught, in the tangles, and he gently pulled them free.

  “Your face is bruised.” He stroked her purpled cheek with his fingertips and wished he knew who had inflicted the pain.

  “I fell.”

  Her eyes met his briefly before they moved to his lips. Analisa mirrored his movements and reached out to hold his face in her hands. Tears continued to slip down her cheeks.

  “I knew you would come,” she whispered.

  Caleb’s full lips met hers in a soft, tender kiss that built in intensity as the tip of his tongue touched hers. He felt her hands creep up to link behind his neck, and she pulled herself against him. He drew her closer, pulling her onto his lap, and sat with her cradled in his arms, tasting of her honeyed sweetness, exchanging a kiss that said what his words had not. His relief at finding her alive, his need for her, his anger, too, at her defiance, all were communicated through the delicate exchange of that one heated kiss. Above all else, he hoped his love was apparent to her. Finally, she was forced to pull away first and take a deep breath, all the while staring up into his eyes.

  Pulling her back to him he whispered against her lips, “I want you, Anja.”

  “I am afraid.”

  He stroked her hair. “Of me?”

  She shook her head. “I am afraid in this place. What if they come back?”

  “No one will enter without asking.”

  “No?”

  “No one.”

  He kissed her once more and, as he did, began to press her back upon the earthen floor.

  She glanced toward the doorway. “Shouldn’t we leave?”

  “Not yet. Not until the camp is quiet. Until then, you need not worry.” His hands stroked her hip and moved down along her thigh. “Relax.”

  “Caleb?” She linked her arms about his neck, and he stretched out above her.

  “Hmm?”

  “Is it strange that I want to ... that I need you here in this place?”

  “No. Not strange. I feel the same way. We came close to losing each other. To share our love now will be an act of celebration.”

  Her breath fanned warm against his cheek as she spoke. “A celebration.”

  A log in the fire ring popped and broke in two, shattering into ash and embers. Caleb slipped his arms beneath her shoulders and cradled the back of her head in his hands. His fingers buried themselves in the wild tangle of thick silken tresses. He let his lips play upon her languorously, prodding hers into response. Soon, as he knew it would, her kiss intensified and she clung to him, unconscious of time and place, lost in a world of sensation and pleasure.

  Analisa was trapped in his arms as surely as he was trapped in her heart. He released her hair, feeling the need to explore her with his hands. She relished the feel of his callused, gentle palms as they rode over the plains and valleys of her skin, and waited in rapt anticipation for him to unerringly find and fondle all the secret, sensitive places that he knew gave her so much pleasure.

  She burrowed her face into the hollow above his collarbone and let her tongue slither across his heated flesh. Partly because she feared intrusion from outside, but mainly because of her mounting need, she began to tear at his clothing with sudden urgency. Caleb needed no further invitation, but pulled away from her in order to slip out of his buckskin leggings.

  A blush heightened her coloring in the vibrant glow of the firelight. She lay pliant and waiting, lips parted, her breathing uneven and shallow. He peeled off her remaining garments and knew a throbbing urgency as she readily opened her thighs in welcome. Blood thundered through his veins as he gazed down at her, so open and willing, lying there on the earth.

  They did not speak. Words were unnecessary. The act of love was older than time, alive long before the need for language. Words could not express what Caleb felt for Analisa. His heart stretched with a fullness that caused him to ache with want of her in every fiber of his being.

  Their shadows entwined on the wall of the dwelling. Analisa was mystified by the giant, wavering images that swayed with every movement of the flames. She stared up at Caleb, shuddering with her need of him, trying to slide nearer that part of him that only teased and probed the beckoning entrance to her velvet womanhood.

  His well-honed muscles rippled in the firelight as he reached down and held her still, his hands on her shoulders. She mirrored his movements, reaching up to meet him as he lowered himself toward her to fuse them together. Their shadows merged and beat against each other, larger than life, capturing Analisa’s attention with their erotic movements. Her body was alive and pulsing with the primitive beat that echoed between them, charged with frantic energy as they engaged in the ritual of celebration and exchange in the confines of the buffalo-skin tepee.

  Caleb burrowed deeper, delving into the farthest recesses of her body until she was forced to lock her limbs about his waist to still the frenzied staccato movements of his hips. She clung to him, enfolding him with her arms, thighs, and inner core until he gasped out her name and shuddered convulsively in her arms.

  The velvet warmth that spewed from him at the peak of his ecstasy sent Analisa vaulting into an abyss of pleasure. Caught in a storm of quicksilver sensations, she hung suspended, pulsing with supreme satisfaction, savoring the echoes until they died away.

  “I don’t think, at this point in time, you have any reason to lie there looking so smug, Mrs. de la Vega.”

  “Smug?”

  “Self-satisfied.”

  “Ah.” She shook her head in understanding. “But I do. I have discovered that when my husband becomes unbearably angry, all I have to do is take his mind off of his anger.”

  He smiled tenderly in response. “I had every right to be angry. You placed yourself in great jeopardy.”

&
nbsp; “Speak English.”

  He slowly enunciated each word for her: “Thanks to you we are not safe at home in our own parlor.”

  She answered him in kind: “Thanks to you we are not even safe when we are at home in our own parlor.”

  “What?”

  Analisa ticked the names off on her fingers. “Ruth, Abbie, Kase, the cat ...”

  “Kase we already had.”

  Her eyes took on a faraway look, and he watched them fill with tears. She whispered, “Ja. Kase I already had.” She turned her head away.

  “Anja,” he asked softly, “what is it?”

  He sensed her change of mood and knew the reality of their situation had once more come crashing down around her.

  “When they brought me here, all I could think of was Kase. I knew I had to get out of this for him.” She turned to him. “Caleb, if anything ever happened to me, you would care for him always, wouldn’t you?”

  He realized that he was seeing her through his own film of tears. He rapidly blinked them away.

  “Of course.” He nodded to emphasize his words. “You know I think of Kase as my son.” He pulled her close, anxious to still the erratic beating of his heart at the thoughts her words had conjured up.

  They were silent for a time. The dry wood popped and spit in the fire pit as the flames burned low. Caleb rocked her gently as she lay quiet in his arms, and smoothed her long hair against her back.

  Analisa’s hushed voice broke the stillness. “When you came in through the door, I thought you were him ... I thought you were the leader, Red Dog.” A shudder ran through her as she recalled the experience for Caleb. “It was like that other time, just tike before. I almost remembered it all, I almost saw the man who attacked me, but when you spoke, and I knew it was you, Caleb, all of the memories vanished.”

  He fought to keep his breathing even, his movements slow and steady as he gently rocked her back and forth. What if someday she did remember the face of the man who raped her and fathered Kase? Caleb realized then with sudden clarity that the sooner his job was over and he moved his family away from the Sioux, the better for all concerned.

  His only comment was silence. He hoped it would be enough. Moments passed and soon he felt her relax against him. In an hour or two he would make his move. Red Dog had not forbidden him to take Analisa out of the village. Caleb fully intended to try. Somehow he had to get her away and intercept Hardy before the man reached the settlement. Red Dog’s messengers had carried word to the agent that the renegade chief was ready to trade him a white woman. Red Dog felt that Hardy’s cruelty to Mia would only be avenged by the man’s death, and all of Caleb’s work would have been for naught if he could not stop Hardy before the Sioux killed him. For now he would let Anja sleep and let Red Dog think that he was having his way with this white woman whom he’d all but begged to possess.

  He laid his wife gently on the ground near the fire and placed a deer-hide robe over her. He then lay down beside her and sheltered her within his embrace. Sleep would not come to him. Instead, he remembered his exchange with the volatile young chief. When Caleb had asked for the white captive in exchange for Mia’s life, Red Dog was adamant. No, he’d said; he would use her to bait Hardy and then give her to the highest bidder.

  Caleb had been hard pressed to control his anger, forced as he was to barter with Red Dog. The memory of his own words still rang in his ears.

  “I want her. Is Red Dog such a poor man that he must sell the captive? I delivered your own woman to you. A life for a life.”

  “Why do you want this white scarecrow?” The younger man had scoffed at Caleb, deep loathing burning in his eyes along with the mistrust that he no longer hid. “Is your father’s white blood so thick in your veins that you lust for her white skin next to yours?”

  “Is my choice of women a concern to so great a leader?”

  Red Dog turned away, part of his hair braided alongside his face, the rest left to sway free behind him. “She will be offered to Hardy.”

  “That’s a lie. You don’t really need a woman to draw him here. Word alone will bring him running to you.”

  “I wish to toy with him. To watch the puffed-up toad gloat and strut before he dies. He will strike a bargain, pay us in rifles, and then I will turn the rifles on him. But slowly ... he will die slowly.”

  Frustrated, Caleb tried again, inwardly seeking calm to match his outward control. He would succeed. He had to, for Anja. “I say again, you owe me this woman. You don’t need her. Is your word of so little consequence? Or do you want her for yourself? I hear she is beautiful.”

  Red Dog turned on him, anger dark and brooding in his eyes. “She is a white scarecrow. Her eyes are colorless, her skin pale as ground corn. She is filthy. Maybe she is the fitting woman for you, Raven’s Shadow.” Red Dog looked Caleb up and down before he offered a cunning smile. “Take her.”

  Caleb pulled Analisa close and tried to forget the heated exchange. There was little chance Red Dog would deal with him now as a government representative. Why should the man trust any white or even half-white official after the treatment his people had received from Hardy? Now Caleb had personally angered him, as well. Reminding himself that he must awaken within an hour, Caleb shut his eyes and tried to sleep. First things first, he thought, his father’s words echoing in his mind. Always handle first things first.

  A gentle hand was shaking Analisa awake.

  “Anja? Get up.”

  “Ga weg.”

  “No, Anja, I won’t go away. Wake up. We have to get out of here.”

  She forced her eyes open, recognizing the urgency in Caleb’s voice, and stared up at him in the dim light cast by the glowing embers in the fire ring. Fearful, she glanced around the circular expanse. They were alone. Every bone in her body ached, every muscle cried out in distress, but she forced her arms up and wrapped them around his neck as he leaned over her. What was he saying? They had to get out of here. But it was so warm, so quiet. And she was so tired. She tugged on his neck and knew he would be unable to resist the invitation to kiss her. He did kiss her, but quickly, then raised his head and looked toward the door.

  “Come on.” He swatted her rump and she groaned. “Up.”

  “Ik houd van jou.”

  “I love you, too. But I’ll love you more when we are safely back at Sully. Let’s go.”

  He rose to his feet and reached down to pull her up. Standing beside him, Analisa experienced a wave of dizziness and reached out to him for support. She watched as he unwrapped the cold pheasant meat and held it out to her.

  “Eat. Then drink some water.”

  While she did as he asked he moved about the room, grabbing the deer hide and the water bag, rolling them up in preparation to leave.

  “Do you have anything I can wear?”

  “Here.” He tossed the hide in her direction.

  She threw it across her shoulders like a shawl and wrapped the ends about her. It covered her from shoulder to ankle. “Caleb?”

  “What?” He’d moved to the doorway and flung the flap back to peer outside, then signaled for her to join him.

  She whispered in his ear. “How are we going to get Meika out of here?”

  “We aren’t. Step through here and I’ll follow. There are no guards.”

  “No.”

  He stared at her. “Anja ... what in the hell do you think you are doing? What do you mean, no? This isn’t the time or the place to—”

  “I will not leave here without my sister. If I do, all of this will have been for nothing.”

  He took a deep breath and held it as his eyes bored into hers. Analisa took a step backward.

  “All of this has been for nothing. Try to understand, Anja, that your sister would not go with you even if we tried to force her. Her place is here, Analisa. This is her home now. She accepts that; now you must.”

  His words hurt her so that she could only shake her head in denial.

  “It’s true. She’s married n
ow, Anja. Just as married as you are. I saw her tonight, walking through the camp with her husband at her side. Do you think she’d just ride off and leave him?”

  He was lying to her. He had to be. “She has been forced to live with them. She is afraid of what might happen if she tried to leave. We must find her. I know if I could talk to her that she would go with me.”

  “Where? Back to what? Do you remember the treatment you had to learn to live with? Do you remember what people thought of you for living through something that was over with in minutes? Anja, she’s been here since she was twelve. Do you know how long it takes for a child of that age to become assimilated into a new culture? Sometimes a year or two at the least.” He grabbed her forearms, pulling her down to kneel with him before the doorway. “She’s seventeen now, Anja. Married. And pregnant, or didn’t you notice? Even if she wanted to leave, which she doesn’t, do you think the whites would ever accept her?”

  Analisa felt hot tears course down her cheeks and suddenly realized she was crying. Again. She wondered when it would end. Caleb’s words stung her, but she could not deny the truth that she heard in them. Before Caleb, her life had been hell. Although she could not fathom her little sister choosing to live among the Sioux of her own free will, she could believe that Meika had learned to adapt to the Indians’ way of life. But Analisa needed to hear it for herself. Let Meika tell her she wanted to stay with the Sioux. Wouldn’t Caleb grant her that? It seemed little enough to ask.

  “Caleb, please ... let me talk to her.”

  “No. We haven’t time to waste. I’m telling you the truth, Anja. Let it be.”

  “I won’t, Caleb. I cannot. She is still my sister, and I must know for certain that she wants this for herself.”

  He pulled her close, his fingers rough on her arms as they bit into her flesh.

  “I’m leaving now, and you, wife, are coming with me.”

  She tried to pull away, the tears flowing faster as she defied him.

  “Let go, Caleb. I’m not leaving until I speak to her. You cannot make me.” Analisa knew her voice was getting louder as it broke the stillness of the night. She felt as if for the first time in a long while she was losing control.