Cherokee Storm

by Janelle Taylor

  One young girl tugged at Shannon’s hand and repeatedly entreated her to come with her. Shannon glanced at her father who seemed deep in conversation with Split Cane and an older man. Da still looked tired, and she hoped that he’d have an opportunity to rest before nightfall. “Flynn, excuse me. What does she want?”

  “Dove is inviting you to bathe with her.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It’s a warm day, and you’ve ridden a long way. The Cherokee are great ones for washing.”

  “Should I go?”

  He shrugged. “If you like. There are things I must discuss with the elders, once the formalities are out of the way.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Aye. No one will harm you, and no men will dare spy on your bath. As guests, we’re safer than the Holy Father in Saint Peter’s Chapel. Dove is Split Cane’s favorite granddaughter. I’ve known the colleen since she was a sprig.”

  “All right.” She turned back to the girl. She wasn’t as young as Shannon had first thought, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, and very pretty with slanting almond eyes and hair like black satin. Petite, Dove stood no higher than her own shoulder.

  “You come?” Dove asked. “Come…” She seemed at a loss for the right word until the six-year-old boy with the woodpecker feathers and beads in his hair wiggled forward through the throng of onlookers.

  “I make the talk,” he proclaimed. “Woodpecker has the good English.”

  “You do,” Shannon agreed, chuckling. “Are you called Woodpecker?”

  “He is!” the boy said, speaking of himself in the third person. A wide grin spread over his face, and she saw that he was missing a front tooth. “He be Woodpecker!”

  “I am happy to meet you.” Shannon took his extended hand and shook it. Please tell Dove that I will come with her to wash.”

  It was true she needed a bath. Her arms and legs were dusty from the trail, and her fingers sticky from the honey water. She imagined what her hair must look like. She’d always liked to be clean. At the tavern, her mistress had chided her for how much hot water and soap she used.

  Odd, how the Cherokee and whites had different ideas about morality and personal hygiene. These Indians had an unusual smell, almost a musty scent. Not unpleasant, but different from her own kind. But with all the women and men, she caught no odor of body sweat other than what her father emitted.

  Dove smiled shyly. “You come,” she repeated.

  “Now come.” Woodpecker tugged at Shannon’s hand.

  She rose from the ground, stretched the kinks out of her legs, and followed the two, trailed by a troop of chattering children and adolescent girls. The village was as lively and fascinating as Shannon remembered a Cherokee settlement her father had taken her to when she was young.

  Most of the Cherokee lived in sturdy round houses in extended family groups, but in warm weather, as it was now, most slept in what appeared to be long, open sheds. Kettles of stew hung over cooking fires at every hearth, and children—who were rarely scolded for any mischief—ate when and where they pleased. The homes were scattered, not arranged in orderly lines as in towns back East, but the hard-packed paths were swept clean of trash, and all seemed in order.

  Here, two women were weaving baskets; there, an old man was teaching a younger one how to glue the feathers on darts for a blowgun. And just to the left, in front of a cornfield, a group of young boys were playing with a ball sewn of deer hide. She knew it was deerskin because the ball still had the hair on it.

  “Is my house,” Woodpecker said, pointing to a circular dwelling that looked exactly like the others. “My mother is best cook in all world. Woodpecker got brother and sister, but Woodpecker be olderest boy. Soon Woodpecker be big enough to go to warrior house.”

  Shannon remembered her father explaining that boys stayed with their mothers until nine or ten when they joined other youths in a young men’s house. There they would be trained in hunting and tracking skills by the mother’s brothers, and sometimes, their own fathers. While the boys studied the art of hunting, tool-making, and fishing, the girls remained under their mothers’ wing, helping in the gardens and learning to cook and care for babies, weave baskets, tan hides, sew, and dry food for the winter.

  “Woodpecker’s mother be Paint.” He stuck out his chest. “Paint be best clan.”

  Shannon knew that the Cherokee divided themselves into seven clans, but she could remember only Wolf, Deer, and Bird. If Woodpecker was a Paint, then there were three more. One clan, she thought, might be Holly. When a Cherokee couple married, the man made his home with her family, but the children took their mother’s clan at birth. No one married into his or her own clan. And Da had said that the children, home, and all personal belongings, other than a man’s hunting and fishing gear, belonged to the wife.

  “What clan be yellow-haired ghost?” Woodpecker demanded.

  “I’m not a ghost. And my name is Shannon O’Shea.”

  The boy puckered up his mouth. “So what clan be Sha-naan-O-Say?”

  “Irish, I suppose,” she replied.

  He nodded. “I-nish. Be all I-nish have skin like fish belly?”

  She could barely suppress a giggle. “I suppose we do.”

  “Poor I-nish. But Woodpecker like all same.” He reached up to touch the end of her braid. “Pretty ghost hair.” He stopped and pointed through the trees to the river. “There be bath place. Woodpecker wait.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “You may wait here for me.” She followed the gaggle of chattering girls down to a secluded pool in the bend of the river. There were already two women there washing their hair.

  Dove pulled at her skirt. “Washy. Washy,” she ordered.

  Dutifully, Shannon stripped down to her shift and waded into the water. It felt heavenly. One of the girls produced a small basket containing a paste that Dove scooped out and made motions of rubbing in her hair. “Wash my hair with this?” Shannon asked.

  When Dove nodded, Shannon sniffed it. The mixture smelled of pleasant herbs, and mixed with water it produced a healthy lather. Glancing around to make sure there were no men watching, Shannon gave herself over to the luxury of an all-over bath where she didn’t have to first heat and then carry buckets of hot water.

  Soon Shannon was joined by several of the adolescent girls, and one young woman a little older than Dove. It had been a long time since Shannon had enjoyed the company of females close to her age. Even with the barrier of language between them, she enjoyed herself, swimming, splashing, and laughing with the group.

  Sometime while Shannon was bathing, Dove washed her skirt, bodice, jacket, and leggings and spread them on the rocks to dry. Since Shannon couldn’t put her own garments back on and her shift was soaking wet, she allowed the girls to dress her in a fringed leather skirt and cape. The skirt came halfway to her ankles, immodest by white standards, but positively severe for the Cherokee.

  Woodpecker was waiting for them on the path. He led the procession back to the village center, all the while talking up a storm to Shannon in fractured English. “Dancing we must be. Good thing to eat. Much happy for friend Truth Teller and Sha-naan-O-Say of I-nish Clan. Tsalagi make welcome. Yes?”

  “Yes, the Tsalagi do make welcome,” Shannon replied as she joined her father again. Flynn rolled his eyes when he saw the Indian garments. Shannon shrugged. “Mine are wet,” she whispered.

  She didn’t mind, really. The buckskin was soft, softer than the wool or linsey-woolsey she was used to. Having no bodice and confining stays was a relief. Woodpecker had called her pretty, and she felt pretty. Her borrowed clothing matched the soft moccasins that Storm Dancer had given her.

  She had seen no sign of him since she and her father had first arrived at the camp—neither Storm Dancer nor the naked slut who’d been playing with him. Not that she wanted to see him. It would be far too embarrassing. Best he keep far away from her…better for both of them.

  The welcome celebration went on for hours. Darkness fell, but still the bowls
and platters of food continued to appear before Shannon and her father. Women brought soups and stews and all manner of corn dishes; grilled fish, rabbit, and squirrel contended with venison, duck, and roasted goose for their flavor. Best of all, Shannon loved the chunks of dripping honeycomb and baskets of wild berries. She ate until she could eat no more, but still the Cherokee offered course after course of their best.

  Men played drums in the shadows, some drums large as washtubs, others so small that Shannon could have spanned them with her hands. Turtle shells and gourd rattles, flutes, and tinkling bells added to the ancient rhythms. Dancing began with the children and spread to their elders. Women danced in long undulating lines, weaving in and out of the firelight, followed by young men who whirled and stomped as the music quickened and took on a primitive throbbing cadence.

  Finally, when it seemed to Shannon that she could not keep her eyelids open another minute, families began to gather their little ones and retire to their sleeping places. Dove came out the shadows and took Shannon’s hand.

  “Come,” she said. “You make sleep. Mother lodge.”

  Shannon glanced at her father.

  “Go on, girl. You’ll be safe enough.”

  And so she was. Dove led her to an open shelter and a soft bed of pine boughs against the back wall. Already women and children were dropping off to sleep around them, and the house fire had burned low. The night air sweeping down from the mountains was refreshingly cool and Shannon snuggled down under a fur coverlet.

  Sleep did not come. Through the wall of woven branches, she could see stars, diamond bright against a velvet sky. The crackle of the fire, the soft breaths of the women around her should have lulled her, but instead, she found herself remembering Storm Dancer as she had seen him, proud and naked, water dripping from his crow-black hair.

  And when she heard the first faint strains of a bone flute, she thought she was dreaming. The tune was the same as the one she’d heard from her bedroom window, high and poignant…touching the secret places of her heart and bringing tears to her eyes.

  Reason told her to stay where she was. Nothing good could come of leaving the sanctuary of the women’s shelter. Outside the glow of the firelight she risked unknown perils.

  The flute called to her….

  Chapter 9

  Time passed…perhaps an hour, perhaps less. Shannon couldn’t be certain…could no longer trust her own judgment. All that while, the flutist played on, the high, sweet notes seeped through her consciousness, and deeper still, into her very bones, weaving an enchanted web that entangled and seduced her.

  The haunting melody seemed at once the saddest thing she’d ever heard and the most hopeful. It should have been foreign to her ears, yet, she felt a kinship to the refrain from someplace long ago…before she was conceived in her mother’s womb…perhaps before the first wanderers set foot on Irish shores.

  Yet, reason told her that she could not weaken. She must resist the mysterious call of the flute. If she weakened, if she left this shelter and walked into the night, her life would never be the same again. Anything might happen in the magical fastness of these mountains on such a night when the sky seemed vaster and the stars closer and more brilliant than ever before.

  Her heart raced; she could hear the pulse of blood in her head as she fought the inevitable. Storm Dancer was out there waiting for her. Once in every woman’s life, a woman had to do something wild and crazy. If not tonight, now, at this instant, she suspected she would regret it for the rest of her days.

  Slowly, Shannon pushed back the warm fur blanket and rose to her knees. The shelter was quiet, the silence broken only by the sounds of steady breathing. Beyond, the camp, the surrounding fields, and the forest were as still as if painted on a canvas. She got to her feet and cautiously crept past the women and girls, circled the fire pit with its glowing coals, and stepped onto the path that wound between the dwellings.

  Outside, fog lay in thick white ribbons, hiding the ground, muffling and distorting each sound. Even her breath—her hesitant footsteps on the hard-packed street—echoed eerily. The moon, a huge, ivory crescent, glowed with an intense radiance, laying mounds of spun sugar through the village and giving a dreamlike quality to the night.

  The flute continued to emit the crystalline, enticing notes….

  Her breath caught in her throat. Her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow. Perhaps the music wasn’t real, she argued with herself. Perhaps she was dreaming. She’d dreamed of Storm Dancer before, hadn’t she? She pinched herself hard and winced when it hurt. If this wasn’t a dream, if she was awake, how could her sense of perception be so altered? She’d had nothing to eat or drink that would cloud her judgment.

  To her left, she heard the sleepy voice of a mother soothing a restless infant, and from the shelter on her right, the hushed laughter of lovers. No dogs barked; no guard barred her way. If this was a dream, it was the most real she’d ever known. What harm could it be to seek out the musician?

  And if it wasn’t…If it wasn’t a dream, her recklessness could cost her everything dear to her…her father’s love…her reputation…Flynn O’Shea would never countenance such a sin. He would disown her…send her away at the least.

  But the siren song of the flute would not be denied….

  Trembling, she followed the sweet music out of the village, across the ball field, and through a garden where the fresh tilled earth felt soft beneath her moccasins and green tendrils of squash plants wound around miniature cornstalks. As she reached the far end of the cultivated field, she could hear the river, gurgling, splashing over mossy rocks, and smell the primal scents of forest and lush vegetation.

  Abruptly, the flute went silent. Shannon stopped, glanced around, peering into the dark trees shrouded in mist. Her eyes widened. Her heart skipped a beat. Where was he? Where had he gone? Had he vanished as he had before on that other night she’d been so bold?

  “Storm Dancer?” she called softly. The fog swallowed her words, drowning them in a sea of white condensation. “Where are you?”

  Fear curled in the pit of her belly. Hair prickled at the nape of her neck. “Storm Dancer,” she cried again.

  “You should not be here.”

  Tingling joy flooded through her veins. He was here. She wasn’t dreaming. “You shouldn’t have called me.” She turned around, trying to see him, but the fog was disorienting. She wasn’t certain which way she’d just come or where the river lay.

  “But I did,” he answered.

  “And I came.”

  He appeared out of the mist, not two arms’ lengths away. “I play what is in my heart. I didn’t call you.”

  “You did.” She could make out the features of his face in the moonlight. He seemed a man carved of granite. She fisted her fingers at her sides to keep them from trembling.

  “Why did you follow me to this village?” he demanded. “I came here to forget you.”

  He moved closer still, looming over her. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. “I didn’t know you were here. My father brought me.”

  “This can not be.”

  “You must believe me.” She extended an open hand to him. “I didn’t know you were here…in the arms of your woman.”

  “Feather Blanket is not my woman.”

  The air sizzled with energy, exactly as she’d felt that night at the cave when lightning struck around her. “I saw you,” she protested. “I know—”

  “You know nothing.” He seized her and dragged her against him. His mouth crushed hers, hard fingers tangled in her hair. She opened to him, reveling in the sweet, hot taste of his tongue. The earth dropped away beneath her as she clung to him and their kiss went on and on.

  When he finally pushed her away, she staggered back. Her senses reeled.

  “You see what this is?” Anger rang in his voice. “It can not be.”

  “Because you are Cherokee and I’m not.”

  “The color of your skin means nothing to
me.”

  “It does to most people.” She knew what her own kind thought of Indians—heathen savages—hardly better than animals. She knew that he was right, that it could not be. A white woman did not go with a Cherokee. It was unheard of; it went against all civilized law and belief.

  “Whites. Not true men. The Cherokee hold all men and women to be children of the Creator.”

  “That must be true. A loving God couldn’t make us all and love only some.”

  “If I could, I would defy them all. I would make you my wife and take you so far into the mountains that no whites would ever come to claim you.”

  Her heart leaped. She knew it was impossible, but it thrilled her to hear him say it. “I’ve never wanted a husband,” she said. “Any husband.”

  He nodded. “Good, because I can not make you mine. I am promised to another.”

  Her knees felt weak. “It’s true then. The beautiful woman I saw you with?”

  “There is nothing between us but friendship.”

  “You can tell me the truth. I know what I saw,” she flung back. “You lay with her.”

  “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “Nothing?”

  His tone grew hard. “Feather Blanket’s husband is dead. She takes her pleasure where she finds it.”

  She took another step toward him. She could smell him now, all woods and wild mountains. The scent was heady. “And she found it with you?”

  “I hoped her arms would break the spell you’ve cast over me.”

  “It’s not me who cast a spell. Since we met in the cave…I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “This is wrong.”

  She took another step and brushed her fingers across his lips. “I know—but why does it feel so right?”

  “Shannon…”

  “We both know there’s only one cure for this sickness.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “Shhh.” She pulled the fringed Cherokee garment over her head and let it fall to the ground. “Can’t we have one night? Tomorrow, we can pretend it was a dream. We can be what they want us to be.” Shamelessly, she untied the skirt and, naked, opened her arms to him.