Wild Abandon

by Cassie Edwards

  “You have known my father way longer than I,” Lauralee said wistfully. “You must know so much about him that I never shall have the opportunity of knowing. You are blessed to have known him so devotedly, Joe. So blessed.”

  Dancing Cloud had a strong urge to draw Lauralee into his arms and show her how happy he was to have finally had the pleasure of meeting her. He had carried the same disappointment in his heart along with Boyd so many times when they gave up searching for her, that now, with her standing there only an arm’s length away, he could hardly refrain from lifting her into his arms to hug her to him.

  He feared that if he blinked his eyes she would go away. That was how magical it seemed to be with her, actually seeing her, of actually talking with her.

  His thoughts went quickly to Boyd again. “Your father,” he said. “Tell me. Is he strong? Or is he weak? Is pneumonia the cause again for his hospital stay?”

  “How could you know it was pneumonia?” Lauralee asked, taken aback by just how knowledgeable he was about her father.

  “Many times I have sat with your father while he battled the lung disease that has wasted him away too often into skin and bone,” Dancing Cloud said, again looking past her, almost afraid to see Boyd this time. It had not been all that long since his friend had been deathly ill with the same disease. Dancing Cloud had thought that his end was near then, much less to be battling the disease again, so soon.

  “He came to you when he was ill?” Lauralee asked, her eyes widening.

  “If he was within riding distance of my village.” Dancing Cloud nodded. “He found much peace and comfort among my people. He became as one with the Cherokee.”

  “You are Cherokee?”

  “Ii, yes, Cherokee.”

  “You fought alongside my father in the Civil War?”

  “Ii, yes, his sorrows were my own.”

  “Joe, I . . .”

  Joe placed a gentle finger to her lips, momentarily silencing her words. “The name Joe came from your father when he was an agent to my people all those many moons ago,” he said. “The name I prefer spoken by anyone but your father is Dancing Cloud. I am called Dancing Cloud among my people. It is a name given to me at birth. Joe? It is accepted only in the presence of your father because he gave me the name when we first met to keep him from stumbling over the Cherokee way of saying Dancing Cloud.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lauralee said as he drew his finger from her lips. “I didn’t know. When Father spoke of having sent for a man named Joe, that is all he told me. I shall call you Dancing Cloud. I would not want to make you uncomfortable.”

  Their eyes locked and held for a moment as the magical web became more intricately weaved between them. Lauralee’s knees were strangely weak. Her heart raced out of control and her face felt flushed from something deliciously sweet washing slowly and warmly through her veins.

  When Dancing Cloud gazed down at Lauralee he could not help but recall his father’s words—that it was time to take a wife. His father had said that one day soon Dancing Cloud would find that perfect woman to bring laughter into his lodge.

  His heart, his very soul, told him that Lauralee was that woman. Everything about her seemed absolutely perfect. That she was Boyd’s daughter made it even more wonderful.

  “Lauralee, who is that standing in the corridor?” Boyd asked, only able to make out the shadow of a man as he peered intensely past his daughter. He leaned shakily up on an elbow and squinted his eyes. “Lauralee, who is that? Is it . . . ?”

  Boyd’s voice broke and his heart leapt with joy. “Joe? Is that you, Joe?” he said, his voice weak, yet filled with excitement.

  Lauralee stepped aside. She smiled at Dancing Cloud, then nodded toward her father. “Go to him,” she murmured. “Dancing Cloud, I swear to you that you are the sole reason my father is still alive.”

  Dancing Cloud gave her a lingering look that made her melt inside, then he went to Boyd. He leaned over the bed and swept Boyd’s frail body within the muscled comfort of his arms.

  “My o-gi-na-li-i, friend,” Dancing Cloud said thickly, torn apart inside by how thin and bony Boyd was. He closed his eyes and remembered the days when Boyd was muscled and active, his eyes always dancing with laughter. Now he was only a skeleton of that man.

  “Joe,” Boyd said, his voice breaking as he clung to Dancing Cloud. “I knew you’d come.”

  Dancing Cloud held Boyd for a moment longer, then eased away from him and sat down in a chair beside the bed. “I regret having taken this long to reach Saint Louis,” he said thickly. “I slept only half the nights of my journey. I felt your need deep inside my soul. I could hear you calling to me as though you were there with me.”

  “Did you see her, Joe?” Boyd asked, his eyes anxious as he peered up at Dancing Cloud. “Did you see my Lauralee?”

  Dancing Cloud looked up at Lauralee as she now stood on the other side of the bed. Again their eyes locked and held. “Ii, yes,” he said, everything within him aware of her presence. “I have made acquaintance with your Lauralee.”

  “Isn’t she as pretty as I said she’d be?” Boyd asked, reaching a shaky hand over to Lauralee, grabbing one of her hands with his bony fingers.

  “Prettier,” Dancing Cloud said before he could stop the word from rushing across his lips.

  Boyd managed a chuckle between his raspy breaths. “I knew that you two would hit it off just fine,” he said, looking slowly from Dancing Cloud to Lauralee, then back at Dancing Cloud. “That makes what I am going to ask of you much simpler, Joe.”

  “You summoned me here for what purpose other than to be with you again during your time of illness?” Dancing Cloud said, his voice having turned solemn. “Was it for me to make acquaintance with Lauralee? Or is it something else?”

  “Yes, I wanted you to meet my lovely daughter,” Boyd said, his voice becoming weaker with each word. “But I want something more, Joe. Something way more.”

  “Tell me what you want of me and it will be done,” Dancing Cloud said, looking into Boyd’s faded eyes. He flinched when Boyd suddenly closed them and it did not seem as though he was breathing any longer.

  Dancing Cloud sighed heavily with relief when Boyd once again opened his eyes and sucked in a wild breath, then began to talk again.

  “My daughter has never had a true family since my departure for the Civil War when she was five,” Boyd said slowly, feeling more drained by the minute. “Her mother was murdered by the Yankees. She . . . she . . . was raised in an orphanage.”

  Boyd wanted to hurry on with his request, for he could feel himself slipping away. This time he felt it might finally be the last hurrah of his life.

  Dancing Cloud shot Lauralee a quick look. Sympathy for how she had lived was like a sharp edge within his soul. When he had returned from the Civil War he had found many Cherokee children orphaned whose parents had been killed when the Yankees had passed through on their way to the battlefields farther south.

  Seeing this had made him not wish to have children of his own. He had even considered getting married only to give some Cherokee waif a home. Perhaps more than one. Due to the ravages of the Civil War, the need was still great.

  His eyes smiled into Lauralee’s, thinking that she would understand the need to adopt some unfortunate Cherokee child and give them a home filled with love and understanding.

  Then his attention was drawn back to Boyd when Boyd broke into a fitful bout of coughing.

  Lauralee moved into quick action. She bent over her father and raised him into a half-sitting position. She stroked his perspiration-beaded brow.

  The coughing finally subsided. Lauralee eased her father back down onto the bed and drew a cover up snugly beneath his chin.

  “Joe, I need you to escort Lauralee to Illinois,” Boyd said in an almost whisper. “You will be taking her to relatives where she will finally have a true home.” He paused and inhaled a deep, trembling breath. He grabbed Joe’s hand. “Will you do that for me, Joe? Will you?”r />
  Joe glanced up at Lauralee, then back down at Boyd. “Does she agree to such an escort?” he asked thickly.

  “Not entirely,” Lauralee blurted out, yet wishing that she hadn’t the moment she saw the wounded look in Dancing Cloud’s eyes. “You see, I feel that I am old enough to care for myself. I told Father time and again that I can travel quite well on my own.” She paused and sighed. “But he still insists.”

  “And you agreed to allow Joe, honey,” Boyd said, patting her hand.

  “Yes, I did, but . . .”

  Boyd took her hesitance as something else, as something reflecting on the escort that he had chosen for her. In what breath that he could find, he tried to explain to her why Joe could be trusted.

  “Lauralee, although Joe is Indian, he is the only man I would entrust your care,” he said between shaky breaths. “Yes, he is Indian. He is a full-blooded Cherokee. Joe is of the Eastern band of Cherokee, the remnant that still clings to the woods and waters of their old home country. They are of the mountain Cherokee of North Carolina, the purest-blooded and most conservative of the Cherokee nation. He is not of the mixed bloods who are guided by shrewd mixed-blood politicians who are chiefly on the low grounds and in the railroad towns.”

  When Lauralee saw that this little speech had totally winded her father, she leaned into his embrace. “Hush, Father,” she murmured. “You don’t have to explain anything else to me. I can see the kind of man Dancing Cloud is. I, too, see that he can be trusted.”

  “Good,” Boyd wheezed out. “Good.”

  Although Dancing Cloud saw traveling with Lauralee as a way to get to know her better, to give him a better understanding of this intrigue that he felt for her, he was torn again with what to do. The time it would take to get Lauralee to Illinois would be many days and nights of travel.

  Could history repeat itself?

  Could tragedy strike his village again in his absence? His father!

  Could he die?

  Whenever Dancing Cloud thought of the possibility of his father dying before he returned to his village, he would remember what his father had said about being ready to cross over to the other side. He was anxious to join his wife, to walk hand in hand with her in the hereafter.

  That comforted Dancing Cloud to know that his father thought of death as a means to be happier. When the time came that his father did pass on over to the other side Dancing Cloud’s grieving would not be as severe. He would envision his father and mother together again and smile.

  Then there was Lauralee, and how troubling it was think of being with her for the length of time it would take them to reach Illinois. Although he did wish to know her better, he doubted that it should be for any reason other than just to know the daughter of his friend Boyd! It was time for him to take a wife. He was not sure if his people could accept a white wife for a man who would one day be their leader.

  Yet he again remembered his father’s words. The debt to Boyd would be paid once and for all if he did this final deed for him. And it was obvious that Boyd was dying. This made Dancing Cloud want to do this last deed for him, no matter the cost to himself.

  Dancing Cloud’s silence worried Boyd. “Joe, I’ll understand if you feel that you can’t do this for me,” he said, his voice scarcely audible. “I feel guilty for even putting you in the position of being away from your people for this length of time.”

  Boyd’s eyes widened. He attempted to rise on an elbow only to crumple back down onto the bed. “I am so thoughtless,” he said. “I did not ask about your father.”

  “He is not well,” Dancing Cloud said solemnly. “For some time now I have seen his health failing.”

  “Then you must return to him,” Boyd said, reaching a hand to Dancing Cloud, patting him on the arm. “Go. I will understand.”

  “It was my father’s wish and advice that I come to you,” Dancing Cloud said softly. “I will escort Lauralee to Illinois, then return to my people.”

  Boyd looked from Dancing Cloud, to Lauralee. Tears streamed from his eyes. “Come to me,” he said softly. “Both of you at once. Let me hug you.”

  Lauralee and Dancing Cloud’s eyes met again, then they both leaned down and eased into Boyd’s embrace, their shoulders touching.

  “My two favorite people in the world,” Boyd said, a sob lodging in his throat. “Now when I have everything to live for, I’m not going to be able to stay around to enjoy it.”

  His sobs finally broke through, silencing everything else around him.

  Chapter 5

  I love her for her smile . . .

  her looks . . . her way.

  —ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  The state of Missouri and the Mississippi River were now behind Lauralee and Dancing Cloud. Dancing Cloud riding beside her on his magnificent steed, Lauralee rode comfortably, yet sullenly, in a covered buggy. She had purchased this with the inheritance money that Boyd had willed over to her during his last moments of life. She snapped the reins, urging the beautiful black mare that she had also purchased into a soft trot along the narrow dirt road in Illinois.

  Tears sprang into her eyes as she thought of how hard it had been to give up her father to the ground after having only found him a few short weeks ago. It had been almost unbearable for her as she watched the casket being lowered into the grave.

  He had been given a military funeral at Jefferson Barracks, which was located a few miles south of St. Louis. It had torn Lauralee apart inside when the guns fired off a salute to her father, followed by the mournful sound of taps being played in his honor.

  It caused a shiver to race across her flesh even now at the thought of the taps and how hauntingly solemn the trumpet had sounded.

  She glanced down at her lap upon which lay a wilted rose. The priest who had spoken at her father’s funeral had given this to her. He had taken it from the spray of roses from the top of her father’s casket, on which had been placed a red ribbon with the word daughter written in gold across it.

  Wiping the tears from her face with her black-gloved hand, Lauralee peered through the black veil once again and watched the direction of the road. Up ahead was a huge mound in the ground. As she rode past it and stared at it she was reminded of Joe Dancing Cloud and that he was riding at the left side of her buggy, for this mound was the burial ground of another tribe of Indians, the Cahokia.

  Lauralee turned her eyes to Dancing Cloud. She had argued briefly with him after the funeral when she had once again reminded him that she did not need an escort while traveling to Mattoon, Illinois.

  He had reminded her that she had promised her father that she would accept him as her escort.

  “He has just begun his long walk on the spirit path of life,” Dancing Cloud had said. “He is with us now, as will he be with us always, in spirit. Do not disappoint him by disobeying his final wish.”

  Dancing Cloud felt her eyes on him. He turned and smiled at her. Thus far the journey had been one of silence. He with his sad thoughts of Boyd. She with hers of her father.

  They were both mourning a valiant, courageous man, a man who had brought them together.

  Obviously Boyd had willed himself to stay alive long enough, not only to see that Dancing Cloud was there to look after Lauralee, but also to make sure that they met so that a bond could be formed between them.

  The bond was there, Dancing Cloud thought to himself. Now to nurture it into something more . . . into something everlasting.

  He knew for certain now that he did not only want to escort Lauralee to Mattoon, he wanted to look after her for the rest of her life. Although she tried to put on a bold front of being independent and able to take care of herself, he could see the vulnerable side of her. He had enough love within his heart to make up for all of that which she had not known since she had been wrenched from the loving care of her parents at such a young age.

  No. She was no longer just a means to repay someone special to him. She was now way more than that to him.

  L
auralee blushed beneath his steady, warm stare. She turned her eyes away, the rapid beat of her heart dizzying her.

  She fought the feelings for Dancing Cloud that were nagging away at her consciousness.

  She fought the strange, hungry need she felt for him.

  It seemed almost impossible to her that she could even ever think of giving herself to a man. Not when the remembrances of that soldier forcing himself on her mother remained in her mind like a festering sore.

  An involuntary shiver ran through her, causing her body to lurch with the intensity of it.

  Dancing Cloud saw her tremor. He edged his horse closer. “You are u-yv-tla, cold?” he asked. “Would you be more comfortable if you had a blanket draped across your lap?”

  Lauralee was never sure what he said when he mixed his Cherokee language with his English, but she was slowly learning how to interpret it by the words that followed. This time she interpreted him as having asked if she was cold.

  “I’m fine,” she said softly. “But the air is cooler now that the sun has slipped behind the trees. How much farther will we travel today? Will we be making camp soon?”

  Lauralee somewhat dreaded stopping for the night. There were many private things to see to. Her bath, and changing from her black mourning clothes into something comfortable for sleeping.

  And how would they sleep? Since her journey from her burned-out home to St. Louis, she had not slept out of doors.

  Especially not with a man who stirred her insides into feelings she had never experienced before.

  She feared these feelings, but not the man. He was nothing at all like the soldier who had raped, then killed her mother. He was more like her father, gentle in every way.

  “We will make camp now,” Dancing Cloud said, jerking his horse’s reins to guide his steed from the road. “Come. Follow me. We will find a place that will be far enough from the road so that there will be no dangers from passersby. Although the war brought peace to this country, there are still highwaymen who rob and steal from the innocent.”