Cheyenne Captive

by Georgina Gentry - Iron Knife's Family 01 - Cheyenne Captive

  There was a long pause and another old man stood and started to weave his magic string of words, telling a story that belonged to him specifically. A story was a possession to the Cheyenne like a dog or a lance and no one might tell a story he did not own. The stories were handed down as gifts to the children and grandchildren or sometimes given to a good friend.

  As the old man finished telling his tale, he added as always this traditional ending, “That is my story. Can anyone tie another to it?”

  Now Two Arrows stood and told the tale of the latest battle with the Pawnee, some of it in sign language as the members of his family involved, Iron Knife and Lance Bearer, ducked their heads modestly.

  Thrilled, Summer realized she understood enough sign language and Cheyenne to be able to follow the story of her love’s brave adventures. When Two Arrows made a sawing motion across his left fore finger with his right, she knew he meant “striped” or “cut people” and was speaking of the Cheyenne. The tribe was well known by its striped turkey feather arrows and also for sacrificing pieces of skin they cut from their bodies when asking favors from Heammawihio.

  When Two Arrows made a “v” sign and extended his hand, she knew he told of the Pawnee braves. She gasped in shock and thrilled with delight as he told how Iron Knife and Lance Bearer had staked themselves down with the Dog Ropes and turned defeat into victory by rallying the fleeing warriors. It was all she could do to keep from cheering as Two Arrows told the final, climactic battle between Iron Knife and Bear’s Eyes and made the sudden, sweeping downward motion of the hand that meant “kill.”

  She glanced at her lover, sitting straight and modest as the tale unfolded as befitted a great warrior. Years from now, she thought, when a storyteller would finish with “Can anyone tie another to it?” a member of Iron Knife’s family, perhaps his son or grandson, would tell the legend of how Iron Knife saved the day against the Pawnee.

  It grew very late and no one added any more stories to the chain. Slowly, people drifted back to their own tepees, savoring their memories. As Summer and Iron Knife walked away, he turned to her. “I have a gift for you. It seems I did not have a pony in my herd fine enough but I do now.”

  “For me?” She touched her chest in excitement. “You have a horse for me?”

  “You do ride, don’t you?”

  “Of course!” She took his hand as they walked along toward the pony herd. “That’s one of the very few things ladies are allowed to do in Boston.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Life in Boston must have been very dull for you.”

  “It was,” she agreed with a sigh as they walked. “Only I didn’t realize how dull and stifling before I met you. I had nothing and no one to compare my life to.”

  He led her out to where the captured pony herd grazed in the moonlight. “Many of these belong to me by right of capture. But there is a special one I knew was meant for you the moment I saw her tied in front of Bear’s Eyes tepee. See if you know which one!”

  The other, ponies snorted and wheeled away as they walked among them all except for a small, fine-blooded mare. She was chestnut colored with four white stockings and a blaze face. Her soft, intelligent eyes looked toward Summer and she did not run away.

  “This one!” Summer gasped, running to put her arms around the mare’s neck. “Oh, I hope it’s this one!”

  He laughed at her pleasure. “Yes, it is!” What would you have done if I had said she was not the one?”

  Summer buried her face in the mare’s mane. “Somehow, I knew it was this one!”

  The little mare nickered at her softly as she patted her. “Look at the blaze reflecting the starlight. I shall call her Starfire!”

  He came over and put his arm around Summer. “I didn’t just get her for you, of course.”

  Her face fell as she looked up at him. “I have to share her with someone?”

  He nodded toward the Appaloosa stallion that raced up, whinnying loudly. “Spotted Blanket here seems to think I got her just for him.”

  Summer laughed. “In that case, I’m not at all upset to share her. He deserves a little love, too.”

  She felt his arm tighten around her. “It would not look good to have the woman of a rich warrior walk all the way to the Big Timber country. You must ride and see after my travois and my belongings.”

  She leaned her face against his chest, savoring his nearness, the good scent of the little mare’s mane. “But you won’t ride beside me, will you?”

  She felt his body tense at the intended criticism. “You know the Dog Soldiers must ride at the end to protect the retreat if need be just as the Mahohewas, the Red Shields, will ride point up front. Have you not noticed their two special lances stuck in the ground pointing in the direction the camp is to move?”

  She looked up at him, puzzled. “I have seen the two ceremonial lances stuck in the dirt, now that you mention it. Someone always takes them up in the morning.”

  He nodded. “On the morning you go out and see them pointing toward the Shining Mountains country and they are left standing, you will know we move the camp that day. The standing lances are the signal.”

  “I’m looking forward to the Rockies,” she said, thinking of curling up in his arms during the long snows. He moved his arm around her shoulders gently and they turned back toward camp.

  “Should we tie these two in front of your lodge?” she asked, looking back at the pair gamboling through the tall bluestem grass.

  “Oh, I suppose not,” he said uncertainly. “They are having such a good time and we’ll have sentries out, let them enjoy the night. In the meantime, I have something else I have not shown you.”

  They went back to the tepee and he carefully opened a parfleche box, revealing a fine, full war bonnet.

  She drew in her breath sharply with admiration, knowing every feather stood for a coup, an act of bravery. “I have never seen anything so fine.” She thought a moment, and then she knew. “Was it your father’s?”

  He stroked the feathers gently as he nodded. “I recaptured it from Bear’s Eyes, who killed him ten years ago on a raid in a place the whites call Nebraska. I think War Bonnet’s remains, his siyuhk, can rest easy now for he has been avenged!”

  She watched him with tenderness. He put the headdress back in the box carefully. “Now you will wear it and be a chief in your father’s place,” she said proudly.

  His face grew troubled as he put the box away. “I can never be chief,” he said with finality. “I cannot even wear this headdress for to do so after the thing involving Angry Wolf would disgrace my father. Someone needs to hold an Arrow Renewal to insure the tribe’s good luck and clear away this killing. But I cannot, for a murderer cannot sponsor an Arrow Renewal. Someone else must do it.”

  She turned on him, uneasy about Gray Dove. “No one else knows.”

  “Exactly! And someday this will bring trouble to my people, this murder, if the ceremony is not done! I should tell the old chiefs and accept exile.”

  Summer put her arms around his neck. “Let us talk no more of this sad thing tonight,” she whispered, looking up into his eyes. “It was not our fault.”

  She said no more, thinking of Gray Dove and the trouble the girl had caused.

  His lips brushed her forehead, light as butterfly wings. “I have hungered for you all these nights,” he whispered. “When we reach the Big Timbers, I am going to buy you a ‘One Thousand Dress’ covered with many, many elk teeth and all the women will envy you.”

  “They all already envy me.” She kissed along his strong jaw line and felt his pulse beat in his neck.

  He stood her away from him. “Take your hair down,” he whispered. They stood looking at each other in the light of the fire pit. “I love to see your hair swinging free so I can wrap my hands in it.”

  Her insides quivered with anticipation as she unbraided her hair and let it fall. Then she slowly pulled the deerskin dress over her head and stood naked before him in the firelight. “Your captive
awaits your pleasure, my warrior and master.”

  The flames reflected off the eagle bone whistle and the earring as he pulled off his clothes and stood before her in his natural state. She caught her breath as always at the sight of his broad shoulders and rippling, hairless muscles. His manhood stood hard and erect between powerful loins. His eyes grew intense with passion and need.

  She did not say anything, only held out her arms to him as she had first done on a creek bank so many lifetimes or was it only weeks ago? Then she had not known what it was she hungered for as she gifted him with her virginity and he had taught her. Oh, God! How he had taught her!

  Summer felt his big, rough hands span her small waist and lift her until her breasts were level with his face and she reached out and clutched his face against them. His lips played with her nipples, making her whimper in pleasure.

  “Don’t stop! Don’t ever stop!” she gasped, digging her nails into his wide shoulders and reveling in the heat of his mouth on one breast, then the other. She could feel the warm rush of wetness between her thighs, wanting him; wanting him.

  He slid her downward until she was impaled on his hard manhood as he stood there and clasped her to him.

  For a long moment, as she trembled impaled thus, she thought he would take her standing. But then he withdrew with a sigh and carried her over to the buffalo robes. He lay down next to her and she pushed him back on his elbows and she nibbled the hard rosettes of his nipples.

  “Keep this up, woman,” he murmured, “and I may never trade you off for a good horse or even push you to the back of the tepee to take a younger wife.”

  She leaned over him, her long hair trailing across his chest. “You could not satisfy both me and another wife.”

  “I think you speak true,” he gasped, pulling her down on him. His strong arms locked around her shoulders as with his warm tongue he explored the depths of her mouth. Then he pulled her upward so that her full breasts hung over his face and clasped his hands about her waist as he nuzzled them.

  She moaned aloud as she arched backward, feeling the warmth of his lips on her nipples. “I don’t think I will ever get enough of that!”

  “Tell me that you like it!” he commanded. “Tell me what it is you want me to do to you!”

  “I—I can’t!” She felt herself blush in the semidarkness. ”Women don’t talk like that.”

  “But you are my captive,” he whispered. “I command you to tell me what to do and how much you like it!”

  “I—I want you to take my breasts in your mouth and lick them.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “I want you to drive me wild wanting you!” She gasped as he nuzzled her. “I want you to put your throbbing manhood deep inside me so I can really feel it as you take me. I want to feel you exploding yourself in my depths, filling me with your seed.”

  Passionately, she kissed him and she pulled at him, trying to turn him, pull him down on top of her. “Take me!” she said feverishly. “Please take me!”

  But he pulled her back on top of him. “No, Summer.” He separated her thighs so she was astraddle him. “You take me!”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know—I never—!”

  But his hands were insistent. “No, Summer, stay on top! Ride your stallion!”

  She could do nothing else but what he demanded. His big hands spanned her waist and as she rose astraddle his loins on her knees, he forced her downward and slid up into her.

  Summer gasped at the feeling as she took him deeper that way than she had ever thought possible. “I can’t!” she whimpered. “I can’t take all of you!”

  “Yes, you can! Your body was made for mine! Relax, Summer, relax and let me fill you as you want to be filled. Tonight, I’m going to touch your womb and give you my son.”

  Trembling, she reared back and came down on him, spreading her thighs so that she took him to her maximum depth and he held her there with the steel grip of his hands.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Yes, you can!” he whispered fiercely, not releasing his grip on her waist as he ground her down onto him. “I’m not going to hurt you, Little One! I’m going to give you pleasure like you’ve never had!”

  She relaxed, believing him, and a warm glow seemed to spread through her body. She felt as if she were impaled on a hot, fiery sword. As she felt him throb deep within her, she moved up and down on him, letting her eager body clasp his. She put her hands behind her on his strong thighs and arched herself, feeling him tremble as he held back his passion while hers built up. In a frenzy, she tried to speed up her movements but his hands held her back.

  “Don’t hurry, Summer,” he whispered. “I want to wait as long as you possibly can, for when you finish I am only going to do it again and again to you. I want to make up for all the long, lonely nights we’ve missed!”

  “I can’t wait!” she declared, rising up so that only the tip of his sheath remained in her and she took him again to the hilt of his sword.

  Then neither of them could wait and she could not stop herself from almost losing consciousness. Both their bodies shuddered with passion as he gave her what she wanted. As he had promised, she had never felt such pleasure before. She wept in his arms. He wrapped them around her tightly and whispered in her ear as he brushed his lips over her cheek. “I love you, Summer Sky!”

  She lay on him, locked in his arms for a long moment until the world stopped whirling. “And I love you, too,” she whispered. “I want to marry you.”

  “I’ll marry you,” he kissed the tip of her nose, “when we get to the Big Timber country. But I don’t know where to deliver the ponies.”

  She raised on her elbows and looked down into his smiling face. “I mean, really marry me in a legal ceremony.”

  He seemed lost in a memory. “I almost wish we could go through our first lovemaking again,” he murmured. “You were so innocent and eager there on the creek bank.”

  Frowning, she looked down at him, still held by his manhood. “You don’t understand what I’m saying,” she said shortly. “I want to be married in the white man’s way.” “You don’t think the Cheyenne way is good enough?” He frowned up at her. ”Do you need a white preacher man to feel it is okay to mate with a brown savage?” His voice held an angry edge.

  “When Father Jacques was here I talked to him and—”

  “The white priest has been here and you have seen him?” With an angry gesture, he pushed her off him and stood, grabbing for his clothes in short, annoyed jerks.

  She clasped the fur robe to her naked breasts and looked up at him. “I didn’t realize it would anger you,” she said defensively. “I thought your people trusted the wandering Jesuits—”

  “This is different!” he snapped, pulling the buckskin shirt down over his head. “Suppose the priest searches his conscience and decides he has a stronger duty to the whites than to the Indian? Suppose he decides his God would want him to go to Fort Smith and tell the white soldiers where you are?”

  Summer shook her head, rising up on her elbows. “I don’t think he would do that since I told him I wanted to marry you and stay with your people forever. And he rode west when he left here.”

  “Did he say he would do a marriage for us next time his path crossed that of our band?”

  “Well,” she answered slowly, watching him dress with angry gestures, “he asked if I had given it careful thought and if I might regret it later.”

  “Aha!” His eyes blazed as he whirled on her. “No doubt the good Father will pray over it a little and then go to the fort! I never intended for any whites to see you for just this reason!”

  “I don’t think he would do that—”

  “But you don’t really know, do you? Do you realize what dangers you may have exposed my people to if he brings back the white soldiers?”

  She sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees as she studied him in the firelight, realizing he really was worried that the tribe might now be in danger. Wo
uld the priest do something like that? “I wouldn’t expose Pony Woman and the others to danger, for now they are my people, too.”

  He paced the floor in great agitation. “I have known from the first you would turn my life upside down, and yet I was willing to fight anything and anybody who tried to take you from me! Better, I should have let the old chiefs trade you off to the Nimousin, the Comanche.”

  She stood up naked, put one small hand on his arm. “But you didn’t. Why didn’t you?”

  He paused, his face stormy with inner conflict. “You know why, you pale-haired dream witch! I have too much white blood not to hunger for you! Because from the first moment I saw you I vowed no other man but me would ever touch you!”

  Roughly, he jerked her against him and kissed her so savagely he cut her lip and she tasted blood.

  She put her arms around his neck and clung to him passionately. “You must believe I never meant to endanger your people.”

  “I believe you!” he sighed. “But that does not lessen the fact that my people may be in peril! Tomorrow, at dawn, I will go to the old chiefs and tell them not to take the Mahohewas’ lances down. We can start the people moving camp quickly just in case the old priest sends soldiers.”

  She felt the tension in his hard body and knew he battled inner turmoil. Her lips brushed his cheek and she suspected she tasted the salt of a tear. “Would not the soldiers follow us across the Territory if they come here looking?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Our people have a lot of experience in eluding the soldiers and the desolate plains between here and the Colorado country hold many gulches, rock piles, and other hiding places.”

  “If the soldiers come,” she promised against his lips, “I will tell them I am here of my own free will and do not want to leave. Then they will turn and ride out.”

  “That’s what my mother told them,” he said bitterly, “and they took her away anyhow.”

  “I won’t go with them,” she said firmly, wondering in her own mind if the priest would do such a thing. Now she was uneasy for the safety of the Cheyenne. “It is still a long time till dawn. Let us rest now, for there is nothing that can be done in the middle of the night.”