Gray Hawk's Lady: Blackfoot Warriors, Book 1 (25 page)

It was, perhaps, a moot point to argue, since she lay nude within Gray Hawk’s arms. But she couldn’t let such an all-encompassing statement fall without comment.

He said, “From this moment forward, you will lie with no other but me. You are now my sits-beside-him-woman.”

Was she? She tried to think back to what they had discussed earlier. She remembered him saying something to this effect a little while before they had made love, but she couldn’t recall her own response.

Had she agreed?

Surely not. Besides, there had been no ceremony—even in crude form—that would have united them as husband and wife.

“Gray Hawk,” she said, “to be your sits-beside him-woman would mean that we are married, and I do not remember any ceremony that has bound us.”

He chuckled. “You do not recall this?” He touched her breasts. He squeezed them.

She moaned just a little.

“Or how about this?” He ran his fingers down to her womanhood.

“Gray Hawk, you tease me.”

“
Saa
, no,” he said. “Only a little. What we did is one of the oldest ways in the world to unite a man and a woman. Be glad that I told you before I took you that I would make you my sits-beside-him-woman. With no gifts presented to you, I could easily walk away from you and brag of it to my friends.” He touched her nose with his finger. “Be happy that I claim you.”

“Humph!” she said as she snuggled into the shelter of his arms where they lay beneath a canopy of wooded forest. Gray Hawk had brought them here the day after they had made love, saying that this was a secluded spot, one not easily detected by other tribes, nor by a scout from his own Pikuni.

They had lingered in this camp now for two days, alternating between making love and sleeping, more often involved in the former.

She didn’t know why she argued the point with him. She had come to understand that she loved this man more than she could remember loving anyone. And it seemed that in any society, white or Indian, when a woman felt the way she did about a man, they married.

Yes, there would be problems. Yes, there would be heartaches to face and to overcome in the future, but it all seemed so far away from her now.

All she wanted at the moment was to enjoy the present. The present with Gray Hawk.

She asked, “How long do we stay here?”

He drew a deep breath. “I do not know. I do not wish to leave, and yet I know that we must. I have things I must see to in my village—”

“And I have my father.”

“
Aa
,
yes,” he said. “Your father.”

“Gray Hawk—”

“Not now. Let us enjoy this just a little longer. Too soon we will have to face our problems. Let us have this time together now.”

“But—”

“
Annisa
.”
He held a finger to her lips. “Not now. Soon.”

She opened her mouth, but he gave her such a stern look that she found herself chuckling at him instead of scolding him.

She stretched and, glancing away, looked above her to where the blue sky peeked down through the boughs of long, spiny pine and balsam trees. She could see puffs of clouds up there, the white dots in the sky the only thing to be witnessed in an otherwise unmarred blue perfection.

Below her, Gray Hawk had placed fir tree branches. Their cushiony softness, with the buckskin robe beneath her, acted as a mattress for her. The fragrance was enchanting, reminding her of Christmas, and though the pine limbs made a crunchy sound each time she moved, it was not an altogether uncomfortable bed.

She gazed off to her right, where there stretched more of the forest, dark green as far as she could see. She turned her head in the opposite direction to catch an occasional glimpse of snowcapped mountains through the rustling tree boughs.

It was cool too in this country, but she barely felt it, wrapped up as she was in Gray Hawk’s embrace.

“Where are we, Gray Hawk?”

“We are in my country, Pikuni country.”

“But where is that exactly?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It is north and west of the white man’s fort where I first saw you. Our country is marked on the west by the Backbone.”

“The Backbone?”

“The Backbone of the World, what the white man calls the Rocky Mountains.”

“Oh, I see. We are that far west?”

He nodded.

And she sighed. The knowledge was depressing, all out of proportion, especially in the wake of her recent awareness of Gray Hawk.

But there was nothing for it. Their location only served to remind her of how far away she was from St. Louis. And she feared that all might be lost. Even if a miracle occurred and she was able to persuade Gray Hawk to turn around and take her back home, there might not be enough time now to salvage her father’s project.

It was odd, she thought. Although she had just discovered love for Gray Hawk, a love that brought her feelings of joy and happiness, another part of her was as despondent as she was happy. And her fears seemed always there, just slightly out of view until a memory of her father or her home came to mind, replacing with anxiety any enjoyment she might feel.

In truth, Gray Hawk’s continued disregard for her predicament did much to anger her.

There must be something she could do. She thought for a moment.

There was.

“Gray Hawk,” she began. “I have a proposition to put to you.”

“What is a pro-po-si-tion?”

She stared at him. “It is a like a suggestion. It is an idea I would put to you in an effort to bargain with you.”

“You wish to barter with me?”

“No, Gray Hawk, bargain.”

“Is it not the same thing?”

“No, I… It doesn’t matter. I would like to present something to you and see if I might reach an agreement with you.”

“For something that you want?”

“Yes,” she said. “But also for something that you seem to want too.”

He rose onto his elbow next to her. “I am listening.”

“Well,” she said, her words coming quickly, “as you know, I worry over the fate of my father’s work. You must realize that I was desperate to help him with his project, otherwise I would never have come to this country.”

He nodded.

“I propose this to you: take me home, back to St. Louis, but you accompany me there. There, you and my father can talk; he can learn all he wants about your people from you; and in return for this, I will gladly marry you and return here to this country with you.”

He didn’t even hesitate. He said, “You are already married to me.”

“I did not agree to it, though.”

“You did when you lay down beneath me.”

“I did not know that.”

“It matters little to me. The result is the same. You are my sits-beside-him-wife, and I already have you in my country. You try to barter with things that are already mine.”

“That is not true.”

“Is it not? I see you here before me. We are in Pikuni country. I—”

“I will fight you, Gray Hawk. I could make your union with me unbearable, and believe me, if you do not help me, I will try.”

He gazed at her for several moments before he rested back against the ground, bringing both hands up behind him to cushion his head. He said, “Yes, I can see that you might do this. It is within a wife’s realm to make her husband either rejoice in his decision or regret it. I will not interfere with you in this matter. But I do not think, little Gen-ee, that you can carry this all the way through our marriage.”

“What do you mean?”

“The marriage bed,” he said, grinning. He slanted a glance off to the side, toward her. “It is there in the marriage bed that I think you would have little opposition to me.”

“Oh! Of all the…” She turned over, presenting him with her back.

He came up behind her, fitting his hard curves against her soft ones. She scooted over farther, away from him, but he put his arm over her to prevent her from going too far. Picking up her hair and nuzzling her neck, he said, “I cannot take you to your St. Louis right now, beautiful Gen-ee. I have my own problems that I must see to as soon as I get back to my village. If I didn’t have those, maybe I would do as you ask, but it is not to be. I cannot pretend that I do not have responsibilities in my home.”

She leaned back against him. “Nor can I, Gray Hawk,” she said, turning her face slightly toward him. “Nor can I fail to remember that I must help my father.”

He nodded his understanding, and, taking her in his arms, he kissed her.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I wish it could be otherwise. I wish I could grant to you all that you desire, but I cannot. I have to take all things into consideration, and that includes my own people.”

“But—”

“Not now. Later you can yell at me and say bad things about me. Let us have this one last day together without fighting.”

“I’m not—”

He kissed her again, this time sweeping his tongue into her mouth, and she responded to him at once, meeting him with an immediate passion of her own.

And as the day wore on, as he had predicted, so too it happened: he met no opposition from her within the marriage bed.

They left the next morning, packing up their few belongings and setting to the trail before the sun had even touched the horizon.

Their way became more difficult, since they were no longer traveling over the prairie. They had started to ascend a small mountain, and now their trail was marked by luxuriant forests where the trees grew tall and splendid, where the weeds and flowers sometimes grew high enough to touch the shoulder, and where the cool, fragrant smell of pine, of grasses and of crisp autumn air assailed them.

The earth beneath her feet was blanketed with undergrowth, giving Genevieve the impression that the ground was not quite solid.

There were lakes, too, hidden here in the mountainous forest, the pines and firs growing right up to the water’s edge. And even she couldn’t fail to notice the tracks of deer, of moose, of bears, which crossed their path and disappeared within the forest.

They stopped at one of the lakes to drink of the cool, clear water. It was refreshing, invigorating and cold, and Genevieve realized that this lake must be fed by icy mountain streams. She could also make out the distinctive sound of waterfalls splashing into the lake.

“Where are the waterfalls that I hear?” she asked Gray Hawk.

“To the east.” He pointed. “We will go by one of them soon.”

“Really? Will we stop there?”

He grunted. “We can, but only for a little while. We are close to my village, and I am anxious to arrive.”

“I see,” she acknowledged, and again they fell into silence.

She began to recognize some things, like the birds. She identified the call of a loon, the songs of many thrushes, of the robins and the doves. In truth, there were so many different birds here, she could barely keep count. She had already taken note of sparrows, chickadees, even some tree swallows.

“What is the name of the bird that sings such a pretty song?” she asked Gray Hawk after a while.

He stopped. He listened. “That?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“That is the
atsiinisisttsii
,
the bobolink. It is the bird we call the Gros Ventre bird, because he talks good Gros Ventre, the language of a neighboring tribe.”

She smiled.

On they went, and once, when she chanced a peek up at the snowcapped mountains to their left, Genevieve saw a band of mountain goats traversing the difficult peaks. Here, too, she got her first glimpse of a glacier.

She mentioned the fact to Gray Hawk, who only shrugged and said they would see many more before they came to his village.

The wind blew a warm breeze upon her, brushing back her hair and bringing with it the fragrance of summer, of lush green grasses and balmy days.

She’d never seen anything like this breathtaking landscape, and she wondered how many other white people had ever experienced it.

Not many, she guessed.

But soon they were descending from this mountainous terrain, and the air became warmer, even hot.

They camped for the night in a glade of long grass and wildflowers. Surrounding them were more forests of pine and of balsam.

She fell into Gray Hawk’s arms that night and gazed up at the multitude of stars overhead. Something within her reached out to it, to the big expanse of space, and she felt an unusual sensation, as though she were as boundless as the open sky.

In the distance, a lone coyote howled into the night, begging a sweetheart to come out and play. And it occurred to her that she was remarkably content here. Here with her Indian lover, with nothing on her back but her ragged green dress; here, where she owned nothing more than the buckskin robe she had placed beneath her. She had never felt so invigorated, so happy, nor so much at peace.

Her last thought that night before she drifted off to sleep was one of wonderment. She could probably not count even one person back home who, in the frenzied pace and constant strife to pay bills, could attest to sleeping so soundly as she did here.