Native Gold (22 page)

She slid the pencil from between her lips, flipped to a new page, and began to draw. Despite her rattled nerves, her hand was steady, for she captured every nuance of shade, every subtle contour, each flash of translucence, as if the water lived and moved upon the paper. And the man... He was so true to life that she half expected the figure to lazily pitch over and swim off the page.

A fern tickled her nose, and she brushed it back, and then leaned forward to put the finishing touches on the portrait—a few more branches dabbling in the waves, a leaf floating by his head. She decided on the title, scribbling it at the bottom beside her signature.

Just in time. The Indian knifed under, a flash of sculpted buttocks and long legs, disappearing beneath the surface and into the emerald depths.

Sakote saw the movement of branches from the corner of his eye, but gave no indication. If it was a deer, he didn’t want to frighten it from its drinking place. If it was a bear, his splashing would scare it soon enough. If it was a
willa
, he’d have to be clever. He floated a moment more, letting the waves carry him gently toward the deepest part of the pool, watching for sudden movements through the dark lashes of his eyes. Then he gulped in a great breath and dove to the bottom, where the water was cold and shadowy.

He came up silently on the concealed side of the big granite boulder and eased his way out of the water and around the rock until he could see what hid in the brush.

Mati.

She wore another ugly brown dress with lines of other colors running through it like mistakes, and her hair was captured into a tight knot at the back of her head. She bit at her lower lip and leaned out dangerously far between two dogwood saplings, shielding her eyes with one hand, searching the pool for him.

Sakote didn’t know what he felt. Joy. Or anger. Relief. Dread. Or desire.

Worry wrinkled her brow, and she leaned forward even farther, bending the saplings almost to the breaking point.

"Oh, no," she murmured.

Her words were only a breath of a whisper on the breeze, but they carried to his ears like sad music. Mati edged between the two trees and took three slippery steps down the slope. Meanwhile, Sakote moved in the opposite direction, up the rise. While she scanned the water, he crept behind her, stopping when he found the sketchbook on the ground, frowning when he saw the figure floating on the page.

Now he knew what he felt. Fury. He glanced down at his naked body, at his man’s pride, shrunken with cold to the size of an acorn, then at its perfect duplicate drawn on the paper. And he felt as if he would explode with rage.

He must have made a sound, some strangled snarl of anger, for Mati turned. And screamed.

Sakote reached for the sketchbook. He was tempted to throw it into the water, but instead used it to shield his man’s parts from her view. To his satisfaction, the white woman began stammering and blushing, and when he took a step toward her, she almost tripped backwards into the pool.

"What is this?" he demanded, tearing the page violently from the book and shaking it at her. "You make such pictures to shame me?"

Her chin trembled and she blinked many times, but he was certain she wouldn’t cry. No, she was like Hintsuli when he got caught using Sakote’s yew bow. She knew what she’d done was wrong. She knew she deserved his anger.

He grunted, and then dropped the sketchbook to give his full attention to the page he’d torn out. With a determined scowl, he placed his fists together at the edge of the paper and began to tear.

"No!"

Her shriek unnerved him almost as much as her dive toward him. He had torn only a small rip in the paper when she either threw herself or fell to her knees before him.

"Please!" she begged. "Don’t ruin it!" Her hands dug desperately at his thighs. "I’ll never do it again. I promise. Only don’t tear it."

Sakote grimaced. Why did she plead so passionately over a piece of paper? And why did she have to touch him like that? Son of Wonomi! Her woman’s touch softened his anger and made him weak. He wondered if she knew the power she wielded, if she knew how close she was to arousing him, how only the thin sheet of her sketch stood between his awakening spear and...

Her lips. They trembled, and her eyes shone like acorn caps full of rain. Now she looked as if she might indeed weep.

His mouth twisted. Troublesome woman! Why did she want the drawing of him so badly? It didn’t show him hunting or dancing or making fire. It only showed him floating helplessly on his back like a leaf, twirled by the will of the water. By The Great Spirit, with his male parts shrunken by the cold, he didn’t even look like he’d grown to manhood. He wondered what insult she’d scribbled at the bottom.

"What does this say?" He rapped the paper with his knuckle.

"What?" She was startled by his question. "It’s...it’s a name."

"What name?"

She seemed reluctant to tell him. "Ne-, Neptune."

"That’s not my name."

"No."

"Who is this Neptune?"

She didn’t answer, and he prepared to tear the page again.

"Wait!" she relented, blushing like poison oak in fall. "Neptune is a god! He’s the god of water."

God
? It was the last thing Sakote expected.
Fool
maybe.
Drowning Baby
. Or
Crazy Mr. Indian Who Calls Himself a Man
. But
God
? He was simultaneously pleased and horrified.

A drop of water eased down his dark thigh and over her pale finger. His will, too, seemed to slip as easily from him. How could he deny the fragile, golden-haired angel who named him god? Especially when she looked up at him with wide green eyes as moist and innocent as a doe’s? Those eyes could steal his soul from him, he knew, and when his gaze dropped to her mouth, the memory of her lips, sweet and yielding upon his own, sent a lethal rush of warm blood through his veins. He wanted to taste her again. He wanted to bury his hands in her gold-dusted hair and nuzzle her soft cheek, to press his mouth against hers and feel her breath slip between her lips.

"Why do you call me god?" His voice sounded strange to his ears, like the hoarse whisper of the wind, and like the wind, his words rushed out with a will of their own. "My name is Sakote."

Silence hung between them like fog, and he began to wonder at his own wisdom. Why had he told her his name? A man’s name was for kin or close friends, not for
willa
women who would cast it about carelessly.

"Sakote," she murmured.

Like that, he thought, and yet he didn’t flinch. His name sounded right on her lips, like the soft rattle of the instrument for which he was named. He wished to hear it again upon her tongue.

An escaped spiral of hair lay upon Mati’s cheek. He longed to take away the pins and let all the curls tumble like a waterfall. And that wretched dress...it was like the thorny covering of the gooseberry, concealing all the sweetness. Yet Sakote’s heart quickened, remembering the graceful curve of her waist and the small flower buds of her nipples. He was so close to her, in arm’s reach. Close enough to see her heart beating in the column of her throat. Close enough to feel the faint breeze of her warm breath upon his river-cold skin. Wonomi help him, he longed to do far more than kiss Mati now. His heart pounded, and his body filled with need.

But he couldn’t play courting games with her. It wasn’t right. She hadn’t asked for his touch. And Sakote wasn’t like her
willa
husband, to force himself upon a woman. No, he was Konkow, and this was one of those dangerous ways from which he must turn.

With a grunt of regret, he surrendered the drawing to her unharmed. His only consolation was her startled squeak as he stood newly revealed before her, no longer shrunken with cold, but like a warrior roused for battle. Scowling, he turned and trudged down the embankment to find his breechcloth before that determined warrior could betray him completely.

The Indian was halfway down the slope before Mattie could suck air back into her lungs. Even then, she couldn’t breathe properly. His naked backside gleamed tan and taut as he scaled the hill, and the thought of what graced his
front
side, the proud member that had loomed inches away just a moment before, left her jaw lax and her body boneless.

For a time, obsessing over her sketch, she’d almost believed he was a god—distant, perfect, untouchable. But when she’d seen him on the embankment, dripping from the stream, his brow furrowed, his eyes snapping, all flesh and blood and muscle, the truth struck her like a thunderbolt.

He wasn’t a god. He was a man. And he was far from untouchable.

In fact, if he’d remained before her one more moment, she feared she might have proven that without a doubt. Wicked thoughts had run through her head and did still, thoughts of running her fingertips along the smooth bands of his stomach, of lapping up the drops of water that trickled down his chest, of hurling herself into his savage embrace to seal her passion with a breathless kiss.

But he’d escaped. Now he donned his breechcloth and tied it up with a decisive jerk of the thong. Mattie struggled to her feet, slipping on the leaves. He paid her no mind, but pulled his moccasins up over his heels. She glanced at the drawing still clutched in her hand. It was beautiful.
He
was beautiful—savage, proud, and pure. And he was fast eluding her.

"Sakote!"

He raised his head, but wouldn’t look at her.

If he left, she thought in inexplicable panic, she might never see him again. "Please, Mr. Sakote," she called softly, "allow me to draw you again."

He lifted cool black eyes to her.

"However you want," she added, worrying the edge of the paper between her fingers. "With your horse or...or in your teepee, with your peace pipe, anything."

A small frown crossed his brow.

"Please." She glanced at the drawing again, then placed it diplomatically behind her back. "I don’t wish you to leave with anger between us."

After a long while, the Indian finally nodded.

Mattie felt a breath of relief rush out of her. She resisted the urge to clap her hands together in glee.

"Come after the sun rises tomorrow," he told her.

"I won’t be late," she promised.

Before she could utter another word, he vanished into the wood.

Mattie studied the sketch of him one last time. It was perfect, except for the small tear at the top of the page. And upon closer inspection, she decided even that was perfect, for beside the tear was the muddy imprint of the man’s thumb. Sakote had signed his portrait. She ran her own thumb across the mark like a caress. She could hardly wait till tomorrow.

At sunrise, Sakote took care to make no noise as he combed and tied his hair neatly back with a thong. But when he shouldered his bow and slung his rabbit fur quiver across his back, Hintsuli attacked him with so many questions that he feared the boy would wake the whole village.

"Where are you going?" the boy wanted to know. "What are you hunting? I want to go, too."

"No," Sakote whispered. "Our mother only wishes me to get woodpecker feathers."

Hintsuli knew better. He eyed Sakote’s
punda
, the bow and arrows, weapons too large for shooting woodpeckers. Sakote could see the boy preparing to launch a loud, long protest. He held up his hand to halt it.

"All right, little brother," he muttered. "I’ll make a trade with you. If you say nothing of my hunt today, I’ll take you to the valley tomorrow to visit Towani and Noa."

Hintsuli’s eyes lit up. The boy would keep silent.

Sakote managed to leave unnoticed, which was fortunate, since it wasn’t even the right season for hunting deer. It would have been difficult to explain to the tribe that he was taking his bow and arrows to have his picture drawn.

At least, that was the reason he gave himself for why he was going to see the white woman again. He wanted a picture, a
decent
picture—Sakote the Hunter with his bow—to show at the
Kaminehaitsen
dance, a drawing to impress the Konkows from the other villages. And perhaps gain him a woman.