Sioux Slave (15 page)

“That is all I can hope for,” she sighed, and abruptly Kimi saw how old and sick she looked. “I do not have very long. It was my fondest wish that you be married to a good warrior who would care for you when I am gone.”

“Hinzi will care for me, and for you, too, Mother.”

“Will he? Or will he only use you and then abandon you when he moves on? Think, daughter!” She shook a wrinkled finger in Kimi's face. “If this soldier returns to his people, will he take you with him? Will you fit in with his kind? You cannot read or write. You have never even sat in a chair. How will you compare to the fine white women he knows? Will he be ashamed to call you his woman there?”

She did not even want to think about it, but already the image of the girl he had spoken of came to her mind. “I will think no further than now,” she said firmly, fingering her medicine object. “Remember only that you are about to be a rich woman of many ponies and there will be food in your lodge.”

“I remember that an enemy soldier, a killer of my people, a despoiler of our women, is mating with my daughter. That indeed is a bitter thing.”

“I love him.” Kimi realized that now. She hesitated, wondering if her mother had freed the soldier from his chains. Kimi didn't want to know. No doubt Wagnuka had hoped he would escape and never come near her daughter again. She must have been desperate to risk the old chiefs' wrath that way.

“Love!” The wrinkled face twisted bitterly. “When he puts a baby in your belly and deserts you, you will know how crooked the white man's tongue can be. But if you are bound to do this thing and he has already taken you, I will accept defeat.” She made a gesture of surrender and her thin shoulders slumped.

“Mother, I think you will live to know that Hinzi's heart is good and that he truly cares about me.”

“A white man like him would have to worship a woman to turn his back on everything he holds dear and live among us forever. Are you sure he is willing to make such a great sacrifice for your sake?”

Kimi could only shrug helplessly. “I have no answers. I listen to my heart.”

“Better you should listen to your wise mother. Leave me now,” the old woman gestured, “and send in your soldier.”

Knowing her mother's heart would hear no reason, Kimi went outside, her thoughts confused. Was she troubled because her mother was so set against Hinzi, or because secretly she feared that her mother spoke the truth? She would not think of that now.

She found Hinzi just coming from council, where One Eye had spoken for him and the old chiefs had decided the soldier might stay until they made a final decision. It was not often, Kimi knew, that an enemy turned his back on his own kind and came to spend his life among them. Perhaps they doubted his intent and had decided to wait and see.

She thought about her Mother's French trapper. A white man. So old Otter was not really her father. She had wanted to press Wagnuka for more information, but dared not. It had hurt her mother enough to tell what little she had revealed.

One Eye rubbed his scarlet eye patch as he quickly told her the details of how he had spoken words of praise and defense for the white soldier.

Humming her spirit song for comfort, Kimi approached the white. “My mother would speak with you.”

Hinzi looked questioningly at One Eye, who grinned at him. “It is really not proper for you to meet with Wagnuka. Usually a friend or relative meets with the girl's male relative.”

“She wants to meet with Hinzi,” Kimi insisted stubbornly.

One Eye nodded and strode away.

Kimi bit her lip. “I know now why Mother distrusts
wasicu
so. I am fathered by a white trapper, a Frenchman from the Grandmother's Land.” She gestured toward the north–Canada, the whites called it.

He started to say something, shrugged. “I will be at the big council fire for the feasting and dancing soon. Now I will meet with Wagnuka.”

 

 

Wagnuka looked up as he entered and sat down cross-legged. He was indeed handsome, she thought, even more handsome than the brown-eyed Frenchman she herself had loved so many, many years ago. “I do not give my approval that you take my daughter as your woman.”

“I come to offer gifts,” he said and his face was stubborn. “I will have her whether you wish it or not.”

“You are forward and not respectful,” she snapped.

He peered at her across the fire as if trying to see her soul. “You set me up, woman, tried to lead me into a trap and get me killed. Do you hate me so much?”

“It is not that I hate you but that I love Kimimila,” she said without guilt. “I knew as long as you drew breath, you would be a danger to her.”

“My intentions are honorable. To show you I speak with a straight tongue, I offer a major gift; ten ponies.” He paused. “I give all I have captured.”

She was impressed. “There are many girls in this camp whose parents would be pleased with a gift of three.”

He smiled and she saw the wanting in his pale eyes. “But they are not the parents of Kimimila.”

“Well spoken.” She softened a little in spite of herself. “It is not right that you make arrangements through her mother.”

He shrugged. “You have no male relatives to do this thing for you?”

She shook her head, feeling very old and ill. “You will take her in your blankets whether I say yea or no.”

“I will take her, yes.” His jaw looked firm, his mouth a grim line. “The little butterfly is a fever in my blood that can only be quenched by putting my body into hers, feeling her naked against my skin.”

“A white man once said something like that to me,” she said and her voice sounded bitter as gall in her own ears. “Once I was young and pretty, too, but he threw me away.”

“Why do you lie to Kimi?” he whispered.

She felt the blood rush to her face. “I do not know what it is you speak.”

“You make her think she is a half-breed, fruit of your own,” he insisted, “but I see that she is white as I am. Kimi is trusting and believes you. I say she has not one drop of Sioux blood.”

If at that moment she had had a knife, she would have driven it into his heart to make sure he did not reveal what he knew. “I had a half-breed child,” she began uncertainly.

“Not Kimi,” he insisted, “Besides, you are too old to be her mother.”

Wagnuka glared at him across the fire. “You see too much, soldier. Yes, you are right on both counts. Long before Kimi's time, I had a son by a white trapper. When the son was weaned, he took the boy and traded me for a new rifle to another
wasicu
at a trading post. He wanted a son; squaws he could get anywhere.”

The soldier's eyes softened in sympathy. “I might have guessed. What happened to the boy?”

Wagnuka shrugged. “I never knew; I never saw him or his father again. Somewhere he is a grown man, this handsome, half-breed son, if he yet lives. I do not even know that.” The tears came to her eyes unbidden but she blinked them back. She would not be shamed before this white man.

“How came you by Kimi then?”

He would not stop until he knew; she could tell that by the stubborn glint in his eyes. “All who know are long dead. You are right, soldier, I am too old to be her mother, but innocent and trusting as she is, she has never questioned anything I tell her. If I tell you, will you promise not to take her from this camp or tell my secrets until I am gone?”

He hesitated. “Yes, old woman, I promise, but for myself, I must know. Somewhere a white family looks for her.”

Wagnuka shook her gray braids. “I think not. I think her family is long dead out on the plains south of here.”

“A raid?”

“No. This is a very strange story I will tell, but if I must, I will bite the knife to prove that what I speak is true.”

He sat silently, waiting.

“After the white man threw me away, I was a whore for a white trader until a warrior named Otter rescued me. My son was gone and Otter and I never had any of our own who lived.”

“And?” he prompted.

She listened to the chanting and the drums drifting faintly from outside. There would be feasting and dancing tonight to celebrate the victory. And then Hinzi would take her daughter as his own into his lodge, no matter what an old woman said.

“I was past the age to produce children for Ptan and had long ago given up hope. Then one night I dreamed a butterfly lit upon my hand out on the prairie and whispered to me that Wakan Tanka was sending me a girl child to be my very own.”

In the silence, the fire crackled and the white warrior waited, patient as any Lakota brave.

“I dreamed I said to the butterfly, ‘how will I know this is a child for me'? ‘Because she will be different than other children; she will have eyes the same color as those of the sacred White Buffalo Woman of Sioux legends. When the girl speaks, you will know Wakan Tanka sent her to you.' ”

“Kimi,” Hinzi murmured.

Wagnuka nodded. “Our people were on a buffalo hunt far from here. The next day, Otter and a hunting party ranged a long way off. He told me they found white people scattered over a very far distance as if they had tried to walk from somewhere and gradually, as their strength failed them and their water ran out, they fell one by one and died.”

The soldier looked puzzled. “Where did they come from?”

“We never knew. There weren't that many, and no one was sure where they came from. The oxen and a few horses they had were not enough to take them very far and those, too, had died.”

“It was not near a white town?”

“No,” she shook her head. “The area is very desolate and short of food and water. No doubt somehow they had strayed there and finally realizing they were lost, they made one last desperate attempt to walk out.”

“And Kimi was the only one alive?”

“The man who carried the child in his arms was barely alive and yet he protected her with his body. His eyes were green as new grass and he whispered a word,
‘kimimila,'
before he died.

“But how would a white man speak Lakota?” His handsome face grew puzzled.

“I only tell you about spirit medicine, I don't explain it,” Wagnuka said simply. “In his pocket, the man carried a round, gold thing. Its heart beat when Otter held it to his ear. Otter was afraid of its magic and he hit it with a stick until it was crushed and its heart stopped ticking.”

“A watch,” Hinzi said.

She didn't know what that was. “The medicine object that Kimi wears around her neck was attached to it.”

“A watch fob,” he muttered. “White gentlemen let it hang from their vest pocket. When did this take place?”

Wagnuka wrinkled her face thoughtfully. “The year my people name the Time the Crow Held the Sioux at Bay.”

She could tell by his expression that he did not understand winter counts. The Lakotas kept a calendar on a buffalo hide and each winter was noted by something outstanding that had happened that year.

“Tell me about the child,” Hinzi insisted.

“Nothing more to tell. She was so young, maybe not more than two or three winters. The only word the child said was the same one the dying man used,
‘kimimila.'
Otter took this as a sign from Wakan Tanka that this was the child the butterfly had promised me. The war party buried the scattered white people where they lay, afraid that the Lakota would be accused of killing them. We never knew any more than that.”

“But one of the women must have been the child's mother.”

She nodded. “Probably. There was no way to know which of the several dead women scattered down the miles of trail was the mother.”

“And you kept Kimi as your own, hiding her whenever whites came near?”

“I knew they would take her from me.” Wagnuka swallowed hard. “They would not understand that Wakan Tanka had given her to me; otherwise, why would she know a Lakota word?”

He looked puzzled, too. “It is indeed a mystery. Perhaps you are right; perhaps her people are all dead. Maybe no family searches for her.”

She wished she could read the white man's thoughts and know whether his heart was good. “You will not tell Kimi of this talk?”

He hesitated. “Not as long as you live, old woman, you have my word.” He stood up slowly.

“One more thing,” she said. “Now that I am to be your mother-in-law, it is not a custom to speak to your mother-in-law among our people. This is the last conversation we will ever have.”

“You will not try to stop me from taking Kimi as my own then?”

She shook her head, wishing her ambush had worked and that the soldier had been killed. That way she would not have to worry about him taking Kimi away. “Easier to stop a river at spring flood than hot blood pulsing on a warm spring night. Go to her now.”

He nodded and stooping his tall frame, left the tipi. Wagnuka looked after him, feeling very old and sick, thinking of the white man she herself had loved so many years ago and wondering what had ever happened to her half-breed son. Perhaps she would never know. Tonight she missed old Otter very much and she wrapped her withered arms around herself and rocked back and forth, keening a grief song. She did not trust this Hinzi, but she was helpless to stop him. Sooner or later he would return to his people, to a place where Kimi would not fit in even if he took her with him. Wagnuka saw nothing but trouble and heartache on the horizon for the white child she had raised as her own. She said a prayer to Wakan Tanka to protect Kimi from the soldier's lust.

Kimi served the men as they sat around the big fire, modestly keeping her eyes downcast. Hinzi sat in a place of honor next to One Eye, watching the scalp dancing as celebrations went on around the hair of the Crow enemies he had helped slay.

She wanted very much to know what he and old Wagnuka had discussed. Certainly he had looked both annoyed and relieved as he swaggered from the old woman's lodge and strode to join the crowd gathering around the big camp fire.

Now as she served him meat into a gourd, he said softly, “She has agreed. I gave her a gift of ten ponies.”

Next to him One Eye laughed good-naturedly. “Ten ponies? Tomorrow everyone in camp will know. There are many pretty girls among the Lakota you might have had for two or three ponies.”

Hinzi caught her eye and looked at her solemnly. “I would have given twenty to claim Kimimila.”

She felt the blood rush to her face, knowing some of those around him had heard and tomorrow it would be told through the camp that the white warrior was so smitten with Mato's widow that he had given a great bride gift to get her. For a white man to think so highly of a Lakota girl complimented her and raised Hinzi in the tribe's opinion.

White man's whiskey had been passed around the warriors and One Eye frowned. “This drink brings us only trouble.”

She watched Hinzi take a big drink, the whiskey running from the corners of his mouth, dripping on his bare, brawny chest. “Kentucky bourbon,” he drawled, “it brings back a lot of memories.”

She wondered then if he thought of the other girl, but said nothing as she sat down on the ground near him.

The dancing grew more lively, the people writhing to the rhythm of the drums, throwing grotesque shadows in the firelight. The drums beat a rhythm that felt like the beating of her heart. Finally, after a few more sips of whiskey, Hinzi, at the urging of some of the other braves, moved to dance in the circle.

He was as graceful as a cougar, Kimi thought admiringly, despite his size. He danced with a natural ease and rhythm that any warrior might envy. When he looked across the big fire at her, his eyes sent her a message as primitive as time itself. Without realizing she did so, Kimi moved to dance about the circle with him, chanting and twisting to the beat. She took a deep breath and was aware of the scent of the fire and his warm skin. Her own body felt warm beneath her doeskin sheath–or maybe it was only the way Hinzi's pale blue eyes swept over her. There was no doubt in her mind what he wanted.

They danced around the fire, moving gradually to the shadows. Already couples were drifting away to their tipis or to lie on soft buffalo robes out under the stars.

Hinzi reached out and caught her arm. “My body has need of you.”

When she hesitated, he swung her up in his arms. “You are mine now and I will have you. I have thought of nothing else since last night.”

She opened her mouth to say that she was not yet ready to leave the dancing, but his hot mouth covered hers, thrusting with an insistent blade of tongue, making her breathe faster.

He smiled ever so slightly. “You want me too.” With that, he carried her through the camp and into his lodge. He stood her on her feet.

She hesitated, looking at him across the fire. “Oh, Hinzi, are you sure? Sure you want to stay among the Lakota?”

He stripped off his buckskins and stood there naked as some primitive savage in the firelight. His erect manhood would have done justice to a stallion, and the pale light gleamed on his rippling magnificent body. “I must be three kinds of a fool to lust after one so young,” he muttered. “I only know that I want you under me; I can think no further than that. Tomorrow must take care of itself. Still I have never known such freedom,” he whispered. “To live as a warrior without the restraints of civilization, wild and free. This is what every white man secretly dreams of.”

She looked at him, big and virile and all male. He was what every woman dreamed of, she thought. To be carried off by him and pleasured without thought of anything but the ecstasy and the passion. She would not think past this moment or worry about what would happen in the future.

Very slowly, she took off the doeskin shift and stood there naked.

“Take down your hair,” he commanded.

She did as she was bid, letting the waist-length, ebony locks cascade down over her breasts and back.

“Sweet butterfly, you are the most desirable woman I have ever seen,” he whispered. “Turn around slowly; let me look at you.”

Kimi took a deep breath, knowing it caused her proud breasts to thrust forward as she slowly turned for his inspection. His look almost seemed like a caress against her bare belly and thighs as he stared at her.

“Now come here.”

She obeyed and without realizing she did so, she knelt submissively before him. He reached out, stroked her long black hair. She wrapped her arms about his hips, pressing her breasts against his powerful thighs, and then she kissed his manhood in complete surrender to the symbol of domination it represented.

She felt him draw in his breath sharply, and she knew the touch of her mouth gave him pleasure. She pressed her breasts against his thighs harder, took him deep in her mouth, running her tongue along the pulsating steel of his rod.

He groaned and held her face against him, urging–no, demanding–still more. The taste and scent of his seed excited her as she had not realized she could be thrilled. “Sweet butterfly,” he whispered, “I am still your slave.”

He reached to swing her up in his arms, kissing her face, her eyes, her lips. “Let me show you how much I desire you!” He lay her down on a soft buffalo robe and began to caress her with his mouth, tasting and kissing her bare skin. His tongue laved her breasts and the hollow of her belly She felt the heat of his breath on the inside of her thigh.

Surely he wasn't going to ... ? And then he did. She tried to protest, tried to pull away, but he was insistent and very strong. Who was the slave? All she could do was gasp and arch her back, spreading herself in complete surrender to his dominance as he tasted and caressed where he would. She had not known the forbidden thrust of a man's tongue could send such shivers of passion from where he kissed all up through her body.

When he kissed her mouth, she tasted herself on his lips as his hands sought her breasts, pulling her astride him. After that, she forgot everything except the feel of him throbbing deep inside as she used him for her pleasure . . . and his. In that moment when they reached the zenith of passion together, she forgot that he hadn't said he loved her or that this was an impossible alliance. Kimi remembered only that he was made to fit her sheath and she could not stop herself from urging him to plunge his great dagger deep.

When she lay spent in his arms, listening to his gentle breathing as he slept, she remembered again her mother and wondered if this was how it had been with Wagnuka and her white trapper. Yet knowing that this could not last, that there was a white girl waiting for Hinzi and that someday he would surely leave, Kimi could not force herself not to love him, not to desire him. She would live one day at a time, savoring each moment as long as the white warrior was among the Sioux. Tonight she was the white warrior's woman. She would face the reality of his leaving on the day that it happened and not borrow tomorrow's worries. Promising herself that, despite grave misgivings, Kimi curled up in his strong, protective arms and dropped off to sleep.

 

 

The next morning a brave galloped through camp, shouting that a big herd of buffalo had been sighted grazing only a few miles away. Kimi looked from her fire, where she had just fed Hinzi, to the warrior himself. “Do you hear that? Are you a good hunter?”

He smiled at her, paused in repairing the bow One Eye had given him. “A very good hunter, however, I haven't done much buffalo hunting. I don't suppose it can be very different from fox hunting.”

Kimi blinked. “The civilized whites eat foxes as the Lakota do dogs?”

Hinzi laughed, his even white teeth gleaming in his tanned face. “No. We merely get a large group of people together on horseback, a bunch of dogs and hunt them. It's a sport; lots of fence jumping and exciting because it's a little dangerous.”

She tried to understand. “Then the fox fur must have great value for everyone to go on this hunt.”

Hinzi scratched his head. “No, no one really wants the fox hide; although being awarded the brush is quite an honor.”

“The ways of the white people are very mysterious,” Kimi said and shook her head, “to go on a long, dangerous ride to hunt something that no one plans to eat and no one needs the fur?”

Hinzi looked a little embarrassed. “Now that I think of it,” he drawled, “it does sound a little silly, even to me.”

“Do women go on these hunts?”

“Sometimes,” Hinzi said as he stood up, “but only the very best riders. And they ride sidesaddle.”

Kimi didn't say anything. She was an excellent rider herself and wasn't ever sure what a “sidesaddle” was. She was glad that she didn't have to live among silly, wasteful whites who killed a small animal for no good reason. It didn't even sound like it would be very exciting.

The whole camp was awake and full of excitement as the hunters made plans and the women talked of the feast they would have tonight. One Eye had given his favorite horse, Scout, to Hinzi as a gift for saving his life. There were many ceremonies to perform to insure good medicine and a rewarding hunt. Wagnuka joined Kimi as she gathered up her skinning knife and helped with a travois to carry the meat back to camp.

Hinzi looked magnificent astride his spirited horse, Kimi thought, her heart swelling with pride as she watched him join the warriors. He was dressed like any Lakota brave. Except for the moccasins and a brief loincloth, his big, muscular body was naked and tanning fast in the prairie sun. His yellow hair was getting a little shaggy, but still not long enough to braid as the other warriors wore theirs.

Her mother frowned. “Now we will see if your white warrior can provide meat for a lodge. If he is not a good hunter and unable to feed his woman, it does not matter if he was an important person in his own life.”

Kimi smiled, looking after him as he joined the men. “I do not worry. Hinzi seems to be fitting in well with the Indian life. Tonight we will all feast.”

Old Wagnuka shook her head. “There are still many among our people who are suspicious of him and trust him not. They think the first chance he gets he will run away and return to the whites.”

Deep in her heart, Kimi was afraid to admit that that suspicion had crossed her own mind, but she didn't want to think about it. “Come,” she motioned, “we are wasting time. We will join the women who make ready to cut up the meat once the braves bring the buffalo down.”

Rand's heart quickened as he reined the dancing buckskin stallion in and looked around at the other hunters. Maybe at heart he was just a primitive savage himself. He had not realized until the last few days what a soft, boring life he had led as a rich son of a big plantation owner. Was it this simple, primitive life that seemed so exciting or was it the girl, Kimimila?

Rand glanced back over his shoulder at her, remembering last night. He hadn't realized living as an Indian with no clock and close to nature would appeal to him so much. He imagined Lenore Carstairs in an expensive dress with all its hoops, a whalebone corset, and her mincing, ladylike gait. She always looked as if she might trip and fall. He couldn't even picture her naked on a buffalo robe, reacting with wild, abandoned passion the way Kimi had done last night.

Kimi. He couldn't seem to get enough of the girl's ripe body. Was that love or just lust? At this point he wasn't prepared to say, and didn't even want to think about it. Someday he must go home to the life that he had always led. It wasn't realistic to think he could spend the rest of his life as a white warrior, and yet ...

One Eye interrupted his thoughts. “Come, brother, hunt beside me. The two of us and Gopher and his young son ride together. Here's a rifle for you, since you are new to the bow.”

Rand took the old gun from One Eye, thinking about the many fine rifles he owned back at Randolph Hall. However this wasn't hunting some silly fox for thrills, this was the greatest excitement of all–survival. If a man wasn't a good hunter, his family might go hungry this winter when the snow was deep. Rand had never been hungry except the time he'd spent at Point Lookout prison.

The war. He had lost track of time and all that turmoil seemed so distant and unimportant. Was it over? It didn't even matter any more who had won. What was important was to bring in more than his share of meat, and gain status in the eyes of the Lakota people. This was something he could not buy with family money. Gaining the respect of these primitive people was abruptly more important than any honor he had ever wanted as a Confederate lieutenant or as a wealthy Southern landowner.

The Lakota men rode out to look over the herd, the women with their travois and small children following along. Rand and One Eye joined up with Gopher, and his son, a sturdy, handsome boy who looked about eleven or twelve years old.

The riders scattered out cautiously, watching the huge herd from a distance, careful not to spook them. One Eye explained softly to Rand that buffalo were stupid animals, but they could be dangerous and unpredictable. He frowned. “I hope Gopher's son doesn't do anything foolish. This is his first big hunt and he will be eager to prove himself.”

“No more than I,” Rand said, looking at his friend.

One Eye smiled. “You have already proven yourself, my friend. I think maybe someday you will be invited to share many of our most secret rites as the others gain confidence in you; maybe even the sun dance.”