Tender Taming (12 page)

Eagle was out of sight when she approached the
sofki
pot, but Morning Dew was busily bustling about. She greeted Whitney with a wide smile and a cup of coffee, then, pointing to the pot, told Whitney to eat.

It was some kind of porridge, Whitney realized as she scooped up a bowl, smiled and tasted it. Ugh. Still she kept the smile plastered on her face, not wanting to hurt her hostess’s feelings. Must be something you have to acquire a taste for, she thought wryly, grateful that at least she had a decent cup of coffee.

The now-familiar calls of several Glades birds—herons, egrets and beautiful wood ibis—came to her as she sipped her coffee, and Whitney was again struck by the strange sense of peace one could absorb in the woody environment. Listening to the birds, watching the gentle sway of moss upon cypress, she began to feel languorous. One more cup of coffee and a cigarette and I’ll get going, she promised herself. A quick dart back to the chickee and a trip to the coffee pot and she was all set, comfortably lodged before the cooking fire, her silver lighter flashing quickly as she inhaled deeply. Ahh … nicotine. A sip of invigorating caffeine, and then another inhalation of soothing smoke …

“Oh!” she yelped, startled and dismayed as the cigarette was suddenly wrenched from her fingers. Turning baleful, indignant, then increasingly angry eyes, she saw that Eagle was tossing the remainder of her cigarette into the cooking fire, his face a closed, stoic mask.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, jumping to her feet and facing him with her hands on her hips. “We agreed that my personal habits were my own business—”

“And that they are,” he retorted rudely. “But I also mentioned that you wouldn’t have time to laze around all day with a cigarette. You’ve work to do. Now. We need corn ground before we leave.”

Whatever happened to the tender lover who had cherished her through the night, Whitney wondered fleetingly. Then her anger replaced any other feelings. “Now?” she queried imperiously. She reached for her pack of cigarettes, coolly eyeing him, and slowly lit another, inhaling and exhaling as calmly as if she were sitting in an elegant bar with a piña colada in her left hand. “I’ll be with you in five minutes,” she said with icy dismissal, tossing her head as she reclaimed her seat by the fire.

“I said
now!”
Eagle repeated softly, bending over her to wrench the second cigarette away. As Whitney struggled in rebellious protest, he also secured the entire pack and the silver lighter.

Never before accosted by such a situation, Whitney gave vent to frustrated rage, screaming, “Give those back! You have no right! Damn you—”

Ignoring her tantrum, Eagle swung on his heel. “Go take over the corn grinding for my grandmother. If you’re a good, productive girl, I’ll give you a cigarette break before we leave.”

For a fraction of a second Whitney stood stunned, astounded that he would dare dictate her behavior to such an extent. Then she flew after him and pounded on his back ferociously. Her anger began a climb to disastrous heights as she realized he was laughing, and the next thing she knew, he had dragged her from his back to the ground and pinned her beneath him. With one hand he effortlessly secured both of hers over her head, grinned evilly and held the pack in front of him, pretending to muse seriously over the situation. “If I break them one by one,” he said slowly, “you won’t have any left!”

“No!” Whitney breathed.

“No what?” Eagle demanded.

Whitney broke into a string of abusive language she hadn’t been aware that she knew.

“Un-huh, un-huh!” Eagle warned, clicking his teeth reproachfully.

Helpless with him above her, Whitney could not, nevertheless, control her temper. Wild rage decreed that she pit her entire strength against him, and she did so, writhing desperately against his weight and boalike grip on her wrists.

“Hmmm …” was his only response, his eyes assuming a brilliant twinkle. “That feels great. I think I like you mad.”

“Ohhh,” Whitney groaned, gritting her teeth. But he was right; the grinding of their hips together was bringing back memories of last night when they had joined together …

“Let me up!” she demanded quickly, “and I’ll go pound your damned corn or whatever it is you want done!”

Smiling, he came to his feet and helped her up. “Now that’s the spirit! Whoever said that nicotine addiction couldn’t be a good thing? You’re going to want that cigarette so bad you’ll just plow through the work!”

He chuckled as she stared at him furiously, her eyes snapping emeralds, her beautiful face taut with rebellion, her entire body seething. What perversity goaded him to provoke her, he wondered. Maybe a hint of the arrogance she accused him of. He really didn’t give a damn about the corn himself … but watching her before the fire had reminded him too clearly that she had no part of this world that he could never really leave behind. She had become a wanton in his arms, instinctively pleasing him as no other woman, however well versed in the arts, ever had. He wanted to grab her and force her back to the chickee, or to a bed, or, hell, on the ground—anywhere. He wanted to take her and take her and take her until she was so indelibly bound to him and filled by him that she would never think of touching another man. …

That thought—a vision of her in the arms of another man, touching him, her lips upon him—sobered Eagle. He had only the next few days … just a few more days to possess and win her completely.

“Well, go on!” he growled abruptly, unable to control the forces that gripped him like a madman. Elemental power was all that he had.

She spun past him, muttering about what he was beneath her breath. Brute. Domineering. Uncouth. He even rated “chauvinist.” Her hips swayed enticingly as she walked away. “Damnit!” was the last thing he heard her murmur.

The corn grinder was simply a section of large log, fashioned with a hollow to hold shelled corn. The corn became pulverized by the dropping of a heavy wooden pestle.

Whitney’s arms were aching within a few minutes, but her anger kept her moving. Morning Dew helped her, instructing her in the easiest way to control the heavy pestle. Then she was on her own. Everyone in the village was busy preparing supplies for the festival.

When she had finally finished with the offending corn, Whitney realized it couldn’t be more than nine
A.M.
, yet she felt as if the day should be over. Anyway, she certainly deserved her break! Strolling back to the cooking fire, she found hot coffee and her cigarettes. Wary lest Eagle come upon her and decree that she was supposed to have scrubbed the dirt floor, Whitney took her coffee and cigarette through the little alcove in the trees that led to the lake, found a level stump and sat to enjoy her brief spell of relaxation. God, but she hurt all over! And she was one hell of a fool. What was possessing her to stay and endure such treatment? The answer came to her immediately. Eagle. She was possessed.

A smile twitched her lips. So she was going to become his bride tonight! He would certainly be sorry he had been so rough on her. The continually joked about excuse of a headache had to be a frequent reality for an Indian wife. Headache, nothing! Everything that was part of her ached!

“I’ll have you grind the corn more often if it makes you this happy!”

Whitney glanced from the smoke of her cigarette to Eagle, who had come upon her with his usual irritating silence. A smart retort died in her throat as she stared at him.

He was still clad in the richly colorful Seminole shirt, but he had added to his native costume. His dark head was adorned by a turban of white egret feathers and a warlike band of silver encircled his neck. He had shed his jeans for the brief “skirt” of the kind the Seminoles wore hundreds of years ago, and his high boots were now of buckskin. A knife was strapped to one thigh, and he carried a large, lethal-looking bow, while arrow points peeked over his shoulder. Surely, Whitney decided, Osceola himself had never looked so awe inspiring and fearsome when he arrogantly turned down any terms of peace. Through the decades Eagle had inherited the structure and aura of relentless pride, of independence, of stubborn, ruthless willpower. The bright blue of his eyes and the gauntness of his high-boned face gave conclusive evidence of his white heritage, but that merely seemed to accentuate the ruggedness of his chosen native stance.

“You might want to shut your mouth,” he suggested blandly, a spark of humor discernible in the wry twist of his lips. “You could trap a mosquito if you’re not careful.”

Whitney snapped her mouth shut. “You look … uh … you look …”

“Barbaric?”

Whitney shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “Regal. Like a chief. Are you a chief?”

“No,” he replied, joining her on the stump. “We don’t have chiefs these days. We have council members.”

Speaking her thoughts aloud, Whitney continued. “Well, you do look just like I picture Osceola to have looked.”

Eagle laughed aloud easily, but Whitney felt comfortable with the pleasant sound. Reaching over his shoulder into the leather satchel that held his arrows, he said easily, “Here—I brought you your cigarettes.”

“Thanks,” Whitney replied sardonically. “I just smoked one.” Then, realizing she might be put on another “cold turkey” spell, she accepted the pack from him and lit up. He started to laugh again and she tweaked an inquiring brow at him.

“You
look like one of those feminist cigarette ads! Old-fashioned dress from head to toe, hiding away in the bushes to smoke!”

“Aren’t you glad I’m not a real women’s libber? I’d never be in these woods!”

His light banter ceased suddenly and he took her chin gently in his hand. The timbre of his voice was soft and low. “What are you, Whitney? What are you really?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied, annoyed that her answer warbled nervously. Their relationship was such a strange one. It was business between them, then hostility, then passion and chemistry. But passion was one thing in the throes of ecstasy in his arms; friendship was another. She was terrified to come too close, to put demands on an intimacy that he had probably shared before yet to her was … skyrockets.

He didn’t release her chin, and his next question was blunt and audacious. “Were you divorced because of the sex problem? Don’t start blushing—after last night it’s a little late for secrets or hedging with me.”

Whitney managed to extract her chin on the pretense of taking a drag of her cigarette. Staring straight ahead of her, she honestly replied, “No. I didn’t even realize at the time that I was missing anything. We just made each other miserable. I wanted to work; Gerry wanted a wife who was always home looking pretty. He wouldn’t force me to quit, and I couldn’t volunteer. One day I just sat down and told him that what we were doing was ridiculous. We were—and are—friends. We wanted different things, that’s all.”

The tiny alcove seemed very hushed when she finished speaking. Eagle eventually asked, “And what is it that you want?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Whitney answered truthfully. “To be respected, I suppose. To have my opinions matter. To care deeply …” She crushed her cigarette, very carefully grinding it into the dirt. “What do you want out of life?”

“Probably the very same things,” he answered her levelly, his blue eyes warmly sincere for the moment. “I think we all do.”

He stood abruptly, and the close intimacy was broken. “Come, Whitney. Your dugout awaits.”

Whitney rose obediently and placed her hand in his outstretched one. They were both guarded again, and yet something more had been forged between them than the chemistry that had promised that they would be lovers just as surely as the sun would rise.

But, Whitney thought wryly, just as surely as that sun would rise, the moon would follow. They were both willful, stubborn and demanding. They would love, but would they hate with equal depth and ferocity?

As the dugout trailed through the marshy land to take them to the Green Corn Dance, Eagle explained something of the festival. The majority of the Miccosukees in Florida would attend, even those living in more northern parts of the state. Although the Muskogee or Cow Creek Seminoles held their own dance, many of them would also come. Many ancient customs would be adhered to, and many men, who usually wore jeans these days, would dress in tribal costume. The Indians hunted with shotguns; the bow and arrows he carried were for games, although they were not a competitive people. The idea of a contest was not to win but to excel as far as one could for one’s own benefit and satisfaction. The good of the family and tribe was the main consideration for all Seminoles. “Actually,” Eagle said with a grin, “we don’t call ourselves Seminoles; in Muskogee we are
Istichatee,
in Miccosukee, we are
Yakitisee.
Both terms mean ‘red people.’”

“I hope I remember all this!” Whitney said, watching the strong play of muscles in his arms as he unerringly guided the dugout canoe that carried the two of them and Morning Dew with fixed precision through what appeared to be endless miles of identical marshland. “And I do hope that the venerable J. E. Stewart is impressed!”

If she hadn’t been preoccupied with her own thoughts, Whitney might have noticed that Eagle grimaced ruefully. As it was, she frowned and continued in the same vein. “Although I’m still at a loss as to what I should be understanding. From what I’ve learned, the Indians do live hard lives! Think how much easier life could be for your grandmother if she had a washing machine and electricity and—”

“Have you been unhappy, Whitney?”

The question interrupted her with a hushed, sensual quality. Blushing, Whitney trailed a hand over the top of the water and whispered, “No.” Then she raised her eyes to his with timid mischief. “But you can be pushy at times! Argumentative and demanding!”

He smiled rakishly in return. “That’s right. When one deals with a dedicated reformer, one must be prepared to demand.”

Before Whitney could think of a suitable reply, Eagle pointed over her shoulder with a paddle. “Ceremony grounds.”

Ceremony grounds! Whitney groaned, twisting to see the mass activity. There had to be close to a thousand Indians. A faint, tremulous fear edged over her.