Captive Travelers (21 page)

Ganali became nervous when she watched the women in the crowd.
What if he wants one of them? No, he wants me.
She straightened an arm, moving people aside, with Waka and Soquila following her. Naturally, the people moved for their beloved cows.

Ganali was still three rows back when she saw him, standing proudly between the shaman and the chief, and dressed as a warrior, just for her. “Tommy,” she shrieked, and barreled through the crowd. Her face lit up when he smiled back at her and opened his arms.

“Rebecca,” he said into her hair. He pulled her close and could feel her crying. “What’s wrong?”

“Tokala said you were not real. He told me you would not come for me,” she cried.

“He was wrong, Rebecca. I
did
come for you. I wanted to bring you back, and when I learned I couldn’t, I spent years trying to get to you to make things right.” Tommy had become obsessed with her, and the thoughts of guilt over what his grandmother and brother had done turned to a determination that he would find her. It had been a sign in the shaman’s casting, so he knew that he was meant to come to this world.

She ran her fingers down his face, to make sure that he was real. “You are Cheveyo here, and I am Ganali, but when we are together, you are my Tommy.”

The handsome man smiled at her. “Yes, Rebecca, I am your Tommy,” he agreed.

Wacasa and Wyonet stared at her. Ditzy Ganali, lost in her dreams, had known the meaning of the casting all along. She believed that he would come for her. The strangest thing was the way the warrior looked at her. There was no question he adored her.

“Remember in school when I would ask you what you like? You used to tell stories like my grandfather, and I could see myself as a pirate or prince, always trying to save you.” He smiled when she laughed. “I even had a dream that I was a riverboat gambler, and you were sitting across the table, trying to cheat me.”

Awi and Waka exchanged nervous glances.

Ganali said, “
You
were trying to cheat
me
. A straight beats a full house.”

Tommy looked surprised, and Waka stepped forward. “That’s exactly what I told Awi, Ganali.” She introduced herself and Soquila to Tommy. “Ganali stays with Soquila and me, and you are welcome to join us until we can settle you into a place of your own.”

The crowd slowly dispersed, most heading towards the cleansing poles. Nashoba walked over and hugged Wacasa. “Do you want to watch?”

“I would rather welcome you home,” she smiled up at him.

“Well,
I
sure as hell want to see that jerk get some of his own medicine.” Wyonet looked up at Ahiga. “Consider it foreplay.” She tugged him away towards the cleansing poles, where Bobby was already screaming and pleading.

Wacasa ducked down into the tent, with Nashoba following her. “I missed you so badly.” The heat in her eyes traveled through her body.

Nashoba smiled, and began untying the laces to his breeches. He kicked off his moccasins and stood before her, wearing only the breechclout. Wacasa was already naked, lying back on the furs with her hair spread around her like sunbeams. He knelt by her, and his fingertips ran through the silken strands.

Wacasa reached under the leather apron and captured his cock in a curling fist. He was hard and ready for her, and his sack was stretched tight. She untied the lacings to the breechclout and tossed it to the side. She stared at his thickened cock, licking her lips.

Wacasa sat up and began to push him back onto the furs. She leaned over to kiss him, and whispered, “I think I will torture my warrior.” Wacasa slithered down his body, swiping across his chest and belly with the softness of her long hair.

She lapped his shaft, gently stroking his balls and enjoying the quivering motion of his anticipation. Her tongue searched the ridge of his shaft, and then she lapped lower, gently sucking the side of his column until he began to moan.

Wacasa raised herself and opened her lips to take him into her mouth. She loved the taste of him, the smell and the feel of him. In slowly increasing rhythm, she sucked him deep into her mouth, sliding her lips up and down his shaft.

Nashoba wanted to be inside her. It was quite a task to get her to release his cock, and he looked into her half opened green eyes, knowing she enjoyed tasting him but needing to feel her walls squeezing his cock with her passion.

Wacasa smiled and straddled his hips, lowering down onto his shaft with excruciating slowness, while her hand continued to brush his balls. He gripped her waist and turned her, laying her beneath him. “Your torture takes too long,” he murmured. “I need to feel you surrounding me.”

He plunged slowly at first, until he saw the same building torment in her eyes. Wacasa lifted her hips against him and he began plunging faster, deeper inside her, filling every secret place. Her nails dug into his shoulders and her head swept back and forth across the furs.

Her passion excited him, and he felt his desire unleashed as his seed shot through his shaft, spewing and jetting deep inside her while her walls gripped him in the convulsive climax of her orgasm. The two of them curled together in passionate exhaustion, and Nashoba ran his fingers down her back until she fell asleep.

After his cleansing, Bobby was sent to work at the ranch with the white men. He was not given the status to lead, like the other Indians. Instead, he was forced to work from daybreak to sunset. The shaman said that he would know when his punishment was over and he could return to the tribe.

Ganali and Waka were made members of the tribe and married their warriors. The shaman explained that Tommy’s arrival with Hehewuti and Bobby was the sign he had been waiting for. Ganali had spent so many years dissolved in her fantasies and Cheveyo learned to become used to her unusual behavior. He would smile and say, “I never know who I’m waking up with, but it sure makes our time on the sleeping furs interesting.”

His patience and love for Ganali, had won him the respect of the women in the tribe. He welcomed the children in the afternoon, and they sat under the shade of the trees while Ganali wove her fanciful stories. It had taken him some time to understand the need for cows. He checked the children and spoke with Awi and Tala to find out when the practice had started.

Cheveyo finally sat with the shaman and chief. “They tell me this was two decades ago. What was different then?”

The chief sighed. “That was so long ago.” He turned to the shaman. “Remember those difficult years? The drought lasted almost five seasons, and buffalo littered the prairie. Calves were separated from their mothers in the dust storms.”

The shaman said, “Our stream dried up, and for the last two years of the draught we stayed south, near the ranch. Just like the calves on the prairie, our children were becoming weak. We hunted and had enough food for them, but we could not make them strong. When we gave them milk from the cows, they became healthy again.”

“But they were fine in the years before the drought?” Cheveyo asked. They looked at each other and nodded. “And when they were sick? What were they eating?”

“Jerky and fish, roasts and rabbits. There was always meat, though it did become harder to find towards the end,” the chief acknowledged.

Cheveyo spent a few days wandering the foothills and studying the vegetation near the village. Ganali would dance around him, lost in her private realm of euphoria and thrilled to be with her warrior. Cheveyo gathered a basket of different plants, nuts, and seeds, and brought them before the shaman and chief.

“You have always eaten these?” he asked.

“Except during the drought,” the shaman answered. “There were barely leaves on trees during that time. The wild fires broke out all over the forests and the prairie.”

“I’m surprised Ganali did not tell you this,” Cheveyo said, and quickly added, “though she probably didn’t remember or would lose it in a story. I met her in college. We were both studying plants and nutrition. I wanted to learn the natural ways our tribe treated illness, and she wanted to learn how to eat right and eventually open a health food restaurant.”

He thought of Rebecca, back then. She was always so bubbly and cheerful, and he was impressed with her goal and dedication. He had convinced himself that because he was Indian there was no way she would ever date him. When she had laughed at him in class, he was hurt. He heard none of the others… only Rebecca, humiliating his heritage.

Vacation began the next week, and he had never seen her again to apologize for his cruel words. When his grandmother told him how she conned Bobby into befriending her and sending her here alone, he quit school and moved to the reservation. He spent his time with the shaman, agonizing over how afraid she must have been.
So afraid that she crept into her fantasies and could not come back to tell them how to fix things.

“Your children ate too much protein during the drought. All of these things in the basket are things that are plentiful and they eat everyday. There is enough calcium to keep their bones strong.” The chief and shaman studied him, and Cheveyo could tell they were trying to see if he did not want Ganali to be a cow. “They don’t need the milk,” he insisted.

The shaman fixed his eyes on the basket. “I think what Spirit Warrior says is true. It would explain the journey casting. The cow horn is split in half, and no longer in the circle. I feared it meant the warriors would not let their women feed the children. Seeds dotted the casting circle and I did not understand this. What Cheveyo says makes sense.”

It was not as easy to explain to the mothers, until Awi pointed out that with only Ganali the children’s share was only half a walnut shell. Ultimately, they agreed… with the condition that if the children’s bones became weak they would get their cows back. Waka found herself gasping every time a child fell from a tree branch. She could just picture the uproar when the first of them broke an arm or a leg.

Unofficially, Cheveyo became a medicine man. Ganali would surprise everyone by touching base with reality on occasion when she was helping him. Cheveyo spent most of his time with the shaman and spirit women. It had become accepted that when the shaman stepped down, Cheveyo would take his place.

The weather turned much cooler at night, and the Wehali prepared to move to their winter home. It made no sense to Wacasa. “Why do you go up into the mountains in the winter? Isn’t it colder up there?”

“We have a valley, protected by the mountains. Down here, the wind blows and the teepees fall. Our food is spread on the prairie, and we can starve,” Noshoba explained.

“Why don’t you build cabins?” Wacasa leaned over to stir the pot of vegetables and meat.

“Bah… I do not want to live in a rabbit cage.” He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms under her breasts. He whispered in her ear, “Don’t you want a reason to be next to me to stay warm?”

Wacasa felt her nipples stiffen, and she sighed. “I don’t need a reason to do that.” She turned her head and kissed him. She combed her fingers through his long hair, leaning over and kissing the tight muscles of his chest. Her fingers worked at untying the lacings of his breeches and breechclout until his erection was freed.

Nashoba swept her into his arms, and carried her to the furs. They could eat their dinner later. He pulled her shift over her head, and she shivered slightly in the cool air.

Nashoba pulled her towards him, pressing their mouths together in a deep kiss. She crushed herself against him, stroking the inside of his mouth with her tongue, drinking him in.

Nashoba pushed her back onto the furs, and he leaned over her and trailed his lips down her throat. Wacasa felt her muscles tighten, releasing the slick wetness squeezing from her channel. She quivered when his mouth captured her nipple, gently sucking and nipping while his other hand traveled lower.

He left her breast and his lips traveled down, moving across her flat belly, while her hands gripped his hair in passionate urgency, willing him to continue. His fingers parted her lips, stroking her slick folds and slipping across her clit.

She trembled in aroused agony while her cream drooled from her moist depths. The sensations tormented her, and she gasped at the feel of his tongue on her slit, arching in passionate need. Soft moans escaped her lips, and her thighs pressed together.

He slid a finger into her warmth, and she released his hair and gripped the furs, gasping and writhing while he teased her clit with his tongue. He nipped her gently while his fingers moved inside of her. “Oh, god. Oh, yes, Nashoba.” She felt her nerves shatter and electrify with her climax.

Nashoba’s cock quivered when he saw the desire in her eyes. He filled her, plunging deeply while she ran her fingers down his biceps, gripping onto him and pulling him down until he felt her peaked nipples against his chest.

The heat of their passion warmed the tent, and Wacasa felt the heat seeping through her. She needed him deeper, faster, inside her, and she pulled his hips towards her with her clasping thighs.

Nashoba curled his hands around the cheeks of her bottom, spreading her wider and grinding against her. He felt the shuddering grip of her channel as she climaxed. It sent a rolling wave of tightening spasms down his shaft, forcing his seed to jet deep inside her with each of his thrusts.

They fell back on the furs in silent exhaustion, letting the trembling subside until they had calmed. It was several minutes before they returned to the fire for dinner.

Despite her protests, Wacasa found herself on the back of Nashoba’s horse, trailing a travois with their winter supplies. She turned to look back at the village. The land was bare where the teepees had been, and empty tanning frames stood by the rock circle rings of fire pits. Everything else was taken to the mountains, and it was hard to imagine the bustling settlement of two days ago.

It took a week to travel to their winter home. By the end of the first day, the new settlement was already standing. Leotie showed Wacasa and Wyonet where seeds and nuts could be found, and they used pinecones to start the fires.