Dances Naked (14 page)

The sleeping arrangements
were
already established. Number Two was at the end of camp where they had come in and The Young One was at the other end, the two sentries positioned at the most logical entrances. Red Shirt was sitting next to Rachel
,
who was nursing Junior, evidently giving him his bedtime nightcap. Red Shirt looked up at Marty, held his gaze
,
and
shifted his eyes
away from the fire, back to
where Marty had just come
from
. ‘We want to be alone tonight: sleep over there,’ he said without words.

“Good night, everyone
;
I’ll be sleeping down there if you need me for anything,” Marty commented to the air above the three of them. He realized it was perfun
ctory—
the new little family had everything they needed in each other.

Red Shirt watched as Rachel discreetly bared her breast to feed her son. She looked up
,
saw him watching her
,
and
pulled the blouse down further, exposing more of her skin to his view. Marty was gone
and so
were the two other braves. It was just her, the baby
,
and the man who she had chosen as his f
ather. No, not just his father—this was the man
she wanted
as
her husband.

She had thought that all men were pigs. At least the ones she had known growing up were. Her father and Atholl had been fondling and clutching at her since she could remember. It wasn’t until she had sneaked into Sunday school one trip into town that she realized that what they did was wrong. She hadn’t heard the whole story the preacher was telling: Grant had reached in and yanked her aw
ay before the sermon was over, b
ut she had heard enough. A man was not to touch a woman who was not his wife. She tried telling her father what the preacher had said
,
but he slapped her and told her the man was lying.

A
short time later
,
her father was dead. He had cut his hand while butchering the hog. The wound had festered, become red and hot all the way up to his shoulder
,
over the next two days. She had tried to tend to it
,
but he wouldn’t let her touch him. He screamed all that night in pain, cursing and crying. She had slept with the goats to keep away from the noise. When she came back to the house the next morning, he was quiet, very quiet. He was also dead.

She felt sorry for him, sort of, but
she could
n’t
have done
anything. The day before he died, he made Atholl promise to take care of he
r, take care of her real good. “
Don’t let her get wayward or get big ideas in her head. Don’t let her talk to the other women or go to Church. Smack her if she gets out of line
,
and give her the strap every once in a while
, ‘just because
.
’
She doesn’t need
much so don’t give it to her.”

Well, Atholl had done what Daddy had said and was happy to take over ‘the good part of havin’ a daughter
.
’ However, Atholl did more than grab and paw; he wanted more. The first time he did it
,
he had given her whisky until she passed out. She woke up with him on top of her, sweating and panting. Then he collapsed on her chest, almost suffocating her. The next morning
,
he was gone and she hurt; hurt real bad between her legs and behind her eyes. She knew what the pain between her legs was and didn’t tell him about that. The pain in the head was a hangover, he said.
“
I guess you won
’t be getting any more whisky,” he told her. “
I’ll not waste it on you if it
’s just going to make you sick.”

Then for the next few weeks, he’d wait until she was asleep befo
re he came in and ‘did his duty
.
’
Later,
he got braver, not even bothering to wait until she was asleep. She tried hiding in the woods in the evening to escape his attentions, hoping that he’d be asleep when she returned. She didn’t want to come home to the strap and his drunken pawing and caressing that inevitably led to him shoving her down and pulling up her shift, putting his stinky prick between her legs. She gave up crying when he did it because he s
eemed to like it when she did. “
Com
e on, give me some more tears,”
he’d holler
,
and then
smack
her cheek.
“
I like it when you mov
e around like a worm on a rock.”

When her belly started swelling and she felt movement, she realized she was pregnant. She
had
watched the cat have her kittens and figured out how to pant and breathe when it was time for babies to come. She birthed the first baby, her daughter, by herself. She was proud of her effort; the child was so perfect. She also became bolder. When Atholl came to her a week later to ‘
do his duty,’ she told him, no; s
he d
idn’t want him near her again.
She had already decided that she was leaving but didn’t tell him that. She would find a way to escape him and Grant and make a better life for her and her daughter. He glared at her when she said ‘no
,
’ grabbed his bottle of whisky
,
and left for the barn.

She went back to work in the kitchen. A couple hours later
,
she left little Esther napping in the house while she went outside to gather eggs. Her daughter was still asleep when she got back. She was sle
eping longer than usual though,
she was usually hungry every couple of hours. Something didn’t seem right so she woke her. Or tried to. When she picked her up
, the little blanket fell away
and she saw the bloody clout and gown. She had spurned Atholl so he ‘did his duty’ to her infant daughter and killed her, battering her insides
,
and causing her to bleed to death.

She buried the baby
wrapped in the only thing she could, the bloody shroud she had found her in. There wasn’t even wood for a proper casket. She
dug
a
deep grave
;
made sure she pi
led lots of rocks on top of it, and
pulled up nearby wild flowers
,
transplanting
them at the head of the site. Little Esther would have fresh flowers for eternity.

After the internment
,
she grabbed a half loaf of bread, her blanket
,
a jug of water
,
and walked away. She wouldn’t have left them a note even if she had paper, quill and ink
,
and had known how to write. She was done with Atholl and Grant.

Or so she thought. She had only been gone one day when they found her asleep
,
just outside of town. Atholl and G
rant took turns whipping her, ‘J
ust t
o make sure she got the message
.
’
She never tried to leave again.

Atholl took her whenever he had the drink. She didn’t try to resist anymore. But
,
she did hide his whisky. He wouldn’t even look at her ‘that way’ when he was sober. He didn’t have the urge unless he was drunk.
A short time later, he left ‘to do his soldiering
’ and was gone for months at a time, sparing her his attentions.

At least G
rant didn’t touch her ‘that way
.
’
She had never seen the results of Daddy’s wrath but had overheard Atholl teasing him on several occasions. ‘Little no prick’ he called him. “Still sittin’ down to piss?” he’d taunt
when Grant went to the privy. “Daddy’s first daughter,”
he’d crow
,
then laugh until Grant was so red in the face
,
she thought he’d burst. They had fought a few times when the teasing
was
too much for Grant
,
but Atholl was much bigger and older.
He’d thrash him every time. A
fter Grant was beat, he’d find her
,
whi
p
p
ing
her to vent his frustration at losing the fight with his big brother
, or as he said, “Just because.”

Atholl had wanted to be a real soldier, had even managed to steal an officer’s uniform, but the British army di
dn’t want him. “Too much anger,”
they said.

“How could a soldier have too much anger,” he carped. “They need captains like me to get the
soldiers inspired. Kill ‘em all! K
ill all the Colonists and take their money
and livestock. Americans my ass—
they’re just a bunch of cattle that need to be watched over and harvested.”

No, it wasn’t until she had seen Evie and Wallace together that she knew there was another way for a man and a woman to be together. Sarah had found her and Grant on the road to New Bern and invited them to take a break and share a meal with her. She was a healer and wanted to check on her and her babies: Junior, the one young ‘un she was toting on her shoulder
,
and the one still in her womb. Yes, Sarah probably saved her life three months ago by delivering her of her dead infant daughter, Mary.

Sarah and Evie may have saved her life but they definitely saved her sanit
y. They told her of hope—t
hat she could have a new life with Junior. They said they were sure she could find a good man but to make sure she was married to him before she gave him children. Well, Red Shirt was a good man. He was also an Indian. She didn’t know how they performed a marriage. Maybe taking care of her, feeding her
,
and letting her ride the horse was part of their ritual. She nodded. Even if it weren’t, she’d believe it was. She wanted to be married to him.

She had watched the way Wall
ace had sex with—
no, he made love to, Evie. They didn’t know she wa
s watching; s
he pretended to be asleep. She
heard the soft words of love. “I love making love to my wife,”
he had said
,
then kissed her all over. The moaning Evie made wasn’t of pain. She was enjoying it more than eating fresh baked apple pie with cream. At the end
,
she heard both of them panting. Both of them! She knew Atholl panted when he was
finished, or almost finished, b
ut Evie did, too. Maybe
some
women got that same feeling that made Atholl grin so big when he was done and made her all sticky. At least she knew Evie was extra happy the next morning and didn’t appear to be hurting.

Red Shirt watched as she wrapped the sleeping boy in the blanket and lay him down beside her. She left her breast bared then turned to him. He tried to control his breathing but kept gulping air as she removed her blouse. She stood up slowly and untied the strings that held her clothing around her waist. She let her skirt drop then looked at him and smiled. She bent over and pushed the clothing into a makeshift bed then sat down on top of it. She put her hands out in invitation.

As she was undressing
,
he had noticed the lash marks on the back of her legs where she had been whipped. She could
n’t have done that to herself—the
thief he had buried this morning
must have done
it to her. No wonder she didn’t care about him. Yes, her legs and back were marked but the rest of her was perfect. She was pale and a bit bony but her breasts were round and full and her hips were wide enough to bear children. And
,
she wanted him.

Red Shirt stood up. He hoped he wouldn’t have trouble getting the white man’s pants off. His manhood had swelled and was uncomfortably bent behind the buttons. He didn’t want to embarrass himself with being awkward in undressing as he came to her as her husband for the first time
,
but these white man’s pants weren’t as easy to remove as his breechclout.

Rachel saw that Red Shirt was having difficulty in unbuttoning his pants. She wasn’t sure if it was because of his excited condition or if he was just new to brass buttons. The other braves were wearing breechclouts, as was Marty. Marty had said they did some trading. This had to be it: Red Shirt had traded ‘pants’ with Marty.

Rather than shame him by exposing his clumsiness, Rachel decided to make the undressing a part of the lovemaking. At least she remembered that Wallace and Evie had shared the task
,
so maybe the red man did, too. She stood up, moved in close to Red Shirt
,
and put her hands around his waist, gently stroking his back. She slowly worked her hands around to the front of him and stroked the front of his pants, eliciting a gasp from him as she touched his firmness. She smiled at him and tip toed up to give him a gentle kiss on the lips
,
making sure she left her hands on the waistband of his pants. The kiss lasted longer than she thought it woul
d and that was fine by her. She ha
d never been kissed, really. Her father and her brother had forced their mouths on hers but those weren’t kisses. What she was getting from Red Shirt felt great!