Native Gold (21 page)

What madness had driven her to do it the first time she didn’t know. Aside from her kin, she’d never kissed a man. And yet it seemed the most natural thing in the world when no one was there to see and his mouth hovered so near. His lips were soft, much softer than his grim countenance would lead one to believe, and his breath was scented with sweet mint.

She wanted to draw portraits of him, to fill a whole book with him. She wanted to sketch him fishing and sleeping, swimming and eating, running and shooting his bow. She wanted to learn his expressions, to capture each emotion, to know every curve and plane and scar of his body intimately.

With a languorous sigh, Mattie sat on the edge of her plank porch and watched for the first star of evening. Where was the Indian now? While she sat alone, wistfully observing the night sky glimmer to life, what was he doing? Licking his fingers at supper? Telling ancient stories to Hintsuli? Smiling over the fire at the faces of his family? Or were they both gazing pensively at the same heavens?

The questions obsessed her. What did he do? How did he subsist? Where was his village? He surely couldn’t live in a house much sturdier than hers, and yet the Indians had survived thus for generations. What were his people like? Did his mother sing his little brother to sleep? Had his father taught him to fish? What did they eat for breakfast?

She smiled as the first star winked on. She truly was her father’s daughter. Like him, her intellectual curiosity was insatiable. Suddenly, she must know everything about the Indian’s tribe, his family, him.

She wrapped her arms around her knees, mindful of her injuries, and let her eyes dance across the lacy silhouettes of the pines against the sky. The Indian dared not come into her world. There was too much fear here. He’d chased Hintsuli from it before, and tonight, he’d remained at the verge of her property, as if a physical barrier separated their domains.

No, she decided, taking one last breath of twilight before she took shelter for the night in her cabin, if she wanted to know more about the enigmatic Indian, she would have to go back to the waterfall, back to his world.

"Your thoughts are not with us tonight, my son."

Sakote’s mother gave the acorn mush a stir, sprinkling in bits of wild onion. She was still beautiful, Sakote thought, despite the wrinkles that made tracks across her face and the silver that tipped her hair like the fur of an old grizzly. And as always, she could tell when his mind was not at peace.

"I’m thinking about my sister," he lied. "I wonder if she’s safe." He couldn’t tell his mother the truth—that he’d become so enchanted by a
willa
that he’d let deer come upon him unawares, that he’d carried the white woman through the forest by the light of day, that he’d forgotten his father’s hunting pouch at the waterfall. He couldn’t let her know that for one brief moment in time, his heart had betrayed his mind.

"My daughter will find her way," she told him, piercing him with shiny black eyes that could winnow the truth from his words as readily as skin from an acorn. "But I sometimes worry about my son."

"The little one?" Sakote frowned in concern and clenched his arms around his bent knees. Hintsuli was
his
responsibility. At least, Sakote felt that way. If the boy had done something wrong... "Does he offend the old ones? I’ve tried to teach him the way, but he’s young. He’s curious, like Raccoon, and there are many new things in the world to—“

His mother interrupted him with a soft chuckle. "He is like his father, full of dreams. But he’ll grow and learn. One day his heart will yearn for another, and she will calm his spirit. Then he’ll find his place." She rolled the heating rock through the basket of mush with her looped paddle. "But it isn’t the little one I speak of."

Sakote lifted his head to meet her eyes.

"I worry about my first son."

He rocked back on his haunches, confused. He scanned the village quickly to make certain no one listened. The elders talked amongst themselves before the
kum
, the sweathouse. The children played with a buckskin ball. The women stirred mush and turned the roasting trout.

He leaned forward to murmur, "Why does my mother worry about her first son?"

She dipped a finger into the warm mush to test its flavor, then continued stirring.

"His heart is divided like a tree struck by lightning. His spirit walks in two worlds."

Sakote rubbed his thumb across his lip. "The Great Spirit will lead him down the true path."

She was silent for a long while. The soft crackle of fire, the murmur of old men’s voices, the scuffle of pine needles beneath the feet of shrieking children all receded into the distance. He heard only the slow, rhythmic stirring of the paddle through the mush basket.

"He is like...that other Hintsuli," she finally said, ignoring Sakote’s startled intake of breath. It was dangerous to speak of his dead father. He stared at her, stunned silent, until she let the paddle rest against the side of the basket and returned his direct gaze. "He must make his own path."

Sakote thought about her words all through supper. Afterward, while his father’s brother told the tale of Turtle and the beginning of the world, he thought about her words. And even when the elders gathered before the fire to discuss the
Kaminehaitsen
, the Feather Dance to come with the next moon, Sakote could think of nothing but what his mother had said.

When he slept that night, he dreamed again of the white, green-eyed eagle and the two eggs, of leaving his home and following the eagle north. But when he awoke, he was no closer to understanding either the dream or the destiny words of his mother.

Hintsuli occupied most of his morning. The boy was excited about the
Kaminehaitsen
, for he would see his brothers of the neighboring villages, some he hadn’t seen since the last Feather Dance. He was as pesky as a yellow-jacket, wanting his own
wololoko
, a splendid headband of feathers, so he could impress his Konkow brothers. Of course, Hintsuli was too young to wear a
wololoko
. He wouldn’t be stolen by the elders for his
yeponi
ceremony for many years.

But his little brother needed something, some symbol that he wasn’t the same boy they’d met last year. Sakote had a long, slender piece of basalt he’d been saving to make a hunting knife. Perhaps he’d give it to Hintsuli.

They worked all morning together. Sakote flaked bits of rock from the blade to make it sharp but strong, carved the wood handle and sealed them together with hot pitch. Hintsuli cut an old piece of deerskin into a long strip to wrap the handle. By the time it was finished, the boy beamed with pride, and the sun was high and hot on the earth.

As Hintsuli ran haphazardly off through the woods to show his friends his new prize, Sakote yelled after him to be careful.

He’d planned to snare a few squirrels today for the evening stew, but he’d left his hunting pouch at the waterfall. He frowned. He’d hoped to avoid places that would remind him of the white woman. But he had to retrieve it. The deerskin pouch was a gift from his father, and the tools in it—the snares, the knives, the mountain hemp line—would take days to replace.

So with a parcel of dried deer meat and a promise to his mother that he’d bring back some woodpecker feathers for her husband’s
wahiete
—his ceremonial crown, Sakote set off for the waterfall.

The pouch was where he’d left it, beside the great boulder. But he couldn’t help searching the wet banks of the pool, looking for some sign of the woman who’d come here with him. There was nothing. She’d left behind no scrap of cloth, no scent, not even a footprint.

Of course, that didn’t mean her spirit was gone. She lingered here still—in the gurgle of water over the stones, so much like her laughter, in the verdant depths of the pool, like her eyes, and in the heat of the sun upon his shoulder, reminding him of the warmth of her arms around him.

"Damn!" There were no words of anger or frustration in Sakote’s language, so he borrowed the curse from the white man.

It didn’t matter what the elders said, what the dream tried to tell him, how tempting Mati was. He must follow the old ways, the ways of the Konkow, or they would be lost. The white woman showed him another path, a dangerous path, a path he must not take.

The sun continued to blaze upon his back, and he knew a quick swim in the pond would cool his blood. He took off his moccasins, freed his hair, and loosened the thong around his breechcloth, letting it fall to the ground. Climbing to the crest of the boulder, he took a full breath and dove into the shimmering midst of the pool.

The bracing water sizzled over his skin as he plunged deep through the waves. The chill current swept past his body, swirling his hair like the long underwater moss, washing away his thoughts.

He broke the surface and shook his hair back, then swam for the waterfall. It pounded the rock like a
kilemi
, a log drum, and made a mist that hid the small cave behind the fall. He climbed out onto the slippery ledge and stood up, easing forward into the path of the fall, where it pummeled him with punishing force, driving white spears into his bent back and shoulders. The pounding awakened his body and challenged him. He slowly raised his head, braced his feet, reached toward the sky with outstretched arms, and withstood the heavy fall of water with a triumphant smile.

Unfortunately, the loud thunder of the fall prevented him from hearing that he was no longer alone at the pool.

Mattie’s jaw dropped. Her breath caught.

After sketching miners all morning, she’d decided to make a few drawings of the waterfall. She remembered the way there, and though she might have hoped the Indian would return, she didn’t really expect him. The fact that he had indeed come back, and in such bold display, couldn’t have amazed her more.

What in God’s name was he doing? He stood at the foot of the waterfall, as bare as the day he was born, letting the water beat him within an inch of his life and grinning all the while.

She thought to yell out to him, to reprimand him for such indecent behavior, such outrageous liberties, such flagrant...but then the artist came out in her. She realized that what she beheld was beautiful, that
he
was beautiful. Watching him in all his naked glory was like witnessing the birth of a god.

She perched on a rock wedged between two trees, hoping the lush foliage and her drab plaid dress would conceal her. She found an empty page and set to work sketching.

He couldn’t remain there long, she knew, or else he’d be pounded into the rock. She had to work quickly, penciling in the bare bones and trusting the rest to memory.

Sure enough, just as she finished the roughest of renderings, he brought his arms down through the fall like great white wings and dove into the middle of the pool.

His naked body slicing through the water sent a rush of delicious fire through her. Her pencil hovered over the page. It was wrong, what she did, spying on him and sketching him in his altogether without his knowledge. And yet, she thought, patting a cheek grown hot with impropriety, it felt so right.

He bobbed up and flung his hair back, spraying droplets of water across the rippling surface.

Mattie pressed her pencil against her lower lip.

He swam forward, gliding through the waves as smoothly as a trout. Then he wheeled over onto his back and floated on the surface, boldly facing the midday sun like some pagan sacrifice.

Mattie’s teeth sank into the pencil.

She could see everything—the naked sprawl of his limbs, the corona of his long ebony hair, the dark patch at the juncture of his thighs, and its manly treasure, set like a jewel on black velvet.

He was Adam. Or Adonis. He was Icarus fallen from the sky. Hera cast into the sea. As innocent as an angel. As darkly beautiful as Lucifer.

Mattie blushed to the tips of her toes. She most definitely should not be witness to this...this...she had no word for his wanton display, but she was sure it was completely indecent. Still she couldn’t tear her eyes away. He was utterly, irrefutably perfect. And looking at him left her faint with a mixture of emotions as dizzying as whiskey and as unstable as gunpowder.