Proud Wolf's Woman (21 page)

“Are you cold?”

Julia shook her head and sighed, a tingle of satisfaction racing through her. It would seem that after a few weeks of traveling, of listening to Neeheeowee, she would have become used to the sound of him speaking to her, to his low, gravelly voice. Yet, she hadn’t grown tired of it, and she found herself looking forward to each moment they talked.

They sat now in front of the evening fire, camped out as they were at a place Julia had never seen, a place where thickets of cottonwoods and willows dominated the scene, where the trees scented the air, pouring pure oxygen into the evening atmosphere, where their branches hid the two amorous travelers. Giant roots dug into the sandy soil beneath them, the ground feeling soft and cool to a weary back, although Julia couldn’t have known this firsthand. She reclined atop Neeheeowee in his lap, her backside toward the fire.

“Neeheeowee?” she asked, basking in his gentle ministrations. “What is the full meaning of your name? I remember that part of it means wolf, but I do not recall the rest of it.”

Neeheeowee shrugged. “It means Wolf on the Hill. It is the name of my grandfather.”

“Wolf on the Hill…” she repeated. “It fits you well.” She smiled at him as his touch roamed over her back, her stomach, his hands and fingers soothing away her fatigue. She could never remember being so happy, and she reveled in the fact that he could not keep his hands from her; nor, if she were honest, she from him. She tilted her head, recollecting their recent journey over the prairie, remembering how neither one of them had been able to put the other out of mind, or rather, out of hand.

They had been traveling a westwardly course, Neeheeowee intersecting, though not quite following what the white man called the Santa Fe Trail. And though Julia might have wondered from time to time where they traveled, she never asked, her attention centered more on Neeheeowee’s touch and the delirious sensations it sent running through her.

Neither of them had kept strict vigilance over the land as they had passed through it, and perhaps it was pure luck that they had traversed over enemy grounds without so much as a chance encounter with another tribe.

Or perhaps her God or his had watched over them.

Whatever the cause, they had laughed and loved their way across the prairie, walking through it as though they were children out for a leisurely stroll, he teasing her, she, him. They had loved more often than they had traveled, and Julia had gradually discovered in Neeheeowee a gentle companion, one given to laughter as easily as passion. And she had discovered that she wished to share in his laughter as well as his lovemaking.

She shivered now as Neeheeowee trailed his touch over her back, his hands coming around toward her breasts, and she reached up quickly to help him, to untie the straps of her dress, letting the article fall down around her waist. Neeheeowee looked at her, smiling, before dropping his gaze to her chest, letting his hands caress everything he could see…and more.

Julia moaned her pleasure, Neeheeowee echoing the sound with a groan of his own.

“We go toward Bent’s Fort,” he informed her after a while, speaking in Lakota, and Julia nodded, though she could barely focus her attention on what he said, her mind centering more on what he did. At length, he asked, “Do you know of it?”

She shook her head, it taking her a while to translate the words, and he smiled. “We will be welcome there. My brother, Little White Man…”

“William Bent?”

“Haahe,
yes.” Neeheeowee’s hands smoothed over her breasts while he talked; kneading the softened mounds, making Julia’s eyes roll back with the pleasure of it. “My brother,” he continued, “Little White Man, will welcome us. But we must be careful, you and I, and you must keep your eyes always down while we are there. There are many white men there, many traders, and they might not understand a Cheyenne warrior with a white woman. I do not wish to cause you any trouble. If they know you are white, they might try to take you from me. I have heard that white men do this, that they do not always respect a woman’s choice.”

Julia nodded, and though she wished to say something back to him, she couldn’t, her attention too centered on what he was doing to her breasts with his hands. She breathed in deeply just before Neeheeowee said, “Julia?”

She knew that note in his voice. She knew he, too, was aroused, but still he persisted in speaking, saying, “We need to talk, you and I. I need to tell you some things.” He stopped, scrutinizing her for a moment before burying his face in her hair. He nuzzled his face into her neck, inhaling deeply. “I must talk to you and I hope that you will understand all that I say,” he said after a while, his voice muffled against her hair. He lifted his head, looking back toward her, seeming to hesitate before he took her more fully into his arms. “Did I tell you,” he said, “that Little White Man, William Bent, married a distant cousin of mine, Owl Woman? I would like you to meet her. It is my desire that…”

He groaned suddenly when Julia reached up to run her hands through his hair, though at length he continued to talk. “Did I tell you too that Little White Man is considered Cheyenne because of his marriage to my cousin?”

Julia, after a moment of translation, shook her head and gazed up toward Neeheeowee before she asked in Lakota, “As I am now too?”

Neeheeowee frowned, a darkness coming over his features that Julia found hard to explain. It was a small change in him, minute at first. But when he drew back, his hands stopped their handiwork over her skin. He looked at her, his glance puzzling. He paused. A moment passed, another. At length he gazed away from her, the wind catching a lock of his hair and blowing it into and around his face. After some time, he spoke, saying, “You are not Cheyenne.”

“Yes, I know. I am white but I…we—”

“You are not Cheyenne because I do not make you so.”

Julia straightened herself and gazed at Neeheeowee. Not one single emotion could be distinguished on his features, and Julia all at once felt bereft. What was wrong here?

Cool night air blew in upon her and Julia suddenly felt the need to protect herself. She brought her hands and arms up, covering her breasts from the night wind, from Neeheeowee.

What did he mean, she was not Cheyenne? And why did he look so solemn all of a sudden? She gazed up toward him, but he still peered away from her, into the darkness. She cleared her throat, an attempt to speak, but no words would come. What was happening here?

They had just been in one another’s arms, wanting each other, barely able to restrain their passion for one another. How could something have changed so abruptly? She didn’t know and yet…

She narrowed her eyes, gazing more intently at Neeheeowee. Perhaps she mistook his reaction. Perhaps he merely played with her. Or perhaps she had translated it incorrectly.

She stared at him, a frown forming over her brow. No, she had it right. She’d not heard incorrectly. Neeheeowee appeared more moody than she had ever seen him. Why?

She set her gaze away from him, staring out into space, looking for some distant spot, trying to get her thoughts in order.

She shivered once, then again. At last she said, “I do not understand.”

He hesitated, and though Julia looked back toward him, he still stared away. In due course, he lifted his shoulders, saying, “I have delayed speaking to you on a matter of great importance and by not saying anything to you before now, I have misled you and I never intended that.” He frowned, then, “Know you that I can never make you Cheyenne as my cousin, Owl Woman, did for the white man, Bent. If you ever do become Cheyenne through marriage, it will not be because of me. I will not ask you to marry me—I cannot.”

Julia sat still for a moment, shock keeping her silent. Marriage? The thought of marriage had not even entered her thoughts, her attention too focused on her physical relationship with Neeheeowee. But now that he mentioned it to her, she realized that the thought of it, the knowledge that she expected it from him, had been there in the back of her mind all the while. Why otherwise would she have come with him? Given up her world for his?

“I still do not understand, Neeheeowee,” she said, speaking in Lakota. “Kristina once told me that in Indian culture when a man asked a woman to go away with him, he offered her marriage. Is this not so?”

Neeheeowee hesitated. “This is true in many tribes,” he said, his voice steady for all that he appeared reluctant to talk. “It is true for the Lakota, but it is not the custom of the Cheyenne. For the Cheyenne, even if a couple steal away to be together, the marriage custom must follow or the two people are never considered married, the woman will be dishonored.”

Julia sat still, unable to breathe. Suddenly she felt light-headed, as though her world were spinning for a moment out of control.

It was incredible, the effect his statement had on her. And she realized all at once the great amount of trust she’d granted Neeheeowee. Perhaps it had been misplaced, or perhaps she truly did not know the Lakota language that well.

She cleared her throat. “Did you not ask me to come away with you? I thought that—”

“I can never marry you.”

There, he’d said it to her, correctly, plainly. There was no mistaking his intent, no misinterpretation of the language.

Julia shut her eyes, her throat muscles working convulsively. He meant to dishonor her. He meant to heap shame upon her. She could not credit it. How could she have been so wrong about him? Hadn’t she witnessed his care of her, his attention to her needs? Hadn’t she known his desire? She’d been so certain of him; he whom she regarded as her Proud Wolf. Hadn’t he rescued her when there had been no one else to come to her aid? Treating her with kindness? Hadn’t it been Neeheeowee who had asked her to stay?

She pulled the top of her dress up over her bosom, needing the material around her as a sort of defense. She retied the gown at her shoulders, slowly, so as to give her time to think. But at last she took a deep breath. And without another thought as to what she was about to ask, she queried, “Neeheeowee?”

He turned. He faced her, his gaze seeking out hers, and it was all Julia could do not to back down and falter. But she didn’t. Instead, she thrust out her chin and looking at him directly, she said, “If you do not intend to marry me, I think you should tell me just what you do intend. I am away from all that I know and I am dependent upon you and your goodwill. I believe that you owe me at least this, and I think you should tell me why you cannot marry me…ever. Did you know this when you asked me to stay with you?”

He nodded.

“And you have waited until now to tell me?”

Again, another nod.

With a great deal more calm than she felt, she said, “Then perhaps you had better explain to me why you asked me to stay with you.”

He said nothing. And she waited.

“Did you ask me to stay only so that you could have a warm body next to yours at night?”

“Hova’ahane,
no.”

She said nothing more, hoping that her silence would invite him to speak, but when several moments passed and still he said nothing, Julia leaned forward, asking only, “Why, Neeheeowee?”

He breathed out all at once, then lifted his shoulders; he sucked in his breath, throwing back his head, and Julia thought he might not answer. But at last he opened his mouth to speak, his voice barely audible as he said, “I need you.”

Julia could barely move. Had she heard him right? She asked, “What?”

But Neeheeowee had already turned away. He raised his chin. “You bring life
to me,
Nemene’hehe…
Julia. These last few weeks have been as though I were suddenly a younger man. When you are near me, I see things more clearly, I feel things more vividly. I no longer suffer the nightmares that have haunted me for so long. It is as though I feel life again. And I believe,
Nemene’hehe,
that this has something to do with you. If you were to leave me, I would only be half a man, I think.”

His admission sucked her breath away and Julia found it hard to speak. “Neeheeowee, Wolf,” she said at last, her voice barely above a whisper. “When you speak like this, I am greatly affected by it. It makes me feel certain things, but I do not understand. If you truly feel this way about me, why do you say you will not marry me and make me your wife?”

He hesitated. “There is much about me you do not know,” he said after a while. “There is much I have to relate to you. But I will tell you now that I am a man haunted, a man without a vision, and understand, Julia, that to my people, a man without a vision is a man without purpose, a man left, not to live, but only to exist. I have lived my life in the service of others, in service to my wife and child who have been dead since five springs ago. Only through them, have I a purpose to my life. And I have a vow to keep to them, a promise I made to free their spirits so that they may walk the path to the afterworld. I failed my wife and child once; I will not fail them again.”

Julia paused a moment, unable to take in all he said. Purpose? Visions? Vows? Ghosts that walked the earth? A wife and child?

“I did not know you had been married.” It was the only thing out of all he’d said that her mind seemed to focus on.

Neeheeowee nodded.

“And they are dead now?”

“Haahe,
yes,” Neeheeowee said, again with a nod.

“Would you tell it to me again, Neeheeowee, so that I can be certain I understand all you said to me? Did I hear you say that you are bound to free your wife’s and your child’s spirits?”

“Haahe.”

“And where are they now, the souls of your wife and child?”

He pointed to the ground, then placing his hands in front of him, palm down, he advanced one, then the other. Finally, he said, “They wander the earth, their spirits restless. And so it will be until I set them free.”

Julia gulped, swallowing hard. She’d never heard of such a thing. And she wondered what other strange ideas she would find here with Neeheeowee, with the Indians. Had she been mad to follow him?

After a long pause she asked, “How will you free their spirits?”