Savage Abandon (15 page)

At first light, Wolf Hawk had awakened and left his lodge while Mia still slept.

Wearing only a breechcloth, moccasins and his knife sheathed at his right side, his hair held back with a headband that he had quickly slid into place as he walked from his tepee, he now made his way through the forest.

His eyes were ever searching for two plants that he was going to use for his courting medicine.

He smiled as he thought of Mia sleeping so soundly and trustingly inside his lodge. He had to make certain that she wouldn’t be aware of what he was doing when he knelt at her side with the medicine.

His Shaman grandfather had taught him which plants should be used once he found a woman he favored more than any other, one he trusted would be faithful to him until they were both gray and could only sit and smile at each other while others did the work they had once done.

Ah, but those years were still far ahead of them. First, they would share a lifetime of love and happiness.

He could already envision the children born of their love.

The girls would be heartbreakingly pretty, with their mother’s eyes and their father’s hair. Their skin color mattered not at all, for they would be the children of a proud Winnebago chief and his wondrous wife.

The sons would have all the traits required to be great warriors, and one of them would step into the moccasins of his father as chief of the Bird Clan of Winnebago.

It was good to think of these things as Wolf Hawk continued to travel light-footed in his moccasins over the various flowering plants that reached out beyond the forest, where sunshine washed them with its warmth and light through the day, bringing the smiling faces of the flowers fully abloom.

Wolf Hawk slowed his steps, looking more carefully for the two flowers he sought.

He carried a small pouch, in which he would place the flowers. Then he would carry them back to his lodge to prepare the magic potion with which he would anoint his true love. When she awakened from her night’s slumber and saw him sitting beside her, he would know without a doubt that she would favor him as her husband.

He was anxious to see her awaken, to witness the look on her face when she realized that things
had changed between them, even though she would not know why, or how. She would just know how much he desired her. And the potion would ensure that she desired him just as much.

Then a few days later they would have the marriage ceremony that would make them husband and wife in the eyes of his people.

He knew that Mia would be thinking of her parents that day and wishing they could share these happy moments with her and Wolf Hawk, for women felt deeply about these things. He would reassure her that they were there, in spirit, holding hands, happy on this day that guaranteed their daughter would be loved and safe forevermore.

As he continued searching, he thought about the courting medicine. It was made of a plant that could be recognized by its blue flowers. The Winnebago believed that there was a male plant and a female plant.

He knew that when he found the plants, he could not dig them unless he found them growing side by side, with the male growing to the east of the female. For this reason it was very hard to find the flowers.

As he continued to walk he heard a cardinal crooning loudly from the treetops. Hearing the bird reminded Wolf Hawk of Mia’s canary, whose song was as sweet as the cardinal’s.

Then suddenly his eyes widened. It was as though the beautiful cardinal had led him to the plants that he had been searching for.

Right there, at his feet, were the two flowers in question.

He gazed up at the cardinal, which still sat in the tree a few feet away, and said a grateful “thank-you” to him. Then he knelt and studied the two plants more carefully.

He looked skyward to judge the position of the sun. He was glad to see the two plants grew the way they should in order for him to be able to use them and know the magic would work for him. They grew close together and the male plant was at the female’s east side.

He smiled when he knew that all conditions had been fulfilled. He took his knife from its sheath.

Carefully, even prayerfully, he dug both plants from the ground, then laid the knife aside and tangled the roots of the plants together.

After that was done he pinched the blue flower from its stem and plucked off the center leaf of the female plant. Then he placed the flower, the leaf and the roots in the pouch tied to his breechclout’s waistband.

He held the small pouch in his hand and gazed heavenward and said a quiet
wa-
do
, thank-you, to the Earthmaker, then tied the pouch to his waistband again and headed for home.

When he arrived at his village, no one was yet stirring from their beds. All was quiet except for the soft melodies of birds in the nearby forest.

Then a thought came to Wolf Hawk that made him stop almost in midstep.

The canary in his lodge. What if the bird was awakened by Wolf Hawk’s entrance into his tepee? Georgina might awaken Mia.

That would not give Wolf Hawk time enough to grind the plants together before placing the mixture on Mia’s body.

Then he recalled something else.

Mia had told him the bird would sleep until she lifted the cover from the cage.

Relieved, Wolf Hawk continued on inside his tepee.

He stopped and smiled down at the sleeping woman who would soon be his in every way.

She looked as lovely in her sleep as she did when she was awake. Yet he preferred her awake, for he loved to look into her eyes. They were mystically beautiful and seemed always to speak to him even when Mia was saying nothing aloud.

It was the sort of communication that was possible between two people in love, as he and Mia were!

He gazed over at the covered cage. He heard no sound from it.

Wolf Hawk stepped lightly past the cage to the back of the tepee and lifted a small earthen pot from many others.

He set it on the floor of his lodge. He removed the flower, leaf and roots from his small pouch, then dropped them all into the pot.

Taking a small rock, he quietly ground all of these together thoroughly, until a paste was all that lay at the bottom of the jar.

He put the rock aside, gazed at Mia again, then lifted the pot in one hand and tiptoed over to where she lay.

He watched her eyes for a moment, to make sure she was not awakening. When he saw that she was still very much asleep, he reached his fingers inside the jar and gathered some of the crushed remains between two fingers.

Then, ever so lightly, he touched several places on Mia’s body that were not covered by the gown she wore. Softly he slid a hand inside the gown and gently rubbed some of the mixture on the silken skin just above her heart.

She sighed in her sleep, but her eyes remained closed. Oh, how he was tempted to touch the fullness of her breast, but he knew he must keep his desires reined in for now. Carefully, he withdrew his hand from beneath the gown.

He sprinkled some of the mixture on the top of her head, and some beneath her nose so that she would smell it upon awakening. Then he put everything away so that once she was awake she would not see the pot or question him about its contents.

Smiling, oh, so loving her, Wolf Hawk went back to her and knelt at her side.

He bent low and brushed a soft kiss across her lips. He could smell the scent of the mixture that he had placed just beneath her nose.

Mia awakened with a start, then smiled when she saw Wolf Hawk sitting beside her.

“I had a strange dream,” she murmured as she
leaned up on an elbow. She scratched idly at the skin just above her lips. “But now I cannot remember what it was, or even what it was about.”

She blushed as she lowered her lashes, then gazed at Wolf Hawk again. “Did you awaken me with a kiss or was I also dreaming that?” she asked, searching his eyes.

“The kiss was real,” Wolf Hawk said, then reached for her and drew her up against his warm body. “Do you wish for another?”

Mia nodded, then melted inside when his lips came down on hers in an all-consuming kiss.

She clung to him and crawled onto his lap, oh, so ready for whatever he wished to do to her this morning.

It seemed magical, somehow, that he was there with her today, his kisses awakening everything sensual within her. She knew that were he to ask, she would even surrender her virginity to him.

She ached strangely for him.

She felt as though she couldn’t go any longer without knowing the true joy of making love with this man…the man she would forever adore.

“I need you,” Wolf Hawk whispered against her lips, so happy that the magic potion had worked.

Seeing things in visions that no one else could see, Talking Bird always paid heed to his dreams. The night before he’d dreamt of two men approaching the land of the Winnebago. Talking Bird knew them to be the trappers who were responsible for the two young braves’ deaths.

Deep down inside himself he had known these men would return. How could they not? They had left many valuable furs behind.

Talking Bird smiled at his grandson’s cleverness in commanding his warriors to take the pelts from their hiding place and bring them to their village.

He knew that the men had many miles yet to travel on the Rush River before arriving back at the fort, where they thought their pelts were still hidden. Talking Bird had plenty of time to pray to the Earthmaker. He had his own way of dealing with whites who foolishly came on the land of the Winnebago.

The white-skinned woman with whom his grandson was infatuated was different. Although Talking Bird would have rathered his grandson
took a Winnebago woman as his wife, it was not Talking Bird’s place to interfere or tell his chieftain grandson his opinion about such things.

Wolf Hawk was a grown man, a great leader, and a man of much intelligence. If his heart told him that he loved a woman with white skin, so be it.

But Talking Bird would not allow anyone else with white skin to interfere in his people’s lives. The woman was an exception. She was all alone in the world. No one would come to his people’s village to search for her.

She was now Wolf Hawk’s woman, no one else’s, and Talking Bird would give his grandson his blessings, soon.

The sun spiraled down through the smokehole onto Talking Bird as he prepared to pray.

Today his thick white hair was worn in a long, lone braid down his back. The tunic had designs of nature embroidered on it, which had been sewn there by several women of his village who were skilled at beadwork.

His moccasins were also beaded, as was the medicine bundle in which he kept his sacred pipe.

The beads were of beautiful colors. Red like the cardinals that flitted through the air, blue like the sky over Shadow Island, and green like the cool, soft grass upon which he walked.

Talking Bird had many supernatural powers. He could will the river to part with only one blink of his old eyes or cause the ground to quake and shake, leaving large cracks in Mother Earth.

Planning to use his powers today, he lifted his
buckskin medicine bundle onto his lap. The fire’s glow shadowed his ancient face.

His long, lean fingers slowly opened the bundle. He reached inside. He took from it his sacred calumet pipe. He gently laid the pipe beside him, then again reached inside his medicine bundle and withdrew a smaller bag from it, which held the sacred tobacco.

He opened this bag, then lifted the pipe from the thick fur of the bear, and shook tobacco into the bowl until there was enough to smoke and pray to the Earthmaker. It would not be on trappers alone that he would cast a spell. He would also invoke the waters that cradled the boat carrying them closer and closer to the fort.

He smiled at their foolishness in returning.

He took a small twig from the lodge fire and held it to the tobacco in his pipe.

He puffed long and hard until he felt the tobacco smoke deep inside his lungs and knew the pipe was going well enough to be used for his prayers.

He took the pipe from his mouth. He held it heavenward and gazed up. He looked through the smoke hole and began speaking his feelings to the Earthmaker.

“Earthmaker, to whom my words are spoken today, I hold this pipe up to you,” he said softly. His old eyes watched the smoke spiral slowly through the smoke hole.

He again placed the pipe in his mouth, puffing hard on it, then exhaling so that the smoke wreathed around him.

Again, he took the pipe from his mouth. He turned it in all four directions, then held it down toward the earth. Once he had honored the spirits with whom he was communicating, he rested the bowl of the pipe on his knee. He could hear the spirits whispering all around him as he said, “There are two evil white men who have wronged our people, not only taking animals and furs on land that is usually hunted by the Winnebago, but also the lives of two of our beloved youths. I ask you to watch for these men as they grow closer and closer. It is my fervent desire that the river water shake with an earthquake of your doing, but not enough to harm my people who are on nearby land.”

He bowed his head, then looked above again, through the smoke, and smiled, for he knew that what he had prayed for would be granted him.

He had never disappointed the spirits, nor had they him.

As Wolf Hawk held Mia ever so close in his arms, kissing her, she clung passionately to him. She had never known such feelings could exist and had not even fantasized about being with a man like this.

But it seemed natural to be there with Wolf Hawk, becoming oh, so dizzy, the longer his lips lingered on hers.

And then she drew quickly away from him, her eyes wide, as she gazed down at the mats on the floor of the tepee. She looked quickly up at him.

“Did you feel that?” she gasped out, searching his eyes. “Did you hear it? The floor trembled for a moment and I even heard a strange sort of rumbling, but now both are gone. Did you experience the same thing? It felt like the beginning of an earthquake, but thank goodness it stopped.”

Wolf Hawk smiled at her. He reached out and took her by the hand, then led her to a thick pallet of furs. “Come and sit with me,” he said, leading
her down to sit beside him. “What you felt and heard happens sometimes, but rarely have my people experienced an earthquake serious enough to do harm to our village or our lives. There seems to be a weakness of the ground where we have made our home. Perhaps that is one reason white people do not make their homes here.”

Wolf Hawk had not told her the full truth. He understood the magic of his grandfather and he felt that what had just occurred was his grandfather’s doing.

Wolf Hawk was not alarmed. He knew that his grandfather only caused the earth to shake for good reason.

Wolf Hawk did not know why his grandfather had chosen to use his powers today, but he never questioned Talking Bird’s power.

If his grandfather saw a need for an earthquake, so be it.

“But aren’t you afraid that the earthquake might come in full force some day and kill you all?” Mia asked.

She looked toward the closed entrance flap, wondering if everyone beyond it had experienced the same tremors as she and Wolf Hawk.

She didn’t hear any excitement or cries of terror outside, so if his people had felt and heard the shaking, they were no more excited than Wolf Hawk.

“Do you see fear in my eyes?” Wolf Hawk asked, smiling at Mia.

“No,” she murmured.

“Then you should not be afraid, either,” Wolf Hawk said softly. “I will not allow anything to harm you ever again.”

He smiled into her eyes. “Our Earthmaker keeps us safe,” he said, still holding her hand.

Before she had become alarmed, Wolf Hawk had felt the yearning in Mia’s kiss and the way she had clung to him. She had even pressed her body against his as though to tell him that she accepted them as a true couple now.

That was what he desired from the bottom of his heart. He wanted her to want him as badly, as deeply, as he ached to have her. Not only for a moment or two, but forever.

He wanted to make her his wife.

“Your Earthmaker is something like my God, I am sure, yet God doesn’t always stop bad things from happening,” Mia murmured, seeing her father’s grave in her mind’s eye.

“Nor did your Earthmaker keep the two young braves who died in the traps safe,” Mia went on.

She saw his body stiffen. He seemed affronted that she was questioning his people’s god.

She lowered her eyes, then looked up into his again. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have said that about your Earthmaker. I apologize.”

“You never need apologize to me about anything,” Wolf Hawk said. He placed a hand on her cheek, loving its softness. Her skin was as soft as were her lips against his.

“Just as in your world, your god cannot guard
your people against all evil, so it was with the trappers who caused the deaths of our young braves,” he said. “It is just the way of life…birth, death, and…happiness. I have learned that one must take from life what is given, both bad and good. But it is true that the Earthmaker is always there for my people in all ways when his guidance is needed. I’m sure you pray to your god for the same sort of guidance.”

“I understand that sometimes misfortunes occur, such as my stepping into those poison ivy vines before I realized it,” Mia murmured. “I understand that neither God, nor your Earthmaker, can reach down suddenly from the sky and keep those types of things from happening. I also realize that life is ruled by both good and evil, and that everyone must do what they can in order to have good on their side.”

She smiled at him, loving the way he rested his hand on her cheek. The touch of his flesh against hers made it hard for her to think.

She ached for his kiss again, for the feel of his body against hers.

These things were new to her.

These feelings!

These wants!

These yearnings!

“I know that you have told me I don’t need to thank you for things you have done for me, but I must thank you again for what you did for me when I was so ill,” she said.

She was unable to keep herself from shuddering with the memory of how awful she had felt. She stretched her legs out before her and ran a hand down the smoothness of one of them. “It’s a miracle that my skin is not left scarred,” she murmured. “The sores were so horrible.”

She turned to him, and as his hand fell away from her cheek, she held it between hers. “I shall always be grateful for what you have done for me,” she said, her voice breaking. “You took me in your own home and cared for me even though I was no more than a stranger to you, a woman you first saw as your enemy.”

She fell into his embrace as he wrapped her gently in his arms and held her close.

He laid her down on the plush pelts, then moved atop her so that his body gently pressed against hers. She moaned with ecstasy when his lips came to her mouth in a passionate kiss.

She felt as though she were melting inside as she returned the kiss and twined her arms around his neck. She couldn’t believe that she’d ever thought him guilty of evil things. She knew now that he could not possibly be responsible for the death of her mother. She knew that he was not guilty of her father’s death. It was her father’s weak heart that had taken him from Mia.

No, it was truly not Wolf Hawk’s fault that Mia had been left without a mother and father. He was kind and generous and loving, everything Mia’s father had been.

She had always said that she wanted to marry a man just like her father, who had been so gentle with his wife and daughter in every way.

Mia was becoming almost mindless with desire as the kiss deepened and Wolf Hawk began kneading one of her breasts through the soft doeskin of her dress. The mere touch of his hand there made her feel as though she might faint from the desire that was sweeping through her.

And when his other hand reached down and began moving slowly up the inside of one of her legs, touching places that seemed to come alive beneath his exploring fingers, Mia sucked in a wild breath of desire.

When his fingers touched that place where her heart seemed suddenly centered, where no man’s hands had been before, she could feel something wonderful being aroused in her. It was a sweetness, a spiraling plea sure, that she never knew existed.

He caressed her where she now throbbed with a need she had never known before. She clutched his neck as he twined his fingers through the strands of auburn hair at the juncture of her thighs, then sank one of those fingers slowly into her. She knew she should not allow such intimacies until she was a married woman, but she just couldn’t stop him. She had never felt anything so deliciously wonderful as the feelings being awakened inside her.

It was as though something was ready to explode with ecstasy throughout her.

“I can stop if you wish me to,” Wolf Hawk suddenly whispered into her ear, yet he did not miss one stroke inside her with his finger.

He knew he was arousing her for the first time in her life, for her innocence was plain to see. She was not the sort to let just any man touch and caress her.

He could hardly consider stopping what he had initiated, for his loins were on fire with need, his manhood tight and throbbingly hot.

But he knew the kind of woman she was and did not want to cause her to feel shame if they did continue.

Almost too mindless to think, Mia was breathless with the plea sure that was overwhelming her. Oh, how could she ask him to stop when everything within her cried out to be with him totally, to share with him what she knew they both wanted?

Of course she knew what her mother had taught her about sinning with a man before vows were spoken.

But since so much had happened to her, and she had realized just how quickly one’s world could be changed, she had a new attitude toward life and love. Who was to say there would even be another tomorrow for her or Wolf Hawk?

“I will marry you soon,” Wolf Hawk said softly as he leaned away from her and gazed into her wondering eyes. “Yet if you would rather wait to make love until vows are spoken between us, I will understand.”

Seeing that he did respect her and was actually willing to wait, Mia felt her eyes mist with grateful tears. She had known that he was not the sort to force anything on a woman.

She had instigated their lovemaking as much as he, for something inside her cried out for his caresses and kisses.

Even the fact that she had allowed him access to that place where only she had touched, as she had washed herself so delicately, proved to her just how much she did trust and need him.

She placed a gentle hand on his cheek, her own hot with a blush. “I don’t think I can wait after realizing just how much I need you,” she murmured. “Wolf Hawk, I love you so dearly. And I do believe that you will marry me, so, my love, I do not think I can bear another moment without you making love to me. I…I…love you. Oh, how I do love you.”

“I do not know how it happened, but I fell in love with you almost as soon as I met you. But I could not act out that love, for at that moment I was not certain what your being at the fort with your father and that tiny man truly meant,” he said huskily.

He reached a hand up and gently smoothed several locks of fallen hair back from her flushed cheeks.

“Were you to have been associated with those trappers, you would have been my enemy forever,” he said thickly.

“But neither I, my father, or Tiny had anything
to do with them,” Mia said. “It was just coincidence that we happened to be where those evil men hid the pelts.”

“
Ho
, I believe you, and I regret that I did not know the truth from the beginning, for I could have possibly helped your father by taking him to Talking Bird for his special medicine,” Wolf Hawk said, now tenderly rubbing her cheek with a finger. “That was not meant to be. But you and I are.”

He brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “We were meant to be,” he repeated. “We were meant to meet and come together. When we wed, we will be as one until a child is born of our love. Then we will be three, not two.”

“A child,” Mia sighed. She adored the thought of having a baby, especially with Wolf Hawk fathering it. “A son? A daughter? I so badly wish to have both. I was raised as an only child. It was lonely, Wolf Hawk, ever so lonely.”

“I, too, was the only child born of my mother and father’s love,” Wolf Hawk said. He smiled into her eyes when she saw surprise leap into them. “You see, my mother was not strong. She gave birth to me, then died shortly after. My father never married again.”

“My parents were everything to me,” Mia murmured.

“They are gone, so I will be that everything now, my woman,” Wolf Hawk said, then swept both arms beneath her and brought her lips to his again with savage abandon.

Mia was not certain how it happened, but suddenly she realized that they both were unclothed.

His naked body pressed against hers, and she felt the full length of his manhood as he guided it with his hand between her legs. He pressed it against her opening, where she only now realized that she was wet and ready for his entrance.

She had never seen a man unclothed before, even though the spaces on the scow were small and did not give one much room for privacy. She could not help being dismayed by the size of Wolf Hawk’s manhood as it pressed against her flesh. Its warm touch made her feel oddly giddy.

“Open more widely to me,” Wolf Hawk whispered into her ear. “It is time for us to make love. I will be gentle. I want you to remember this first time as one of much plea sure.”

Having no idea what to expect when he went all the way inside her, and being somewhat afraid, since he seemed so big and she was so petite, Mia felt her pulse race.

If not for that strange yearning inside her, she might even change her mind about making love, but her heart seemed to cry out for their complete togetherness.

Wolf Hawk realized how tentative she now was about what they were doing, and he understood. The first time for a woman, especially a woman as sweet and as inexperienced as Mia, could be frightening.

“I shall kiss you and hold you in my arms as I
go further inside you,” he whispered into her ear, holding her tenderly against him. “There will be some pain, but with me the pain will be very brief and I will then take you with me to a place that will make you cry out with plea sure.”

Trying to ready herself for that moment of pain Wolf Hawk had prepared her for, Mia lay stiffly, her mind no longer filled with ecstasy but fear. She clung to him as he tenderly nudged her legs farther apart.

She closed her eyes as he slowly shoved his heat within her. To her surprise, she was filled with desire all over again when Wolf Hawk held her tightly against him and kissed her.

She did feel a pang of pain when he went even farther into her, but then realized it was true what he had said about plea sure coming after pain. As he began his rhythmic strokes inside her, now thrusting deeply, ecstasy rose up in her.

Her eyes pooled with tears of joy as he leaned down and showered her breasts with sweet kisses, then stopped at one of the breasts and drew its nipple gently between his teeth to nibble on it.