White Eagle's Touch (29 page)

Haiya! Haiya! Haiya!

Nitanistoo’pa. Soka’piiwa.

(I said it. It is good.)

Haiya! Haiya! Haiya!

Nitaakomi’tsi om-yi k-aanist-akomimm-oki-hp-yi.

(I take pleasure in the way you love me.)

Haiya! Haiya! Haiya!

The notes followed no chromatic scale that she had ever heard, nor was there a harmony that she could easily follow. Yet, the song was haunting in its simplicity, and something about it gripped her, making her feel as though she were being carried away to another place.

When he finished, she could only stand there and stare at him. Truly, she felt so strange; she thought that she might do anything for him, anything at all. And it occurred to her that this song was so completely original…so utterly personal, that there could be no better way than this to tell of a person’s love for another…for this land…for anything.

The breeze gently lifted the locks of her hair away from her face, as if it were trying to whisper something to her and bestow on her the sweet fragrance of summer, the scents of the grasses and flowers, and the hot, dry air. She inhaled deeply. There was a magnetism about this place, about this way of life, which was reaching out to take hold of her; its wildness, its beauty, seeping into her soul.

In truth, no longer did this land appear savage to her. No longer did it resemble a place of desolation. She saw now that it teemed with life, with love, for itself, for all things living.

It came to her that she had lately taken to smiling…quite a bit.

Of course, she couldn’t help doing so since White Eagle teased her unmercifully.

“That was beautiful,” she whispered at last. “I have never heard anything quite like it.”

He turned toward her, and she thought she saw him smile before he said, “Do you have any songs that you like?”

“Many.”

“Are any of these songs something that you can sing to me?”

She hesitated. “Let me think for a moment. Many of the strains that I know have no words. They are simply melodies.”

“No words?”

“No.”

“But if there are no words, what do your people do with them?”

“Some just listen to the melody, some people dance to them.”

“Humph! I have seen this thing you call the white man’s dance and I do not think it much resembles dancing.”

“You have been to a white man’s ball?”

“Yes, at the trading posts.”

“And there were women there, dancing with the men?”

“Yes, some.”

“White women?”

“Saa,
no.”

“Ah,” she said, “then you have never really seen the dance as it was intended.”

White Eagle stuck his chin up in the air.

She ignored him, continuing, “Let me explain,” she said. “The white man steps to the music, oftentimes, for no other reason than for the purpose of holding his woman…close.”

“Humph!” White Eagle murmured, although gradually, he smiled. “Do you speak true?”

She nodded.

“Then perhaps the white man is smarter than I have thought him to be.”

“Perhaps. Now, I could teach you one of these dances if you would like to learn. Would you?”

“Would you show me one of these where I can hold you close to me?”

“Yes.”

He grinned. “Then, do you even need to ask?”

She laughed with him, taking his hand into her own, and, as she began to hum, she curtsied before him, motioning him, at the same time, to bow to her. She stopped humming briefly, to say, “In all the
right
social circles, a man asks a lady to dance, and, as he does so, he bows before her like this”—she leaned down—“and the lady curtsies, and waves her fan in front of her face like this.” Katrina whisked her hand in the air, in imitation of that fanciful fan.

White Eagle grinned. Suddenly, he bowed before her, just as a gent might do in the most elegant of English courts, and he asked of her, “May I have this dance?”

Momentarily caught off guard, she stared, but she recovered swiftly enough and curtsied before him, saying, “You did that perfectly.”

“I know,” he said. “Your uncle once tried to teach me this. I was not a very apt student at that time, since I did not enjoy dancing so much with your uncle.”

She grinned. “Then you have seen this dance before now?”

“Aa,
yes.”

“And you know it?”

“You will see.” He extended a hand toward her.

She fell into his arms and, looking up at him, she began to hum the tune of a waltz.

He drew her more fully into his arms, closer and closer, her steps matching his, until they twirled around their makeshift dance floor of dirt and rocks, the unending prairie of brown grasses and softened wildflowers cushioning their footfalls. The snow-covered mountains looming off in the distance became the walls of their palace; the sky and swift-moving clouds, their ceiling. Birds added their songs to hers, while the wind played accompaniment.

He gazed down at her, she up at him. Their glances never strayed from one another.

It was perfect; it was a moment of enchantment, a moment of magic and, as he dipped and swirled her round and round that never-ending dance floor, she knew. That was all. She just knew.

This was it. This was what she had been waiting for all her life. That he was Indian and she, white, didn’t matter. That he came from an entirely different culture, faded into anonymity. Nothing else, but the way she felt, the way he held her, mattered.

She glanced up at him, trying to memorize the moment and all that there was about him to know:

The scent of the prairie, of him, the way he gazed at her, his dark hair blowing in the wind, the way his dark eyes held hers, the look of love that she espied there in his eyes.

She felt so much emotion, so much love for him at this moment that she thought she might burst. And, as she became certain that their feet left the ground, that they danced on nothing but air, she glanced up at him.

And it was then that she realized: Love was not a taking emotion; love was a desire to give, a need to bring to another the happiness brought to oneself.

It was making that person, all his actions, one’s own. But most of all, it was allowing that other person to be just who he was and loving him all the more because of it.

He suddenly smiled at her, as though he read her thoughts. And she grinned back at him. She couldn’t help it.

“I love you.” He mouthed the words.

“And I, you,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment against the intensity of all the emotion she felt, and she murmured against his cheek, “Always.”

He moaned in response to her, and they danced and they danced, the wind singing around them as if it, too, experienced their happiness; as if it, too, approved, its breeze magnifying their laughter and carrying their message farther and farther over the plains. White Eagle’s pony watched them for a moment, before it whinnied and returned to its munching. And overhead, an eagle glided through the air high above them, it, too, sensing their mood, and responding to them in a dance of its own.

Such was a symbol of good fortune; such was a promise of glorious futures yet to come, and for a moment, the world ceased to spin, leaving them with nothing but themselves…the prairie…their love…

There was no one, no known power in Indian or white civilization that, seeing them, would have attributed this magic to anything else but this one, single couple.

They loved. It was the sole and only reason for such magical enchantment. And truly, it was just that elementary.

Chapter Seventeen

Her time with White Eagle had been so serendipitous, so filled with love, that when they at last spotted Fort McKenzie, Katrina didn’t even desire to approach it. She wished to stay here, with White Eagle; she wished to wander, here in this wonderland of wilderness for the rest of her life.

Didn’t returning to “civilization” mean that they would have to change? Didn’t it signal an end to their lovemaking…possibly to their union? Wouldn’t White Eagle be forced to go his way; she, back to her own world?

Yes, she was certain it would be so. And yet, she could not allow it.

“I wish we had more days to spend together.” White Eagle seemed to voice her thoughts aloud.

“As do I,” she said.

“I will offer your uncle many ponies for you.”

“I should hope that you would.” She knew she should say more, that she feared there wouldn’t be a need for the offer if they went into this fort. But she couldn’t seem to put the thought into words. Instead, all she was able to say was, “White Eagle, is there a way to find my uncle without having actually to go down there?”

“Saa,
no.”

“Couldn’t you go there, and I will stay here and…?”

“What is it that you fear?”

She hesitated. “White Eagle, do you not remember me telling you that we come from other worlds? That there really could be no future for the two of us?”

“Aa,
yes,” he said, “but I do not remember agreeing with you.”

She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I fear that if we go there, we will be separated.”

“I will not let anything, or anyone, do that.”

“But don’t you understand? You won’t have a choice. If we go in there, I will have to return to my own life…and that will not include you, or…”

“How do you know this?”

“I know it, White Eagle, believe me.”

“Humph!” was all he said.

“Let us just stay here…and everything else will work itself out…somehow.”

He didn’t answer for some moments. At length, however, he said, “I cannot do that.”

Silence grew between them as they stared off at the makeshift fort, until at last White Eagle spoke again, saying, “I will not let you go.”

She just looked at him; she didn’t say a word—she knew she didn’t have to.

Fort McKenzie was not inviting. Having found Fort Union dreadful upon her first glimpse of it, Katrina declared Fort McKenzie to be awful, lowly and barbarian by comparison.

For one thing, Fort McKenzie appeared to be no more than a stockade of four walls slung loosely together, constructed in a hurry. For another, it lacked a sufficient complement of men to defend it. If the need arose, there were no more than thirty men in residence at the present time, while the Indians, milling around the fort, numbered in the hundreds, perhaps thousands.

Also, the buildings inside were of only one level, the houses tiny and floorless. The roofs were made of sod, the windows of parchment, the rooms, small; the ceilings, low.

Far from being the welcoming sight it should have been, Fort McKenzie repelled her.

But then, she’d knew she was biased. If she’d had her way, she and White Eagle would have remained touring the countryside forever.

But such things had not come to pass.

“Isn’t that correct, Miss Wellington?”

She glanced up to find Prince Maximilian staring at her, the man having arrived at the fort several days before them. She squirmed in her seat, and glanced around her at where she was, seated here within this house where she had been escorted immediately upon her arrival. She was ensconced here, in the home of Mr. Mitchell, the founder of Fort McKenzie. And, though she felt certain she now stood indebted to Mr. Mitchell for his kind treatment of her, she wondered how she could throw off the yoke of that “assistance.” For she had no idea as to what had become of White Eagle. Nor had she seen him for hours, and she worried.

“What do you say, Miss Wellington?”

Katrina drew her shawl—her elkskin Indian shawl—into a more comfortable position around her shoulders. She said, “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I was not listening.”

The German prince drew in a deep breath, looking annoyed for all that he smiled. “I asked you if it was not true that your fiancé, the Marquess of Leicester, is currently in residence at Fort Union.”

“Yes,” she said, absentmindedly, “yes, that is correct. The marquess is at Fort Union.”

The prince continued to gaze at her. “Why is he not with you?”

She gazed away, her mind obviously elsewhere, although she answered clearly enough, saying, “He and his friends turned back several days ago. They found the trip here a bit…treacherous.”

“As I would have thought you would.”

“Yes, well”—she continued to glance around her, at the crude, unfurnished room—“apparently not. Has someone sent for my uncle?”

She didn’t see her host, Mr. Mitchell, grimace, her attention more engrossed with her own problem of trying to inquire as to the whereabouts of White Eagle, without bringing undue attention to the fact that she was doing so.

Finally, after several moments, Mr. Mitchell said, “Your uncle, that ole cougar, ain’t here.”

That had Katrina gaping up at her host in a hurry.

“Your uncle’s gone after those scoundrels, now, them Assiniboins ’n’ Crees.”