Blackbird (17 page)

She heard him sigh.  “Answer me!”

“I buried her things up there.  Everything she left behind when she left me.”  He was silent for along while.  “Song was as good as dead as far as I was concerned.”

“And you married her.”

“We had a binding ceremony, yes.”  He shifted his weight on his knee.  “Did Star also tell you that I divorced Song?  Did she tell you that I renounced all vows I had made to her?”  When she did not answer, he sighed.  “You still doubt me.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

He did not answer.  She wished she could see his face, wished she could see if he looked as miserable as she felt.  She hoped so.

“That’s why you would never tell me how she died.”  She laughed bitterly.  “I’m such a fool.”

“I never told you because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”  She knew him too well for that.  He was never scared and never worried about anything.  He was just too arrogant such things.

“Yes, afraid.  What was I supposed to do?  Admit to you that I could not keep a woman?  Everyone I knew talked behind my back after Song left.  I was the joke of the village.”

“I wouldn’t have laughed at you.”

“I did not want you to think badly of me,” he spoke just above a whisper, and Katherine wondered if she had heard him correctly.

Moving beside her, he took a knife from his belt and cut her bindings.  “We will go home now, Chogan.  I am tired, and you are cold.”

She allowed him to help her to her feet.  He removed his soldier coat and draped it over her shoulders.

Feeling her freedom rapidly slipping away, she knew she should run.  Instead, she wrapped the heavy jacket around herself, enveloping the scent of it, of him.  Adahya gripped her hand, and she laced her fingers in his.  They walked in silence, and she fought back tears.  She did not understand this man at all.  He had spoken no feelings for her.  Ever.  Star claimed that he loved her, but she saw no proof.  The fact that perhaps he cared what she thought of him mattered little to her.  It was simply his pride he did not want to hurt.  It did not mean that he loved her.

* * *

THE village was quiet when they returned.  The little jersey calf she had been visited across the village was tied to Adahya’s lodge pole. 

She turned to Adahya.  “What he doing here?” 

“It is yours now,” he answered without looking at her.  “If you had come back where you belong, you would have known so already.”

Katherine watched him disappear into his lodge.  She held the calf’s muzzle for a long while before following him inside.  The condition of Adahya’s lodge shocked her.  It had been days since she had been here, and it was a mess again.  Adahya sat by the fire.  He lit his pipe in the coals and inhaled.

“Thank you.”  She did not know what else to say.  She recalled telling him how she had missed Delilah, the brown Swiss at the mission.  The fact that he had listened to her about something was somewhat consoling.

He nodded without looking at her.

She sat across from him.  Did he miss her that much that her happiness was important to him?  Was that why he had given her the calf?  Star was convinced that he loved her.  Star thought she should ask him if she really wanted to know.  She really wanted to know.

Absently, she blinked back tears

Adahya set down his pipe.  “What is wrong now?”

“If you love me, I want you to tell me so.”

Blowing out a breath of smoke, he looked surprised and confused.  And maybe a little afraid. “You love Knox.”

His words slapped her in the face with cold, harsh reality.  Of course he did not love her, and there was the proof.  Once more, she had opened herself to a man’s rejection.  Once more, she had become vulnerable to someone who did not love her.  First Joshua, now Adahya.  She had to get out of here.

Tears threatening to spill, she ran outside.  Her calf raised its head in question, and she wrapped her arms around it and buried her face in its velvety neck.

Katherine felt him standing behind her, and she frantically wiped her eyes. 

He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close, and then buried his face in the back of her hair.  “This man is sorry for hurting you.”

Instinctively, she leaned against him.  He held her so tight she could barely breathe.  Still hurt, she kept her hands to her side, refusing to touch him.

“I do not want you to stay with Star anymore,” he said in a soft, deep voice.

Hot tears spilled down her cheeks.  She did not understand him at all.  He did not love her, yet he held her tenderly, made her feel more secure than anyone ever had.  She rubbed her fingers over the backs of his arms, trailing the strength of the muscles there.  She choked back a hiccupping sob.  “If you don’t care about me, why do you insist that I stay?”

He turned her around to face him and held her tight.  “You belong here.”

It was not what she wanted to hear, but it was the closest she was going to get, she realized.  She still did not understand him, and she supposed she never would.  She melted into him as he held her.  Her arms encircled his neck, and she clung to him.  The day’s events had suddenly taken its toll on her. She wanted to go into his lodge, and she wanted to lie next to him and have him hold her.  And--and she wanted him to make love to her.

She caught his face between her palms and studied the hurt expression deep within his eyes.  She loved this man regardless that he did not return her love.  She would let him show her what it was like to love a man.  Eventually, she would escape his world, but for now, for tonight, she wanted this moment if only as a memory to take home with her.

“Make love to me, Adahya.”

He looked into her eyes, as if searching for answers. “Are you sure?”

Katherine nodded.

Releasing her but for a moment, he held open the door of his lodge. 

Once inside, the room suddenly seemed smaller.  Katherine watched his face as it reflected the warm firelight.  She was not afraid of this man.  He would be gentle and tender with her.  Sex would not be a burden like so many women said.

He leaned over her and not touching her, kissed her softly, barely touching her lips.  She shrugged his coat from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, and stepped into his arms.  She wrapped her arms around his neck.  His kiss deepened, and his tongue entered her mouth in hot, possessing demands.  He was claiming her for his own, and after tonight escaping him would be harder than ever.

But right now she did not care.

She tangled her hands in his hair and returned his kiss with equal ardor.  Adahya would be her first, and it did not matter that they would not be together for all time.  He would show her what sex was and give her this one experience even if she never slept with another man again.  She wanted him to be her fist.  She wanted to give him that much.

He broke the kiss to ease her down upon the pallet of hides with him. “Lie back.”

She did, and he eased his weight down, kissing her from jaw line down to the nape of her neck.  She helped him work the laces from her bodice, his mouth moving down to her breast.  She unconsciously groaned when he took a nipple into his mouth, suckling there until the peak was hard and wet.

Still toying with her breasts, his hands worked her skirt up to her waist, and he touched her there in her secret most place.  He took her to that world again where nothing existed except Adahya and the wonderful thing that he was doing and that sacred, exciting way he was made her feel.  She wound her hands in his hair, aching for something more but not knowing what.

“Adahya--”  Her breath escaped her in quick, rapid gasps.

He was hovering over her, looking down at her with such intensity that she thought he would burst.  “Let me come inside you now.”

He was seeking her permission, and she knew she should say something, tell him that she did not know exactly what to do.  Instead, as his smoldering gaze pierced her, she found the ties of his breechclout and tugged the piece of clothing until it gave way.  She boldly placed her hand on his most intimate part that was so ready and hard for her.

Her hand embraced his manhood, and she felt him shudder.  He leaned down to her and claimed her mouth.  His kiss was wild and relentless, and she found her own need and intensity growing as she returned his kissed with equal want. He was moving against her, moving inside her grip on him, his breath coming in short, labored gasps.  Her own breath was unrecognizable as a slow flame rapidly grew into a raging uncontrollable fire as she stroked him.  She arched her hips to him, eager for something, what she did not exactly know.

“Katherine--Please.  I need you now.”

“Yes.”  She released him.  She held his face in her hands and searched his passion-clouded eyes.  “Now.”

He moved over her, and she felt his knee come between her thighs, spreading them.  He found his place between them.  He kissed her neck and muttered something that she could not understand.

Then with one quick thrust her pleasure was cut off by a sharp, searing pain.  She winced, and Adahya stopped moving.

For a brief moment, Katherine envisioned herself being gouged by his manhood like a sword which draws and quarters its victims.  She lay still as a stone, not daring to move.  Helpless to move.  She opened her eyes.

Adahya was staring down at her, his eyes apologetic.  “I’m sorry, Chogan.”

Trusting those eyes, she nodded, and he began moving slowly inside her.  Gradually, the pain subsided, and she relaxed against him as he moved within her.  He coaxed her hands around his neck, and she moved them over his shoulders, down his back as he buried his face in her hair.

Slowly, something began happening.  Her discomfort subsided, and she found his rhythm, unsure at first, but then as if they fit together, and she was there with him as he tensed and spilled his life force within her depths.

He relaxed against her.  He kissed her neck, her ears, her eyes.  “Are you all right?”

She nodded, holding him tightly against her.  She liked how he felt against her, the weight of him.  She did not want this to end.

He pulled out of her, rolled on his side taking her with him.  He draped an arm protectively over her waist and cradled her head against his shoulder.  “It will be better for you next time. You will see.”

Katherine knew there should not be a next time, but she knew when that time care, she would be helpless to stop him.  It would be better for her next time.  Adahya had promised, and she believed him.  Something warm and reassuring coiled within her, and she suddenly felt closer to this man than she had ever expected, ever dreamed of with anyone.  It was as if he were a part of her now.  He had not claimed to love her, and she knew she was unlikely to ever hear any expression of love from him, but she knew he cared for her on some level that he was capable of at this moment.  It was more than Joshua had ever shown her.

She absently traced the tattooed patterns on his arm and listened as his even breathing grew deeper, more steady and relaxed.  She knew it would be more difficult leaving him now, but as she lay in his arms, she did not care.

CHAPTER TWENTY

KATHERINE awoke the next morning with the feeling someone was watching her.

Eyes still closed, she smiled as the smell of breakfast infiltrated her nostrils.  She rolled onto her back, her naked flesh warm and comforted against the soft bear hide beneath her.  She had hoped to awaken with Adahya still lying beside her, waiting for her to wake so he could teach her more of the ways in which he had promised to pleasure her.  But if he wanted to cook her breakfast, that was fine too.

She opened her eyes to find Adahya’s grandfather staring at her.

With a startled shriek, she pulled the blankets up under her chin.  Her face grew hot with embarrassment.

“W-what are you doing here?”  When he did not answer, she struggled to remember some Mohawk words Adahya had taught her.  “Where’s Adahya?” she asked in his native tongue.

With a shrug, Many Stories went back to stirring something in a kettle over the fire and began rattling off fast sentences.

Katherine had no idea what the old man was saying, as his words rolled much too fast for her to decipher.

Mouse, the kitten, had curled up near her.  Nervously, she stroked his back.

Then she spied her skirt a few feet away.  With one hand holding the blankets over her, she reached for her skirt and awkwardly pulled it on beneath the protection of the blankets.  She found her bodice on the pallet beside her and quickly put it on.

Many Stories was still talking and stirring. She prayed he had been oblivious to the fact that she had been naked.  Her bodice now laced, she moved toward the fire to see what he was cooking.

“Friendship pudding.”  He spoke slowly and smiled at her.  “Many Stories longs for the days he made Indian pudding for his woman.  Now he cooks for Adahya’s.”

Adahya stormed into the lodge, causing Katherine jump.  He nodded to his grandfather.  Then bent down and pressed a kiss to Katherine’s forehead.  With a sigh he sat down before her.

Katherine did not have to ask to know where he had been.  She saw it in his guilt-ridden eyes.  Something ugly and sinister washed over her, and she wished every ill fate she could imagine to befall Song.  Katherine had let Adahya make love to her last night only to have him run to his ex-wife before the sun had risen.

Many Stories handed her a bowl of pudding, but she refused it, suddenly sickened.  It was not fair.  Song wanted her husband back.  And of course Adahya would go back to her.  Song was of the same race.  She was beautiful and pregnant and alone, and she needed Adahya now more than ever.

But you are going to leave him anyway, her mind screamed.

Her stomach churned violently, and she ran outside.  She hurried outside the stockade gate, breathing in the fresh morning air until the urge to be sick left her.

Adahya was at her side almost immediately.  He placed an arm around her shoulder and led her toward the river where he wiped her face with cool water.  She sank to her knees, and he sat beside her and pulled her onto his lap.

* * *

ADAHYA cradled her to his chest, not daring to speak until her breathing had returned to normal.  He had no right going to Song this morning, but he had to talk to her, had to know exactly why she was here, what her plans where, and to tell her to stay out of his life for good.

Now he found himself at a loss for words.  He rested his chin on the top of Katherine’s head.

“You went to her.”

Adahya did not mistake the accusation in her tone.  “Yes,” he simply answered.

“What are you going to do?”

“The child is not mine.”

She turned to him, and Adahya searched her eyes, finding determination.  “She’s your wife.  Through better or worse.”

“I divorced Song.  That is just as binding as my vows to her.”

“Exactly my point.”

Adahya studied her, but she gave no explanation.  Her eyes were large and questioning, as if she expected something from him. He did not understand.  Yes, he had made Song his wife, the biggest mistake of his life, but that did not mean that he loved Katherine less.

She pushed herself form his lap and stormed up the riverbank.

“Katherine, what is wrong?”

“Go to hell!”

* * *

ADAHYA took a breath from Grandfather’s small clay pipe.  Exhaling slowly, he passed it to Zachariah.

Adahya scanned the contented faces of his family:  Grandfather with Little Jay asleep in his lap, Star and Sunshine husking corn and placing in a pot to boil, Two Guns and Zachariah planning the next fall hunt.  Grandfather said something he did not catch, and everyone laughed.

This was what life was for.  Nothing else.  He only wished Katherine would share times like this with him instead of sulking in his lodge and refusing to let him share it with her.

“What does Song ask of you?” Sunshine abruptly demanded.  Everyone quieted, and all eyes were suddenly upon him.

“She wished to have her child here.”  It was all the information he was going to volunteer.

Sunshine looked skeptical.  “You mean she wants you to take her back as if nothing had happened.”  Her black eyes narrowed to slits.

Adahya nodded.  He reached for Grandfather’s pipe and smoked until his head stopped pounding.

Two Guns took the pipe from him.  “What does Mother want you to do?”

“She wants only my happiness, she says.”

All five, even Grandfather, grunted.

Adahya sighed.  “Everyone wants something from me.”  He shook his head and closed his eyes.  “Everyone except Katherine.  Katherine hates Adahya.”

“Katherine does not hate you,” Star stated.

Adahya looked at her, thankful that she finally spoke to him.  She had been glaring at him since he sat down at her hearth, and it was beginning to make him uncomfortable.

“I completely understand her anger,” she added.

“So do I,” Sunshine agreed.

Their looks were defiant, as if he should cower down to them.  Or apologize.  Or both.  It infuriated him the way these two were always so quick to badger him.  He never did anything right as far as they were concerned.

“Song’s child is not mine.  I told you both that.”

“That is not the point,” Song snapped.

“Then what is the point?”

“The way you are treating Katherine.”

“Have I ever raised a hand to her?”

“You should, if you ask me,” Zachariah interrupted.  “Women are no good.”

Star cast him the same look as she was giving Adahya.  Zachariah cringed.

Adahya ran his hands through his hair, suddenly exhausted.  Women.  He did not understand the lot of them.  And Katherine was the worst.  She had been so passionate last night.  He had thought she understood about Song, forgiven him perhaps.  He had thought her anger for him had disappeared.  Apparently, sharing his bed meant nothing to her.

He sighed again.  “If Katherine wishes to leave, I will go with her.”

“Leave?”

“Where would you go?”

Two Guns and Zachariah spoke at once.

Adahya had no idea.  The very fact that he had spoken such a thing shocked him.  Katherine was not happy.  He had known it from the very first day he had brought her here.  He would build her a white man’s cabin to live in if she wished.  He would even live in a city with her if need be.  He would not lose her.

Adahya looked at his family all staring back at him as if he had lost his mind.  “There is land in Canada.”

“Your family is here!”  Two Guns’ voice echoed off the bark wall.  “You are not going anywhere!”

Grandfather’s feeble hand gripped Adahya’s.  “A man cannot survive without his family.”

“Grandfather speaks the truth,” Star added.

“Song is a threat to Katherine,” Adahya reasoned.  “She--”

“Song will stay with her family and have her child,” Star interrupted. “I know your Blackbird, and she is much too strong, even for Song.  The only person she feels threatened by is you.”

“I told you I have never hit her--”

“You made vows to Song, and you took Katherine captive.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“That has everything to do with it!  You just took Katherine and ordered her to live with you.  You have offered no promises, no words of love.  Katherine is a Christian.  She needs Christian vows.  Of course she is angry.”

Star went on, and Adahya closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.  Yes, he had made vows to Song, but they had been false.  Empty promises that had brought him nothing but heartache.  Star did not know what she asked of him.  To say vows before a woman who had been betrothed to him was one thing, but to say them to Katherine--

Katherine had never asked him for vows.  She had asked if he loved her, yes, but she had never asked for a marriage binding.  Surely if she wanted to hear vows from him she would just come out and ask him like she did everything else.

He watched Star as she rummaged through a large quilled pouch.  She withdrew a white man’s book of god, a gift from the men who had baptized her at Fort Hunter.  She took a pewter ring from a ribbon attached to the inside cover and dropped it in his palm.  “Now stop this talk of leaving and do what is right.”

* * *

KATHERINE loaded her arms with pots and headed toward the river for water.  It had been hours since she had thrown Adahya out of the lodge, and she began to wonder if he would come back at all.

Logical reasoning told her she should escape.  Now would be the perfect time.  But another part of her wanted Adahya to come back begging her forgiveness.  She wanted him to take her in his arms and show her the pleasure he spoke of after a woman’s first time with a man.

But he was no where to be found.

She wondered for the hundredth time if he was with Song.  Even if the child was not his, he must feel obligated to her on some level.  Katherine had never felt jealous of another soul, now the emotion crept upon her with the force of a thousand stampeding horses.  Song was flawlessly perfect.  Even her pregnancy complimented her.

Still, if Adahya wanted Song, he would willingly allow Katherine to leave here.  When she had asked him today if she could leave, he had become furious.  Like a fool, she had told him to go back to Song, and then just watched him stormed off.

Perhaps he had gone to her after all.

She was so obsessed in her thoughts that she did not see Song until she had practically run into her.

Song must have been bathing at the river, for her hair was wet and combed back.  Her doeskin dress was bleached nearly white, and against her dark skin it cast a stunning aura about her.

Katherine was reminded of the story about the Indian princess which Mama used to tell her.  Only in her story the princess smiled sweetly.

This one was glaring at her as if she were a bug she wanted to squash.

Katherine stepped back.

Song’s eyes appraised her from head to toe.  When they came back up to glare at her, they were full of disdain.  “So this is Adahya’s Blackbird,” she ridiculed in perfect English.  “You’re just as ugly as She-who-commands said you were.”