Now, standing behind David, he had the
uncontrollable urge to feel that soft curly hair. Slowly, with
trembling hands, he reached up and fingered the reddish locks. He
was right, they were velvety soft. The kid took that moment to step
back and the small derriere rubbed against his manhood, causing it
to swell. He dropped the hair and quickly jumped back. His breath
labored when David turned around and looked into his eyes. It was
then he lost all control of his senses and kissed the unsuspecting
lips. It was a chaste kiss but, nevertheless, one that sent tingles
clearly to his toes.
“Oh God, forgive me,” he gasped, and then
blinked. It was the first time he saw his friend
32
smile. Beautiful white teeth sparkled in the
grayness of the night. Shaken, he froze. David came forward and
hugged him and he stood rigidly, hoping no one saw them. He was
sweating profusely and wanted to shove the clinging warm body from
him but he couldn’t. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around and cursed
everyone who might see them. At that moment he knew that this
person would always be a part of his life.
Daphne’s emotions were jumbled. Things had
been happening to her lately that were causing strange images in
her mind. Before, flashbacks haunted her every day. But, lately her
head would ache and she knew that something horrible had happened.
Nightmarish images continued to drift in and out of her
subconscious mind. Some dreams would cause her to call out until
warm arms surrounded her and she drifted back to sleep. Now new
faces were mingling with the old, since that dark veil began
lifting. For a long time now there was only one new face she let
into her thoughts and it was there before her. When his lips
touched hers, she felt a warm
sensation flowed all over her body. It
replaced the coolness her body had been feeling for quite a while.
Daphne liked that sensation; it didn’t scare her like the other
emotions.
They had been traveling for six months.
Melissa noticed that Daphne’s pants were getting hard to button and
had noticed the girl was putting on weight. At first she was happy,
her sister was too thin, but then, they were all malnourished. She
wondered if Seth had been feeding her his share of food. It was
possible; the boy watched over Daphne like a mother hen. Well, she
didn’t mind if he could spare the food.
She stared at her sister’s
round, extended stomach and slowly it all fell into place. The
morning sickness Daphne had experienced three months ago. Melissa
thought then it was just the illness that was going around. But now
she recalled that her sister didn’t run a fever like the others and
at the time she had been grateful. Although, Daphne never got her
monthly flow, Melissa just believed it was due to the shock. She
never suspected anything else, until now.
Dear Lord! Daphne was carrying a child!
Melissa was worried also about Daphne’s
health. She was a frail girl and she wondered if she’d be strong
enough to deliver. She sighed, thinking that this wasn’t her only
worry. It won’t
33
be easy to hide the fact that her sibling
was a girl. Daphne would have to be kept in the wagon from now on.
She didn’t want anyone else to know, but she decided that she owed
Vida and Seth the truth. She had her chance the following day as
she and Vida walked a safe distance from any ears that might
overhear her story. Vida listened with undivided attention and
Mellissa saw pity on her new friend’s eye. Her already slumped
shoulder seemed to slouch more.
” I feel shame for all the complaining I had
done to God for my life. You had gone through so much more in so
short of a time. I knew you had suffered pain but I had no idea the
extent of it.” She gave Melissa a hug that meant more to her than
she could say. Vida added, “I promise not to tell a soul,” and
wiped her teary eyes on the hem of her dress. “I’d be happy to give
you one of my old dresses. It’s faded, but clean.”
“Thank you,” Melissa sniffled. “I appreciate
anything. I’m sure the dress will do fine. I’m glad I have you for
a friend,” she rasped, her voice cracked with emotion.
“But you know we have another problem,” Vida
said. Melissa knitted her brows together. “Seth,” she whispered.
“What are you going to say to my boy? What are you going to tell
him?”
Melissa sighed as if a mountain was on her
shoulders. “Yes, he’s going to be a problem. Your boy has helped
Dav- Daphne so much. I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid he might
not understand.”
“I think you should tell him the truth.”
She saw Vita’s eyes mist again.
“My boy is strong. I’ve been watching him
lately and something is wrong. He’s very moody when David, err,
Daphne is not around. They are attached and sometimes I feel just a
little too close for boys. But my Seth has a good heart; he won’t
let you down.”
Melissa saw a concerned frown on the other’s
woman’s face. She believed Vida was right; she hoped the truth
wouldn’t make things worse.
***
Seth and David were scouting the woods for
supper when his friend tripped and fell. The boy screamed when he
landed on his side but Seth was too concerned to notice that he had
uttered a sound. The boy sat holding his side in pain when Seth
pulled David’s hand away
34
noticing the small splotch of blood. He
looked on the ground and saw a pointed rock with a trace of the red
stain. He better take a look to make sure it wasn’t serious.
“I’m sure it’s nothing but a deep scratch,
David, but let me see.”
He began to unbutton the shirt without any
protest from the injured party but he was experiencing a funny
feeling in his gut when his knuckles touched soft skin. Seth opened
the shirt to find the chest tightly bound. This was very odd, he
thought, but he didn’t harp on it seeing blood seep through the
wrappings. Deciding to unbind the material, he untied the knot in
the back and unwound the cloth. His eyes were on the location of
the wound, and he studied the cut.
“It’s not that bad but it has to be cl...?”
His eyes were on their way to the face but stopped midway noticing
the small, white breasts. Although, he never had seen a woman’s
breast before, he knew this was no boy. Seth jumped back and landed
on his rump and sat staring like an idiot for a long time before he
looked up into a confused face.
“You’re a girl!” He stood and picked Daphne
up, hugging her, repeating, “You’re a girl! You’re a girl!” He
started to cry and then laughed. And cry and laugh at the same
time. He was so overjoyed that he placed kisses over her face.
“I’ll be damned, no wonder I was so attracted to you.” Then he
shouted for all to hear. “I’m normal!”
Birds took to flight from the sound of his
voice. He put her at arms length and studied the beautiful torso
before his dark eyes. “Why?” he asked the girl who couldn’t answer
him. “Why
would anyone pass you off as a boy? Such
loveliness shouldn’t be hidden.”
There had to be a good explanation and, by
God, he’d find out. Then, on second thought, what did it matter as
long as he knew the truth? Leaving the binding on the ground, he
re-buttoned her shirt and wondered how he’d explain seeing her bare
chest. He’d be too embarrassed to tell Melissa, but the wound
needed tending so it wouldn’t get infected. He decided to confide
in his mother. It was the most awkward moment in his seventeen
years on the God’s green earth. His heart feeling so much lighter,
he escorted the girl back to camp and very uncomfortable, he
explained to his mother what had happened.
“Turn around while I tend to her injury,”
his mother ordered. He thought there was no need since he had
already laid his eyes on her beautiful breasts but he’d be
embarrassed with his mother looking on. He recalled the look on his
mother’s face when he brought the girl to her; she
35
was surprised but not shocked. Then she sat
him down and calmly told why it was necessary to pass the girl off
as a boy.
His heart sank when hearing of her brutal
rape and how she witnessed her parent’s deaths. No wonder she went
into shock. To make matters worse, she was carrying someone’s
child. Coping with the knowledge that he might have been different
was hard enough, but this? This hurt more. He left the wagon to
think and his mother walked Daphne to her wagon. An explanation
would have saved him a lot of grief.
Seth went into the tall prairie grass and
did something he had not done in years. He wept and then he became
a coward and stayed away, but he had seen the sadness in Melissa’s
eyes when he had bumped into her a few times. He tried avoiding the
young woman but it was
impossible sometimes. He probably gave her
the impression that he was angry at her when he didn’t speak but it
wasn’t Melissa he was mad at; it was himself for being such a
coward. He was braver when he believed he was sinning in his heart
for lusting after a boy. Now, though relieved she was a girl, he
couldn’t get rid of the picture of another man being inside of her.
He was tormented by the knowledge that she was carrying someone
else’s child when it should have been his.
36
NINE
Blue Thunder picked up a pile of shafts that
were measured and cut for proper length, bark peeled away. He had
made sure they were straitened of any cures, shaved with a knife to
make his arrows as identical as possible. He notched one end for
fletching, and grooved on the other for a piercing head. Strong
sinew and glue made from buffalo hooves for securing the points was
also gathered; no part of the bison went to waste. During the long
winter months, he chiseled stones onto arrowheads, a chore he
enjoyed. Now it was time to go hunting.
He laid his weapons outside the chief
Dasodaha’s huge dwelling and called out, “May I enter?” When
permission was given, Blue Thunder ducked inside and said, “Father,
I am going out to scout with a few of the tribe’s men,” he declared
in his Athabscan language. His father had pretty much mastered the
art of the white man’s tongue but he refused to accept the changing
times.
“I hope my son finds the buffalo; the deer
you killed last week was enough for us and your aunt, but our
bellies are growing hungry again.”
Blue Thunder made a rude sound, disgusted
with the white men massacring the animal for skins then leaving the
meat to rot on the plains. His people do not waste any part of the
huge beast. They also needed many hides, tallow, meat and bones to
make scrapers for hides, and salt
from the desert to trade
with the Pueblos for pottery, cotton, blankets, turquoise, corn and
other goods. The Apache’s gorilla war tactics came naturally to him
and his people were unsurpassed. Seldom Apaches went to war, but
often went on raids to punish their enemies. Albeit, they struck
fear in the hearts of Pueblo tribes, they had managed to maintain
generally peaceful relations with their neighbors. But sometimes,
when a brave saw what he wanted, he simply took it. Among the
Pueblo villages, Apaches were known by another name,
Apachu,
“the
enemy.”
He had heard of the war going on between the
north and the south. In his heart he prayed that the white savages
kill one another, but it did not stop many of their kind from
traveling west.
37
Though the Apache often warred, killing his
own kind was wrong in his mind. He was a proud White Mountain
Apache, and his people were a fierce fighting nation; he could not
change what was in his Indian blood any more than he could change
the dry land into greenery.
“...and to keep… Son? Your head is in the
clouds?”
“Huh? Blue Thunder was a few words back.
“Sorry, my father, I will be gone awhile, be safe while I am
away.”
Dasodaha grumbled. “It is not I you have to
worry about.” He slapped him proudly on the broad back. “You are
twenty-one summers, and developed into a handsome man. It saddens
your father that my son’s mother never lived to see what we had
created. Is Star Gazer joining you and the men?” inquired his
father as he sat, crossed legged, lighting his pipe.
“No, he is helping the women plant the
corn.”
Dasodaha blew out the smoke with a
disgruntled puff. “You brother would much rather
harvest and study the stars at night than to
ride with his peers.” He shook his head. “Where did I go
wrong?”
Blue Thunder threw back his head and roared
with laughter. “Father, you are too hard on the boy. He is
different, I agree, but he is special, and he is from your loins”
he chuckled knowing his teasing only annoyed his father
further.
Dasodaha waved him away and closed his
eyes.
Blue Thunder was dismissed
without another lecture on respecting his elders. Once outside, his
dog, Licks Too Much, ran up to his master. He hankered to the
mutt’s level and scratched behind the ear. “
Hon Dah
Licks Too Much,” he laughed
when the dog did what he was named for and Blue Thunder tried to
push the canine away. “Yuuuck! Sit boy. I had my swim this morning,
I do not need another face washing,” he chuckled, and stood. The
dog pounced around him.
Blue Thunder knew he shouldn’t have gotten
so attached to the animal, but the mutt had been with him since he
was eighteen summers. Dogs were raised for meat among some of the
clans, and when he and his father visited another tribe, the pup
was caged along with others. Blue Thunder couldn’t resist going
over and putting his hand through the cage. The pup immediately ran
over and slobbered all over his fingers. It was love at first
sight. Dasodaha had to do much
38
trading for the dog and he was not pleased,
either. But Blue Thunder promised to make it up and bring home many
deer and buffalo hides and meat to pacify the old man.