“A hey-yo, Ty,” Morning Sky called to him while seductively arching her back and reaching her arms towards the sky. “The water’s warm. Coming in?”
Lone Dove did not stay in the waist deep water, but continued her alluring glide to shore to expose herself all the more. With both hands over her head, she squeezed the excess water out of her thick lustrous hair. Brilliant sunbeams streamed through the swaying branches of the willow trees on the shore to halo her exquisite form with a radiance that matched her seductive beauty. Her taut breasts and erect nipples framed in the sunlight invited Tyoga to join her.
“A hey-yo, Ty,” she said. “Come in and join us, Ditlihi. You look like you could use a good rub down.”
“I don’t think so, Lone Dove.” Glancing at her breasts, Tyoga added, “Seems like the water is pretty chilly from up here!”
Walking Bird and Morning Sky covered their mouths and giggled out loud.
The open invitation to join the beautiful young ladies brought a smile to his face. “Thanks, but I think I’ll give you girls some privacy. I’ll head on down to Green Rock Cove. Besides, I know the kind of rub down you’re talking about. Not that I couldn’t use one, by the way,” he said with a smile.
Seeing the bulge in his tight leather breeches assured the young ladies that their little game had achieved its desired intent. They weren’t willing to let the opportunity simply walk away.
“Ah come on, Ty. You used to swim with us all the time,” Walking Bird teased.
“Yeah … well … I’ve grown as you can plainly seen,” he said.
Walking Bird, who had remained in waist deep water suddenly stood up. She cupped one melon-sized breast in each hand. “Have these grown too, Ty?”
Laughing, Lone Dove and Morning Sky ran back to the deeper water and splashed Walking Bird. They grabbed her arms and pulled her back down into the water. Walking Bird’s voluptuous breasts were the envy of all of the girls in the village, and the focus of attention wherever they went.
Amused with their playful teasing, Tyoga waved his arm in the air and departed over the rise.
Green Rock Cove was a smaller, but deeper, inlet ringed by birch and maple trees. Boulders served as diving platforms on the far side of the cove, while the near side had a gentle slope of pebbles and sand that descended gradually into the deeper water. He hoped to find some privacy and calm here.
He stood for a long moment on one of the diving boulders while gazing into the reflections of the clear, cool water. After letting his doe skin shirt drop from his hands, he untied his leather adobes to let them fall to the ground. He placed the palms of his hands in the small of his back and bent backwards to stretch long and hard in the warmth of the sun. His muscular upper arms knotted and flexed in a sensuous dance that was perfectly timed with the rhythmic arching of his lower back. He locked his hands together behind his lower back, and stretched while reaching both arms as far back as he could. His triceps bulged as his chest exploded forward to release the pent-up power stored in his magnificent pects. The beads of sweat coursing along the chiseled contours of his abdominal muscles sparkled in the sunlight like tiny diamonds while drizzling past the hair below his belly button to continue their journey down the front of his leather britches. He squatted down close to the water’s edge, filled his hands with the cool water swirling gently in the quiet cove, and flung it into the air to soak his hair, shoulders, chest, and back. He stood up slowly, and peeled off his deer hide breeches.
Closing his eyes, he stood naked in the sunlight to revel in the moment of oneness, silence, and inner peace. He quickly opened his eyes and cocked his head while listening intently. He wasn’t alone. He paused only for a moment and dove into the cool water.
In the bushes on the rise just above the cove, Praire Day, the eldest daughter of Chief Silver Cloud, was quietly kneeling while watching Tyoga’s every move. Biting her bottom lip, she laid her left hand upon her chest in a futile attempt to quiet her pounding heart.
The sensuous joy of the crystalline water caressing his tired body buoyed his weary spirit. Holding his breath, he dove down and effortlessly glided over the pebble and sand-bottomed pool, while turning over stones in a playful hunt for concealed crayfish and salamanders. With a push off the bottom, he flew skyward to breach the water’s surface like a dolphin in the bay.
Wiping the water from his face and eyes, he paused only long enough to catch his breath before rolling back down to the bottom to resume his critter search.
He was still underwater when he heard the splashing coming from the shallow sandy shoal. He looked toward the direction of the sound and recognized the long lean legs of Praire Day gingerly walking towards him. Before he had time to surface, she dove to the bottom of the pool and cupped his head in her hands. The surprise of her nakedness in Green Rock Cove left him with no defense save a sheepish underwater smile. The playful broad smile she returned put him momentarily at ease. But her eyes told another story.
They broke the surface with their arms and legs intertwined in that gangly awkwardness that accompanies balancing on wet stones.
“Praire Day, what are you doing here?” Ty asked even though he knew all too well the answer.
“What do you think, Ty? I’ve been following you.” Her chestnut eyes sparkled.
They both laughed out loud when he lost his footing on the moss covered rocks and began to tumble backwards. She hooked her leg around his thigh to prevent his fall. He grabbed her shoulders to steady himself. Pulling her towards him—they looked into each other’s eyes. The laughing stopped.
Praire Day was slightly built, and a few years older than him. Her long lean torso supported full breasts that seemed disproportionately large for her petite frame. Her well-defined waist hinted at the child that she nearly carried to term. Although her legs were long, the top of her head only came to Tyoga’s chest.
When the laughter stopped, she did not raise her head to look him in the eyes, but floated in the water in front of him with her eyes locked on his upper chest. He looked down at Praire Day’s wet hair cascading off her shoulders and floating in a tangle of gentle softness at the small of her back. Drops of water shimmered in the sunlight on her forehead before forming ribbons of water that streamed lazily down her nose and over her prominent high cheeks. Dewey drops softly drizzled over her full lips and she stuck out the tip of her tongue to arrest the flow. Pausing to rest in the cleft of her chin before dropping to her chest, threadlike rivulets careened over and between her breasts. She held herself far enough away from Tyoga’s chest so that he could watch her breasts float in the crystal clear water of the cove.
Summoning her courage, she looked up into his eyes as her nipples grew in response to the urgency she felt between her legs.
“Praire Day,” he whispered.
“Don’t speak, Ditlihi. I have ached for this moment to come. More than you can ever know.”
Placing her hands on his shoulders, she hooked her ankles together in the small of his back and lifted her forehead to his lips. As his lips gently brushed her skin, she shivered while her hips convulsed in a primal yearning that defied temperance or restraint.
Praire Day had been a widow since her husband was killed more than a year ago. At his death, one of his brothers would have been expected to take her into his lodge, care for her, and tend to her sexual needs just as he would satisfy the desires of his own wife. Praire Day’s husband had no brothers. Even though she was the daughter of the Chief of the Ani-Unwiya, she had moved into her father-in-law’s lodge, and was cared for by his family.
Usually a widow was not released from mourning until a brave asked for her hand in marriage. The village knew that Praire Day wanted to be Tyoga’s woman, and no brave would dare to ask for her hand until he had made his intentions with Sunlei clear.
He and Sunlei had been lovers since the night on the summit of Mount Rag. The sexual freedoms of the Cherokee placed few constraints upon where, when, and how they were able to express their love for one another. As teens, their lust was unquenchable.
While the fact that Sunlei never became pregnant was a source of concern for her and her family, it had been a God send for Tyoga. The sexual freedoms practiced by the Native Americans were not acts that were open to the judgment of others. There was no good or bad, right or wrong associated with the joys of sexual union. There was the utility of procreation and the necessity of keeping the tribe strong with the blood of new warriors and wives.
Such was not the case in Tyoga’s world.
The white world was shackled by traditions mandated by the zealous dictates of societal taboos and religious dogma. Sexual union out of wedlock was an immoral act that condemned the offender to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity. Fathering a child with an Indian woman would ostracize the Weathersbys from the few white families who formed the loosely knit neighborhood of the American frontier. They would be outcasts who would garner no help in times of need.
Tyoga was a young, strong, unmarried man who had been faithful to a single woman. He was torn between his love for Sunlei and the growing demand to take Praire Day, whose gorgeous body was draped so sensuously around his own. Feather soft, her nakedness floated gently against the coarseness of his masculine form, and her scent filled his head with a flood of emotion that engorged his senses with disarming abandon. He struggled to reconcile all that he thought he knew about his character and integrity.
What would my Cherokee brothers think of me if word got out that I had rejected the daughter of their Chief?
They will not think that it was the honorable thing to do. They will think it a dishonor and a disgrace to the tribe—the tribe of which I am a member—the tribe that saved my family’s life.
His resolve waned with every beat of his pounding heart, as the natural curiosity shared by young men since the beginning of time overwhelmed reason and sensibility. Afterall, it would be little more than a physical act of intense pleasure lasting only seconds. How could such a simple and joyous moment jeopardize his relationship with the woman he loved? He was certain that after their coupling, he could walk away and leave the act in the waters of Green Rock Cove.
What about Prairie Day? Can I trust her to keep our tryst a secret?
It was not an act of which an Anu-Unwiya maiden would be ashamed. Any woman who could claim to have been taken by Tyoga Weathersby would be held in high esteem. Bragging about the liaison would be the natural course, and yet he somehow felt that she understood the need for discretion.
Lifting her gently to his lips, they delicately explored the taste of each other’s mouth. Her fruity sweetness surprised Tyoga as he savored the fullness of her bottom lip. He kissed her cheeks with increasing urgency as he felt himself grow in response to her thrusting hips.
Praire Day pushed away from Tyoga and looked into his eyes in a way that Sunlei had never done. It was a look of resolute confidence borne of an acceptance of destiny’s cruel injustice.
He watched her eyes as they traced the contours of his face as if committing to memory every line and nuance. She kept her eyes wide open and slowly inched her lips toward his in a gesture of intimacy that he had never known.
Without kissing, barely touching at all, she floated her parted lips over his in a feather soft sharing of breath and essence and life. The sensuous expression of passion filled him with an ecstasy that he had never known, and emptied him of resolve.
Releasing the hunger that burned within, he pulled her to him and kissed her long and hard. He reached around and cupped Praire Day’s hard round buttocks in his strong shaking hands. With a gentle lift, Praire Day floated onto him.
Chapter 19
The Summons to South Fork
T
yoga was still soaking wet when he came rushing into Nine Moon’s lodge. Tes Qua’s mother met him with a bowl of hot venison stew in her hands. Sunlei was also waiting for him. Tes Qua was no where in sight.
Sunlei got up from tending the fire, grabbed her brother’s ceremonial deerskin leggings and shirt that True Moon had gotten out for him to wear, and ran over to give them to Tyoga. “Look at you, my strong one. You are soaking wet, and your face and chest are all red. You are late. Get dressed. Hurry. Tes Qua has already eaten and is waiting for you in Silver Cloud’s lodge.”
“Thanks, Sunlei,” Tyoga replied without looking at her.
“Ty, look at me,” she demanded. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing. Just gotta hurry. Hand me the fringed mocassins.”
She ran to the far side of the lodge, picked up the moccasins, and hurried back over to give them to Tyoga.
He reached for them without looking at her and was on his way out of the lodge with a hurried, “Thanks.”
Sunlei reached out, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him to her.
Looking up into his eyes she said, “Tyoga, listen to me. There is trouble. Traders from Bennett’s Creek tell of two Shawnee braves who were killed on their way back to South Fork village. Their bodies were found in the rocks at Fifer’s Trace. They were torn apart like the braves who hunted us on Mount Rag.”
Pulling him farther to the side out of hearing range of the others, she whispered, “Ty, did ‘he’ do this terrible thing?”
Tyoga put his hands on her shoulders, and held her slightly away from him. “Sunlei, I don’t know if he was there or not. I don’t know what happened to those men. Seven Arrows and his men were looking for trouble at the confluence, but I didn’t hurt anyone. If the braves were killed by,” he looked around to see if anyone was within ear shot, before continuing, “‘him’ then he did it to protect me. That’s all I know.”
“You can tell me later. Silver Cloud is expecting you. Hurry now. It is not wise to keep him waiting.”
Silver Cloud’s lodge served as the ceremonial meeting house for the conduct of official tribe business and the less formal gathering place where the People discussed the events of successful hunting trips or the courageous acts of their braves during a raid on an enemy’s village. One end of the lodge had been arranged to accommodate those gatherings. Fifty or sixty tribe members would assemble to mete out justice, make laws, or laugh at a hunter’s tale of a missed opportunity at an eight-point buck. That end of the lodge featured a stone-ringed ceremonial fire pit, and a raised podium upon which the Chief and tribal elders would sit to hear testimony and pass judgement. The ground was covered with reed mats, buffalo hides, and elk skin covered cushions to make the men comfortable during long hours of discussion and deliberation.