High Country

"Deer cook in water. You eat. Sinopa go away, come back after this days."

"Why?"

Sinopa pursed her lips, then pointed at her belly and made a sweeping motion from there down toward her thighs.

"Moon time."

"Woman, it's freezing at night. Where will you go?"

Sinopa pointed in the direction of the lean-to Daniel had built for the horses.

"Stay with horse."

Daniel shook his head.

"I'm not going to have you freeze to death just because of something like that. You're going to stay here in the cabin with me, understand?"

Sinopa shook her head.

"No. Woman go away at moon time. Bad spirits come if stay."

Daniel touched her arm.

"Sinopa, I want you to stay inside with me. How can you do that?"

Sinopa thought for a long while. In her village, she'd have gone to a special low hut with dried grass on the floor and sat there until the discharge had ended. Other women would have been there doing the same thing, and they'd have talked about being women. They would also have done weaving or beadwork to pass the time.

Here, she had no one, but that meant there was no one to judge her if she violated the customs of the tribe except Daniel and he wanted her to stay. Would Naapi be mad? She thought about that and decided he wouldn't. Grandmother Moon might, but Grandmother Moon had given women the ability to make life, so she should understand. Sinopa looked at Daniel.

"Need grass on floor in corner and deerskin."

Daniel grinned.

"There are two deer hides and one elk in the cache. I'll go bring you some dry grass if I can find some."

Sinopa shook her head.

"You stay. Sinopa bring grass and deer skin."

For the next week, Daniel didn't see Sinopa at all. He knew every night after dark she left the cabin for a few minutes, but by then the fire had died down and he couldn't really see her. All he could tell was the cabin door creaked and he'd feel a chilly breeze when she opened it.

At the end of six days, Sinopa came out of the corner with the dried grass bundled together. She carried it outside and came back a few minutes later with another bundle tied with a few more strands of grass.

"For moon time", she said when Daniel looked at her, then looked at his wrist.

"You move?"

Daniel showed her how much he could move the wrist. It wasn't as far as before yet, but he'd be able to use it.

Sinopa smiled.

"Sinopa say good."

Daniel grinned.

"It's about time. I need to hunt and start setting traps or I won't have anything to trade in the spring."

She looked at him.

"Sinopa help. Find much deer and beaver."

She did help him, and Daniel was surprised by how much help she was. Sinopa could see deer sign as well as he, and when he shot the first deer and started to dress it, Sinopa stopped him.

"Woman do, man hunt. Go hunt."

It was like that every day they went out. Daniel would kill a deer or an elk, and Sinopa would stay behind to gut it while Daniel went after more. He was a little worried about wolves and bear scenting the kill, so he showed Sinopa how to load and shoot the Harper's Ferry rifle. After that, she carried the Harper's Ferry and Daniel his Hawken.

Together they'd drag the carcass or carcasses back to the cabin. Sinopa would skin the deer and cut it into pieces while Daniel put the pieces in his cache. In two weeks, there was enough deer and elk meat in the cache to last them both through the winter.

Daniel then turned his attention to trapping. He showed Sinopa how his traps worked and how to set them. She wasn't strong enough to set the beaver traps, but had no trouble with the smaller traps for marten and fisher. He showed her how he set traps for marten and fisher and Sinopa said she'd set those. After picking up a wire loop of traps, she walked off into the woods. Daniel picked up his beaver traps and started down to the river.

She was waiting in the cabin for him when he came back and smiled.

"Tomorrow, many marten and fisher. You see."

Daniel sat down on his bed.

"I hope so. I won't have much to trade in the spring since I got started late."

"Have much to trade. You see. Now, eat."

After they ate, Sinopa began examining Daniel's deer skin shirt. She pulled on one sleeve and the sinew stitching tore away the deer skin in one spot. She frowned.

"Daniel need new shirt. I make."

Sinopa went to the stack of deer and elk hides she'd tanned as they shot the animals for food. She selected two and came back to Daniel's bed.

"Take off shirt."

Daniel looked at her for a moment, then frowned.

"Woman, I'm not gonna let you see me naked."

"What is naked?"

"Naked is with no shirt on."

Sinopa shrugged.

"No make shirt if no see how fit. Piegan man take off shirt for wife all time. You take off shirt."

"You're not my wife."

Sinopa frowned.

"Sinopa be like wife. Sinopa cut meat. Sinopa cook food. Sinopa tan skins. Now Sinopa make shirt."

One thing Daniel had learned about Sinopa over the last months is that she didn't change her mind once she'd decided on something. He did need a new shirt, and Sinopa seemed hell-bent on making him one. Daniel pulled the shirt over his head. Sinopa smiled.

"Now make shirt."

She put the deerskin against his chest.

"You hold."

Daniel felt her soft hands against his skin as she pulled the deer skin around and marked it with a piece of charcoal from the fire. That touch set his every nerve tingling. He knew why, but he knew it was wrong. Sinopa was an Indian, not a white woman. Still, he couldn't stop the growing stiffness in his manhood. That hardening became worse when Sinopa marked the bottom of the shirt. Her hands brushed him through his deer skin trousers, and Daniel knew she had to have felt him. Sinopa didn't say or do anything. She just finished marking the skin and then took it from him.

She did the same with a second skin for the back of the shirt. By the time she'd finished, Daniel was embarrassed as much by his thoughts as by the bulge in his trousers. He was glad when she pulled the second deer skin away and went to sit by the fire.

Sinopa worked on the shirt during the next three days, first cutting the skins on the lines she'd marked, then punching small holes along the seams with a sharp awl made from a deer leg bone. It took her a day to sew the whole thing together with sinew from a deer, but when she finished, she smiled at Daniel.

"Try on shirt."

Daniel grinned when he pulled the shirt over his head and then into place. He'd made the first shirt himself. It fit loosely and at times had been uncomfortable. Sinopa's shirt fit a lot better. He worked his arms back and forth and found the shirt moved with him and didn't restrict his movement. He smiled at Sinopa.

"This is a good shirt, Sinopa, better than my old one. Thank you."

Sinopa looked down.

"Sinopa only do what all Piegan women do."

"Maybe so, but you did it for me. That means a lot, just like you taking care of me after the grizzly does."

Sinopa looked up and smiled.

"Sinopa take care of you always."

Daniel was a bit taken aback by that. He thought Sinopa would probably stay with him until the spring thaw and then be on her way. Now, it sounded like she'd made up her mind to stay with him. He wasn't sure he liked that idea. He knew there were some trappers who lived with Indian woman, but according to them, it was just to do what they called, "keeping their bed warm". He'd see one with an Indian woman one spring, and then with a different one the next spring.

Daniel didn't say anything to Sinopa about the other trappers and how they seemed to treat Indian women. She wouldn't have understood anyway. He just shrugged.

"We'll see."

That night, he rolled into his bed and pulled the furs over him. Sinopa was sitting on the grizzly hide in front of the fire where she always slept. He heard her murmuring something in Piegan. She did this sometimes and Daniel didn't know why. If he asked, she just shrug and say she was talking to Grandmother Moon or some other of what he'd learned were her many gods. Daniel closed his eyes and made a mental count of the beaver skins in the cache. He'd need gunpowder and lead by the time spring came, and he hoped he'd have enough pelts to trade for a year's supply.

He was estimating the value of the beaver, marten, and fisher hides he and Sinopa had collected when he heard the rustle of leather beside the bed. He opened his eyes in time to see Sinopa's naked silhouette as she climbed over him and got under the fur blankets. Daniel raised up on one elbow.

"Sinopa, what are you doing?"

"Floor cold. Sinopa sleep in bed, keep warm."

"You took off your dress."

"Piegan woman always take off dress to sleep."

Sinopa tittered, something Daniel had never heard her do before.

"Piegan man like."

"Well, I'm not a Piegan man."

Sinopa chuckled.

"You same as Piegan man when Sinopa fit shirt. I feel."

"That was just because..."

Daniel couldn't finish because he'd felt Sinopa's small hand touch his belly through his shirt. Her hand went lower, then lower still. Daniel couldn't control his reaction, though he tried. When she touched his manhood though his trousers, it was already swollen and stiff.

Sinopa's voice was soft.

"You same as Piegan man now."

Daniel reached for Sinopa's hand to stop the soft strokes she was making.

"Sinopa, why are you doing this?"

"Sinopa no have people. Sinopa like you. Sinopa talk to Grandmother Moon. Grandmother Moon say if Sinopa be like wife, you like Sinopa and let stay with you. Sinopa cook, tan hides, help you. Tonight, Grandmother Moon say be with you like wife."

"But I'm white and you're an Indian."

"Grandmother Moon say not matter. Sinopa not Piegan now."

Daniel felt Sinopa's hand start stroking him again. She moved closer and touched his nose with hers.

"Do to Sinopa what man do to wife. Sinopa help."

Daniel tried to resist her when she started pulling up his shirt, but her small, soft hands against his skin stirred his loins and took that resistance away. He sat up, pulled the shirt over his head, and tossed it to the floor. Sinopa had continued to stroke his rigid shaft as he did that, but now, slipped her hand inside his trousers.

Daniel felt the sensations race to his loins as she stroked him, and then lifted his hips so she could slide his trousers down his legs. Once she had them down to his knees, Sinopa straddled him and pulled his hands to her firm breasts.

She moved his hands around on the soft mounds and when he began doing it by himself, Sinopa reached between them, grasped his shaft, and guided it between her thighs. She parted her lips with the head, then moved it up and down between them.

She sighed after a few moments, and Daniel felt her push his shaft back a little more. He felt slippery wetness coat the head just before Sinopa eased her body down. He caught his breath when his manhood penetrated her a little. Sinopa raised back up, then lowered her body again, and Daniel felt her start to impale herself.

Sinopa did it with short strokes that became deeper with each one until she was sitting on his thighs. Then, she took a deep breath and began rising and then easing back down.

Daniel had never in his life felt anything like this. The sensations of Sinopa's snug passage massaging his shaft took his mind away from everything except Sinopa and how she was making him feel. It wasn't just those sensations though. It was also the way this small woman had said she felt about him. She'd said she liked him and wanted to stay with him. Daniel knew she was using the only words she knew, but what Sinopa was doing told him she felt a stronger emotion than just liking him.

He didn't consciously have those thoughts, but they were there, hiding under the euphoria of Sinopa's small body impaled on his shaft and her firm breasts in his hands. Those thoughts wouldn't come out until later. They were just there, floating under the surface of Sinopa's quiet moans and rapid breathing, and causing Daniel to feel more for her than just another Indian woman.

He didn't know how long it should take, but he knew he didn't want it to end. As Sinopa slowly stroked her body over him, Daniel relished every tiny little sensation, every tiny little shake of Sinopa's body, and every little sound they made from her moans to his groans to the quiet wet sounds of their coupling.

Of course he knew the end would come and how that would happen. It was happening to him right then. He could feel the tension building in his body. He could feel it in Sinopa as well. What had begun as slow regular strokes was becoming more rapid and when Sinopa had impaled herself as deep as she could, sometimes she'd shudder and gasp. Those shudders and gasps kept getting closer together and louder.

Sinopa leaned down to take some of her weight on her arms, and on the next of her strokes, rocked her hips down. Daniel groaned when she did that. The next time, both of them groaned, but Sinopa's legs also began to shake. Three strokes later, Daniel couldn't help himself. He thrust his hips up to meet Sinopa's downward motion. Sinopa gasped and ground her body into his, then quickly raised up. Daniel met her downward stroke again, and Sinopa cried out and her hips rocked rapidly. Daniel thrust up hard and felt the release of seed racing up his shaft and into Sinopa. Sinopa cried out again but didn't keep stroking. She wasn't in control of her body any more. It was writhing out the waves that raced through her from her knees to her core.

Sinopa collapsed on Daniel's chest with her chest heaving and her passage still clasping and unclasping Daniel's shaft. For a while, neither said or did anything. They were just quietly easing down from what had just happened. Sinopa pressed her breasts into Daniel's chest and stroked her nose against his again, then whispered, "You like Sinopa?"

Daniel stroked her back and then the swell of her hips.

"Yes, I like Sinopa."

The winter passed more quickly than Daniel remembered ever happening before. He and Sinopa trapped three hundred beavers, a hundred or so marten and fisher, and had ten deer and six elk skins to take to the Cache river rendezvous that spring. The black mare was dwarfed under the load of hides. Sinopa rode behind Daniel on the gelding.

Sinopa was amazed by the rendezvous. There were so many trappers and Indians camped and trading with each other. When she and Daniel rode up to the wagons of the fur traders, she marveled at all the items set out on display. She and Daniel made the rounds of those displays, and Daniel bartered for the items Sinopa seemed to like the most. She smiled proudly when the trader handed Daniel four wool blankets.

"We have warm bed now."

Daniel chuckled.

"It was pretty warm before."

When they were ready to leave for their cabin again, the mare's panniers were filled with the blankets, two more cooking pots, a new knife for Sinopa, and enough gunpowder and lead to last for at least two years. Sinopa also rode her own horse, a small paint mare that she'd seen and told Daniel it looked like one her father had owned. He'd traded their last six beaver pelts for it and a saddle and bridle.

Daniel was checking the cinch on the mare's pack saddle when another trader walked up.

"I see you got yourself a squaw. I'll give you ten beaver for her."

Daniel raised up and looked at the man.

"Mister, she's not for trade."

The man frowned.

"Well, I thought ten beaver was a good trade. She don't look like much and she probably just lays there like all the squaws do. I could go twelve hides, but that's all."

Daniel stared at the man, then rested his hand on the handle of the knife at his belt.

"I think it's time you moved on Mister. Like I said before, she's not for trade."

The man swore under his breath, but walked to one of the nearby campsites and sat down. Daniel saw him watching them as they prepared to leave.

Sinopa asked Daniel what the man had said. Daniel just said the man wanted to trade for the black mare and that he'd told him no. He then mounted the gelding and they started back up into the mountains.

Their cabin was three days ride from the Cache Valley, so they had to spend two nights camped in the trees. Daniel had found a niche in a cliff face the afternoon before they rode into the Cache Valley, and he and Sinopa stopped there for the night. The niche overhung the ground enough they'd stay dry if it happened to snow or rain, and the small fire Sinopa built would as well.

That night, the niche gave Daniel some comfort too. He hadn't liked the look on the trapper's face when they rode away, and he hadn't liked the way he'd leaned over and talked quietly to the other two trappers at the fire. Daniel had learned to understand the ways of the wild animals of the forest and mountains. Since he was a small boy, he'd learned the ways of people as well. Of the two, Daniel trusted the animals more than people. He didn't trust the trapper at all and was glad to have the stone cliff at his back..

Sinopa was happy with the things they'd traded for and wanted to talk about what she'd do with them. Daniel seemed to be preoccupied with something. She was beginning to feel disappointed when he picked up his Harper's rifle, checked the priming in the pan, and then turned to her.

"Sinopa, take your rifle and go sit in that aspen grove beside the rocks until I tell you to come out."

"Why?"

"Just do it. If you see anybody coming toward you except me, shoot them and then run into the trees. I'll find you."

Sinopa's legs were shaking when she worked her way through the dense mass of small saplings and underbrush and then knelt down. She watched as Daniel put two logs in her sleeping furs and then rolled the furs over them. After checking his Hawken, he laid it by his side and sat down in front of the fire. Sinopa saw him ease the knife from his belt and stick it in the ground beside his right leg.

The moon was high in the sky and Sinopa was beginning to doze off when she heard the quiet crack of a twig breaking. She was instantly alert. A breaking twig in the spring might mean a bear hungry from sleeping through the winter and looking for food. It might mean wolves attracted by the smell of the roasting meat she'd cooked over the fire. Was that why Daniel had her go into the aspens?

She saw Daniel freeze at the sound and then begin slowly searching for the source. For a while, only the crackling of the fire broke the silence, though Sinopa was certain anyone could hear the pounding of her heart. Then, she heard the metallic click of a rifle hammer being cocked.

The trapper from the Cache Valley walked slowly into the small clearing in front of the niche in the rock.

"Just leave that there rifle on the ground. I got me another man in the trees out there. One of us'll get you before you can pick it up."

"What do you want", asked Daniel.

The man chuckled.

"I want that squaw you're traveling with."

"I told you she's not for trade."

The man chuckled again.

"I never said anything about trading for her, now did I? I figure since you won't trade, I'll just take her along with me. We'll have a good time with her over the winter. Now, stand up and move away from her."

Daniel put his right hand on his right knee as if he was going to stand. Instead, he grasped his knife with his right hand and using an underhand sweeping motion, threw it at the trapper. The knife hit him in the face, handle first. The man dropped his rifle and yelled, "Jacob", as he felt his nose and mouth. That gave Daniel time to pick up his rifle, cock it, aim and shoot the man.

Just as he fired, Sinopa saw another man run out of the trees and aim his rifle at Daniel. Daniel was running for the safety of a tree and the man was swinging his rifle trying to follow him. He might have seen the flash of the flint igniting the priming charge when Sinopa pulled the trigger. He saw nothing after that. The big ball caught him in the ribs and he went down gasping for breath. Sinopa had started out of the aspen thicket to make sure Daniel wasn't hurt when she saw another man run out of the trees with a rifle in his hands. Daniel was trying to reload his own rifle, and Sinopa knew he'd never be fast enough.