Hot Cannons & Warm Lovers Ch. 02

He couldn't add any more to it, so he settled for kissing her tears away, telling her that he was sorry for saying it.

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But Lise felt something in his sad words.

As the night wore on, she worked them both as hard as she could, bringing out all of her heretofore unrequited little fantasies from out of her countless nights as a lonely woman.

She had him as she knelt before him with her sex held high in offering to him. She hugged the blankets to herself in a ball as he pounded into her and the way that his scrotum felt as he slowed and she enjoyed the sensations of it rubbing her sex, ...

She lay on her back on top of him as he took her that way, lifting his hand from her breast to kiss it softly and then put it back.

She felt as though she'd lost her heart to him as she lay beside him on her back with one leg up so that they could look at each other and smile while he fucked her very slowly for what must have been an hour and she knew that it was the moment, but even if she discounted that, she was left with something like she'd never really had a chance to feel for a man before.

She knew that it was dangerous to feel this way, but she couldn't help it.

When she was on her back with one leg over his shoulder, it was late and they were slow about it. She whispered to him, asking him if he could hear her. When he nodded, she shook her head.

"No," she whispered as she held his hand to her breastbone, "Lise wants Nehaseemo. Étienne has no father. Learn to be father. I want to know you."

He stared for a moment and then he nodded, smiling, "Want that; Lise and Étienne. Want that."

They ended up going even slower face to face on their sides and she hung onto him tightly as they whispered, "Kiwidinok has my brother," she said, "Lise and Étienne want you. How long can you stay?"

He shrugged, "Past winter, at least."

She nodded, "We do this again, tomorrow?"

When he nodded, she smiled, "Nehaseemo has Lise now. We talk to Kiwidinok."

He looked to be about happy enough to cry and she wrapped herself around him again. It was now something which he wanted very much.

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Lise woke up in perhaps the worst way possible.

Kiwidinok, her dear friend, was wailing in grief.

She hadn't even known that it was Kiwinidok at first. She heard a short scream and then a heart-rending wail that ended in several low sobs.

When she managed to shake the cobwebs out of her head a little while frantically pulling on some clothes to step outside, she saw Kiwidinok huddled in a little ball on the ground, almost screaming in anguish.

She saw Étienne, and he looked to be about ready to join her. She ran to him, "What happened? Étienne? Tell me!"

The boy almost began to really cry then, but she shook him gently, and he slowly told her, as carefully as he could that Jean-Luc was dead.

Lise couldn't believe it. She hugged her son and told him to comfort Kiwidinok. As he touched the poor woman's shoulder, she seized him and they cried together. Lise turned and looked to see Nehaseemo speaking with a pair of others. "Francais?" she asked a little desperately, "You speak French?"

One of them nodded, so she stood up and stepped over, "Please, Jean-Luc is my brother. Tell me what has happened."

She learned that the two were Odawa from the small village at Lake Joseph. They told her of meeting Nehaseemo here and agreeing to go to Manitou's Island after a short trip home. While they were there, they saw the trader come and he was brought before the chief over a matter relating to a defective musket. The man with the grievance held up the musket and accused Jean-Luc of cheating him by selling him a faulty weapon.

From what they said, Jean-Luc had pointed out that the man had tried the piece before he'd bought it and it had worked fine. The chief then told the man to load it and show that it did not work.

With the musket loaded, the man pointed it at Jean-Luc's chest and pulled the trigger. Jean-Luc fell dead on the spot and the man had only shrugged, saying that he guessed that it worked after all.

Lise felt her own tears beginning. She went to Kiwidinok and she got to her knees to hold her. The two ended up together hugging each other while Kiwidinok wailed loudly.

It took a long time before the woman wound down and even then, after she'd stood up, one could see that she'd have a passing thought and almost collapse again, to end up on her knees, sobbing. Nehaseemo helped her up and spoke quietly to her trying to help. Finally, Lise put her to bed and stayed with her, coming out at intervals to make meals silently and to take something to Kiwidinok -- who only nibbled because she knew that Lise was trying.

At one point, she called for Nehaseemo and it seemed to take forever while she asked something of him. But at length, he understood and he took Lise's hand and brought her outside. Her lack of a more thorough vocabulary in his language caused their talk to be so stilted, but it was more comfortable to Nehaseemo that way -- as odd as it sounded.

"I go to Lake Joseph, tell chief that Kiwidinok be there in three days. Tell chief to keep the man in the village. Kiwidinok want speak to chief. I come back then." He kissed her, and it surprised Lise a little, since she didn't expect it. She expected what he did next even less.

He went to Étienne and knelt on one knee placing his hand on the boy's shoulder, "Étienne," he said in his best and miserably insufficient French, "Try not cry."

He looked at one of the Odawa and said something and the man said to the boy, "Boys and men do not cry. Nehaseemo knows this is not the way of the whites, but he asks you to try -- for him."

Lise asked why and Nehaseemo didn't trust himself to be able to get it across properly, so he looked to the Odawa man again and spoke briefly.

The man tuned to Lise, though he was also speaking to Étienne at the same time, "Nehaseemo says that for a time at least, Étienne has a father who is a war chief."

Nehaseemo nodded then and he kissed Lise and touched the boy's shoulder and smiled, "Wait for me. I will come back to you."

Then he walked away with the two men.

The long day was slow agony for Lise, feeling the pain of Kiwidinok so much that it was hours before she had the presence of mind to think of their situation -- hers, her boy's and her friend's. She said nothing of it, not wanting to burden Kiwidinok with anything more.

While Étienne tried to come to grips with it, failing most of the time, Lise lay with her keening friend, holding her so that their foreheads touched quite often, crying with her, since it was what she really wanted to do now.

Kiwidinok left the tent for dinner and she sat in silence with tears streaming down her face as she ate a little. When she was done, she tried to wipe her eyes and she looked at Étienne.

"Jean-Luc told me that you have tools from your grandfather. Can I see them? Is there a saw?"

The boy nodded and he ran off, returning a few minutes later, almost dragging a roll. Kiwidinok moved some things and she placed it on the table, unrolling it to look. She selected a metal saw and a thin, round file, setting them aside.

"Come, Étienne," she said, sounding dead in her tone to him and she led him to her tent. She showed him four muskets and she drew the ramrod of one of them out to hold it against the side of the long barrel. "Look here. You see how deep it would go in the barrel."

She pushed it inside and then she showed him where the end stuck out. "Put your thumbnail against the stick here. Can you do this?"

He nodded and complied.

"Push it all the way in until it stops or until your nail is against the end of the barrel. Be careful not to let your thumb slip, or you must start over."

"Good. Now do not lift your nail, but take the stick out and lie it against the side as I did before. When he'd done it, she'd praised him quietly, "this one is not loaded. Now you must do the other three the same way, but if one has the stick all the way in and your thumbnail is NOT against the end, you must tell me, yes?"

He nodded and she walked out with the first musket. She laid it on the table. One by one, Étienne brought the rest out.

"I think that one is loaded," he said.

She tried it herself and she nodded, "Good boy, for finding it for me."

She removed the flint from the hammer and she wrapped a stone with a piece of buckskin before she held it so that it pointed at the soft ground and began to beat the side of the barrel gently. She did it slowly waiting a second or so before hitting it again.

"The barrel rings a little each time, "she said to Étienne, "I can feel it in my other hand. The ringing helps to shake things free."

True to what she'd said, about a minute later, a lead ball fell out followed by the wad and after that, then there was a short rain of black powder. She set it with the others. One at a time, she picked them up, cocked the hammer, and then pointed it toward the north sky and pulled the trigger.

She did this ten times each, replacing the flint in the one which had been loaded before testing it.

Lise heard her curse in Ojibwe, and then she said in French, "Nothing wrong with even one of them."

Laying the first one on the table so that the stock hung over the edge, she looked at Lise, "Please sit here, right on this."

Lise sat, feeling silly to be sitting on the barrel of a musket that way.

Kiwidinok tied her hair back and began. It took a long while, but at last she had most of the long barrel off and she was looking at the rough edges that the saw had left behind.

"Sit on this one now, and use the thin thing here like this, but try not to hit the end on anything inside the hole. Just remove this roughness."

Lise nodded and did her best, feeling the vibrations of what Kiwidinok did in her bottom at the same time.

When they were all done, Kiwidinok laid them - one at a time again, onto the table and asked Lise to lean on one with both hands and as much of her weight as possible. Then she sawed most of the shoulder stock off before taking up a knife to carve the roughness out of the wood.

"What are we doing all of this for?" Lise asked.

Kiwidinok looked up at her from where she stood bent over a little with the knife in her hand, "We are making loud pistols."

"But why?" Lise asked then.

"I will use one to kill a man," Kiwidinok growled quietly through her teeth.

After that, she asked Lise to stand inside the tent and remove her undergarments.

Lise looked as though the slightest puff of wind could have knocked her over at that. For the first time, Kiwidinok smiled just a little.

She stuck her head through the door and asked Étienne to clean up the table, and to please put the saw and the file away again. "I am trying very hard to feel a little better and it is very hard for me to do, my young friend. Please help me in this as well, and I will make something for you -- and thank you very much for the tools and your help."

Étienne nodded and walked away and Kiwidinok hugged Lise tightly for a moment. When she pulled back, Lise saw more tears, though they seemed to be the silent kind that only ran down.

"Forgive me, Lise. I wanted to ask how it went for you and Nehaseemo last night. I think that it must have gone well by the way that you both look at each other today. I am so,..."

She sighed and looked down for a moment as she forced her own feelings down and wiped her eyes again.

"I am as well," Lise whispered, "I had a brother for less than a fortnight. It hurts, but you have lost so much more."

"My friend," Kiwidinok began as she took Lise's hands, "Our lives have changed with the murder of Jean-Luc. You have no brother anymore and I have no man. But we are still here anyway. If you think that you can do as I ask, I will try my best to make us all a family. You and Étienne can come to live with Ayashe and me and we will stay with my people on Manitou's Island. The young ones will each learn to have a friend who lives with them."

"Nehaseemo can stay only the winter," Lise said, "What then?"

"If you have become close enough to begin something with him, then he would come back when he can, my friend. I know him better than anyone. So, ..."

She looked down for a second and then she looked up and sniffled a little, "You will be winter-wife to Nehaseemo. He will likely leave us in the spring for a time. Then, you and I will live together. I will hunt for us all then until Ayashe and Étienne can hunt as well. Both of us will run our home. We will speak to Nehaseemo when we see him and say this. Only, .... "

She exhaled heavily and her voice tightened, "This is the worst to say for me now, but I try to think ahead. I have known him almost all of my life. Lise, sometime, ... if he stays the winter, ... could I, ..."

Lise nodded, "I know you are close with him. You wanted to share with me before. Étienne and I have nothing anymore. We know no one here and I do not know how to keep us alive. But you offer to let us live with you. I would not say no only for that, but I have never had a friendship with anyone which holds my heart so much as this with you. But you must speak to him when it is what you want. I would not stop you if you finally decide to be his woman."

Kiwidinok shook her head, "No. I think that I may only ask to share sometimes."

Lise wiped her own eyes then, "Kiwidinok, I understand, but this is not where I came from."

She put her hands on the other one's shoulders, "We will share a man as we will need to share everything else, if he is willing."

Kiwidinok began to cry again and Lise held her tightly and stroked her head until it passed. "Thank you," Kiwidinok whispered into her ear in a tortured voice before she drew her head back a moment later to look into Lise's eyes.

"If he agrees, then we will stay on Manitou's Island and he can come to his new home there as he can. We can share my home, you can have the man that you need, and our children can each have a father when he can be there. It is unusual, but it has been done before. Right now, I want no one but the one who was taken from me."

She paused for a moment and then she went on, "Nehaseemo is a war chief and he says that there will be war, though he does not know when. He may die. But his family will go on; his women and the two that he will adopt.

I love him as always -- even though today I want to die. It will not change, because it never has. You start to love him also. I see this and I feel joy. He is that good a man. But I want to live with you, Lise.

Try to consider it as I fit the leggings that I have made for you. Hold up your dress." She stepped back and sank to her knees.

The fitting took only as long as Kiwidinok needed to lace them a little tighter. "I used my own legs as a pattern and cut a little from the top," she smiled up from where she knelt before Lise.

"What will I wear with these?" she asked and the other one smiled, "I am making you into an Ojibwa woman a little at a time. These clothes that we wear last longer than your fine ones and they cost only time and work to make, so you can save yours."

She produced a loincloth with a flap front and rear and she put it on Lise. "Tell me when you are about to bleed and I have something for that too."

Lise said, "I am trying to think of how what you told me would work. I already know that I want Nehaseemo. And I want to live with you. There is nothing else for me. I have no family to go back to and no money to return there anyway. I know no one but you."

Kiwidinok smiled up as she fussed over the fit, but it lasted only a moment before her tears won out again for a minute or two.

She looked down and Lise knew that her friend was on the edge again. She let go of her hems and knelt down to hold her friend until Kiwidinok nodded that it had passed. Standing up again, Lise looked down, "I just don't want to think of when he has to go. What will we do then?"

"You have me and I have you," Kiwidinok smiled up, and then she leaned forward to kiss Lise softly just below her navel. Before Lise could even manage to express her mild shock, Kiwidinok kissed her friend again before she looked up.

"This has been done before as well. If your want grows too bad, then you have me. We will manage somehow as we live, though I do not know much of it. I will tell of it tonight when there is more time. If you cannot share Nehaseemo, I will understand it."

"Kiwidinok, " Lise said, "Can he understand it?"

She nodded, "Yes. We have always known, him and I.

There will be a little trouble at first, only from the children, I think" she said as she knotted the ends of the legging laces to make it easier to get them on and off. She stopped then as she thought about it. "I think that it will be Ayashe who might be the trouble. She has never had a real family but me.She has always liked my old friend, but this change - this can upset her to lose another whom she grew to love as a father."

Then she stood up and helped Lise take off the dress the rest of the way, handing her a buckskin shirt like her own and helping Lise to get it over her head.

"In case you have not seen it before now, Lise, I love your Étienne. More every minute, but Ayashe must see that he will need her help for a little while as he learns, and he will need to learn to be a little rougher with other boys.

You and I?" she hugged Lise and kissed her for just a moment, "My good luck to have you. You have no one and are nowhere. Live with me and you will have a place and a friend always."

"You make it sound so easy."Lise whispered, "I don't know anything."

"You know enough" Kiwidinok smiled, "If you see any other way for us, then say it. I see only one way which leads to a good life. I have lost my second man. I want to lose no more. It is hard enough to do only once. This way, we all have something and we can be a family - enough so that we can live.

Only some days with my yellow-haired friend and I know that we can do this, you and I. Widows among us go home to their parents, who are too old to want them until they grow weak near the end. Most never find a second husband.

I am too strong to live in my brother's household, and you need someone. Let it be him and when he cannot be with us, then it will be me. You can have your first husband and together, we pray that he lives."

Lise nodded and threw her arms around Kiwidinok to hold her tightly for a moment.

Then Kiwidinok turned and called Étienne. When he stepped inside the tent, staring at his mother and how she was dressed, he smiled, saying that he liked it.

"Good," Kiwidinok grinned, "now I fit the ones I have made for you. Take off those breeches, please."

The look of horror on his face kept the two mothers straining to hold back their laughter for several minutes, until Lise explained. Kiwidinok felt a little thankful for the moment since it took her away from her dark thoughts, though it did little for the raw pain in her chest.

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Étienne stood trying not to cry. This whole day had been terrible. Now he was wearing buckskin leggings which he liked as well as the shirt and everything. Still ...

Kiwidinok walked over to him, "I am sorry, Étienne. I am the mother of a girl. I did not expect for that to happen. Lise has told me about it now and I understand."

She put her arm over his shoulder, "You think that I was laughing at you and it is not so. I laughed in surprise, not at what you have. Why would I laugh at a boy?"

She sank to her knees and looked at him, "I am still your friend and canoe teacher and I would seek adventure with you at any time. I just never knew that this happens to young boys so easily. Please forgive me. I am still the same old woman who held you last night while you slept.