Twister to Texas

When Samuel woke up, he was laying on his bedroll under a clear, black sky dotted with the sparkling of stars. He heard the quiet murmur of a stream somewhere close. Atsila's silhouette was framed by the flickering flames of the fire she knelt over. He tried to rise, but fell back on the bedroll because of the stabbing pain in his head. When he groaned at the pain, Atsila came to his side.

"You're awake. That's a good sign. You fell on the rocks and hit your head, and I thought you might not wake up."

Samuel started to feel his head, but Atsila caught his arm.

"No, don't touch it. It'll start bleeding again."

Samuel put his arm down.

"I got cut?"

"Yes. There's a deep cut on the side of your head. I put squirrel tail leaves on it and it stopped bleeding, but it you move around it will start again. Lay still. I'm boiling some willow bark. When it cools I'll give you some to take away the pain."

"Where did you get willow bark? We weren't close to any water."

"No, but we are now. I couldn't get you on your horse, so I rolled you onto the canvas cover of your bedroll and tied it to the saddle. It wasn't far to a stream, just over the next hill. Let me see if the medicine is cool enough to drink."

Atsila came back with his cup partly filled with something. He took a sip and said, "Ugh". Atsila chuckled.

"It is bitter, but the bitter takes away the pain. Drink some more."

Samuel did as Atsila said, and a while later, the pain in his head seemed to decrease. He felt tired then, tired like he'd just walked ten miles. Atsila's soft voice came to him just before he drifted away again.

"The wild lettuce I put in with the willow bark will help you sleep."

As the man slept, Atsila smiled. When the horse had shied, she'd just slipped off his rump and landed on her feet. Samuel had pitched headlong into a pile of rocks. She'd found blood on the rocks when she rolled him over, and had then seen the deep cut. It was bleeding badly and she knew that had to be stopped.

The village healer knew all of the medicines there were, but there were certain medicines every Cherokee knew about, and squirrel tail was one of them. She'd found some a short distance from where Samuel had fallen, gathered a handful and placed them over the cut, then ripped another strip from the bottom of her dress to tie them in place.

The man's horse was calmly grazing a few feet away. Atsila was happy he didn't run when she approached. It would take time before Samuel could travel again and they needed a place to camp with water and firewood. Without the horse, she couldn't move Samuel. She used the canvass cover from his bedroll as a sort of sled and started walking the horse further south.

She'd found the stream just over the next hill. Once there, she hobbled the horse, pulled off the saddle and left him to graze. It took more squirrel tail leaves to stop the bleeding that had started again, but as soon as that had been done, Atsila used Samuel's flint and steel to start a fire. She stripped willow bark from one of the trees by the stream and added the bark and some wild lettuce leaves to water in Samuel's cooking pot.

Atsila hoped it was enough to stop the bleeding and relieve some of the pain Samuel would feel when he woke up. If he was injured worse, if his head had been hurt more than it looked, his spirit might leave and he might not wake up. She'd known of one time that had happened. The man was always asleep, couldn't eat or drink, and just wasted away until he died.

When Samuel had groaned, Atsila was happy because he was alive and awake. She didn't want him to die. She needed him to live because she had begun to feel safe around him.

When Samuel woke again, the sun was halfway to being overhead. He tried to raise his head, but the stabbing pain stopped him. He groaned as he eased his head back to the bedroll.

"I said you should lay still", said Atsila. "Here, drink some more of this. There's no wild lettuce to make you sleep again, but it will help with the pain."

Atsila lifted his head gently and put the cup to his lips. Samuel forced down the bitter drink. When Atsila took the cup away, he asked, "How long was I asleep?"

"Just last night and part of this morning. Do you feel better?"

"Yes, except for my head but I can live with that. We need to get moving again and find your village."

"No, not until you start to heal. That will take a few more days."

"I can't just lay here and do nothing."

"Yes you can. I won't let you do anything else. Now, I have things to do, so you stay quiet while I'm gone. I won't go far."

Astila had one thing to do that day that couldn't be postponed, and she'd have to do it for the rest of the week as well. Her aunt had explained that women prepare a soft bed for a new child inside their bodies, and if that bed was not used, her body would change it and make a new one. Astila's body was doing that now, and she needed the things that would contain the flow.

She had found the moss on some rocks near the stream, and had gathered enough to do what was needed. Another strip torn from the bottom of her dress served to hold the moss in place. She had only to replace the moss twice a day.

The other thing she needed to do was find better food for Samuel. Bacon and corn meal were fine if one was healthy, but an injured man needed more. By pulling a few threads from her dress and twisting them into thin cords, she had fashioned snares she placed where she saw the paths of rabbits in the grass. She needed to check them.

She found two rabbits in her snares, removed them, and then reset the loops. On her way back to where Samuel lay, she gathered several cattail roots and some wild onions.

Samuel had fallen asleep again when she returned to camp. Atsila said a prayer to the spirits of the rabbits, cattails, and wild onions, thanking them for letting her take them, and then dressed the rabbits. They went on green sticks hung over the fire. She then washed the cattail roots and onions in the stream, balled them together in mud, and laid them in the coals.

Samuel woke from his nap, smelled food, and realized he was hungry. He tried to raise his head and found that didn't hurt so badly. Rising to a sitting position left him a little dizzy, but he was glad to not still be lying on his back. Atsila saw him and grinned.

"I said to lay still."

"Well, I feel a lot better and I'm hungry. Whatever you're cooking smells good."

Atsila grinned again.

"It's just rabbit and some cattail roots and wild onions. You need something better than bacon and corn cakes if you're going to heal."

Every day for the next five days was the same. Atsila would fix something to eat in the morning -- some rabbit left from the night before or a couple of small fish she'd trapped in the stream -- along with corn cakes or cattail stalks. After they ate, she'd caution Samuel to stay on his bedroll and then leave him for a couple of hours.

Every evening they'd eat more rabbit or a prairie chicken Atsila had killed with a thrown stick and some type of wild vegetable she'd gathered. As night fell, Samuel would fall asleep on his bedroll while Atsila slept by the fire.

On the sixth day, Samuel asked if she thought he could travel again.

"I feel fine and my head doesn't hurt anymore. It itches like blazes, but it doesn't hurt. Ready to go find your town?"

Atsila had hoped they would stay a few more days. When she'd been married, she had thought she was happy, but it had not felt like this. She'd thought she was happier once she began her affair with Chayton, but that too wasn't what she felt with Samuel. Neither man had made her feel as if they really liked being with her.

Her marriage had been arranged by her mother, and she barely knew Anahu. He had proved to be a good husband as far as providing food, but didn't seem to be as close to her as other women said their husbands were. Chayton had seemed to like her, but she'd begun to understand that was only because of what she offered him.

Samuel wasn't like either, and Atsila had realized she was happier with him than she'd been in months. She didn't want to leave him and she didn't want him to leave her. He was bent on finding her village and returning her to her people, but she couldn't go back to the Cherokee. There was only one way.

"Samuel, I...I can't go to any village, not my old village or any other."

Samuel's brow furrowed when he saw tears in Atsila's eyes.

"Why not?"

"Because of what I did."

"What did you do that was that bad? You didn't kill somebody, did you?"

"No. I was married, but I...my husband couldn't give me children. I thought another man could so I convinced him to...to lay with me. My husband found out and I was cast out of the village. The other villages will find out about me, and I won't be able to live in them either."

"That's why you had only your dress, isn't it."

"They burned everything else I had. It is the way Cherokees punish a woman for doing what I did."

"So what will you do now?"

"I thought I would die when the storm came, but you saved me. I don't want to die, and if you leave me at a village, that's what will happen."

Atsila paused and Samuel saw her smile through the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Samuel, I feel safe with you. Can I go where you're going?"

Samuel's brow furrowed.

"I don't know where I'm going. Haven't since I started out. You might not like where I end up."

"Wherever that is, if I'm with you I'll feel safe. I'll cook for you and raise corn and squash and make you as happy as I can."

Samuel smiled.

"That sounds like you're saying we should get married. It's supposed to work the other way around. I'm supposed to ask your father if I can marry you."

Atsila smiled back at him.

"Since I'm Cherokee, you would ask my mother. I am dead to her, so you can't ask her...even if you wanted to."

Samuel felt as if he was being talked into something. He hadn't given any serious thought to anything but getting Atsila back to her people. What she was proposing was staying with him as a wife who would stay with her husband and never go back to her own people. He didn't quite know what he thought about that, and started giving Atsila reasons why they shouldn't do such a thing.

"Even if I did, the Cherokee wouldn't think much of a Cherokee woman marrying a white man, would they?"

"There have been several Cherokee women who did. My grandfather was a fur trader in the Old Lands. He was white, from a place called Scotland my mother said."

Samuel nodded. That would explain her slender body and face.

"Well, there's no preacher in less than two hundred miles."

"Samuel, there was no preacher when I was married. My husband brought me a piece of deer meat and I cooked it for him and he ate it. After that, the village knew we were married."

Samual grinned.

"I haven't brought you a piece of deer meat."

"No, but you took care of me after the storm. That means more to me than a piece of deer meat."

Samuel thought while Atsila smiled and watched him. He wasn't about to think of them as married, no matter what she said. He wasn't ready for a wife or for the responsibilities that entailed. It would be nice to have her along though. Roasted rabbit with cattail roots tasted a lot better than bacon and corn cakes. He'd also found it was nice having someone to talk to.

"I guess you can come with me, but that's all. Understand?"

Atsila nodded and smiled.

"I'll give you back your knife now. I don't think I'll be needing it."

Two days later, Atsila inspected the cut on Samuel's head and said it would be all right for him to travel as long as he didn't try to ride too far or too fast. After Samuel saddled Dusty and climbed into the saddle, Atsila took his hand and he swung her up behind him. She put her arms around his waist and they started south again.

Samuel figured they were getting close to Texas. He just wasn't sure how close. He'd know when then came to a wide but shallow river. That would be the Red River one of the troopers in the 7th had told him about. In late afternoon of the second day, he saw it in the distance. Her turned his head toward Atsila.

"That must be the Red River. Once we cross it, we'll be in Texas."

"Is Texas a good place to live?" she asked.

"I was there once, but not anywhere around here. All I know is what this feller told me once. He said there's wild cattle and horses you can round up and call your own for free, and enough land for thousands of farms. I guess we'll see."

Atsila chuckled.

"We will unless we starve to death on this side. The bacon is all gone and so is most of the corn meal."

"That shouldn't be a problem" said Samuel. "I'll just shoot us a couple rabbits and you can find us some more cattails by the river."

Half an hour later they surprised a pronghorn antelope who'd come to the river to drink. The antelope stood there looking at them instead of running.

Atsila whispered.

"The Cherokee often hunt from a horse. The antelope can't tell there are people on the horse so it isn't afraid. Shoot it before it runs away."

Samuel slowly pulled his Winchester from the scabbard under his right leg, quietly worked the action to chamber a round, and then took aim.

The antelope jumped straight into the air, and was running when it came back down, but it didn't go far before falling down and waving its legs. It was still when Samuel and Atsila got off Dusty. Atsila didn't ask for Samuel's help. She just took the knife from his belt and began skinning the antelope. After half an hour, she had one rear quarter skinned out and cut away from the carcass. She carried that quarter back to where Samuel stood with Dusty.

"I said a prayer to the antelope and thanked him for letting us kill him. I hope he understands we don't have time to dry the rest of the meat and take it with us like I told him."

Samuel smiled.

"If you told him that, I think he probably does. Let's go find us a place to spend the night. We'll cross the river in the morning."

Samuel had never had roast antelope before, but what Atsila made tasted better than any of the beef he'd had at Ft. Riley. The wild carrots and onions she'd baked in the coals were really good too. Both brought back memories of the beef roast his mother had cooked all day in her oven. By suppertime, the meat would just melt in your mouth and the potatoes and onions would too. Atsila's antelope was the same.

He groaned and patted his stomach.

"Atsila, you cook good antelope. I'll have to remember that and shoot another one when we get to Texas."

Atsila grinned.

"If you do, we'll stay in one place long enough to smoke what we don't eat. That way, we'll have meat and won't have to stop again to hunt."

Samuel nodded. It would be good to stop for a while. He was constantly becoming aroused by Atsila riding behind him. The last two days she'd seemed to push her breasts into his back with every step Dusty took, and her arms around his waist had seemed tighter.

He yawned.

"Well, I think I'll turn in. It's pretty warm tonight, so I'll take one blanket and you take the other. That all right with you?"

"Yes, but I have to stay awake a little while longer. I need to thank the moon for bringing you to help me. I didn't do that before because the moon wasn't full, but it is tonight.

Samuel was beginning to doze off when he felt his blanket being lifted. He opened his eyes to see Atsila spreading that part of the blanket out on the ground. The light of the full moon was bright enough he could see her naked breasts and the darker nipples that tipped them as well as the patch of black hair on her mound.

Atsila laid down beside him and pulled her blanket over them both, then put her arm over his chest. Samuel looked at her face and saw she was smiling.

"Atsila, what are you doing"

"You brought me meat, I cooked it, and you ate it. Now, I'm your wife."

"It was antelope, not deer like you said."

She stroked his chest.

"It was deer meat because there were deer. The way I think is if the village had been where the buffalo are, it would have been buffalo. If you'd killed me a rabbit, it would be the same to me."

Samuel looked at the woman beside him, but he wasn't looking at her body. He was looking at her eyes. Her eyes told him she really did believe they were married.

Did he? As Samuel thought back over the last week, he didn't see an Indian beside him. What he saw as a woman who'd done what she did only to give her husband children. When she'd been cast out of the village, she hadn't given up. She'd fought to stay alive. She was a strong woman, just as strong as his mother.

When he'd fallen and cut his head, she could have taken his horse and ridden away, but she didn't. She stopped his cut from bleeding and then used her head to get him someplace where he could recover. It was a little odd the way she'd treated him like his mother, but it was comforting to know she had. A man could do a lot worse in his life.

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

"Yes, Samuel, I am. I hope it's something you want too."

Samuel didn't answer. He just took her in his arms and held her.

Their lovemaking wasn't hurried. Samuel wasn't certain what he should do because he'd never had the experience. Atsila sensed this and began to guide his hands to the places that would excite and ready her for their coupling.

Samuel marveled at the way Atsila responded once he'd figured out what to do with her lush body. She gently pulled his hand to one breast and then squeezed her hand over his. She sighed then, and sighed again when he did the same to her other breast. She gently pulled his index finger to her right nipple and then moved that finger in a circle. Samuel felt the nipple stiffen and then the mass of ridges and tiny bumps that formed on the dark skin around the nipple. Atsila moaned then, and kept moaning every time he touched the taut nubs.

After a while, Atsila guided his hand down her smooth belly and then to the black hair that covered her sex. She squeezed his hand again, and when he began gently rubbing her mound, she opened her thighs wide and pushed his hand down further. Samuel felt the soft swell of her secret lips and then the wetness when his finger accidentally slipped between them. Atsila rocked her hips and moaned. He did it again, pressing a little deeper this time, and felt the ripples and folds of her inner lips close around his finger.

"Put your finger inside me", she whispered

As soon as Samuel found her entrance and started pushing gently, Atsila lifted her hips and pushed her body over his finger. She caught her breath, and then whispered, "in and out".

Samuel felt her slender fingers stroke down his belly and then under the waistband of his trousers. When they found his shaft, he shuddered. Atsila whispered,"You should take off your clothes now. I need you."

Once he lay naked beside her and began sliding his finger in and out of Atsila's slippery passage, she stroked his rigid manhood until he thought he couldn't take any more. Atsila stopped then, pressed her face against his cheek and whispered, "Samuel, make me your wife now".

Atsila pulled him down on top of her after he'd entered her, and held him there for a few seconds, then began rocking her hips to show him the speed. Samuel followed her rhythm. It was slow enough for him to stroke deep with each stroke, and slow enough he was able to enjoy the sensations of Atsila's body against his.

After a while, Atsila began clutching his back and moaning with each of his strokes. Those moans and her hands on his back were taking Samuel to what he knew was the inevitable conclusion. After that, each stroke caused Atsila to thrust her hips up and to gasp. The gasps became panting, and soon after that, Atsila cried out and began to rapidly rock her hips. Samuel spent his seed inside her clasping, rocking body and then leaned on his arms gasping for breath.