Wild Whispers Read online

  Of course, not all dreams were meaningful, but his people paid attention to the messages held in certain dreams.

  Fire Thunder knew that this dream tonight had much meaning.

  He looked toward the heavens. “Grandfather, I must find a way to make it real! I . . . must . . . find her!”

  Kaylene Shelton’s head bobbed as she sat beside her mother and father on the seat of the covered wagon. They had passed through a storm and had gone safely onward. The carnival was headed now across the border, toward San Carlos, Mexico.

  “Kaylene, sweetie, why not go to the back of the wagon and stretch out? You will be able to sleep more comfortably,” Kaylene’s mother said, as she placed a soft hand on Kaylene’s arm. “I’m sure Midnight would love to have your company. The storm gave him quite a start, you know.”

  Kaylene rubbed the sleep from her eyes and nodded. “Wake me up, Mother, when we reach San Carlos,” she said. “We’ve not performed in Mexico before. I’m anxious to see the town, how large it is, and what the people seem like.”

  “Yes, Kaylene, I’ll awaken you,” her mother said. “I, too, am anxious to see how we are received. We could come back more often if the people like us.”

  “How could they not like us?” Kaylene’s father boasted. “We are the best carnival performing today in and out of Mexico.” His pitch-black eyes narrowed. His thick mustache twitched nervously. “We’ll show ’em. They’ll not think of us just as ‘carnie’ people. They’ll see us as special.”

  “Yes, Father, they’ll see us as special,” Kaylene said, sighing. She had grown tired of worrying long ago about what anyone thought of her.

  She, in truth, was tired of the whole thing; performing at each stop, watching people ogle her as though she were, herself, a sideshow.

  She wanted a real life, with a real house, with a husband and children.

  She wanted roots.

  Before she reached the back of the wagon, she could see the glowing, green eyes of her pet panther as it watched her approaching.

  “Midnight, did you miss me?” Kaylene asked, reaching out to stroke her panther’s sleek, black fur.

  She curled up next to Midnight, welcoming the warmth of his body next to hers. She smiled when Midnight began to purr contentedly as he settled in more comfortably against her.

  “Oh, Midnight, I thought sitting outside with Mother and Father would keep me awake.... Would keep me from thinking and dreaming about that handsome Indian I saw today,” Kaylene murmured. She laughed softly as the rough-textured tongue of her pet licked her face, tickling it. “But nothing helps. I can’t get him off my mind.”

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “I must get some sleep,” she whispered. “We have several performances to give tomorrow, Midnight. I must look my best.”

  Sighing, again she drifted off to sleep. The Indian was there, his blue eyes touching her as though they were his hands. His smile sent a radiant glow throughout her.

  “Who . . . are . . . you?” she whispered in her sleep to the Indian. “Ah, but your eyes! How they sparkle so blue against your dark, coppery skin. Can . . . I . . . touch your skin? Do you want to touch mine?”

  In her dream, he was standing before her, so tall and lean, so very handsome. His dark, waist-length hair was blowing gently in the breeze, lifting from his bare, muscular shoulders.

  “Yes, I wish to touch you, to hold you, to kiss you,” the Indian said, making Kaylene tremble in response.

  “Please do all those things,” she whispered, her head swimming with desire as he grabbed her in his arms and kissed her.

  She clung to him.

  She reveled in the kiss and the way he held her.

  Then Kaylene’s insides melted when the Indian reached inside her blouse and cupped her breasts with his hands, his thumbs tweaking her nipples.

  Then he drew his hands away and lifted her and carried her toward a campfire. Kaylene lay her head against his massive bare chest and let the sensual feelings inside her take over.

  She had never made love with a man before.

  She had never loved a man.

  And now she was ready to give herself to an Indian, the one she had seen pass by with several warriors on horseback earlier in the day.

  Even then, their eyes had revealed their sudden attraction to each other.

  She had not wanted him to pass by. She had wanted to at least know his name.

  “What is your name?” she asked in her dream as he lay her on a blanket and removed the rest of her clothes.

  As he covered her with his body, she reached a hand to his lips. “Please tell me your name,” she whispered.

  His only response was to kiss her.

  Then his lips trailed downward, along the vulnerable, sensitive line of her throat, and then to her breasts.

  One by one he tasted her nipples with his tongue.

  She thrilled with intense, rapturous feelings. But when his lips moved lower and his tongue flicked out and touched that part of her at the juncture of her thighs that was private, she jerked away . . . and awakened.

  “It . . . seemed . . . so real,” she whispered, shimmering with ecstasy as she relived the dream in her mind. She placed a finger to her lips. “I can even taste the kiss.”

  She ran a hand inside her blouse and touched a breast. She shivered with pleasure as she ran her fingers over its sensitive nipple. “It’s his hands, not mine,” she said, closing her eyes, envisioning him there, loving her.

  “Kaylene, darling, did you say something?” her mother shouted back at her.

  Her face hot with a blush, and shame of touching herself so intimately, Kaylene jerked her hand from inside her blouse and promptly answered her mother.

  “I h-had a d-dream,” she stammered. “That’s all.”

  “You’d best get back to sleep,” her mother said. “Tomorrow you can’t perform with dark circles under your eyes.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Kaylene said, sighing.

  Again she settled in against Midnight. She felt a dejection come over her. So often she felt that her parents thought more of her performances than of her.

  She too often felt used, not . . . loved.

  Sullenly, she drifted off to sleep, to the rhythm of the wagon wheels, and the night sounds of crickets and frogs croaking in the distance. Not so far away a coyote howled at the moon.

  “You have returned to me,” the male voice said, giving Kaylene a start. The dream had returned, as though she had never awakened from it.

  She was still nude.

  She was still lying within the Indian’s muscled arms.

  “Yes, and I would love to stay forever, if you would have me,” she murmured, accepting the bold thrust of his body as he entered her and showed her what, until now, had been a mystery to her.

  She smiled in her sleep and trembled sensually.

  In the dark, two shadows on horseback moved along a small trail. “White Wolf, I see a light up ahead,” Dawnmarie said, as she squinted in the darkness toward the lamplight flaring from the window of a ranch house. Her gaze shifted. “And I see a barn. Surely the rancher and his wife will allow us to sleep in the barn tonight. Darling, a bed of straw would feel much better than the ground.”

  “Then that is what you will have,” White Wolf said, reaching over to gently touch his wife’s ashen face. “Dawnmarie, I fear for you so much. We should not have made this long journey from Wisconsin. It has worn you out.”

  “White Wolf, this is something I promised Mother I would do,” Dawnmarie said with a stubborn lift of her chin. “Long ago, I promised her, before she died, that I would find my true people, the Kickapoo. I am a half-breed, bridging two worlds. I must make peace with the Kickapoo side of my heritage before my time comes to enter the afterworld. I must have the permission of the Kickapoo to enter their world. I must prove to my Kickapoo people that, although I had a white father, I am Kickapoo, heart and soul.”

  “And I understand and will continue to seek ways to get you
to them,” White Wolf said, sighing heavily. “We know they are in Mexico. We draw closer and closer each day. Surely, before long, you will be among your people.”

  “Thank you, darling, for being so understanding,” Dawnmarie said, then became quiet as they passed through a wide gate and they rode onward toward the ranch house.

  When they arrived, they did not have to knock on the door. The sound of their horses was enough to bring a man and woman to the porch. The man held high a lit lantern, the light spreading out toward Dawnmarie and White Wolf.

  “And who are you? What do you want here?” the man asked, his free hand resting on a holstered pistol.

  “Only lodging for the night in your barn if you will be so kind,” White Wolf said. He gestured with a hand toward Dawnmarie. “My wife. She needs a good night of rest. At dawn tomorrow we shall be on our way.”

  “I don’t deal much with Indians,” the man said, his eyes narrowing at White Wolf. “You ain’t Comanche, are you?”

  “No, I am from the Lac du Flambeau clan of Chippewa,” White Wolf said. “My wife is part white and Kickapoo. We are looking for her people. We have been told they are in Mexico. That is where we are headed.”

  “Chippewa? Kickapoo, huh?” the man said, kneading his chin. “I ain’t never had no trouble with either tribe.” He nodded toward the barn. “Go ahead. Take the barn for the night. But be on with you tomorrow before I come out to tend to my cows and chickens.”

  “We will be gone,” White Wolf said. “Thank you. May the Great Spirit bless you for your kindness to strangers.”

  “You don’t have to leave before breakfast, now do you?” the woman blurted out, getting a frown from her husband. “I’ll bring you biscuits and gravy early in the morning. And hot coffee. My conscience wouldn’t rest if I didn’t feed you before you headed out again.”

  “Thank you,” Dawnmarie said. “That would be most kind of you. We would be glad to share biscuits and gravy with you in the morning.”

  White Wolf and Dawnmarie wheeled their horses around and rode to the barn.

  After the horses were turned out to eat in the pasture, and White Wolf had made a bed of straw for his wife, they stretched out together beneath a blanket.

  “Violet Eyes, you seem unsettled,” White Wolf said, drawing Dawnmarie closer to him.

  “I so miss our children,” she murmured. “Wisconsin is so far away now.”

  “Our children are all right,” White Wolf reassured her. “Now go to sleep. You need your rest. I need mine.”

  Dawnmarie snuggled closer to her husband, always finding solace in his powerful arms.

  Chapter 2

  She yet more pure, sweet, straight, and fair,

  Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.

  —ANDREW MARVELL

  Fire Thunder sank his heels into his horse’s flanks and sent it into a lope ahead of the longhorn steers. The trail was rough up the mountainside, especially with a large herd of longhorns, their hooves occasionally slipping and sliding on the rocky path.

  Determined to keep his people together at all costs, Fire Thunder had chosen to build his village on land that was many miles into the mountains. It was well hidden from those who might try and intrude on his people’s privacy.

  His village was strategically located several miles from the United States border, close enough to San Carlos so that it would not be inconvenient for his clan to go there and sell their wares, and to trade with the Mexican people.

  Above him on his right, the rimrock glowed like stirred coals in the early morning sunrise.

  Somewhere in the pines that spread out on both sides of him, a meadowlark gave the morning its first song.

  A chickenlike bird strutted from a thicket, onto a cropped dome. Another bird fluttered in, and soon there were a dozen.

  A pair of cowbirds squeaked like rusty hinges.

  Then he rode onto a flat stretch of land carpeted with pungent sagebrush giving off a bittersweet scent.

  Fire Thunder edged his horse aside to watch the longhorns pass by, quickly now, the pastureland in view. He then rode on, Black Hair beside him on his mustang.

  When they reached a shallow creek, the Kickapoo point men gave little crooning yells, encouraging the steers to cross. Their throaty cries were barely audible over the thudding hooves and the splash of the roiled waters as the longhorns dove into the stream.

  The longhorns streamed past in a flurry of bobbing backs and tossing horns. Shades of tan predominated in their hides—ranging from a creamy-yellow to a rich chocolate-brown that was so dark, it looked more black than brown

  After the longhorns were on dry land again, and moving peacefully along the trail toward the Kickapoo pastures, Fire Thunder and Black Hair broke away from them and rode into their village.

  It was just in time for Fire Thunder to discover that the women and children of his village were ready to leave on their burros, to sell the wild chilepiqiquin, chili peppers, they had harvested.

  They had also harvested much wild oregano and pennyroyal, which they preferred to sell from door to door, rather than on the town square, since this method always brought them a better price.

  Fire Thunder’s eight-year-old deaf-mute sister, Little Sparrow, was among those who were going to the town of San Carlos.

  Fire Thunder dismounted and went to her.

  Little Sparrow’s eyes gleamed with love as Fire Thunder reached up and took her from her burro. He hugged her, then placed her on the ground and knelt before her. Gently he framed her copper face between his hands. She could read lips well, and she watched his lips as he spoke to her.

  “Is your cousin Good Bear going with you, to keep watch on you?” Fire Thunder asked. His gaze moved over his sister, to see if she wore the proper clothes for the adventure that lay ahead of her.

  Like the other women who were going into town, she wore a plain dress with a full skirt that could be drawn up into a kind of pouch to hold the chiles she hoped to sell there. Her hair had been plaited into three braids that were pulled up to the top of her head and fastened there with a ribbon.

  “Yes, Fire Thunder, Good Bear is accompanying me to San Carlos,” Little Sparrow related to him in her form of sign language. “And I am so excited.”

  She hugged her brother, her dark eyes dancing as she looked past Fire Thunder’s shoulder and saw her fifteen-year-old cousin approaching. He was a thin lad whose voice was in the process of changing, proving to everyone that he was becoming a man. He wore his long hair past his waist. His jaw was square. His nose was wide on his copper face, and his lips were thick. He was dressed in a fringed outfit and buckskin moccasins.

  Fire Thunder held Little Sparrow close, his hands caressing her tiny back. Their parents having died at the hand of a Comanche raid when they lived in Texas, he had become his sister’s guardian. And he had quite a task in hand, for being unable to hear or speak, she was more vulnerable than the rest of the Kickapoo children.

  But Fire Thunder had always tried to make his sister not feel different. He had never wanted her affliction to get in the way of living a normal life. He made certain that Little Sparrow participated in everything the other girls did. She harvested as the other girls and women harvested. She sold her harvests as the others sold theirs. She entered into the dancing ceremonies as the others danced. She didn’t hear the music, but she felt it deeply within her heart as she watched the others.

  With most who knew her, she communicated by way of sign language, or by reading their lips. She was a sweet, innocent child who trusted everyone, and who never saw an enemy.

  That troubled Fire Thunder more than the affliction she had been born with. She might trust the wrong person some day and he might not be there to protect her.

  With the worries for his sister deep inside his heart and mind, Fire Thunder rose to his feet, and turned, and faced Good Bear as the lad came and stood beside him.

  “Good Bear, you must stay with my sister at all times while on your journey to
San Carlos,” Fire Thunder said, laying a heavy hand on the young boy’s shoulder. “And once there, do not take your eyes off her. Do you understand? You will be her voice when those she tries to sell her chilies to do not understand what she is trying to say to them. You will make sure she is not cheated when she receives payment for her chilies. Do you understand the importance of staying close to my sister?”

  “Have not I earned your trust?” Good Bear asked, glancing over at Little Sparrow, who sent him a trustingly sweet smile. He turned his eyes back up to Fire Thunder. “I have always brought her home safely, have I not?”

  “This is today that I am speaking of,” Fire Thunder said seriously. “Not yesterday, or the day before that. Prove to me again today that your trust is earned.”

  “Yes, sir,” Good Bear said, squaring his shoulders. “Thank you for entrusting her into my care. That alone is an honor, when there are so many others you could ask besides me, your mere cousin.”

  Fire Thunder patted the boy’s shoulder, then drew him into his arms. “I do trust you, Good Bear,” he said, hugging him. “Go to San Carlos. Enjoy the outing.”

  “Thank you, my chief,” Good Bear said. He helped Little Sparrow onto her mule.

  Strained voices turned Fire Thunder around. His eyes wavered when he saw his friend Black Hair having trouble again with his daughter, Running Fawn. Her mother had died in the same raid as Fire Thunder’s parents. Running Fawn had never accepted the death of her mother. She had never gotten over the trauma of that day, when many died, and when many were wounded as the village was set to flames by the Comanches.

  Without a mother’s guidance, Running Fawn had become rebellious, too strong-willed for her own good.

  Fire Thunder stood back and listened to father and daughter, as did the rest of the village. People were silent in the wave of the rage building in Black Hair’s voice.

  Fire Thunder never interfered in any of his people’s personal affairs. That was not the duty of a chief.