Wild Abandon Page 9

  A brief moment of pain ensued, and then the sweetest sensations followed as he caressed her where her throbbing mound was slowly awakening to unknown bounds of pleasure.

  Dancing Cloud’s blood spun hot and wild through his veins. He realized now that Lauralee had finally placed her fears behind her and was ready to accept the ultimate of pleasure. He drew her within his powerful arms and kissed her, freeing one of his hands so that he could shove his buckskin breeches to the floor of the cave.

  When he was freed of his clothes, and nothing more stood between them, he lifted Lauralee into his arms and placed her on the blanket, then knelt over her. He parted her thighs with a knee. He smiled down at her as he again stroked the swollen cleft between her thighs.

  Her hair disarrayed around her smooth and creamy shoulders had a coppery sheen that reflected the blushing glow from the embers of the fire. Her hips curved voluptuously from her slender waist. Her pale, ivory breasts were well rounded, and her soft, full thighs were open wide, an invitation for him to enter.

  “Relax now and let me transport you to paradise,” Dancing Cloud whispered, brushing a soft kiss across her lips, and then her breasts. “Do not stiffen. Allow your body to mesh with mine. Slowly. I shall enter you slowly.”

  Lauralee’s eyes were wide as she gazed down at his hand as he led his hardness inside her. She scarcely breathed. When remembrances of her mother screaming tried to rob her of this moment of pleasure, she found the willpower to brush it from her mind.

  Pleasure.

  She would feel only pleasure.

  Dancing Cloud was gentle.

  Dancing Cloud loved her.

  He . . . was . . . not taking her by force!

  She was allowing it!

  Dancing Cloud shoved himself fully into her and delved into the rose-red, slippery heat of her innermost sensual place. He showered her with loving kisses as he began his rhythmic strokes within her, her inner flesh warm and clinging like an embrace.

  Lauralee sighed and relaxed her body. She closed her eyes and laced her fingers around Dancing Cloud’s neck as between kisses she pleaded for more, her voice quivering emotionally in her excitement of the discovery of just how wonderful it was to be with a man. She swirled in a storm of passion that shook her innermost senses.

  Dancing Cloud could feel the pulsing of the blood through his body. Lauralee’s answering heat and excitement was wonderful to behold as she strained her hips upward. He buried himself deeply inside her. He kissed her hungrily. There was only the world of feeling, sliding, touching, throbbing.

  He cupped her swelling breasts. They pulsed warmly beneath his fingers. His hands moved downward and cupped her buttocks in a sensual ecstasy. He forced her hips in at his, smooth and hard, as he crushed her against him.

  He fought to go slowly, but there was a tingling sensation in his toes that worked its way upward. And then a great flood of sensations swept raggedly through him as their bodies jolted and quivered together.

  Great waves of pleasure swept through Lauralee. Ecstasy raged and washed over her in great splashes, drenching her with warmth. She clung to Dancing Cloud and rocked and swayed with him.

  And then their bodies stilled against each other. Tilting her head up, her fingers locked around his neck, she brought his mouth down hard upon hers. She moaned against his lips, their naked bodies still fused, flesh against flesh in gentle pleasure.

  Sighing, Lauralee released her hold on Dancing Cloud. He slid away from her and lay at her side. They lay there for some time with her stroking his neck gently.

  And then they turned and smiled at each other.

  “Never shall I be afraid again,” she murmured. “You sent my demons away tonight, my darling.”

  “I never shall allow them to return,” Dancing Cloud promised. His hands moved over the glossy-textured skin of her breasts, and down over her ribs. He leaned over her and his lips brushed against the nipple of a breast. He kissed the nipple, sucking it.

  Lauralee drew in her breath sharply and gave a little cry. A slow breeze of renewed excitement began like the deep rumblings of a volcano before its eruption.

  Dancing Cloud stretched out on his back and lifted Lauralee so that she straddled him. When he entered her again, her hair spilled over her shoulders as she held her head back in ecstasy.

  Dancing Cloud pressed himself endlessly deeper inside her. Lauralee moved with him, shocked at her intensity of feelings, of her ability to love so openly and so freely after having feared being with a man for so long.

  A sudden curling of heat tightened inside her belly when his hands gently cupped her breasts. Everything but now, but him, and the pleasure, was cast from her mind.

  * * *

  In Mattoon, Illinois, the inside of Brian’s Place Saloon was enveloped in a foggy haze of smoke. A piano tinkled out a jolly tune in a corner. Several men played billiards at a table swathed in green felt in the center of the room, a kerosene lamp hanging low over it.

  Clint McCloud sat on a stool at the bar, enjoying a glass of whiskey and a good, fat cigar after a long day’s labor supervising the replacement of tracks along the Illinois Central Railroad.

  An unsociable sort, he did not join in the conversation at the bar. But his ears perked up at what was being said about Abner Peterson’s niece arriving to Mattoon soon from St. Louis.

  It was not so much the mention of Abner’s niece that caused Clint to lean closer to listen more intently to the conversation. It was the mention of her escort that made Clint’s eyebrows fork.

  An Indian was her escort.

  And not just any Indian.

  A damn rebel Cherokee who had fought against the North during the Civil War.

  From what was being said, he now knew that this Indian had fought for the same regiment that Clint had ambushed that day along the road near the Great Smoky Mountains.

  He knew this to be true at the mention of Boyd Johnston’s name. Johnston had been the leader of that Cherokee regiment . . . the very ones responsible for Clint’s wooden leg.

  An Indian had done the actual maiming. That Indian’s face had been captured inside Clint’s memory for posterity, like a leaf is fossilized into stone. If this was the same Cherokee, Clint would finally get his revenge. It had been obvious that Boyd Johnston and the Indian who had shot Clint were close friends. It only made sense that if this Boyd Johnston asked an Indian to escort Peterson’s niece to Illinois, then it would more than likely be the Indian who had maimed Clint for life!

  Grumbling, Clint slammed a coin on the counter of the bar. Limping, he left the saloon and stepped out on the boardwalk on Broadway Avenue. He stood there for a while as his mind swirled with plans.

  He would find this Indian.

  He would stalk him.

  He would kill him at his first opportunity.

  Chapter 9

  We parted in silence—our cheeks were wet

  With the tears that were past controlling.

  —MRS. CRAWFORD

  Lauralee and Dancing Cloud had traveled for several more days. They had entered Coles County long ago, which made Lauralee realize that Mattoon could not be that far away. Roads and trails had been made by earlier red men, those paths or “tracers” easily identified by their thick cover of blue grass, and by the presence of saplings whose branches had been twisted to point the way.

  The road that Lauralee and Dancing Cloud had traveled on for some time was called the Cumberland Road, often referred to by some as the National Road.

  But now they were going north on a highway called The Highway of Ebenezer Noyes.

  Lauralee had enjoyed her journey through Illinois. A mixture of vast sea of tall prairie grass and trees covered the land. In some places the treeless terrain seemed endless.

  In other places, prairies were smaller, with islands of groves dotting their surfaces, bordered and bisected by strong stands of hardwood trees.

  Lauralee gazed around her now and sighed at the pleasant sight. A mosaic of won
drous color met her eyes. Blue stem, dock, Indian grass, and Canadian rye, some as high as a horseman’s head, rippled in the summer wind. Wild vines rioted in the lower places. And across the long ridges, nodding stems of ox-eye daisies and sunflowers mingled with purple ironweed and snake root.

  Dancing Cloud enjoyed the journey as well. He had seen enough to know that this land of Illinois was a hunter’s paradise. The wide fields of blue stem sheltered large numbers of deer, elk, raccoons, and foxes. Rabbits, opossum, and squirrels were also plentiful.

  He had also seen a good number of wild turkeys, prairie chickens, and quail.

  But what he disliked were the vicious green-headed flies and gnats that could come in swarms without notice. He was also aware of the presence of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

  The long, haunting whistle of a train a short distance away made a keen excitement flow through Lauralee’s veins. Trains. The presence of trains meant that they were most certainly nearing Mattoon. The town had been established because two railroads crossed at midpoint. The railroads had created the city. They had determined the character of its people and had brought Mattoon prosperity, and made it a major hub in Central Illinois.

  Lauralee smiled when she recalled her father telling her about Mattoon and the Petersons while they had awaited Joe Dancing Cloud’s arrival. Her father had been to Mattoon only a few times, but knew that those who lived there called themselves “Mattooners.”

  Boyd had told Lauralee that the city had been named after the chief construction officer of the Terre Haute and Alton Railroad, William B. Mattoon. She remembered how he had spoken with such fondness the tale of how the name Mattoon had been chosen.

  As tracks drew closer to the crossing point at Mattoon, he had told her that Bill Mattoon challenged Roswell Mason, engineer-in-chief of the Illinois Central Railroad, to a track-laying contest.

  Since Roswell Mason was not a gambling man he refused the wager, but agreed that the crew that crossed the point first would have the honor of naming the future train station.

  Roswell Mason’s men won the race, and in gratitude of his opponent who had provided the incentive for his men’s fast work, he named the station “Mattoon.”

  Lauralee sighed at the remembrance of her father, often gasping for breath, telling her so many other things about Mattoon. He had explained that mainly open prairie framed Mattoon on the east by the timbers of the Embarrass River and its tributaries, and on the west, by the Okaw and Little Wabash woodlands, with fingers or points of forest projecting into the open spaces.

  Confused by the terrain now, and wondering which road she should take so that she could go directly into Mattoon, Lauralee brought her horse and buggy to a halt. She unfolded a map that her father had drawn for her. The rainstorm that had dampened her belongings in the buggy had smeared some of directions.

  “Why do you stop?” Dancing Cloud asked, edging his horse closer to her buggy.

  “I’m not sure which way to go.” Lauralee gazed from side to side, at a road that looked more traveled than the one that she was on. She stared at a post in the road, upon which had been painted its name.

  “Old State Road,” she said, forking an eyebrow. “We are now on Old State Road.”

  She cast Dancing Cloud a questioning look. “I can no longer tell by the map which way to go, though,” she said, refolding the map in fours. As several horsemen and horse-drawn wagons went past her on Old State Road, she could not help but think that this was the main artery through the city of Mattoon.

  “I think we should go that way,” she finally said, nodding to the right.

  “I am not familiar with these roads, so I will follow you whichever way you go,” Dancing Cloud said, giving her a shrug.

  He was not at all anxious to reach Mattoon. Even though he had shown Lauralee that his love was intensely true for her, she still insisted that she must stay with the Petersons.

  “At least for a while,” she had said, to be sure that her promise to her father was kept.

  Then later, she had promised, she would go to him. She would be his wife.

  He was afraid that should he leave her behind, something might change her mind. Namely the Petersons. Surely to the Petersons Dancing Cloud would be an outcast. And not only because his skin was not white. But also because he fought for the South during the war.

  He even felt as though he was entering enemy territory by going to Mattoon.

  One thing for sure. He most certainly did not look forward to meeting Abner Peterson whose heart could still be filled with venom for those he had fought against.

  Dancing Cloud was guilty of the same sorts of resentments. It was the Yankees who had ravaged his village during the war. Now it would be especially hard for him to come face to face with any staunch Union supporter!

  But for the moment, for Lauralee and Boyd, he would place those feelings aside.

  And he would leave Mattoon as soon as he saw that Lauralee was safely with the Petersons.

  There was no need in tempting resentments to flair up into something ugly between himself and Abner Peterson; or anyone else whose heart lay with the Union during the war, for that matter.

  They rode awhile longer on Old State Road, then through a break in the trees at Lauralee’s left she got a glimpse of houses in the distance. If she stayed on this road she would bypass the city. She might even reach the town of Charleston.

  After explaining to Dancing Cloud about the mistaken road on which they were traveling, they moved onto a narrow trail and went onward until they came to the edge of Mattoon. They turned onto a street named Broadway and soon found themselves directly in front of the Peterson House, seemingly the last house on the main street of Mattoon, on the east side.

  Lauralee rode into the circular driveway and stopped when she reached the front of the house. She stared in awe at the grand, Italianate two-storied house. It was made of brick. Three tall windows looked down from the second floor at her, and a door flanked by two windows were on the first floor where a wide porch reached out across most of the front.

  The house was landscaped beautifully with tall-timbered trees, a combination of oaks, elms, and maples. Flowers brightened circular gardens in the front lawn with their riots of color. Behind the house stretched a massive piece of land.

  Her father had said that Abner Peterson had told him that one day he wished to see a park established on that land, with ponds, water fountains, and swings for children.

  Abner had said that he wished to make sure picnic tables were placed throughout the park for family gatherings on Sunday.

  She could envision such a place as that in her mind’s eye and hoped that one day his dream could become a reality.

  But for now, she was anxious to meet Abner and Nancy, so much that she could hardly wait to leave her buggy.

  Dancing Cloud dismounted, secured his horse’s reins on a hitching rail, then went and assisted Lauralee from her buggy.

  “My heart is fluttering so,” Lauralee said, beaming up at Dancing Cloud. In preparation for her arrival today she had dressed in a lovely pale blue travel suit, the skirt flared at the hem, the waist tight.

  She wore a straw bonnet with a blue satin bow tied beneath her chin, fine leather gloves on her hands, and glistening black slippers on her feet.

  “Do I look presentable enough?” she asked, turning to gaze anxiously up at Dancing Cloud. “Do you think they will like me?”

  “Perhaps too much,” Dancing Cloud said before he could stop the words from passing across his lips.

  Lauralee’s smile faded. “Please understand why I must stay for a while with the Petersons,” she softly pleaded. “Just remember that I love you. It will not be long until we will be together forever.”

  “That will seem forever,” Dancing Cloud said. He stiffened when the front door of the Peterson House opened.

  He then gazed down at Lauralee again. “I will leave now,” he said, his voice drawn. “But I will return for you after I return home
to see to my father’s welfare.”

  “Aren’t you staying to meet the Petersons?” Lauralee asked as he turned to walk away from her. She lifted the hem of her skirt and followed him to his horse. “Aren’t you going to even kiss me goodbye?”

  He turned to face her, then looked quickly up at the woman standing on the porch. He then gazed down at Lauralee again. “I do not think Mrs. Peterson would understand a red man kissing her niece,” he said tightly.

  Lauralee turned on a heel and her eyes brightened when she discovered a woman standing on the porch, who from her father’s description, fit Nancy Peterson. She gave Nancy a soft smile, then turned to Dancing Cloud again. “Please stay,” she pleaded. “Please let me introduce you to Aunt Nancy and Uncle Abner.”

  “Abner would not appreciate offering me, a rebel, a hand of friendship,” Dancing Cloud said, swinging himself into his saddle. “As for Mrs. Peterson? She has the appearance of a sweet and caring woman. But I am sure she would share the feelings of her husband for someone who wore the uniform of a Confederate during the war. To them I may still be the ha-ma-ma, enemy.”

  He gazed longingly down at Lauralee. “O-ge-ye, my woman, may the A-da-nv-do, Wah-kon-tah, Great Spirit, follow you in my absence and keep you safe from all harm,” he said thickly. “A-qua-da-nv-do, my heart stays with you, so that you will not forget this Cherokee who loves you.”

  Tears streamed from Lauralee’s eyes. “I fear we may never see each other again,” she said, stifling a sob behind a hand. “Promise you will return for me. Promise.”

  “Sometimes promises are foolish,” Dancing Cloud said, his voice grim. “Had you not promised your father you would come to the Petersons, would you have not then felt free to come with Dancing Cloud, instead?”

  At this moment, Lauralee felt torn between two worlds. That which would reunite her forever with true family, and that which would unite her with the man she loved.

  “If you don’t promise me, you might change your mind,” she blurted. “Give me your word, Dancing Cloud, that you will return for me. I doubt you would want me to travel alone to come to you, when you were so adamant to escort me from Saint Louis to Mattoon.”