The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

59: Flaming June

"Where are we going?" Jesse's hand was warm in Still Water Woman's as he walked along beside her. She loved to hear him speak the language of the People. It made it far easier for him to accepted as something other than a captive. And it was beautiful in his deep and husky voice, even as clumsily as he was speaking it.

The late afternoon light was warm and golden, burnishing the grass billowing gently around their legs as they walked. Still Water Woman turned her head to look at him, watching the sun gleaming in his hair and filling his eyes with the impossibly blue sky. Her heart leaped inside her, and she smiled, remember how sweet it was to stand with him outside her lodge under the purple twilight. They had very quickly run out of words, but it didn't seem to matter. The warmth of him near her and his gentle smile had been enough. "Wacanga," she said to him. "Runs Laughing has found something she wants us to bring home."

His eyes crinkled in a look of fond frustration as he scratched behind his ear. He shook his head. "Sorry..." he said. "Uh...'Runs Laughing' and 'home'...something...and I don't understand the rest." A bee had started buzzing around his head and he waved it away.

"We are here." She gestured at the gnarled cottonwood before them. The great tree was twisted from living in the prairie winds, its branches knotted and bent as they reached defiantly into the sunlight. It had suffered some trauma that had hollowed its core, and a chaos of broken branches lay all around it like broken weapons after a battle. Green limbs had tenaciously sprouted from the broken tree, filled with leaves and birdsong and the buzzing of flying things.

A smile broke across his face, and he exclaimed something in his own language. He gingerly approached the bole of the tree, trying to see inside it from a distance. Bees buzzed around his head and he held himself still, trying not to excite them. "Yes," he said in Lakota, nodding and then switching to his own language. "Honey."

She waved him back, not wanting him to be stung. "Hon-ey?"

He nodded, backing away. "Yes. Honey." He gestured to his mouth.

He knows about honey, she thought, quickly stooping and pulling up strands of sweetgrass and gesturing him to do the same. Does he know how to get it out of the tree? He seems ready to reach in there barehanded. Perhaps he is less afraid of being stung than Runs Laughing is. She took the sweetgrass and twisted it into a knot with that which she had picked. "Smoke," she said in Lakota. She pulled a carefully packed ember she'd brought with her out of her bag and touched it to the end of the twist, blowing gently on it until it caught and started to smoke.

"Stay here," she said, stepping towards the tree. She held the smoking twist into the hollow of the tree, blowing the smoke into the gap. The bees quieted, settling on the outside of the tree as the smoke rendered them docile and sleepy. She gestured Jesse over, pointing at the drowsy insects crawling harmlessly on her hand as she carefully placed them back onto the tree. "Look, Wacanga. No stinging."

He was grinning broadly, peering into the tree with obvious delight. "What is...Wacanga?" he said. "Honey?"

She shook her head. "No." She held up the sweetgrass bundle and then ruffled a tentative hand through his hair, giving it a shake. "Wacanga. Sweet...grass."

"Sweet..." Understanding washed over his face, and his mouth dropped open. "I am... 'Sweetgrass'?"

She laughed at the mix of surprise and consternation on his face, and shook her head, shrugging. "Runs Laughing and Two Elk say that is your name. It is good if a two-spirit person names you. It is good Medicine."

"But...but...Sweetgrass?"

She reached into the hollow, gently encouraging the bees to clear the way with her hands. "Thank you, little sisters..." she murmured softly, carefully breaking off a chunk of the honey-filled wax and bringing it out of the tree. It was as if the sweet, golden afternoon had settled into the tree and given it a new heart.

"Yes," she said, offering him the first taste as she stubbed out the smouldering twist against the tree bark. "Sweetgrass. Wacanga. You."

He was watching her, transfixed, the flush of color in his cheeks and look of adoration in his eyes almost too much to bear. He leaned forward, his eyes never leaving hers, and closed his lips over the tips of her fingers, the soft heat of his mouth sending lightning and weakness through her.

It was as if all the air had gone away. She could hear her blood whooshing in her ears. It was impossible that he couldn't hear it, too. He drew in a shaking breath, leaning forward towards her and suddenly, nothing existed in all the earth but the taste of flowers and summer on his lips as she all but fell into the kiss, the strange, silky texture of his unshaven jaw, and the hard gallop of his pulse against hers. She led him away from the tree, entwining her hands with his as she pulled him down into the coolness of the sheltering grass.

The lump of honeycomb lay crushed between their clasped palms, and she gazed down at him, tumbled into the grass beside her. He will leave, she told herself, but...

His free hand rifled through her hair as he kissed her again, his breath a staggering rasp as she pulled at his shirt, helping him wrestle out it. But...you are here now, she remembered saying to him the night before as they stood watching the stars come out. It had been too long since a heart had beat against her own. Since her soul had touched another. He was luminous in his beauty, in the way he looked up at her, and the way his hair tangled in the grass and his spirit shone through his eyes. He had honey on his face, smeared across his jaw and smudging his ribs where he'd struggled with his shirt. His hands were clumsy, shaking with desire and inexperience. She hauled her heavy doeskin dress over her head and cast it aside, feeling like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, the air cool on her heated skin

.

"Still Water Woman..." he said in Lakota, his voice throaty and trembling. "I do not..." The pink flush in his face deepened. "I...have not..."

"You are safe, now, Wacanga," she whispered the words in her language that she was sure he knew, settling herself against his chest, her cheek pressed against his pounding heart. "You are with me."