Vivid (44 page)

His kisses brushed the tops of her
breasts. “Oh, yes, princess. You've been a very good girl..."

He'd opened the shirt to her waist and now
eased down her thin camisole. He slid his palms over the pebble-hard points and
watched her desire spread across her face. "It's against the rules...no
bedtime stories until after the game."

"Really? Oh, Nate..."

His lips were closing over a pleading
nipple, while the other received the tender play of his fingers. "Really.
Tradition says players must be celibate."

He moved his loving over to the other
nipple and left it hard and damp as he lifted up and kissed her on the mouth.
He set her back on the desk leaving her to savor her pleasure while he went to
draw the office's shades closed.

In the daylight shadows he came back to her.
She hadn't moved.

He leaned to kiss her bared breasts again,
then slid his hand down to the large leather belt girding her waist. He pushed
it away. Vivid helped him ease her trousers down and off. She sat atop the desk
in her opened shirt, rucked-down camisole, and drawers.

Fired by her erotic posing, Nate brought
his mouth passionately down to her mouth again while he ran his hands over the
dark goblets of her breasts. "God, you're beautiful," he proclaimed.

He slid his hands over the dark satin of her
bared thighs and heard her moan as he slipped his hand inside her drawers. She
moaned again as his caress found her.

Without breaking contact with her warmth,
Nate retook his seat. He was as hard as she always made him, but he had to
dampen his own passions because he could not have her, not until after the
game. Leaning forward, he flicked his tongue against the sweet nook of her
navel, and when he moved his kisses lower, she melted in his hand.

Vivid's hips were rising from the desktop
in answer to his passionate calls, so he had no trouble ridding her of her
drawers. Bare and open, eyes closed, head thrown back, she stiffened as his
mouth loved her slowly at first, then with increasing wanton ardor. When his
big hands slid beneath her hips to raise her to him more intimately, she
couldn't breathe, she couldn't think.

It didn't take long for him to send her
soaring into release, and when he did, she yelled his name with a strangled
cry.

"Now go home, before I break my
vow," he whispered, loving her gently as she came back to earth.
"Take this sweetness and go home."

V
ivid took her mother to meet Maddie. The pack of barking and
snapping hounds met them at the gate. Vivid knew the dogs were familiar with
her, but wasn't sure how they'd react to her mother. She needn't have worried,
because when Francesca began to coo to them in soft lyrical Castilian, the pack
went tame as lambs. Vivid looked on, astounded. Francesca stepped slowly into
the yard and the hounds began jostling one another for position in order to
receive a petting from her gentle hands.

Even Maddie, who'd come out on the porch
in her buckskins, stared, amazed, then called, "Who's that with you,
Viveca, a witch?"

"No, Maddie, it's my mother,"

“Well, any friend of my dogs is a friend
of mine, so bring her on in."

Maddie and Francesca hit it off famously.
Francesca was awed by all the books she saw when they entered, and Maddie was
impressed by Francesca's way with the dogs.

"They've never taken to anyone like
that before," Maddie pointed out as they all sat in her small front room.
"Usually I'm picking folks' skin out of their teeth."

"I've always liked dogs; maybe they
sensed that."

Maddie just shook her head.

They visited for a while, talking about
the upcoming wedding and the lacrosse madness sweeping the countryside, then
Vivid asked a question she'd been trying to have answered for months now.
"What happened between Nate and Eli? There's more between them than
politics."

"Nate takes his politics very
seriously, but it really stems from Nate's old wife, Cecile. Cecile committed
adultery with Eli while Nate was away at war, and for a while after his
return."

Vivid stared. "Eli?"

"Yes, Eli. Although she had other
lovers, too. Cecile was a selfish, spoiled little thing. Eli was sixteen,
handsome, and so arrogant about his looks, Abigail wanted to smack him all the
time. Made the young women around here nuts."

"Eli?"

Maddie chuckled, "Eli. He was
something when we were young. Broke hearts from Kalamazoo to the Indiana
border. It was a volatile combination. For Eli the trysts were nothing more
than another opportunity to test his manhood, if you get my meaning, but he
grew up the night Nate found them together."

Maddie paused and looked at Francesca and
Vivid. "Can you imagine Nate's pain? Here people were already whispering
about his wife's adulterous behavior, and then to find out that one of her
lovers was his own cousin, someone Nate had grown to manhood with and loved all
his life. I think Nate went a bit insane. He dragged Eli out of the bed and
beat him nearly to death. Cecile stood by and watched. The fight spilled out
into the street. Vernon and a few other men managed to separate them, but it
was too late. They were never the same. Nate never forgave Eli. Eli was so
ashamed he wouldn't even fight back. It was awful."

The next morning, Vivid, accompanied by
her mother, Magic, and Satin went over to Mr. Farley's field to see how the
lacrosse preparations were going. The area now resembled a small village.
Wagons competed with tents and carriages for spots on the edges of the field,
as did the many vendors selling piping hot corn on sticks, lemonade, apple
cider, popcorn, and the like. The posts for the goals had been erected, one on
each end of the field, standing over the proceedings like silent sentinels.

"What is all this, Magic?" Vivid
asked, looking at the stack of goods piled high at one end of the field. She
spotted beautiful blankets and quilts, jewelry, guns both ancient and new,
boots, moccasins, and even a bicycle.

"These are all the things people are
betting," Magic explained as they walked around it. "Pa says back
when he was young, the pile would be tall as a man full-grown."

"Do we get to bet anything,
Magic?" Satin asked.

"No, we have to be older. Besides,
our side always loses, always."

"Really?" Vivid asked with a
smile.

"Really. We never win."

The girls asked their grandmother if they
might have some of the popped corn and she of course, said, "Of
course!"

While her mother went off to spoil her
granddaughters, Vivid began a slow weave through the encampments looking at
babies and asking to see if anybody needed care. She lanced a few boils,
cleaned a few festering wounds, peered into ears and eyes in search of
resolutions for various complaints. When any condition seemed serious, she made
an appointment to discuss it later at the afflicted person's home or her
office.

She saw neighbors and strangers, folks of
all races, native women in beautiful beaded dresses, and, a bit later, Magic,
the immaculately dressed Satin, and their
abuela
snowing off Hector to a
knot of impressed youngsters.

In a pasture adjacent to the cleared
playing field, Nate and his team were practicing before a small crowd of Grove
supporters. There were about twenty-five men on the field; all had the web-headed
sticks in their hands and were running pell-mell down the field, using the
sticks to pass the ball to one another as they ran toward the makeshift goal.
First one man would carry the ball of wood, then he'd swiftly lob to it another
nearby. They kept this up until they were far down the pasture. Adam Crowley,
who appeared to be the instructor, stood a few yards away from her, jumping up
and down and screaming the whole time. Whether he was offering encouragement or
criticism was unclear, but he was certainly loud.

Nate and his team were now running back in
her direction at a furious pace, passing the ball just as they'd done before.
Adam Crowley was again doing his dance and shouting what sounded like
"Opening wings! Opening wings!" but Vivid again had no idea what that
meant or even if she was correct.

The men went blazing by, close enough for
her to see the sweat pouring down their faces and their bare arms and chests.
Vivid had to admit it was quite a treat watching Nate's dark muscles glittering
in the sun as he flew past. He must have sensed her thoughts because at that
exact moment he looked over at her and grinned, and missed the ball which
Vernon passed to him. The ball hit the ground and the game stopped.

Mr. Crowley screamed, snatched his hat off
his head, and threw it to the ground. Vivid saw Nate trying to hide his grin at
Adam's reaction and she found herself the object of Adam Crowley's pointed
gaze. When he beckoned to her, Vivid gulped. Trying to stall, Vivid pointed to
herself as if to say, "Me?"

Adam Crowley nodded yes and beckoned to
her again.

Vivid heard one of the onlookers say with
a chuckle, "You're in trouble now, Doc."

The small crowd laughed and threw teasing
comments about her causing Nate's distraction and what Adam was going to do.
Vivid tried to take the ribbing with a straight face but could not.

"Yes, Adam," she said.

"Go home."

"Why?"

"Because you are distracting my
players, and distracted players do not play well. We are going to win this year
but not if my captain is busy staring at a pretty face."

She smiled.

"See, that's what I mean. Go
home."

Some of the men in the crowd laughingly
agreed with Adam. "Go home, Doc," they cried. "You're gonna make
us lose worse than usual. Go home."

Vivid spun on them. "All right, I went
to school, I know when I'm not wanted."

She gave Nate a saucy smile before
continuing on her way. She took a shortcut through the trees back to the main
field, then stopped and stared at the sight of Quentin James standing a few
feet away talking to a man Vivid did not know. They were talking intently, then
as if sensing her presence, Quentin looked her way. Vivid swore Quentin's eyes
grew big with fear for just a moment. The other man, short and squat, stared at
her, too. Vivid felt a chilling fear of her own. He tipped his hat and he and
Quentin James moved on.

Back at the Grayson house that evening,
she told Adam of the strange encounter and he promised to look into it. He came
back after the last practice of the day to say that neither Quentin James nor
the stranger could be found.

Out on the field the next day, Vivid
encountered Abigail and a native woman seated on the benches watching the
practices. Vivid looked for Nate and saw him way downfield; these were the only
times she could see him. The teams were sequestered during the final days
leading up to the game.

"Viveca, I want you to meet an old
friend of mine, Anna Red Bird of the Sturgeon Clan."

"Hello," Vivid said smiling as
she placed her bag on the bench and took a seat.

Anna Red Bird glanced at the bag and said,
"You are the doctor I've heard so many good things about. I'm glad to
finally meet you."

"Pleased to meet you also. Are you
related to Isaac Red Bird, the
skabewis?"
Vivid asked.

"Yes, Isaac is my youngest son. He
was very excited about being this year's
skabewis.
Remember the year
those Kentucky Cherokees came up to play?" Anna Red Bird asked Abigail
with a laugh.

"Oh, yes. I thought Adam would
strangle that brave to death trying to get that ball. I laughed until I cried.
Adam was so furious."

Vivid asked, "Strangling is
allowed?"

Mrs. Red Bird laughed. "Only when
necessary, and it is sometimes when our clever Cherokee friends play. They love
to hide the ball."

"The brave had the ball in his
mouth," Abigail explained, chuckling still from the memory. "Back
then we would have games with ninety, a hundred men on a side, and in the chaos
of all those bodies the players would oftimes lose sight of the ball. On this
particular day, the Cherokee brave took advantage of the anarchy and hid the ball
in his mouth."

A smiling Anna Red Bird took up the tale,
"Adam caught him just as he broke away to dash to the goal, and the next
we knew he was strangling him trying to free the ball. That brought the
apisaci
and the drivers out onto the field."

"What are drivers and
apisaci?"
Vivid asked confused.

"The score and foul keepers. They
also settle ball possession disputes so the game keeps moving."

"So how did they stop Adam from
strangling the Cherokee brave?"

"They use long switches to enforce
their rules, and after the first couple of blows the Cherokee gave up the ball
and Adam gave up his grip, then the game resumed fast and furious as
before."

Vivid shook her head, "Lacrosse
sounds like a very novel game."

Mrs. Red Bird nodded in apparent
agreement. "Oh, it is. Back before the French and Americans, the Little
Brother of War would sometimes go on for days and hundreds of men would
participate. A playing field could be as large as twelve acres."