Hot Cannons & Warm Lovers Ch. 01

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He felt silly, standing there holding up a woman's dress as though it was something to entice her closer with. "You are safe," he said evenly in English, "Come out of the water."

Lise felt nervous, but she also began to like this game a little. She didn't know just how she'd manage to step out of the water naked and pluck her clothing from him. There would be fairly long periods when he could just look at her, no matter how she tried to plan it out.

What did it matter? She asked herself, he'd surely seen every inch of her by now.

She did decide one thing, however. This was just a bit of bad luck for her in one sense, but it was a little important to her that she not annoy him. She didn't know him from anyone and he seemed to be rather different from the bloodthirsty savage images that she'd held in her mind back home. She hadn't known any better then and she'd believed everything that had been told to her. She didn't doubt that it couldn't be that way, she just felt quite differently about this man somehow.

If he's been one of those savages, she knew that it would have taken him no time at all to see that she was stuck there and if he'd had something sinister in mind for her, well he'd have likely done it by now.

Lise swallowed hard and slowly stood up.

She watched his eyes widen at this, but his beseeching expression didn't change as he held out her clothes.

"I am a fool and an idiot," she said to him evenly in French as she crept nearer, "I was doing something that I should not have been doing, Monsieur. I only hope that you can be a better gentleman than I can be a fine lady."

"What were you doing?" She heard Kiwidinok ask from the edge of the trees. Lise looked over and Nehaseemo spun around.

"I was, ... " Lise looked to be sure that the man couldn't see and she moved her hand the way that her friend had earlier.

"He saw me and sat beside me of all things. I don't think that he would have hurt me as I see it now, but I ran then."

Kiwidinok glared at the man for a second while he saw the knife in her hand and then her face softened and she smiled a little. "I think that I know this one."

He grinned then, "Kiwidinok? Is it you?"

She yelled and screeched as she ran to him, throwing her arms, her hand still clutching the knife, around his neck, "Nehaseemo! I have not seen you in, ... four winters is it?"

He nodded as he held her against him with one arm, still holding out Lise's dress to her with the undergarments on the top, "Eyah. I feel your knife, lover. Either hug me or kill me, but not both."

She apologized and the blade went back into her scabbard.

"Can you get this one to take her clothes from me?" Nehaseemo asked, "I frightened her and now I cannot get her dressed again."

Kiwidinok laughed, "Such troubles you have, old friend. The man whose touch I knew first would not have seen it as a problem, but I will help."

She turned to Lise and grinned, "I do not know how you did it, Lise, but you have found a fine man all by yourself on an island with no people on it! This is Nehaseemo, an old friend from the south. He is sorry for frightening you and you do not need to feel shame over what happened. No harm was done and this is not where you are from. Some might judge you, but it would be neither of us."

She laughed in delight then, "I think you must have magic in your yellow hair, to call this one to you in such a way. But you should hurry now and dress. I left your boy by the canoe and I think he will come looking before too long -- if he is not already lost and wandering in worry for his mother. I will go to him. Stay here with Nehaseemo. You are safe in his sight."

With that, she was gone and Lise still had her difficulty of how to dress in front of a man like this.

He looked at her and smiled a little weakly, "I, ... I think of, ... what you, ... talked."

Lise's eyes widened when she heard his attempt at French.

"What you talked," he said, "I, ... wanted take off," he indicated his leggings and his loincloth, "but know you , ... not. I have scared, ..." he pointed to her, "you. You are, ... "

He looked down and muttered to himself in his own tongue, "You are turning me into an idiot, but I must say this."

Looking back up at her, he shrugged. "Pretty you," He shook his head in a little frustration at himself, "Beautiful. Your name, uh, Mademoiselle?"

Lise couldn't help herself. He was obviously a proud man and here he was feeling foolish over something that she had done. She disregarded her own present state of undress and she came up to him to take her clothes from his arm.

"Thank you. sir," she said in French, "And I am," she said purposefully a little slowly, "happy to meet Nehaseemo."

He looked a lot less uncomfortable then and she poured it on, liking the way that he looked like this so much more. She pointed to herself as she began to work at getting dressed, "Je m'appelle, Lise."

"A fine name," Nehaseemo smiled, "I can-not know why, but, ... name has sweet, ... sounding to my ear."

Lise took that as a compliment and thanked him by hugging him very gently for just a moment. This felt strange to her and yet very pleasant, this not knowing quite the proper way to express anything between them. He seemed to understand the way that she felt and she saw that he had his own troubles with it.

"Where Kiwidinok go?" he asked.

"She went to get my son, Étienne," she smiled, hoping that he liked her as much as she thought and that he wouldn't have been put off by her having a son. The thought in her mind hadn't been as blatant as that, but she thought that she saw an interest and she now knew that she liked him. He was still so different to her and the way that he struggled to speak to her was very sweet to her mind.

"Son?" he asked, "How many winters?"

Lise held his gaze evenly. She didn't really want to go there, but she was honest, if she was anything. "Seven -- no six winters," she smiled. Well, if we were counting winters and not years, ...

"In years, he is seven, Monsieur."

"Please," he smiled, "Nehaseemo, neh? I not French."

Kiwidinok came into sight holding Étienne's hand. Both males stared at each other for a moment, though Étienne looked more as though he was prepared to run for his life. Nehaseemo said something to Kiwidinok, who grinned, "He thought that he misheard you when you said that your son is seven. He says that he is sure that you were still a girl then."

Lise laughed, "Tell him that he has a good eye then, for I almost was."

Nehaseemo stepped forward and held out his hand in the custom Englishmen and Americans both. He assumed that the French did this as well, though he hadn't spent much time in any trading post operated by a Frenchman to have learned for certain.

Étienne looked up and then he smiled, grabbing the large hand before him to shake it as his grandfather had taught him. Then he ran to hug his mother, happy to see her again.

"Six winters," Nehaseemo smiled, "A fine boy, ... you have, Lise."

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The two canoes sliced through the gentle swells of Severn Sound side by side, Kiwidinok in one with Lise and Étienne in the other with Nehaseemo, who was a little impressed at the way that the boy paddled. It was a trip of some miles and he knew only by the way that the canoe felt to him that Étienne's arms were tired and he was doing his best, but was ghosting it a little, just happy to keep up the motions of his arms. He didn't mind.

Nothing was said, but it had become what it always turned into whenever the two friends were in a pair of canoes together - a silent race.

The two craft almost leapt forward with each stroke of the paddle driven by the one in the rear.

"We call each other 'lover', though we have never really been together, other than a few nights a few years ago," Kiwidinok smiled to Lise's back as she paddled, "We first met as children when my father took us to see the Shawnee. We became friends on sight. Right away, and we spent almost all of the time together. We told our elders that we were in love and would marry one day. We did nothing because we could not as children, but when it was time to go home; each one of us knew what the other had, at least."

The conversation took up a lot of the dead time in the journey, since Kiwidinok had to act as translator in both directions.

"And Kiwidinok could tell her friends that she had a Shawnee boy who loved her and waited for her return, never mind that they were only chidren," Nehaseemo grinned and Kiwidinok translated, "and then she could say that he had this much," he chuckled as he held up the small gap between his thumb and forefinger for a moment.

She nodded, laughing, "But I lied and said that it was much bigger. The only part that was truth was when I said that I had held it. I never said that it was only for an instant. My mother heard of it from other mothers and one of them from a girl that I told. I had hard things to do for a time after that. She told me later that all of the women laughed themselves to tears over it all, but it was not right that I lied.

The women all knew that Nehaseemo could never have learned to walk with what I gave to him in my tale. My grandmother told me a story of when she was young and how she was fishing once. She said that the line grew very tight after a time and she had to pull hard, but very slowly to get what she caught to the shore. When she could pull it out of the water, she said that she'd caught a cooking fire, the logs and everything and that it was still burning.

I told her that it could not have been so. I should have seen the trap in the way that all of the mothers smiled at me then. My grandmother told me that if I took away most of what my handsome Shawnee boy had in my story, then she would put out the fire in hers."

Lise looked over and she saw Nehaseemo grinning at her, "Oh yes, I was many days of walking away, but I felt it when I lost what I had for a time."

He laughed then, "I came to Manitou's Island later, and I did not understand why it was that SO many of the women smiled at me. No one can be that friendly. Kiwidinok told me that it was because I grew to be a fine man, but I learned of my false legend one day. Then I knew why it was that they all smiled."

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"Help me make the meal?" Kiwidinok asked, and Lise almost jumped up, nodding. "I want to learn to make the meals that I now enjoy so much."

Kiwidinok nodded and almost whispered, "And I want to learn of what truly happened on the island."

Nehaseemo took Étienne to clean up the canoes and return the one that Kiwidinok had borrowed. He'd have thought that for a boy who knew little and had just arrived in these circumstances, that he would have been perhaps a little more curious than he was. Yet they walked mostly in silence.

Nehaseemo thought then that perhaps the boy was frightened, but he pushed it aside since Étienne had looked happy when they shook each other's hands. He looked over as they walked back and saw that the boy was tired. He raised his hand to put it over Étienne's shoulder, but he hesitated as he thought of what it was that he was here to learn and he considered for a moment.

There were many people of mixed blood everywhere. Though he tried, he could not tell himself that it was necessarily wrong. People pair up for a variety of reasons, he told himself, and plain old love had to be at or very near to the top of the pile. He then thought of some of the half-breeds that he knew himself and then he realized that he knew far more who were sympathetic to the Indian's trouble over land than the ones who weren't. He didn't even know of any who weren't.

His thoughts on it having run to their end, Nehaseemo looked down at the nodding blonde head beside him as Étienne struggled a little to maintain the pace.

"Not walk so, .... so fast," he said, and the boy looked up quizzically.

"Old man," he pointed to himself," not walk fast."

Étienne stared for a moment and then he grinned, getting it.

"Tired you, ... you are tired, friend," Nehaseemo said, and it wasn't a question. He stopped and swung his braid forward over his shoulder. The next thing that Étienne knew, he was sitting high up on the man's shoulders as they went on.

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"Do you like my friend?" Kiwidinok asked, and Lise was a little startled by the sudden directness of it, given what they'd been speaking of -- specifically her pleasing herself with a man like him there so close beside her for most of the time.

"Why did he do that?" she asked, wanting to know first, "I cannot think that a man would be content to only look. He was close enough to, ..."

Kiwidinok nodded, "He said to me that he was drawn by your beauty and he enjoyed what he saw. He knew that you would not listen if he told you, but he was happy that you would do such a natural and beautiful thing there. He thought of you highly for the way that you had the courage to do it. If he did not see you there, he said that he would have probably done the same thing."

Lise stared for a moment and then she laughed, "A fine chance missed then if I could have watched that, Kiwidinok."

"Now," her friend said, "do you like him?"

Lise looked back, "Of course I do. What is the question for? I like him, but he comes from far away and a man like him probably has a wife and four or five children already and we cannot understand each other beyond only a few words. I do not know how he feels about Étienne or the other way around. He is Shawnee you said and I am a fool who lies in the sun and moans as she plays with herself.

A fine background for beginning something, don't you think?

Why? Does he like me? I mean for more than the little exhibition that I put on?"

Kiwidinok handed over a bowl of greens, "Here. Wash these and stop chattering. I have my answer. If you can be a little quieter later on, you can give each other a fine night together."

"Quieter?" the blonde asked, and Kiwidinok nodded with a smirk as she worked, "Yes. No warrior likes to have to listen to a woman chatter. Never mind that for the moment.

Lise, my friend, you are a fine woman. Surely you understand about the charm of a near-silent beauty's mystery and how it can affect a man. What I mean is that you should use the unevenness and little feeling of being uncomfortable while you enjoy the same thing from him, nothing more."

"But," Lise objected, "We do not understand each other."

"So?" Kiwidinok chuckled, "You could understand the boy who planted Étienne into you well enough, and look how that went. Can you tell me that it was a great love or even a fine fuck now that you are older and know what it is that you want?

Put your arms around him and your ear against his chest. You will hear him speak to you plain enough."

She looked into Lise's wide-eyes and shrugged, "Lise, think. I love him. Since I was a young girl, I have always loved him and I probably always will. But it is not the same. I love Jean-Luc now."

She looked down, "Things from childhood do not grow up the same way that people do. My marriage was a little bit of a political arrangement. I liked the man, and it was enough. But of course, I always would have wanted Nehaseemo. I just had to let it go.

The next time that Nehaseemo came, I was a widow. We finally did what we always said that we would do and while he was there, he was mine and I was his as we always wanted it to be. But he comes from a place with troubles and he believes that he has a duty to the people. I have a duty here. I began with your brother and I love him very much.

Nehaseemo has no wife. If you want him against you in the night, then there is nothing wrong. I can help it to happen for you."

Lise nodded, taking it all in -- and now not knowing what she wanted, now that it was clear that she could have it.

Kiwidinok saw it in her and she sidled past behind Lise on her way to get a clean pot for the blueberries.

She put her arm around Lise's waist from behind and she kissed her friend's cheek before she held her head next to Lise's and sang a little softly, "You are a woman. What do you think you were made for? A shame to have that body and waste what the Great Spirit gave to you."

Lise thought about it and after her lightning-quick thought that she was no longer in Cap Rouge, and she did like the thought -- and it had been ONLY eight years since any man had even turned her head, not that it had been any of their faults necessarily, she laughed and nodded.

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They ate their meal and Kiwidinok told Nehaseemo that she was worried for Jean-Luc, who should have been back for a few days now. He told her that he would go to ask where he could the next day. Then he asked about Ayashe and they talked of her a while, before he asked about her brother.

Lise sat trying to comprehend, and she did get some of it, but most slipped by. She found that she didn't mind it all that much. The two were old friends and it was clear that they didn't see each other as often as they'd have wanted to. She contented herself with admiring the man she'd met that day, wondering why it was that he came here so seldom.

Kiwidinok explained it all a little later.

"Nehaseemo is a Shawnee war chief. He travels to where we are going, so we will go together from here. Our families have been friends for a long time. Nehaseemo wishes to speak with my brother over the war that he and others see coming."

"Your brother?" Lise asked.

Kiwidinok nodded, "I am sister to Assiginack, chief of the Ojibwa on Manitou's Island. The way that Nehaseemo and his family see this, the English will fight against the Americans again. Where he comes from, the Americans sign treaties with the many tribes, but the papers are worthless. Settlers still come and steal land. No one does anything and to fight over it brings many whites every time.

His family want to know if the English are any better to deal with, because the English seek to make alliances for war against the Americans. They speak of us fighting with them if war comes."

Lise sat and thought about that for a long time.