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    SKY-EYES-2                                                "Sky Eyes"
    (Part #2 of 4)                                            by Carl Corley
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     Chapter Four
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        So they were off again, with only the driver up above shouting his
     curse words, and Vik and Rafe riding in the coach. Old fat Mr. Blacker,
     under constant guard by the man who had followed him up from Columbia,
     was left whimpering behind to learn the telegraph code from "Shirttail"
     the friendly Indian.

        Prim now in his dusted suit, silk waistcoat, his flaxen hair combed
     back to a striking point at the nape of his neck, Vik sat facing Rafe
     in the stage, his blue eyes glowing with a radiance he did not
     altogether understand. At sly intervals, he eyed Rafe sitting there,
     his long, arduous legs spread, gloried in the memory of the previous
     night.

        What a man!

        And he had partaken of the very best of him! He had had the most
     precious thing he could give. And he carried it now in his young body
     as nobly as any woman would have carried her child. At the thought of
     Rafe fathering a child, his ears burned, and pangs of jealousy
     scortched his face, flushed his cheeks. And he wondered how many women
     or men he had slept with! Yesterday he would not have given a farthing
     for what he had done; who he had loved, taken. Now, this bright autumn
     morning, seated with him in the rocking stage, it made all the
     difference in the world. Suddenly, with the rapture of last night still
     fresh on his nerves, so fresh he could still catch faint fragrances of
     his body-scent, he wanted all of this man, his body, his heart, even
     his soul.

        He wanted him and, though they rocked through enemy territory,
     through this scarlet wintry land, dangerous at every turn in the trail
     where cruel Indians might be waiting in ambush, he longed for the dream
     that they could ride on and on forever... to some far off haven,
     unknown, untouched by the civilized world; some virgin place primeval
     where Rafe could take him anew, sap his young body with pain. And oh!
     how he loved that pain if Rafe delivered it!

        Along the way, monotonous by a travelers standards, with nothing but
     woods and hills and shadowed valleys, it looked beautiful to Vik.
     Beautiful because his heart had made a complete turnabout since
     yesterday. The sweet gums and rocky mountain maples lay out their
     burning leaves, trapped in the silver of sunlight, and sycamores lifted
     their pale branches to the limpid blue sky. Pin oaks, in fiery groups,
     painted the landscape with chill flame, sassafras glowed golden, like
     the Chinese raintree, and bitternuts and wild pecans fleeced the dark
     green pines like bright threads in a silken tapestry.

        To add further to Vik's pleasure Rafe praised him with needed
     flattery, fondled his legs, and clasped both his hands lovingly - hands
     a little too small and white for a man's, dwarfed by the enormous gaudy
     rings he wore - hands that resembled a doll's lying in Rafe's huge
     paws, covered with Rafe's coarse black hair, tobacco stains and broken
     nails. To Vik, Rafe's were hands like Vulcan, forging at his mighty
     smithy in the heavens... a veritable god, wreathed in smoke and flame.

        At mid-day they halted and had the lunch "Shirtail" had packed for
     them, and refreshed their thirst from a cold water spring that rippled
     over smooth obstacles of limestone.

        Then onward, in some drowned kind of rhythm from the dull thud of
     the horse's hoofs, the creaking wheels, Rafe's whistling, the joyous
     sound of a far-off bird, the lazy circling of a crow. Peace.
     Contentment. For Rafe and Vik - love!

        Occasionally they came to a trail leading off through the dense
     woods; Rafe examined that some of them had been blazed by white men -
     perhaps by Desoto or LeMoyne D'Iberville - taken up by the French or
     Spanish land grants, or by the Homochitto Turnpike company or the
     Indians themselves, migrating in season to fresher, greener pastures.
     Some of them looked frightening to Vik, as they twisted under the limbs
     of trees, going into the dark unknown.

        Others looked inviting, joyous trails through the pine needle
     carpeted wilderness, an ideal rendezvous with Rafe for a pleasure ride
     or a picnic.

        By mid-afternoon they forded the Yalobusha river, the water up to
     the axles, coming to a sandbar clearing on the opposite side.

        Vik noticed Rafe's sad face. He asked the reason.

        "Yazoo is but a mile back," he murmured, his dark head slightly bowed.

        "You want to go back," Vik said, with a pain in his heart. How could
     he ever say goodbye to Rafe?

        "Ah want to stay with you," Rafe replied, laying his heart on Vik's
     heart. "As long as Ah can be with you, Ah want to."

        Now and then a farmhouse rooftop showed above the trees. But these
     became fewer and fewer and, when they came across one that had burned
     to the ground, Vik became apprehensive.

        "Indians?" he asked, twitching his rings nervously.

        "Could be," Rafe answered. "Could have been an accident. This is the
     dry season. A spark from iron dropped on rock can set fire to most
     anything in such dry forest...

        Vik thought he was stretching the point to ease his fears. Though
     frightened, he felt warmed by Rafe's deep concern for his safety and,
     through his this feeling, harbored the illusion that, somehow he was
     bound to the man - and the man to him, body and soul.

        Then they came to another house, its barns, outhouses and fences
     burned, laid to blackened waste; the dark chimney rising naked to the
     sky. Then they approached another, its caved-in shingle room still
     smoking.

        Vik saw Rafe finger his revolver nervously, watched with taunt nerves,
     as he took it from its holster, examined it to make sure it was loaded.

        The driver stopped the stage, climbed down and came round to where
     Vik and Rafe peered out at him.

        "It don't look good," he said, directing his voice to Rafe. "Think
     we should turn back to Fort Adams? We could send a wire."

        Rafe considered for a moment, his brow furrowed. "They'd catch up to
     us. The stage would never outrun them. Might as well go on till dark.
     Then we can hide in a nest of trees till morning."

        The driver gave him a stern look. "You better ride topside with me...
     keep a sharp lookout."

        Vik went white, but he held his tongue, even though he wanted
     desperately to be neark Rafe as long as possible, especially if the
     Indians decided to attack.

        They moved again, this time with a little more speed, the horses'
     bellied churning, their heavy bodies dark with sweat and laced with
     foam. The driver cursed more frequently, and Rafe let up on his
     whistling.

        All was caution, and maddening reinwork.

        Vik kept his burning eyes on the windows, ready to catch any slight
     movement in the brush, from the burrow of thick trees.

        Then... all hell broke loose!

        Out of a side trail hidden from view by an outcropping of boulders,
     came a number of Indians on spotted ponies. They were naked, save for a
     flying breechcloth, their headgear dancing with flaming feathers, their
     bodies gaudy with greasy war-paint, necklaces fashioned from shark's
     teeth and sea shell, tomahawks waving, round deer-hide shields
     vertical, protecting their lava-colored hides.

        They followed the stage for half a mile, then veered in as they
     caught up. The stage wobbled back and forth, dust poured, and wheels
     churned maddeningly. Leather reins snapped, the driver bellowed, and
     the world became a constant roar in Vik's ears.

        With unreasoning terror in his heart, he peered out the windows at
     the pursuing Indians as if in a nightmare. They were wretched creatures,
     he thought, as they leaned low above their racing, wiry ponies; their
     faces were hideous with red and yellow paint; their thighs gleaming of
     oil in the sunlight; their feathers whipping like bright volleys of
     flame. All fantastic fires, rolling wheels, the stage churning, dust
     billowing, savage yells Vik sensed, as the import of murder and pillage
     crashed on Vik's immediate world.

        "We will all be slaughtered," he cried in panic, not considering
     that he was alone inside the stage. "Merciful god! Spare me! Spare me!"

        Shots rang out, and several Indians, slumping over their ponies, fell
     to the hard earth, their gaudy blankets trailing loosely in the wind.

        Then, as if their very shadows had multiplied their numbers, they
     suddenly appeared in droves. They completely surrounded the stage,
     climbed over it, lifting their dark bodies from their galloping ponies,
     pivoting their naked legs up over the guard rails to where Rafe and the
     driver rode... unprotected.

        A moment more, as Rafe shouted down to him, Vik clung to the seat
     supports for dear life, the stage coming to an abrupt halt, all but
     throwing Vik to the opposite seat. The stage tumbled off the beaten
     trail, rolled on one side, the horses neighing, screaming, as bodies
     crushed bodies, legs breaking, bones snapping.

        "Rafe! Rafe!" Vik shouted, screamed, as his body tumbled in unison
     with the stage. It rocked to one side, lay still. Vik stood up, peered
     out the window, which now formed the roof, the open sky beyond. Lifting
     himself up, he thrust his tousled head out of the window, only to
     thrust it into the savage, whooping face of a Choctaw brave, a face
     hideous with paint and grease - grotesque in its striping, its beady
     eyes, its rancid odor of skin and dust and sweat. Vik went white, his
     hands gripping the window rails painfully in a spasm of terror. In one
     filthy hand the savage held a tomahawk, tipped with a scarlet blade
     and, with the speed of lightning, he lifted it above his ferocious
     face, ready to split Vik's skull.

        Then, as if some unseen hand, some celestial miracle had suddenly
     interceded, he lowered the weapon, his war whoops stilled, his painted
     expression turning to a grim mask of solemnity.

        "Sky eyes!" he shouted, to Vik's surprise, in the King's English,
     and not the sing-song tongue of the Choctaw nor Chicasaw, the Ogala,
     the Sioux or the Navaho.

        Vik was spared, for what reason he was not certain. Nevertheless, he
     was spared, if but momentarily.

        The Choctaw warrior had seen Vik's eyes, that piercing blue so
     unfamiliar in this country, his blond flaxen hair, and the awe of it
     had stilled his murderous wrath, had paralyzed the sweep of his letal
     tomahawk.

        He called to several of the other warriors thundering past on their
     painted ponies and, before Vik realized what was taking place, the
     overturned stage was swarmed about with red men. Roughly, they jerked
     him up through the window, and shoved him rudely out onto the narrow
     shoulder of the trail. Quickly, his hands were bound with rawhide and
     he was tossed astride one of the ponies. A warrior - the one who had
     discovered him, Vik concluded - climbed up behind him, bringing his
     long brown arms under Vik's, around his waist, to catch up the tasseled
     reins. And in that instant Vik caught the rancid odor of unwashed
     bodies, stale grease, urine, rotten pelts.

        On the ground, near the screaming horses, lay the stage driver, a
     tomahawk buried deep in his skull. Several warriors had Rafe in a firm
     grip, dragging him up the trail shoulder to where Vik and the others
     waited.

        One look at Rafe and Vik felt sickishly faint.

        "Rafe! Rafe!" he cried miserably, terrified beyond all reason, and
     helpless to do anything but stare down at him, petrified, stricken to
     the marrow of his bones.

        "Ah'm sorry! Sorry!" Rafe cried back at him, his face smeared with
     the acid dust, his hair in tangles, his eyes the saddest Vik was ever
     to see. In their piercing agates lay the agony of his own plight, and
     compounding that plight, his utter helplessness to come to Vik's
     rescue. And he murmered, child-like, almost whimpered: "Ah'll save you
     somehow, Vik boy. Ah'll save you - if Ah have to kill every one of
     these stinking bastards."

        At that the warrior behind Vik on the pony lifted an arm, mumbled an
     order in the Choctaw tongue.

        Hardly had his voice died when a warrior nearest to Rafe, lifted his
     tomahawk and brought it down alongside Rafe's skull. It grazed his
     brow, left a dark red line just above his ear. Rafe went limp, as Vik
     emitted a despairing scream. Rafe, inert, slid from the warrior's arms,
     and into the turfed embankment.

        Another signal was given. The stage was looted, the trunks and
     baggage dragged down, strapped to waiting ponies. Vik saw them lift his
     own trunk, tie it down, then his satchel of precious books. Some of the
     baggage was cut open, the contents strung on the ground, greedy hands
     examining the articles, tossing those that looked unworthy aside.

        Thankfully, they did not loot his.

        Then, mounting, they moved out, slowly, in double file, doubling
     back over the Natchez trace until they came to the side trail where
     they had laid their ambush for the stage. They went through the tunnel
     of darkness.

        Night came on and, in the wild terror, the warriors became only
     dark, mysterious shapes to Vik, shadowy beings on the brink of his
     death, for he had no way of knowing what they intended to do with him.
     He did not know why he had been spared, but suspected with a numbing
     horror that they were planning for some kind of special torture for
     him. Forlornly, he hoped they had not actually killed Rafe. Maybe they
     had only knocked him unconscious. But wearily he considered this too
     fallible an excuse to be real. Vik was convinced these savages would
     spare no one, not Rafe... not even him!

        After what seemed hours of plowing through the dense dark of the
     forest, they came to a clearing overlooking a winding river. Vik could
     pick out a number of tents rising as black silhouettes in the moonlit
     sky - enormous mounds, which he thought possibly their burial grounds,
     several campfires waned to embers, the wraith-like forms of women and
     children moving in the circle of their glow, and racks and lattice-work
     constructed from saplings for the drying and curing of meat. Maples
     shivered their silvery leaves in the night, chill, and the chuckle of
     the water in the stream... because of its very tranquility...
     frightened Vik anew. It all looked too peaceful, though shrouded in
     deep shadows, picked out with bright moonlight - too serene for the
     stage upon which he was to play out the last role of his life... the
     awesome drama they were to stage for him.

        Lifted from the pony, Vik was dragged into one of the tents where a
     rock-circled fire glowed warmly, and was thrown roughly on a bed of
     pelts. Still bound with rawhide strips, he lay on one side where they
     had dropped him, every bone aching - hungry, fatigued, frightened, and
     as he fell into the sleep of exhaustion watching the dying flames, he
     thought of Rafe; wondering if he was dead on that lonely trail, or
     whether, still alive, he nursed his wounds, and planned a campaign to
     rescue him.

        Vik thought, too, what Rafe said at Fort Adams, and he shuddered at
     the memory:

        'God help you, Vik boy, if the Choctaws ever take you prisoner!'

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     Chapter Five
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        At dawn, Vik was taken from the tent by two stout warriors and led
     before the Choctaw chief. This time, he was not treated roughly, but
     handled with extreme care, almost as if he were royalty.

        The chief, an ancient man, of wiry bones over which his dark, lava
     colored skin hung like wet silk, sat cross-legged on a mound of pelts,
     his striking head-gear a fanfare of white feathers tipped with bits of
     beaten silver and rawhide. Pale blue feathers cascaded down beside his
     face, brushed his limp nipples, and looked so fantastically bright Vik
     concluded they had been dyed, for he had never beheld feathers on any
     bird with such rich plumage.

        It appeared the entire encampment was out to pay him homage, or mete
     out contempt, whatever his fate, and the inhabitants formed a circle
     around the old chief who eyed him without expression. For some reason,
     which Vik could not fathom, they did not show the hostility they
     displayed so ruthlessly before. Indeed, they were a handsome people,
     fine of bone and proportion, their smooth hides gleaming in the pink
     hues of dawn, their long hair shining, straight as a horse tail, a
     dense indigo blue-black.

        Flanked by two warriors, he made his way slowly into the vast circle
     walled thickly with men, women, and children; their dark, liquid eyes
     locked on his every move, his every gesture. Vik was terrified;
     teetered at the edge of panic; he was miserably hungry and fatigued,
     every muscle aching from his cramped position, tied up through the
     night before. And above all these nerve-racking agonies, he stood alone
     against this savage mob... alone, frantically alone... for them to do
     with him whatever they willed, and no one in the world to come to his
     aid... unless, perhaps Rafe. But Rafe was dead, he knew he must be dead!

        He trembled so he could hardly stand, his breath seemed not to rise
     and fall at all, and his knees felt like water. Not that he felt in any
     way a coward. It was just that he was at such disadvantage: at their
     mercy. That they had kept him alive, rather than kill him, as they had
     killed the stage driver and Rafe (surely Rafe) intensified his fright
     all the more. In fact, this telescoped his fears, for he felt, with
     every nerve stripped to the quick, that they had planned for him some
     kind of special punishment. Perhaps, he dared to think, he may be a
     victim of mistaken identity. But that possibility could not help him
     either, for if they considered him someone else, then he would suffer
     that person's fate.

        He was halted before the chief, still bound, standing with his feet
     close together, in military fashion, his chin tilted slightly upwards,
     with what remaining dignity and courage he had. His long blond hair was
     in tangles, damp about his face and neck, and he felt sorely ill-kept.

        There were great mutterings around the circle of spectators; farther
     out, children whimpered, dogs kept up a constant barking, and a number
     of warriors, seated on the bare, red earth, beat out a throbbing tempo
     on crude drums of dried skins, stretched over hollow logs and gourds.

        The chief raised one bony arm to indicate his request for attention,
     and it was immediately granted. He looked at Vik - a long, questioning
     look. Looked deep into his eyes, his brows all but dousing their faint
     glitter.

        "Why have you returned to the land of the Choctaw and the Chickasaw,
     oh, great being of the white eyes?" the old man asked in his lisping voice
     with the tongue of the white man. "Upon what mission do you come from
     the land of the mighty Inca? We, like the dogs of the Timerlost, have
     waited many moons... ah! as many moons as there are pebbles in Yalobusha."

        "I do not know what you mean, kind sir," Vik stammered, adding that
     last endearment for his own safety. He hated addressing this heathen
     with respect, but for the moment he had no alternative.

        "Are you in disguise?" the chief asked as if ignoring Vik's answer
     completely. "In the camps of the paleface, not wanting your godliness
     to be recognized - as on that great march of tears many moons ago when
     you journeyed with my father and my father's father before him?"

        Vik was still puzzled, but he was indeed wise enough, despite his
     acute fright, to put wisdom to work. He knew now that they held him in
     some kind of awe, and that if he could hold onto his courage he might,
     with some effort and imagination, turn that other man's destiny into
     his own salvation. After all, he was an actor, and this could well be
     his most important role, the part which might save his own life.

        He had nothing to lose...

        "For the safety of the great Choctaw nation I must not betray my
     identity to the pale-face," he managed the lie, a dangerous lie. Upon
     it, he gambled, not only his life, but, unknowingly, every life in
     Mississippi.

        The old chief looked at him with eyes that suddenly blinked, fiery
     bright for his age; stirred once more with alert youthfulness.

        "Then... you are Sky Eyes?"

        "I am he," Vik answered lowly, wondering who 'he' was.

        A great hum went up among the savages. Even the old chief joined in,
     as everyone, from babe to man, bowed their faces to the red dirt. a low
     humming began among them, almost of mournful import. It made Vik feel
     extremely uncomfortable for the moment, chilled by a feeling of mystery.

        "I am Chief Escatawpa," the old man stated tremulously, after the
     solemn salutation had been carried out to its finish. "Great grandson
     of Chief Hushpuckena, the Incan warrior you led out of the land of the
     golden sun; him with all his people who escaped the dreadful Cortez and
     his awesome sword. You, Sky Eyes, took the lead on the trail of tears...
     as you well know. I speak of that noble deed as a symbol of what you
     have done for my people, bringing us to this green land of sunshine and
     moist earth and silver water." He glanced once at all these elemental
     things,then with watering eyes, back to Vik.

        "Now you return to us. We must feast, and you must wear the robes of
     your ancestral gods, so we may look upon your greatness, and bow our
     faces to the dirt where dogs have trod in keeping with our little size."
     He pointed to Vik's deer-hide trunk, its contents spilled upon the soft
     grass, at the crimsom robe edged in sable, the brass-and-velvet crown,
     the scepter... the costume he was to wear in Henry the Eighth.

        At a sign from the chief, the two warriors took up the robe and
     placed it upon Vik's trembling shoulders, but shoulders a little
     steadier now in his new role of ancestral god. Feeling that he must
     attempt some plausible, god-like gesture, he swung the heavy silk-lined
     robe in one full sweep, theatrically, held it out at arms length, and
     made a graceful bow. But as he did so, a lance, with a flaming feather
     dancing at the tip struck the hem of the robe, pinned it to the earth.
     Looking up, he saw the most handsome man he had ever seen in his life,
     not a white man like Rafe but an Indian, one of these savages.

        His dazzling presence dimmed even the brilliant morning light
     trapped in the alcove of glittering maples. The man was young, naked
     save for only a breechcloth of flaming seeds stitched to a rabbit pelt.
     Unlike the other lithe warriors of the Choctaw nation, this man was
     huge, extremely broad of shoulder - powerful - his muscles rippling
     like those of a stalking panther. His naked thighs, forearms gleamed
     like water running over smooth stones. Amazingly, black, wiry hair
     furred his chest, curled in one black line down to his navel where it
     spread in wild profusion. Hair, crisp, curling, lay over his thighs and
     calves, and came to a thickness about his ankles. The hair on his head,
     of identical texture, was parted in the center, like the fashion of the
     Choctaw, and cascaded down each side of his face in plaits of rawhide.

        One feather, as red as if dipped in blood, stood above one ear,
     slipped into a band of bright beads about his head. Beads and eagle
     claws made a formidable circlet about his dark neck. And his eyes, as
     they burned ferociously on Vik, were as black and shiny as muscadines
     in dewy leaves.

        "Sky Eyes! By the gods of Abba Inca!" he roared, his huge hands
     spread wide, his powerful legs spread as if to spring, "this pale-face
     dog! One stroke of the lance and his blood will flow like the white
     man's blood."

        There was a great roar among the spectators. The old chief, wobbling
     to his feet, came and stood before the young Indian, his old eyes,
     fixed, hard, stark.

        "My son, Neshoba!" he barked, all but spitting flame. "Has the
     war-path dulled your wisdom? Or have you been eating the evil berry of
     the Pipsissewa? Bow to Sky Eyes - for this is now holy ground."

        The Indian called Neshoba returned the stare, more fiercely than his
     aged father. "I will bow to none but Abba Inca."

        "But this is Abba Inca," the old man uttered in a tremulous voice,
     putting out a hand reluctantly, as if to touch a golden halo about
     Vik's person. "Abba Inca in new form."

        "He is no God, father of my people, Escatawpa of my own flesh," the
     young prince cried, standing firm. "I watched him from my hiding place
     but two suns ago in the white man's fort. He slept beside the white man
     called Rafe, scout from the land of the pale-face."

        Vik went limp. He wondered, shocked, if this young giant had spied
     on him and Rafe!

        "No god would sleep in the blankets of a white man."

        "Sky Eyes has come to us in robes of the pale-face," the old man
     whined, "to breach the evil desert of the white man - to reach the land
     of the Choctaw without mortal harm."

        "He comes as all white men," the prince said defiantly, "braving the
     width of our hunting grounds to reach the three great waters. And this
     one is like them, grabbing for the golden iron in the northern cities
     from which the wild duck comes. I heard as much from shirttail but one
     sun since. This one works strange medicine - changing himself into many
     forms for white men to gaze upon and wonder, like our dancing warriors
     who fill us with strange fires."

        The old chief looked at Vik, then at his son. "Neshoba, be it so.
     But has not this Sky Eyes appeared before us, as I dreamed but five
     darknesses ago? Did not I tell you then, my son, that one would come
     among us with fair hair and skin, and eyes like the cloudless sky?" He
     pointed at Vik. "Here is full truth of my dream - my prophecy."

        Neshoba gave his ancient father a grave look. His dark eyes hardened
     like the flints of arrowheads. His unrelenting gaze then fell on Vik,
     held like thorns in the breast of the rock dove.

        "True, you did speak of the coming of Sky Eyes, father. But you are
     old and feeble and beset with false visions. The evil ghosts of
     Hushpuckena run in your watered blood, and bring upon you this sickness
     of the spirit. This squaw-male is a white one, and must be dealt with
     as his own brothers deal with him."

        Neshoba paused, allowing his smoldering dark gaze to run the length
     of Vik's figure, almost like wanton heat. "Give this one to me, father.
     And I will punish him as his own kind would punish him."

        "No!" the chief cried, his bony frame beginning to tremble. "Do not
     deny me my god in my autumn years - the tepee of snow white pelts, line
     it with softness - feathers of emerald from the pintail duck, and make
     his nest of the down from the snow owl. We will floor it with wings
     from the hawk, and before him each day place our best melons, pumpkins,
     beans, wild rice, striped oranges, maize, nuts from the great forests
     to the west, and berries from the snake vines where the waters flow
     puriest. In his pallet, when darkness comes, we will make sweet the
     nest with the scents of fragrant petals and buds of the golden Sumac.
     And no man shall go near him save those who serve him, and no squaw
     shall tempt him with her smooth belly and breasts, and any brave who
     may touch him shall die by the bite of the serpent."

        "No! No!" shouted Neshoba, so loudly and so suddenly, and with such
     wrath Vik jumped. "He is mine. Give him to me!"

        "He is a god," the old chief shouted, determined. "I have spoken."
     He made a small nod to Vik. "And I am the law."

        Neshoba, now fired with rage, glared at his father as if he were
     going to strike him. "You are old and sick and your skull swarms with
     the crazy bees of Sosebee Cove! You defy our true god, Abba Inca,
     thrusting this false god upon the Choctaw nation. He is but a man, this
     pale-face with the yellow hair. He is but flesh and blood and must be
     used as such."

        The old chief lifted his trembling chin, the gaudy feathers of his
     chieftan's bonnet quivering in the dawn breeze.

        "Sky Eyes is a God. I have spoken. I am chief of the Hiwannee and
     the Kewannee tribes. All who abide in the tepee beside the waters, who
     till my lands, who kill my meat, who ride to slay the white man, must
     obey me!"

        "You are no longer chief!" Neshoba half-screamed in a blind rage. He
     lifted both arms, their powerful lengths swung with wiry sinews, his arm
     pits a nest of shining black hair. His fingers were spread wide, curved
     in like an eagle's claws. His dark eyes burned, his expression murderous.
     "I am young and strong, and the time has come for me to sit in the
     chair of snake-hide. You have spoken law for the last time, father of
     the vanquished. Neshoba is now chief of the Hiwannee and Kewannee!"

        "Only if my own blood spills upon this dand!" the old chief retorted
     in his dedication to his mantle of leadership.

        The crowd grew hushed.

        Vik could hardly draw breath, so paralyzed was he, the victim of
     these two warriors' wills... wills he could not fathom. He could but
     wait, and pray for his life.

        "And only if mine spills with yours," came a deep, dark voice from
     the melee, as a brave advanced, put a warm hand on the old chief's
     shoulders.

        "Wenasoga, my son," the old man whispered, his expression beautiful
     with love. "Faithful as a lap-dog. Wish by the gods of Abba Inca your
     brother Neshoba was so faithful in his place. But he is like the wild
     horse and the fox and the snake."

        "He lusts also for the wumpum of the flesh," added Wenasoga, the
     other son.

        Neshoba's eyes narrowed. Vik saw his muscles tense, magnifying his
     savage beauty as the faint light played along them.

        "Do not stand between me and the chief's bonnet," Neshoba said to
     Wenasoga. "Do not play the fool before our father to beg favors, like a
     woman. I am young and strong and I will surely kill you."

        "Kill me then," cried Wenasoga, slipping a tomahawk from a thong
     about his loins.

        Neshoba drew his, as moans sounded through the throng. The tribes
     moved back, automatically widening the circle.

        "Wait!" the chief said, lifting both arms. "I will not see my only
        sons fighting each other. It love of you that has fed my body's
     strength. If you kill one another I will surely perish through
     starvation of my heart. Only the mourning dove will speak to me then
     with its empty voice."

        "The time has come!" growled Neshoba, lifting his tomahawk.

        "I have waited long enough," grunted the other, raising his weapon,
     ready and eager for battle.

        "No! No!" the old man moaned, leaning on Vik for support. And he
     pled piteously: "Sky Eyes... save them. Save them!"

        At this call to his specious godhead, Vik felt every nerve go taut.
     What was he to say? What was he to do? He knew nothing of this Sky Eyes,
     this Abba Inca, and less of the deportment required of a god. But he
     had to do something, he knew, and quickly!

        "I will strengthen the hand of the noble one," he said to the old man,
     which brought a gleam to his eyes. "The one who is at fault must die."

        The old man accepted his word, but sorrowfully, and the people stood
     muted, awed, so the brothers prepared for conflict to the death. Bodies
     bent, arms twined in vice-like grips, their powerful naked legs
     thrashing in the red dust, they were like giant elks battling for
     females during mating season. Now and then a tomahawk would find its
     target of flesh, leaving a crimson stain, followed by a scream of rage
     and pain. In the excitement, a number of dogs joined in, barking,
     snapping at naked ankles and legs which added greatly to the violence,
     the terror, the nightmare air of the conflict.

        As Vik stood fixed, rigid, awaiting the fatal outcome, he discovered
     himself betting on Neshoba, though he could not tell why... since
     surely Neshoba had already fashioned in his savage mind a terrible fate
     for him. Perhaps it was the man himself, and not his motives, which
     instilled in Vik's consciousness this contrary prejudice. It was
     certain he felt a great physical admiration for this dark and dexterous
     savage. The way he leaped and pivoted, despite his giant frame, the way
     his naked flesh gleamed in the half-light, the way he moved out of the
     way of his opponent, then striking back again with ferocious agility
     like a huge, dark cat caused Vik to glue his gaze on him.

        He had never witnessed such masculine quality before in his life, a
     quality so equally balanced over the length and breath of one masculine
     frame. If there could be a comparison, the likeness of Neshoba to a
     stallion fighting for its life or a sleek panther, fully matured,
     gleaming with savage health, made the more magnificent by the fierce
     rage of battle, when every nerve and muscle is forced to full strength
     when the best of animal or man becomes obvious - magnified by his
     fighting will, his dexterity, his beauty in combat for his very life.

        When the end came, it was swift-lethal. Neshoba's tomahawk, hissing
     through the air in the last murderous cut as he lay on his back before
     the charging Wenasoga, buried its keen edge in the naked flesh of
     Wenasoga's groin, spilling his bowels in the dust. Wenasoga gave one
     great shout of pain and surprise - hands grabbing his guts as he slumped
     to his knees to fall face down, his arms and legs spread limply.

        As Neshoba rose the victor, his magnificent body shining with sweat
     and blood, his breath rasping, his eyes burning, his nostrils flaring
     like a wild animal, he looked at Vik who watched him almost with inner
     pride, the true prince in supreme triumph.

        The old chief, crushed by his grief, his face a mass of wrinkles,
     hobbled to Wenasoga as he lay in the bloody dust, his feathers on his
     bonnet shivering in the breeze like the maple leaves overhead.

        "Wenasoga! Wenasoga!" he cried, dropping to his knees and rocking
     back and forth, howling, like a wolf at the moon.

        A soft hum went over the crowd. A crow, in a nearby sycamore, let
     out a sharp, grating caw.

        At that instant Vik sensed in the mighty Neshoba a demand; found
     that the victor was looking at him with hypnotic intensity - as if they
     were being drawn into one another by a force equal in energy to the
     intensity of their locked eyes. And neither, it seemed, could free
     himself from this powerful spell.

        They were motionless under the rigid bond of an animal attraction -
     bound to a fate neither understood, but totally aware of, and
     responsive to the tremendous force of that pull.

        Vik knew that something, either of nature or of man, was carrying
     out its orders to bring his life and this savage's life together as
     one; that their emotions and essence and beings would intermingle and
     together, combine and blending would bring about complete alteration of
     his life. He knew and felt this acutely, as this dark, primitive giant
     pulled at Vik's spirit with his intense gaze, his physical aura which
     wrapped Vik in its magnitude, its forceful emission of desire and will.

        After the old chief had ordered the body of Wenasoga removed to a
     nearby hut, he came up to Vik very slowly, carefully, his body
     straightening to its full height, his narrow eyes but slits, cold,
     hostile.

        "Neshoba was right," he said, his teeth clenched, his jaw set. "You
     are a false god. You are not Sky Eyes who sang of his coming in my
     dreams. The good has been destroyed, while the evil still lives. The
     true Sky Eyes would have made no such choice, had he been the true god."

        Vik looked at him, but for all the faith he had so quickly destroyed
     in this ancient savage, he could not summon one word he might fashion
     into answer.

        Neshoba, his body more erect, more dominant than before, came to
     stand beside Vik, his black eyes, ominous as a hawk's, hot on those of
     his father.

        "I am still chief of the Hiwannee and the Kewannee," the old man said,
     not looking at Neshoba but directly at Vik, a look that could have killed.
     "If you are but a brother of the white man your fate in this camp with
     my son Neshoba will be a fate worse than a thousand deaths. And if you
     are a god, then, till the longest day you dwell on the walkways of
     earth, you will regret you chose the wrong brother for death. Neshoba
     is willful and evil, and he will, with his evil make you evil, too. You
     will go down with him like the snake. You will eat bitter fruit of the
     Ginseng and grow crazy with desire. You will come to smoke the leaves
     of the deertongue. you will see many colors when you eat from the
     gingerbread tree and roots of witch hazel. Neshoba will make of you a
     dark, evil wound which will run venom from all four sides."

        He paused, glanced over the village, to the river, then the sky.
     "Though I am still chief I have lost my lance and my tomahawk - my
     faithful Wenasoga. Now my Abba Inca take pity on your plight."

        "Quiet, old man of the lynx ears," Neshoba commanded gruffly.
     "Prepare to sip the venom of the Bloodroot and die in peace, or else
     shall I have you bound with wet rawhide and bitten by the grass snake.
     I do not yearn to put you to death, since you are the great Escatawpa,
     but the Hiwannee and the Kewanee will grow old and womanish like you if
     their chief is not replaced by a young brave."

        The old man looked once at him, a direct look, blinked a tear. "I
     choose to die in peace," he said meekly, turning and wobbling to his
     tent.

        Neshoba, taking Vik roughly by the wrist, jerked him to attention,
     and dragged him along behind his great, silent stride.

        "You are mine, one of the yellow hair and sky eyes," Neshoba said,
     his voice deep, guttural. "Come - my tepee is waiting!"

     -------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Chapter Six
     -------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The tepee in which Vik was placed was enormous, the numerous ribs
     towering skyward, and overlaid with cow and deer hides. In the center a
     sunken hearth of ashes lay smoldering, on which were piled several
     chunks of hickory. The spice-laden smoke drifted up through the opened
     flap in the roof. Around the fire, Vik noticed, was a circle of
     limestones, some flat, which formed tables on which lay dishes made from
     gourds and hollowed-out slabs of wood. In these were wild-rice, dry and
     flat, hunks of beef, melons, various nuts and berries, and venison.

        Above the flames rose a spit on which cuts of meat sizzled, juices
     dripping into the coals and giving off explosive puffs on impact. From
     the tepee ribs were draped brightly threaded tapestries, war bonnets,
     hemp ropes, leather thongs, crude satchels, lances, shields. Hanging
     from one were hundreds of beads, many glass ones from the white man's
     world, and many of threaded berry and stone. These caught the smoky
     light, winked back emeralds, scarlets, rubies, pearl, and they
     clattered, as the cold morning breeze crept in from the wide tent flap.

        Along one inner wall, Vik spied western saddles, bright blankets,
     bridles embossed with beaten silver, whips, gloves. And the entire
     flooring was made snug and warm by many overlays of thick pelts, spotted
     ones of cowhide, tawny ones of deer and bear, and small cushions thrown
     loosely about stitched from squirrel and rabbit and muskrat. These were
     so heaped together they created an enormous bed, and it was to this
     cushion of fur... the glorious coats of forest beasts... that Neshoba
     pushed Vik roughly.

        Neshoba stood over him, his great stature towering like a fearsome
     god, his lithe arms resting on his hips, his powerful, dark legs spread.
     His eyes, as he gazed down at Vik were filled with deep longing, and
     glistened like the garlands of strung beads behind him. So majestic a
     creature in this wilderness, surrounded by these other savages, he
     summoned a surge of admiration from Vik's uplifted glance, yet this
     admiration failed to thaw his fear of the savage. Vik was thoroughly
     frightened, and he sensed this powerful Indian brave realized his fear.

        Neshoba kept his silence, just looked, as if debating some hidden
     torture - in his wild and questing mind or through some instinct of
     kindness, allowed Vik the privilege of gauging his surroundings.

        And as Vik did so, he was acutely aware of the strong scents within
     the cowhide walls, the stench of muck, of melon rind, of cooking beef,
     of tanned hide, of urine, the mingling of them all thickened by the
     smoke, the fur, and impregnated with the unmistakable odor of sexual,
     aphrodisiac rancidity.

        Too, there was a distinct smell about Neshoba, an odor mixed with
     dried skin and sweat, of leather and horseflesh, and most of all, the
     aura of male, the essence of the savage.

        "What do they call you, Sky Eyes?" Neshoba asked after the long
     interval of surveying Vik with hungry, feral eyes.

        Vik looked up at him. "Vik Alta."

        "You may cover over that name like the snow erases the dogtooth
     flower."

        "Why so?" Vik braved to ask.

        "From this time onward you shall be Sky Eyes, but not as the god my
     father, chief Escatawpa thought, but as a man... a slave... as it is
     said in the white man's world. You will do my bidding as I will you to
     it. You will obey me the same as any squaw. You belong to me, Neshoba,
     chief of the Hiwannee and the Kewanee for on the next dawn my father
     will drink the bloodroot and die."

        With quiet, trembling voice, Vik asked, rising up on one elbow. "What
     do you intend to do with me?"

        Neshoba breathed heavily, his long black mane hanging down each side
     of his face making him all the more fierce and forbidding - like the
     crow, a thing of beauty in its cloak of blackness.

        "I saw you and the scout Rafe in the room at Fort Adams," he answered
     directly, his eyes, their lights enormous, fathomless in their gaze into
     Vik's. "I wanted you then, that night of the full moon and with the
     singing of the nutlatch... as I want you now!"

        "Never!" Vik cried, as the thought of the pain, delivered upon him
     even by Rafe, ground against his brain. He had endured it with Rafe only
     through some inner need of his nature he could not explain... but with
     this barbarian! Never! "I'd die first," he went on, as fear built up in
     him, tapped every nerve. "I'll kill myself first, like your father."

        "You will do no killing," Neshoba assured him. Reaching down, he took
     several strands of Vik's blond hair in his fingers and caressed it fondly.
     "I will guard you from moon to moon. If you do not give freely, then you
     shall be bound and taken. The short-eared cat of the swamps fights with
     tooth and fang against the wants of the male, but she mates and bears
     and mates again."

        Vik gave him a hateful glare, his expression fixed, his teeth
     clenched. "You and your men, overturned the stage, killed the driver,
     and Rafe! You will have to kill me first before I'll let you lay a hand
     on my body!" He half-screamed the words, doing little to frighten the
     dark, swarthy animal who crouched above him. Vik realized, with every
     nerve in his body tensed to the full, that he was truthfully powerless
     before the lustful whims of this savage. If this Neshoba wanted him,
     then Neshoba would take him. And here lay Vik's terror. The thought of
     the pain made him physically sick, and every fiber of his determination
     went limp, cowing under the persistent will of this satyr in Indian garb.

        Neshoba, inflamed now, pulled Vik towards him.

        "Don't touch me, you filthy pig!" Vik screamed, and in his tortured
     mind ran wild, beautiful glimpses of Rafe, his warm love, his wondrous
     passion, and he cried: "Rafe! Rafe! Help me - help me!" but he knew it
     was futile. He was at the mercy of this lava-colored giant, and there
     were no ears in all the world to hear him or care.

        Surprisingly Neshoba dropped his hands, rose, and stood towering
     above him like some dark and mysterious phantom.

        "I must bind you then," he said. "As the black spiders bind the maise
     in our harvest fields."

        He went to the tent entrance, pulled back the flap, tied it securely.
     The interior lapsed immediately into Stygian gloom, with only the
     firelight in the circular hearth flooding the hide walls with fiery
     gold. Only a splinter of light came in the vent.

        Jerking several strips of rawhide from one nearby pole, Neshoba
     returned to Vik's side. Without a word he stripped off Vik's clothes.
     Then, mumbling some kind of sing-song incantation, he fondled Vik's
     legs, his chest, his thighs, running his huge dark hands over every part
     of him, examining, exploring every inch of him. When he had done this
     thoroughly, as if Vik were a beautiful gem dipped up from crystal water
     pools, he tied each wrist with rawhide, tied his ankles and, flipping
     Vik on his stomach, drew the strips tightly from tent pole to pole,
     until Vik's body lay spread eagled, his chest and belly touching the fur
     bed softly.

        Vik, his head twisted painfully, watched and dreaded Neshoba's every
     move, knowing what was soon to follow. In stark terror he watched as
     Neshoba stood to his full height, untied the cord at his loins and let
     his breechcloth slip to the floor. At the sight of him naked, his great
     body bathed in the firelight, the gold reflections touching his thighs,
     his broad chest, Vik went limp.

        His curious eyes found the dark area around Neshoba's straddle, and
     there his gaze lingered, held. The hair on Neshoba's body, curled and
     underlined with shadows from the firelight, magnifying the coarseness,
     lay over his groin like the matted hair on the rump of a male sheep, but
     black, crow black. And from this kingdom of hair hung his organ, huge as
     the limb of a tree, its enormous scarlet head shaped like the head of a
     cat, strung with huge veins, and the color of the cones of the sugar
     pine. His nuts, swinging free of his thighs, were like gourds still on
     the vine, round and smooth and gleaming in the scattered light.

        All this Vik saw in a glance, studied it, panicked by it, for as he
     watched, the huge organ began to come to life, rising like a cotton
     mouth moccasin aroused by the threat of attack, slowly lifting its shiny
     head until, hard as the young cones of the balsam fir, it slapped
     menacingly against Neshoba's navel. It was a weapon to Vik's young eyes,
     Neshoba's battering ram of attack, and he knew this savage giant would
     use his weapon to the ultimate of his desires. An organ of love or of
     torture, it would penetrate to the very hilt - to bless or curse.

        "My horn will gore you like the horn of my stallion gores the wild
     mares but you will know no pain, only the size of it and you will not
     cry out nor faint," said Neshoba, taking his organ in his hand,
     stripping back and forth, deliberately, meaningfully, as if to advertise
     his endowment - as if he wanted Vik to measure its proportions with his
     eyes and his heart and his soul, to comprehend what portion of his own
     body would have to give way for its turgid penetration.

        Neshoba then reached down, took hold of his nuts and bounced them in
     the cup of his hand, as if weighing them. He pulled them to their full
     length, like pulling at the udders of a cow, until their thin-skinned
     sac glistened taut; gave a rutting moan and spread his legs so Vik could
     get a better look. Unabashed, without modesty, bold as an uninhibited
     animal that will feed his sex hunger in the presence of his fellows, he
     displayed his mighty organ to Vik's frightened eyes.

        "My two seeds of life," Neshoba growled, his voice low, audible,
     "have as many sons in their core as there are seeds in a melon. It is
     from these," and he held them outwards, "that the precious venom will
     spurt into your own body, but you will bear me no sons for you are my
     pleasure. Let the old and young squaws carry my children in their
     bellies until the time comes to drop them on the earth, but not you, Sky
     Eyes... not you. I will not poison and bloat your body like a dead cow's
     rotting in the sun. I will keep your small body beautiful. I will
     preserve you, like I preserve the does I kill with my bow, so that, like
     doe-meat, I will have you for my pleasures when the hunger of my body
     wills it. You are mine, Sky Eyes. You will never leave this land of the
     Hiwanne nor the Kewannee, unless I take you with me."

        As Neshoba talked, he unplaited his hair, unlaced the brightly dyed
     stripes of leather, and shook his head when the task was done, sending
     his dark mane loosely down around his neck and shoulders. He went to the
     fire, cupped up a handful of hogfat from a gourd and rubbed it over his
     body in front, oiling his organ and nuts, rubbing the white stench of
     the grease along his inner thighs, his chest, until his naked body took
     on the appearance of a water-reed shining in the sun.

        He then knelt between Vik's outstretched thighs, slapped some of the
     fat along his buttocks, his inner muscles, gouged out Vik's rectum with
     long, hard fingers, probing the opening for his turgid organ. His long
     fingers went deep, causing Vik to squirm, as they searched, mapping the
     way for the dark weapon that was soon to invade him. He rose, after a
     half hour of this, and rubbed both their bodies with crushed leaves of
     the pickerel weed, and scented petals of the spotted Cranesbill.

        Sky Eyes, you are as soft as the tongues of the Stewartia," Neshoba
     whispered, bending low over him, feeling his loins, running his greasy
     hands around his waistline, underneath to his flat belly. "As pithy as
     the lips of Pinesap, as mellow as persimmon, ripe and all golden in the
     dew. A young doe, quivering from fear, a soft rabbit scurrying for
     freedom, bright as the buds of the Lobelia, and as beautiful in my
     hungry eyes. You are meat for my body, solace for my mind, the perfume
     of my spirit. You will dwell in my wants, live for my pleasures, for the
     god of Abba Inca has sent you to me, for I am now chief Neshoba, guard
     over the tribes of the Hiwannee and the Kewannee, and a chief must have
     for his squash of the flesh the fairest in the land, the most beautiful
     love-doe in the forest."

        Humping then up and over Vik's quivering body, a body wracked from
     fear, from the tension of every driven nerve, Neshoba lay against him,
     feeling him, his hot animal breath blowing on the nape of Vik's neck,
     his hard thighs bruising Vik's outstretched limbs. Then, with one sure
     stroke Neshoba's rigid horn spread the soft tissues of Vik's rectum and,
     by that one touch triggered some electric charge, something essential
     and desperately vital, sinking its scarlet hole.

        The thrust tightened every vein in Vik's body, drew back his head,
     arched his back like a quivering bow when the arrow has left the
     rawhide, forced a muffled scream.

        "Rafe! Rafe! save me - save me," he moaned, his cries mingled with
     the low, animal moans coming from Neshoba's singing lips.

        "Do not call for the white scout," Neshoba demanded, gripping Vik's
     squirming shoulders with hard, firm hands. "He lies dead on the trail of
     the Natchez, a tomahawk in his skull. My horn has gored you so you are
     mine, Sky Eyes, mine to keep."

        Inflamed with passion now, his huge body taking on the air of an
     animal in some nightmare struggle, Neshoba lifted his burning groin,
     brought it down ferociously, drawing Vik's every nerve to the center of
     his rectum, like the threads of the spider's web find their connection
     in the middle of the circle. Strangely, as Neshoba has surmised, Vik
     began to feel no pain. The only pain he had felt was the fear of pain,
     the mental agony which had pierced his sentience but not in his rectum.
     The natural, steady thrusts of Neshoba's dark, powerful body above him,
     with its coarse rhythms, its bold, physical hunger, moved over the
     smallness of Vik like stormclouds over a tiny leaf, threatening to
     destroy it, to cast it into oblivion; moving like a shaft of oil in a
     funnel of oil, moving with such girating of bone and muscle that Vik,
     cloaked in human darkness anticipated a breaking of pain, like the
     breaking of the bread of Moses after belated, anguished prayers. But the
     pain did not come. Neshoba went on and on, giving, taking, siphoning
     with his huge dark horn rapt ecstacies from Vik's soft pillow of flesh,
     from the hot pit of his buttocks, which resembled two brown buns taken
     from a warm oven, the very core, the very heart of Neshoba's hunger.

        Then, after an immeasurably long interval, of having his body crushed
     beneath this thrusting giant, this dark mystery, Vik, both with mind and
     body, began to succumb, began to willingly surrender to this savage
     warrior's intentions. Suddenly he began to enjoy being taken, relished
     the enormous organ driving through his flesh and nerves, discovering in
     this primitive ritual something which was giving him new life, thrills,
     ecstasy. The huge groping hands, loving in their brutal hardness, the
     rigid thighs chafing his grease-slicked thighs, the huge round seeds in
     their plastic sling knocking against each other in a gale; the organ
     itself churning his rectum to butter, the long mane of black hair draped
     over his neck, the hot breath, the mournful animal sighs, told him
     maddening, wonderous things, galvanized him into life, awoke his
     passion, his own physical desires.

        He began to help Neshoba in his sex march, lifting his own groin,
     girating his pelvis, twisting as if jointed in the middle by a single
     thread, a puppet dangling by the taut strips of rawhide, bringing
     guttural moans of satisfaction from Neshoba's panting throat, as each
     breath, one overlapping the other, increased his passion, until, with
     that last prolonged thrust, making a home for his seed, Neshoba spermed,
     flooding Vik with the elixir of life.

        His panting breath hot on Vik's neck, Neshoba lay limp, warm and limp
     as candle was on warm stones, His hands, loving with each stroke, slid
     around Vik's body, fondling, caressing, recalling with their steady
     touch the memory of sex, passion.

        "You are now a part of me," Neshoba said softly, murmuring like a
     contented child. "For the noble blood of the Hiwannee is mixed with your
     blood. My horn has spat its silver venum. My seeds are burning, still in
     want for you, and my limbs ache, each tendon stretched with longing. I
     want to press you to my lips, lick the pigfat with my tongue, until my
     tongue has licked every part of you. I want to wash you clean, like the
     raccoon washes persimmons in the shallows. I want to taste you with my
     tongue. I want to swallow you, like the sly snow owl swallows worms."

        Lifting himself off Vik's limp body, he rose and, taking the silver
     bladed knife of the white man from a black leather scabbard, he came
     back. Bending on one knee, gracefully, cut Vik's bonds. He began to
     whimper like a beaten, curdog, his huge dark shoulders shaking in
     convulsions.

        "Like a frightened squaw I had to bind you with the skins of my kill,"
     he moaned, his thick black mane draped wildly over his downcast face,
     his liquid eyes. "Had to take you like my white stallion Dove takes the
     spotted pony, when... when you would have given yourself to me
     willingly, like the sun gives its warmth to the thistle, though the
     thistle is like a wolf's fangs, like the faithful squaw gives her body
     to the father of her sons."

        "Do not weep, Neshoba," Vik found himself saying, stroking back the
     long mane from Neshoba's tear-stained face, the image of Rafe now a far
     off memory in the back of his heart. "If I make you happy - then..."

        "You make me very proud," Neshoba sighed, interrupting. "You make me
     real chief of the Hiwannee and the Kewanne in my bursting heart. You
     fill me with great fighting spirit, make me conquer many nations. You
     fill my day with sunlight and bright waters, touch my spirit with your
     fire, burn away my old life, give me back new life all shining - shining
     like the iron gold of my ancestors who came from Montezuma the land of
     the golden sun."

        Turning Vik over, his hot, savage lips running amuck, Neshoba began
     the melodious task of washing Vik with his burning tongue. Slowly,
     deliberate, thoroughly, he crept into every crevice of Vik's willing
     form - his ankles, between his toes, by the shapely limbs, limbs with
     short golden hair, into his navel sharply, to his organ, lapping like a
     dog at a bone, sucking at his nuts, pulling, lolling over them with his
     revolving tongue, then back to his organ, letting his liver-colored lips
     move over the thick head, his tongue feeling out the crevices beneath
     it, stripping it to the bed of hair, taking in its every dimension
     drinking with his hot hungry lips every fathom of it, all the while
     blowing the hot breath from his lungs in deep, gutteral intonations,
     whining like a frightened pup one moment purring like a drowsy kitten
     the next, siphoning from Vik the most precious nectar of his nobleness,
     hungrily sucking like a calf at its mother, demanding, with his tongue
     trilling with rapture, the rapture that would follow if he continued.

        And he did continue, all the while allowing his huge hard hands to
     roam, caressing Vik's chest, his nipples, into his navel, touching his
     neck, his lips, then down again like a suddenly desperate serpent,
     entwining his muscular arms around Vik's thighs, drawing his buttocks
     into firm, swift hands.

        It was too much, this savage eating away his being; this black maned
     savage whose brown body was more beautiful than any god's, erasing Vik's
     morals, his convictions with serpent-like tongue, effacing his past
     desires by his mouth, urgently hunting every crevice of joy, dripping
     saliva onto his belly, his organ, sucking it up again and again until
     Vik, resisting until he could not resist one more moment, spermed,
     shooting his nectar of life into Neshoba's waiting mouth.

        He heard Neshoba swallow, one deep throaty gulp, felt the tension of
     his huge savage arms relax, felt the essence of his warm breathing as he
     lay still in the hollow of his crotch, that heathen breath now to Vik
     more sweet than all the hippocras in the world.

        And as they lay there spent with passion, their bodies graceful and
     sublime in their closeness, entwined on the enormous lap of fur, Vik,
     somehow, did not mind the smoke-filled tent, the firelight over their
     nakedness, covering them with gold - did not mind, in fact found
     primitive glory in the rancid smell of leather and dung and woodbark and
     hickory smoke and food rotting in this mouldy darkness. Neither did he
     mind, nor lothe, the smell of Neshoba beside him... the smell of pigfat
     and sweat and sperm and the stale effluvia of thighs tainted from riding
     the lathered white stallion; nor Neshoba's long black mane soiled with
     dust of the trail, pollen from the low hung limbs of trees, from the
     blood of the kill which he had wiped from his hands there afterwards.

        And as he lay with this wild male of the wilderness, engulfed in the
     rich male smell of him, cloaked in his dark brown nakedness in the
     firelight, he listened to the sounds outside: the squaws beating the
     golden maize into meal, small Indian children laughing and squealing as
     they played the chunky game, dogs barking, horses neighing, chickens
     cackling, the chatter of crows in the towering sycamores, the mutter of
     flowing water. And sadly, he thought of his home in New Orleans, the
     theatre, his plays, the civilized world, and Rafe... where was Rafe?

        All that seemed lost to him now, a dream from out of his childhood,
     something he had never lived, but rather had imagined, something
     fanciful, self-wrought, like a poem or a song. Vik felt that this was
     the real life, had been all his living days, something he had once lost
     long ago, and now had mercifully found.

        "You have robbed me of my god," Neshoba murmured, his dark face
     buried in Vik's neck. "The god of Abba Inca is dead. You are my god now,
     Sky Eyes," and breathing heavily, sighed, "forevermore."

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     {End of file: SKY-EYES-2  Story continues in: SKY-EYES-3 (chapters 7-8}