Dangerous Dreams: A Novel by Mike Rhynard

Author:Mike Rhynard [Rhynard, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

The ten Powhatan warriors moved swiftly, silently through the dense forest. Each man wore only moccasins, and a fringed, thigh-length apron across his front; while lines, swirls, and splashes of paint adorned their bodies and the shaven right halves of their heads. Each carried a painted-bark shield on his arm, a long bow, an un-nocked arrow in his shield hand, and a knife and stone war club at his side. It was not a hunting party.

The Panther had three parallel stripes across his face on each side, that ran from the ridge of his nose across each cheek to the bottom of his jaws— red on top, black in the middle, and yellow on the bottom. Every man had a red design of some sort on the right side of his head; the Panther’s was a collection of lines, in a shell shape that emanated upward from just above his ear to the hairline at the top, where his long hair hung down the left side.

As he jogged at the front of the band, his mind reviewed their plan to surprise the Monacan hunting party they knew was hunting deer in their territory. They’d made two previous raids against the Monacans and on the first had killed two and taken one prisoner for torture. But the Monacans had pursued, and they’d had to kill the prisoner because he’d slowed their pace; the Monacans had outnumbered them and would likely have won an encounter in which the Powhatans did not have the advantage of surprise. The glow of any victory was dulled by heavy losses, and such were to be carefully avoided. He ground his teeth together when he thought of the second raid, led by another warrior, who’d stumbled headlong into the Monacan hunting party; and again outnumbered, they’d lost two warriors: one killed and another taken prisoner. They’d found the prisoner’s body days later, after he’d been tortured and dismembered, his body left where the Monacans knew the Powhatans would find it. He smiled, for the captured man had been a close friend, an exceptionally brave warrior, and the Panther knew he’d laughed in their faces and taunted them as they tested his courage, knew he’d died a warrior’s death because the Monacans had left his weapons with his body: testimony that he’d died bravely and earned the respect of his tormentors.

As the memory of his friend faded from his mind, the Panther thought of the young white girl with eyes the color of the sky and black hair like their own. He’d been unable to keep her face and the thought of her courage from his mind. Even when he thought of his very pregnant wife and her still-ferocious passion for lovemaking, Blue Eyes displaced her in his mind, captured his desire and his longing, filled him with visions of her naked body tight against his own, their wild, frantic movement together. The fact that a white woman could influence him so, still confounded, even troubled him; but

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