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Grimm lifts his chin.
“We gotta do what we gotta do,” Skid shrugs. And when Prez looks to me, there ain’t no decision to be made.
“I’m in.” My head gives the final nod, and the gavel slams hard against the table.
“Then it’s done. Time to pay our neighbors a visit. Jessie, you're coming with.” Prez stands up from his chair and the others start to file out, opening the doors to let in the warm morning sun.
I rise to my feet and wait for him outside the door. Being there when Prez makes his proposal is a chance to get close to her again.
“I’m coming too,” I tell him as he steps out.
“I ain’t gonna head down there without my Sergeant, goes without saying that you're coming.” Prez smacks me on the shoulder.
“You look flustered.” Dyanni eyes me suspiciously when I arrive back at the village, I’m still breathless from what I saw back at the river. Nerves dance in the pit of my stomach as I recall the vision of him in front of me brutally bare.
“I was just bathing.” I smile, moving past her and heading toward the cabin we share.
“Bathing?” I realize she isn’t going to let up when she starts following me. “Tawk built you a shower on the side of our cabin months ago. Yet you still insist on trudging deep into the forest to bathe?” She stares at me in confusion, and I feel guilty that I can’t offer her an honest answer.
“I just like it down there, it’s peaceful.” I shrug, hoping she’ll drop the whole thing. Faking her a smile, I continue to walk toward our cabin. My heart sinks when I see that Tawk is waiting for me on the porch step.
“You missed breakfast.” Tawk doesn’t look up from the floor, just holds out the bowl of berries in his hand for me to take.
“Thank you.” I accept them gratefully before taking a seat on the step beside him.
Tawk’s handsome, in a stern, efficient kind of way. But I’ve never felt close to him.
“We should spend more time together.” His words sound more like a command than a suggestion, but that’s just his way. I follow him up with my eyes when he stands up on his feet, brushing his palms off on his overworn jeans.
He’s acting differently and looks uncomfortable. “Maybe we could take a walk along the river later today. Malkee said he saw some baby elk drinking down there a few days ago.” He softens his tone a little, and thoughts of the river bring a vision to my mind that causes me to blush again.
“That sounds really nice.” I smile back brightly, and he responds with a stiff nod of his head before he walks away from me.
After my mother died, my uncle became my closest living relative. Tawk and I both know it’s only a matter of days before my uncle announces his plans for us to marry. It’s an old-fashioned notion, but only natural that he wants me settled with our strongest tribe member. The choices around here are slim these days. There are many girls that will have to go without husbands since the tribe has become smaller. These past few years, more and more families have grown tired of the hard work. They’ve moved out into the modern world, or maybe they’ve found other reservations to live on, I’ll never know. My uncle allows us no contact with them. He would never admit it, but he feels weakened by the lack of people he has to control. He’s determined to keep our culture alive and to him, mine and Tawk’s union is essential to his plan.
Any of the other girls here would be delighted to have Tawk as their suitor, Dyanni being one of them. To me, it feels much more like an impending sentence than a prosperous future.
I spend the early part of the morning helping Tayen. She has a big family, and I prefer to eat my meals with them rather than join my auntie and uncle. I have a lot to thank Tayen for. She and her husband, Calian, treat me like family, despite her only being six years older than me. Since mother died, Tayen has taken over that motherly role, and with four little ones of her own to take care of she’s always busy, so I like to help her as often as I can.
I bounce baby Hakan on my knee and watch Tawk fix one of the goat pens. He’s taken off his shirt and tied it around one of the posts, and although his body is solid and muscular, it doesn’t compare to the stranger by the river. His frame was slightly leaner than Tawk’s, and I couldn’t help notice the muscles he had in places I’ve never seen on any of our men. Every inch of him had been tight as he strode out of that water, and what he carries between his legs looks more like a weapon he could take to battle than something to love a woman with.
My mom explained to me from a young age about what happened between a man and woman after union. I couldn’t ever imagine ever doing such a thing with Tawk. But despite being overwhelmed, what I saw today has made the idea of being joined to a man seem appealing for the first time.
I’m so confused.
Tawk catches me watching him, then offers me a rare attempt at a smile. I return one to him, because it feels like I ought to, then I quickly get back to playing with Hakan.
“It won’t be long before your uncle announces his plans for you.” Tayen comes out of her cabin and sits beside me, she sounds like she’s trying to assure me, what she doesn’t realize is that her words fill me with apprehension.
We’re disturbed by a high-pitched whistle that immediately has Tawk dropping his tools and looking up to the tree line.
The tree line that separates us from them, and me from him.
I figured out a long time ago that my visitor at the falls was one of the outlaws. It’s one of the many reasons I keep his trespassing a secret. My uncle would be furious if he knew one of them had crossed the border onto the reservation.
More men stop what they are doing when they hear the danger signal, and my uncle quickly steps out of his cabin, staring up at the tree line as he marches into the center of our village. The men gather around him, and I place Hakan onto his wobbly feet and pass his hand to his mommy. Standing up, I make my way through the gathering bodies, managing to find a space just behind my uncle.
Three men emerge from the tree line on foot, heading straight toward us. I recognize one of them straight away, and suddenly I feel strangled by my own breath.
