Crown of Fire

"But you hit the ball," Dorothy praised her son.

"You did very good," Kuy Neer praised.

By the time the three children had tired of throwing and hitting the ball, Kuy Neer had shaped the nineteen inch branch with her sharp knife. Dorothy looked at the chunk of wood and shrugged her shoulders; it did not look like anything she recognized.

Both ends of the branch had been rounded out. Behind the rounded ends, Kuy Neer had left a sizable flare, then the rest of the branch had been shaped to an approximately uniform girth. In the middle of the branch was a large knot, or flange. Then, past that flange the branch continued with the circumference, to the flare, and then the rounded end.

"You have a tongue," Kuy Neer asked after they'd prepared a simple lunch for the children.

"Yes," Dorothy blushed, but stuck out her tongue.

"No, no, from animal," Kuy Neer smiled.

"Hmm? Oh, the beef, yes," Dorothy agreed and found the tin.

"But Nathan will not eat this," she said.

"Nathan will eat this; he will not know what he is eating," Kuy Neer promised as she found a large pot.

She filled the large pot with water from the spigot and set the water onto the stove. She placed the large beef tongue into the water, making sure she did so out of Nathan's sight.

An hour later, Kuy Neer fished the tongue out of the water. She also ladled two large scoops of the broth from the pot and put that into a smaller pot.

"You, the onion, the green pepper," Kuy Neer said to Dorothy, quickly dicing the tongue into very small chunks.

She put a ladle of uncooked rice into the smaller pot and added tongue and diced onion and pepper. Giving the ingredients a quick stir, Kuy Neer covered the small pot.

Then, to Dorothy's confusion, Kuy Neer took her whittled branch and dropped the branch into the large pot of broth. The cover was then placed onto the pot

Sarah again took her sweet time in fetching Robert. It was nearly time for the evening meal before the knock sounded at the front door of the home. Dorothy did determine that she would not be asking the woman to mind Nathan any time soon. Sarah Elgin seemed to be of the mind that if she gave you two pennies, you then owed her two dimes.

Kuy Neer was correct; Nathan ate every bite of the rice dish. When Kuy Neer asked him if he had liked the evening meal, he answered in the affirmative.

The following morning, Kuy Neer fished the branch out of the pot of tongue broth. She used a scrap of cloth to wipe the now darkly stained wood of the thick paste that coated the branch.

Then, as Nathan and Tey Ogan ran about in the rear garden, Kuy Neer briskly rubbed the branch with a cloth until the wood gleamed.

"This is very pretty," Dorothy said as she gathered some vegetables from their garden.

"Tonight, you will say that our plaything is truly beautiful," Kuy Neer giggled as she used some small tools to affix brass studs haphazardly along the length of the polished wood.

That night, the two women kissed, nude body pressed against nude body. Kuy Neer used her hand to determine that her lover was wet, was ready for her.

In the flickering lamp light, Dorothy watched as Kuy Neer held up the whittled branch. Dorothy's beautiful eyes opened wide as Kuy Neer knelt on the bed, thighs apart, and poised one blunt end of the branch to the mouth of her slit. With a grunt and shudder, Kuy Neer slowly sank down, impaling herself on the blunt end. Her inner lips flowered open, accepting the wooden phallus.

"Ugh! Oh," Kuy Neer moaned, eyes tightly shut as more and more of the instrument slowly pushed into her.

When she reached the flanged center, Kuy Neer rose up again onto her knees. Dorothy looked on in fascination at the end that was visible. It truly did appear that her lover, her woman lover now possessed the staff of a man protruding from her groin.

"And now, my friend, I enter you," Kuy Neer whispered, holding onto the phallus by its flanged base.

"Yes, my friend, my heart," Dorothy cried out as the blunt end of the branch came into contact with her wet slit.

Dorothy could feel the blunt end pressing into her. She could feel her lips flower open, could feel the lips wrap around the flared lip just pat the rounded end. That flared edge pressed into her, rasping against the sensitive walls of her womanhood.

"Ugh!" Dorothy cried out, now feeling the brass studs rasping against the walls of her womanhood.

"Ugh, oh my heart, I am in you," Kuy Neer cried out and shuddered.

"Ugh, yes," Dorothy cried out as nearly eight inches of warm wood was inside of her opening.

"Yes," Kuy Neer hissed, rising up.

Dorothy watched as Kuy Neer's inner lips pulled out, caressing the wooden instrument. Now it appeared that she, Dorothy now possessed a staff of pleasure, and was using this staff on her friend.

"Aieegh! Oh Heavenly Father!" Dorothy cried out in a thunderous wave of pleasure.

"Yes!" Kuy Neer also cried out in her own pleasure.

The two women grunted and thrust against one another, using the wooden instrument to pleasure one another. Sweat trickled freely as they grunted and pushed.

Finally, the pleasure grew too much and they winced as they gingerly parted.

"Oh my heart, my friend, what more have you to teach me?" Dorothy whispered, cuddling against Kuy Neer.

In the morning, Kuy Neer giggled as Dorothy reverently kissed the wooden instrument before placing it on the small chest at the foot of the bed. The two women kissed, then left the bedchambers to care for the children.

As Dorothy tended to breakfast, Kuy Neer went to the stables to fetch her and Tey Ogan's belongings. She had several coins in her bag, knowing that the stable master would demand payment of each day of the week, even as she and her child had not been in the upstairs room.

She walked quickly, keeping her gaze straight ahead. Some seemed to take offense if an Indian dared to look directly at them.

The stable master was in a foul mood, reeking of the previous night's excesses. But he did acknowledge that Kuy Neer and Tey Ogan had not been there the previous evenings.

"Tell you what, now, don't be running your mouth, but hmm, how 'bout two dollars? Then we all squared up," the man suggested.

Kuy Neer made a show of sighing, then nodding. She dug and dug in her bag, finally producing two coins.

She gathered the possessions, wished the man a good day, and left. Again, Kuy Neer kept her gaze straight ahead as she walked.

Safely ensconced in Dorothy's home again, Kuy Neer let out the breath she'd been holding. She smiled and unwrapped Tey Ogan's toys, including her ball and cup.

"Nathan, Nathan, this is mine," Tey Ogan said excitedly.

The child showed Nathan how to get the ball into the cup. Again and again, she flicked her wrist, sending the ball up, then maneuvered to catch the ball into the wooden cup.

"The leather tie is so you do not lose the ball," Tey Ogan explained why the ball was attached to the string. "Here. You try."

Nathan did, frowning as he was unable to do the simple task of catching the attached ball into the cup.

"You can do it, Sweetheart," Dorothy encouraged. "Just keep trying."

"Here. You show me," Nathan demanded, thrusting ball and cup at his mother.

Dorothy did try and had to admit, it was not as easy as Tey Ogan and Kuy Neer made it look. But she smiled and laughed, showing Nathan that it was fine, it was all right to fail. What was not all right, what was not fine was to give up, to quit.

"And..." Kuy Neer whispered, standing behind the two children as they laughed at Dorothy's attempts.

Dorothy looked up and saw that Kuy Neer was holding another tree branch, quite thick, polished smooth. The rounded end looked quite blunt, quite imposing. Nathan and Tey Ogan laughed as Dorothy completely missed the cup.

Kuy Neer giggled and pursed her lips in a kiss. Dorothy shook her head, then squealed when she did manage to catch the ball into the cup.

"See, Sweetheart?" she encouraged Nathan.

Nathan again tried. Tey Ogan found her doll, a polished piece of wood dressed in scraps of buckskin. The doll was a representation of a Ridge woman, dressed in the clothing of a Ridge woman. Tey Ogan chattered with the doll while Nathan continued playing with cup and ball.

"All right, Nathan, it is Saturday," Dorothy announced the next morning. "And what does Saturday mean?"

"No! No, don't, I don't need a bath, see? I don't smell bad," Nathan cried out.

"Nathan! Look at the dirt around that neck of yours! We could plant a tree in all that dirt," Dorothy gently teased her son.

"But no washing my hair," Nathan bartered.

"No washing... Nathan! We need get all them critters, all them varmints made a nest in that hair," Dorothy fussed.

After the evening meal, Nathan watched as his mother heated some water on the stove. She filled a large washtub with cold water, then set it in the middle of the kitchen. Carefully, she added the now boiling water to the wash bin.

Turning, Dorothy saw that Nathan had waited until she was distracted, was pouring the hot water. At that moment, he had disappeared. Tey Ogan looked terrified.

"So, you want a bath? AND a spanking?" Dorothy threatened out loud.

"Do you?" Kuy Neer asked her daughter.

The wide-eyed child shook her head. Kuy Neer asked her where Nathan had secreted himself. Tey Ogan again shook her head.

"Daughter, I am ashamed. I did not raise a liar, did I?" Kuy Neer asked.

"Under the bed," Tey Ogan sobbed out.

"Aw, you rat," Nathan groused as he was dragged out from underneath his bed.

Tey Ogan was also dunked into the quite warm water and the two children had to endure a bath together. Both children also had to endure being dunked underneath the water to cleanse their long hair.

After each child was thoroughly scrubbed, they were then dried off. Dorothy's hair pomade was applied to their heads and each mother bent to the task of combing their child's hair until dry.

"And now, OUR bath," Dorothy whispered to Kuy Neer as each child lay asleep in Nathan's bed.

"Oh, no! I shall hide underneath our bed," Kuy Neer giggled as Dorothy heated some more water on the stove.

This time, as Dorothy knelt next to the tub, harsh cloth scrap soaping up her subject's body, there was much kissing. Kuy Neer shuddered in pleasure as the linen scrap rasped over her puffy lips, rasped against the bud of pleasure between her legs.

"It shall be your turn next," Kuy Neer threatened.

A few months after Kuy Neer and Tey Ogan came to stay with Dorothy and Nathan, a knock came at the front door. Dorothy opened the door to see Miss May, the school teacher standing on her wooden stoop.

"Mrs. Roberts," the woman said, wrinkled face showing no hint of a smile. "I expect Young Nathan will be starting his schooling? Begins next week, you know."

"Nathan and Tey Ogan will be taking your classes," Dorothy agreed.

"Tey, and whom is Tey, did you say Elgin?" Miss May asked, face even more wrinkled in confusion.

"Yes," Dorothy agreed, calling out, "Children! Come please."

"Oh! No ma'am! We will not, she is not even dressed! Mrs. Roberts! You will not..." Miss May screeched, seeing the Indian girl in her traditional Indian garb.

"She is half your people," Kuy Neer said quietly. "Her father is Dan Ogan, Large Bear."

"Dan? Mr. Daniel Elgin? Is this child's..." Miss May sputtered, then smiled an ugly smile. "Well now. That is quite interesting."

"Miss May, the state of Texas shall educate this child; she is a citizen of Texas, she was born in Texas," Dorothy stated firmly.

"We shall see, we shall see," Miss May said, voice dripping saccharine sweetness.

After the woman bustled her large frame from their doorstep, Dorothy and Kuy Neer argued lightly that Tey Ogan would have to wear white clothing; that she would have to wear hard shoes.

"Dear friend, dear heart, when they are home? She may dress as her proud heritage says," Dorothy bartered.

Suddenly, there was a hard hammering on their front door. Kuy Neer looked frightened; Dorothy looked annoyed.

"Yes? Who is it, please?" she barked out, not opening the door.

"This is Bear!" Dan Elgin yelled through the door. "Robert's father! What's this I hear you been telling people 'bout me, huh?"

"Mr. Elgin, I've told no one anything about you," Dorothy snapped, opening the door. "What have you heard? And from whom?"

"Miss May come by, said you said I got an Injun kid," Dan blustered, trying to intimidate Dorothy with his bulk.

"I did not say any such thing, Mr. Elgin," Dorothy snapped.

"I am the person said this," Kuy Neer snarled standing behind Dorothy. "Surely you remember? In your uniform? You boasted of being in the Calvary? You made me drink your fire water? Then you tore my loincloth?"

"Aw, you lying... Mrs. Roberts, ought know you can't believe nothing them red devils say!" Dan blustered.

"That is true," Dorothy nodded in agreement.

"Dorothy!" Kuy Neer cried out.

"Said you was a decent, honest man," Dorothy smirked at the angry scowl on Sarah Elgin's face as the woman stood behind her husband. "Said you was a courageous warrior."

"I uh, well now, she did, huh?" Dan said, puffing himself up.

"But as you say, can't trust them Indians, now can we?" Dorothy said, smiling widely at Sarah's consternation.

"But listen, none of this got get back to Sarah, right?" Dan said hopefully, looking at the red skinned beauty that stood behind Dorothy. "I mean, she find out this urchin's really kin to me?"

"But she already knows," Dorothy said.

"Naw, told her it were all a pack of lies," Dan said, never taking his eyes from Kuy Neer's large chest in her skimpy buckskin attire.

"But she knows it's the truth," Dorothy replied.

"Now, say I stop by, uh, maybe a little after dinner?" Dan preened.

"And do what, pray tell?" Sarah snarled, unable to keep quiet any longer.

"Sarah!" Dan screamed, horrified.

"The two bits a week for Tey Ogan's schooling? "That should come from you, I do believe," Dorothy called out as Sarah marched her much larger husband home, hand firmly on the man's ear.

"And you!" Dorothy said, closing the door. "You could believe I would ever betray you?"

Tey Ogan found the dress to be almost comical as she wore it. The hard leather shoes, however, she found very uncomfortable. Nathan too did find his shoes uncomfortable after four years of being barefoot much of the time.

Their first week of school, Nathan earned himself a black eye; an older boy began making fun of Tey Ogan. Nathan got a black eye, but the other boy got a bloodied lip out of the skirmish.

"My warrior," Tey Ogan said, proudly holding onto Nathan's hand.

"My warrior," Kuy Neer agreed as she placed a poultice onto Nathan's eye.

"I'm a warrior," Nathan declared to his mother.

"Mm-hmm," Dorothy said, lips drawn tight.

Turning to the stove again, cooking a simple potato and salted pork dish, Dorothy smiled.

As Dorothy cooked their evening meal, both Nathan and Tey Ogan practiced their letters on their slate. Kuy Neer puzzled over this and had them show her again.

"And what do you do with these letters?" she asked her daughter.

"I don't know," Tey Ogan admitted.

"You make stories, you make books, oh, and newspapers," Nathan explained.

"Ooohh!" Kuy Neer nodded and had them show her the letters again.

"Dorothy; you know letters?" Kuy Neer asked.

"Yes, Darling. That is what my Bible is," Dorothy said as she served the evening meal.

"Ooohh!" Kuy Neer again exclaimed.

"You must teach me these letters," Kuy Neer begged as she and Dorothy lay in their bed.

"I will, dear friend, I will," Dorothy promised.

*.*

In 1897, Nathan Roberts was sent by the newspaper, Oakleaf Dispatch to Alaska, to report on the Klondike Gold Rush. The reporter brought his wife, Tey Ogan with him.

Even though the pale skinned man had a crown of gold, long blond hair that reached down to his back, he fit in quite easily with the Inuit tribespeople. His wife likewise fit in, acclimated to the Inuit customs and language. Learning their customs and ways, Nathan and Tey Ogan survived the brutal winter of the Alaskan Territory.

At least twice a month, Tey Ogan would receive a handwritten letter from her mother. The crude, block style lettering always made her smile as she read her mother's letters.

"Warrior, we have another letter," she would say as Bob Farnsworth would deliver their mail.

"She still have crown of fire, but now much smoke in fire," Tey Ogan giggled as Kuy Neer described the gray hairs that were creeping into Dorothy's long red hair.

"To say nothing of the several streaks of silver within her own hair," Nathan smiled as he brushed his wife's hair.

"We are both happy you will be mother, Warrior, Nathan, you are happy? You are happy, right?" Tey Ogan continued to read, then asked her husband.

"Sweetheart, I am, I am very happy," Nathan said, rubbing his wife's growing belly.

"Need tell them about Robert, though," Tey Ogan said sadly.

Robert Elgin had gotten gold fever, as had many young men. But he did not learn the ways of the people of the area. He did not acclimate to the harsh conditions. Ironically, it had been Nathan that had discovered Robert's cold, lifeless body on one of Nathan's treks to the numerous mining camps scattered about.

"Dorothy, we have letter!" Kuy Neer cried out upon her return from the Great Oak Post Office.

"Well, what's it say?" Dorothy asked, pouring them each a cup of coffee.

"You read it," Kuy Neer demanded.

"Kuy Neer, you know I cannot," Dorothy said, indicating her failing eyes.

Over their coffee, Kuy Neer struggled with Tey Ogan's beautiful cursive writing. The two lovers sat at their table, enjoying the letter.

"Oh! I wonder if Sarah knows," Dorothy asked as they read of Robert's passing.

"We will go to her home after we finish this," Kuy Neer said.

"My War, war, Warrior, my Warrior has shot a mouse, no, no, a MOOSE, oh Dorothy! A moose!" Kuy Neer continued to read. "Those are quite large."

"I'm sure they'll have plenty of meat," Dorothy agreed.

After they finished their cups of coffee, Dorothy and Kuy Neer dressed. Both women, upon the leaving of their children, had taken to lounging about their home in total nakedness. In public, both adopted the garb of the white woman, except that both had taken to wearing buckskin moccasins, rather than hard leather boots.

"Helps me feel stuff with my feet," Dorothy admitted as she slipped on the simple footwear.

Outside, Dorothy placed her hand on Kuy Neer's shoulder and followed as Kuy Neer walked the wooden walkways to Sarah's home.

Sarah grudgingly allowed Kuy Neer and Dorothy to enter her home. She offered no food or beverage to either woman as they sat in her parlor.

Noticing the chilly reception they were receiving, Dorothy got straight to the point of their visit. She had Kuy Neer show Sarah the letter they'd just received from Robert's half-sister, Tey Ogan.

Dorothy did smirk slightly, knowing that Sarah Elgin could not read. So the woman had no choice but to allow the Indian woman to read Tey Ogan's words aloud.

"Thank you," Sarah said simply when Dorothy and Kuy Neer expressed their sympathy over the loss of her son.

Once the two women left her home, Sarah first muttered angrily, under her breath, the rumors the townspeople whispered about 'that red headed woman and her Injun friend.' She too did wonder, as the two women were alone in their home, what exactly did they do? How exactly did two women consort, pleasure one another?

Sarah hoped that no one had seen the two women enter her parlor. She certainly did not want rumors to begin that she too had 'turned,' especially after the death of Dan.

Sarah sat in her parlor again, watching out the window as Dorothy and that red skinned devil walked, their slow halting steps along Lincoln Street. Then the tears for her darling little boy Robert Elgin did begin to fall.