PART 5: THE BLACK HILLS - 1875

A GLIMPSE of EDEN 

 

 

Like innocent residents of Eden, unashamed of their nakedness, they splashed hand in hand through the warm river to shower under the falls. Such was her joyous abandon, Jessamine thought if there were an apple tree nearby, she would do as Eve, and pluck the fruit to offer him a bite. It was Mitch, however, who plucked some yucca root, and pared it with his knife to soap their bodies and hair clean of whatever river mud remained on them. She was stunned and ashamed when she saw the raw lines on his back, scratches she had put there, but he only shrugged and dismissed it with a deep chuckle.
     They took turns washing each other’s hair, digging into scalps with great concentration. His hair was shoulder length when he pulled it free of its rawhide thong; hers was equally long, dark as an overripe berry when wet, and he marveled at the slippery feel of it between his long fingers. She helped him shave with the blade of his knife, scraping off a four day growth of whiskers. Soaping his chest, her fingers skimmed the curves of his muscles and gently probed the puckered scar below his nipple.  “Does it hurt,” she yelled above the roar of the falls.

He shook his head, gathering her hand in his and rubbed her knuckles against his lower lip. Worth any pain, if this is what finally brought us together, he thought. They kissed playfully at first, nibbling on lips and ears, lapping at the water that ran off the clean and curved planes of their faces. When he lifted her to a boulder under the falls, he massaged her feet and scrubbed each of her toes, and his eyes were darkly mischievous when he nibbled on a little one, scaling his teeth up to the big toe, and she thought she would die when he took it into his mouth. 

      Squealing with delight, she circled his waist with her legs and from her new vantage point, her hair fell like silk curtains when she bent to cover his forehead and eyes with slippery kisses like those he had bestowed on her. The roar of the falls was a symphony in her ears, racing with the music in her heart until it was impossible for even the colder water to douse the fresh desire that bubbled once more, slow and steady between them. As long as she lived, she would never be able to measure a single memory against this time, this place, transporting her into a sensory universe with this beautiful, green-eyed creature of the earth.

The horses had moved to graze in a small copse in the forest. Mitch whistled for the Appaloosa and he came trotting to his master, the red mare closely following. After tethering them loosely to a tree, he hunkered down to build a campfire. Jessamine wrapped herself in a blanket, picked up their scattered garments and hung them over tree branches to dry. Neither was very hungry for anything more than a lazy chew of pemmican.
     He jockeyed saddles and blankets beside the fire, and exhausted, they settled down for the night, lulled by the crackle and hiss of fire and waterfall. Warm as the evening was, Jessamine snuggled against him, reveling in the clean damp of his hair and cool skin tinged with the musky woodsmoke of the fire. She could smell the pine trees shifting around them like giant sentinels, and caught a glimpse of the first evening stars twinkling in the dusty sky peeking through the treetops.
     Eden. If this glade, these holy hills were anything like the Biblical garden, she would forever wonder why Eve had risked it all for a bite of the apple.