Swift Horse

“That coyote. Is it calling to others that might be on this side of the falls?” Marsha asked, snuggling closer to him as they sat side-by-side on the thick pallet of blankets.

“Did you hear a response?” Swift Horse said, lifting a folded blanket and placing it around both their shoulders, so that their shoulders touched beneath it.

“No,” Marsha said, glad that she wasn’t hearing the one animal any longer, either.

“Relax and enjoy our moments together,” Swift Horse said, reaching beneath the blanket and taking one of her hands. “Are you warm enough?”

“Yes, and I am so content to be here with you,” Marsha murmured. She looked on both sides of her and then at the falls as the water splashed downward into the river below. “You brought me to a different place beside the falls the last time,” she murmured, questioning him with her eyes.

“It is even more beautiful here, do you not think so?” Swift Horse said, gesturing around him with a hand. “Do you see the flower that grows in such abundance along the slope of land that leads downward to the river below?”

“Yes,” Marsha murmured, having noticed it the moment they arrived.

It was a beautiful creamy-white trumpet-shaped flower that sent off a lemony scent and seemed to glow now in the twilight hour of evening. The flowers seemed even to be flaunting their scent, their curvy shape, their luminous color.

She looked quickly over at Swift Horse. “I have never seen such a gorgeous flower as this.”

“I know this plant well,” Swift Horse said, somewhat frowning. “Its name is Sacred Datura. Normally it is a desert plant, but long ago an Indian tribe called the Zuni brought it here and planted it in the ground for their personal use. It has spread like wildfire in this area, but my people know to avoid it, and so must you. Do not even touch it, and especially don’t smell of its flower.”

“Why?” Marsha asked, her eyes widening. “You talk of it as though it is a devil’s plant.”

“That is a good reference to describe it,” Swift Horse said. “The Zuni tribes use Datura plants to bring on trances and visions, but drinking the tea made from its leaves or chewing on its seeds can be very dangerous.”

“Good Lord,” Marsha gasped. “I am so glad you told me, or I might have put some in a vase on my brother’s kitchen table.”

“There is a myth about the flower that is told to children,” Swift Horse said. “Do you wish to hear the myth?”

“Yes, very much,” Marsha said, sliding the blanket from around her shoulders and sitting directly in front of Swift Horse, her eyes wide as she awaited hearing the story. She loved these special moments with him, when she had the chance to learn about him and his people.

“According to the Zuni, many, many moons ago, two children spied upon the gods and then whispered the secrets they learned, thereby angering the spirits.” The blanket was no longer around his shoulders, but instead resting around his waist. “In punishment, the gods buried the children beneath the earth, where no one would hear their whispers. At the place where they disappeared, the Sacred Datura grew and blossomed for the first time. In my teachings, I tell the children that the use of this plant, even by experienced shamans such as Bright Moon, is considered dangerous. Visions can turn into convulsions—or death.”

“How horrible,” Marsha said, moving back to sit beside Swift Horse, again staring at the flowers.

“This sinister flower has become part of my understanding of the natural world, where beauty and violence often intertwine,” Swift Horse said hoarsely.

Marsha started to tell him just how beautiful what he said was, but stopped and gasped when she saw something else that seemed surreal. Out of the twilight came a fast-flying, white-lined sphinx moth, stopping and hovering over a flower, feeding from it.

It hovered while feeding, its wings a white whir as it sipped nectar from the deep white tube, then whirled away like a spinning dervish. It became a blur in the air for a moment, and then poised itself before another flower, sipping nectar again, its heavy body keeping aloft by the beating of its narrow wings.

And then the moth was gone again, along with it the mystery.

“I have just witnessed something so beautiful, it is hard to describe it. I’m so glad you told me,” Marsha murmured, then melted inside when he drew her even closer and lowered his lips to her mouth.

All thoughts and wonder of plants and flowers and lovely moths were wiped away. All Marsha was aware of was how her pulse raced and how her insides were mushy warm from Swift Horse’s kiss and embrace. She wa

s only slightly aware of being undressed, and of lying on the blankets. Swift Horse was soon nude, too, and blanketed her with his body.

It was all natural, how they came together, as though they had done this thousands of times before—how she knew the art of pleasing him even though this was her very first time with a man in this way. Even the pain that came with her losing her virginity to this man was instant.

Now past that pain and the newness of making love for the first time in her life, pleasure spread through her body as he kissed and stroked her where she had not known she had feelings before. Her every secret place became his.

His meltingly hot kiss as he plunged into her, withdrew and plunged again, made her writhe in response, becoming someone new to her herself—someone whose soft moans were repeatedly surfacing from deep inside her.

Her senses were reeling as she clung to his rock hardness, then sucked in a wild breath of an even more intense pleasure when he slid his lips downward from her mouth and he rolled first one of her nipples with his tongue, and then the other.

His tongue, his mouth, his hands, his manhood, worked their magic on her, causing waves of liquid heat to pulse through her. She was experiencing desire such as she had never known before as sweet currents of warmth swept through her, over and over again, as his lean, sinewy buttocks moved rhythmically.

Swift Horse’s body was growing feverish. He had not expected such intense passion as this woman evoked within him. He moved his lips from hers and lay his cheek against hers, trying to draw air into his lungs. He was almost beyond coherent thought as he found himself climbing to that place where paradise awaited them both. He had felt the pressure building from somewhere deep inside him, growing hotter like a fire consuming him.