By Donna
Joseph
came back to the camp, carrying a string of fish in one hand and followed by a
chubby little raccoon, who immediately began to stick her nose and little paws
into everything she could find. Of course, he got a lot of teasing about his new
pet from the other camp residents, but Joseph didn’t mind. The antics of the
little coon amused him!
When
she dumped over a rack full of drying meat, the women fussed loudly at Joseph,
telling him to keep his furry little friend under control, or she would end up
as raccoon stew! Joseph called her to him and held her on his lap for a while,
stroking her softly while telling her that he wouldn’t let them do such a
thing! “Perhaps you should *repair fences* as a certain white man that I know
says. Not that I have a clue what
that means,” he told her. Digging into his bag once more, he gave Mika some
pretty little shells and polished stones that he had acquired in town, and
seeing them, the little coon ran up to each one of the women, giving them one of
the pretties as if to apologize for what she had done.
Of
course, after that, all talk of raccoon stew and fur hats were immediately
forgotten, and by the end of the day, she was just as much a member of the camp
as everyone else was. Unfortunately,
it took quite a bit of convincing on the part of Shiloh and the others to make
the wolf dogs leave Mika alone! Mika didn’t help matters though. She would
tease the dogs as often as she could, knowing that the people would yell at them
if they even looked at her cross-eyed.
Night
came, and one by one, the various couples slipped into their lodges, leaving
Joseph and some of the other men talking around the fire. Mika, curious as ever,
poked her nose into those lodges, watching with intense interest what was going
on underneath the furs in the flickering firelight. Most of them were way too
busy to notice her.
She
had visited Shiloh’s teepee, then Ula’s. Nighthawk was sleeping alone, as
was Echo in her little lodge set next to Coltec’s, so Mika peeked inside, but
didn’t stay long. Making her way to Little Deer’s lodge, she curled up on
top of the sleeping boy named Kahani, watching curiously as *Wolf* MacLeod made
love to his woman. Deciding what they were doing looked like a lot of fun, Mika
scampered out of the lodge in search of Joseph.
“There
you are, little one,” he said when she found him right where she had left him,
by the fire. “Are you coming to bed with me?” he asked, offering her another
piece of fruit leather when she scampered over to his side.
She took it from him, and after making short work of the treat, she
followed him into his own lodge.
Once
inside, he built up the fire in the center of the lodge, then stripped off his
outer clothing until he was wearing nothing but a well worn loincloth. Mika
watched him, her bright little eyes following his every move. He wasn’t as
slender or muscled as the other men, but she decided that she still liked what
she saw.
Once
undressed, Joseph hung his buckskins up, and then slipped under the furs,
smiling as he watched Mika wander all over his lodge, poking her nose here and
there. The smile turned into laughter as the coon dove under the furs. “Hey!!
Stop that!” he yelled, reaching in and retrieving the coon when she stuck her
nose under the flap of the loincloth. “There isn’t anything in there that
you can play with!”
Mika sat up on her
backside and scolded him, telling Joseph in no uncertain terms that she had
every intention of playing with what she had been trying to see! But Joseph just
laughed at her, and in a few minutes, was snoring softly. Mika dove under the
covers again, this time snuggling into a round ball against his chest.
Sometime during the night, Mika changed. Sighing happily as Joseph’s arm instinctively tightened around her, his hand moving to cup one of her full breasts, Mika snuggled even closer to the man she had already decided would be her *one*. The only problem now would be to convince Joseph of that fact!