Free After the Thunder by Genell Dellin Page A

talk to her instead of to Emily. Good. It was gratifying to know that she was jealous.
    “Oh, I’m glad you’re going to talk to Walks-With-Spirits, Jacob,” Emily said, her voice trembling with pure sincerity. “Our People are so divided right now about so many things that it’s great you’re making peace with him.”
    She smiled up at him. Emily was a pretty woman, but she couldn’t hold a candle to Cotannah.
    “I’m eager to see these bricks that are made here in the Nation,” Cotannah said, restlessly beginning to walk faster in spite of Jacob’s slow pace.
    “There, you little wiggle-worm,” Ancie said tartly, as she bent over to set the fretting little girl on the ground. “You go. Carry your own self, then.”
    The baby ran toddling ahead as Jacob escorted them around the corner of the store. The wind was growing stronger, and it blew around the building in swirling gusts, pulling at Cotannah’s hair and lifting her skirts. How he wished he was out there in front of her so he could look up them!
    “Well, Miss Cotannah,” he said heartily, “right there you can see our Choctaw-made bricks from Durant’s Station.”
    He led the way toward a stack of bricks resting on the ground, staying away from the scaffolding where he had set the trap for his enemy. The board wouldn’t dump the bricks without being tipped or moved somehow, but there was no sense taking any chances.
    “These look just as professionally made as any other bricks I’ve ever seen,” Cotannah said playfully.
    She let go of his arm, turned, and walked a few steps so she could see the full height of the new building.
    “This is going to be a fine mercantile, indeed,” she said.
    He hardly heard her. All he could do was look at her and clench his fists to keep himself from walking up behind her and setting his hands on each side of that tiny waist of hers. His palms itched, his fingers ached to close around her—they could easily span her waist, easily, that and do so much more …
    The next instant she glanced over her shoulder, but not at him, at the baby. The air was filled with the little girl’s screams and he turned to see that the wind had taken her bonnet, was carrying it away from her, keeping it just beyond her reach. She screeched at the top of her lungs and ran after it, bobbling and stumbling, but never slowing, totally heedless of scattered boards and piles of sand, kegs of nails, and all the other construction clutter.
    “Sophie, watch where you’re going!” Cotannah cried.
    She grabbed up her skirts in both hands and ran toward the child, covering the ground that separated them faster than he would have believed possible. Ancie and Jumper were hobbling behind her, and Emily ran a little ahead of them.
    “Be careful, darling,” she cried, “slow down so you won’t fall on something that will hurt you!”
    He looked for the baby again and his heart leapt up into his throat. Then, he, too, began to run toward her. The bonnet had caught on the scaffolding, high up, too far for her to reach, and she was grasping the leg of it with both hands, now, trying to climb up to get it.
    The stack of bricks he had fixed to be too high and unstable was starting to teeter and sway. Cotannah glanced up and Emily screamed, a hair-raising, desperate sound.
    He went cold all over, then hot. No! No! He had setthat trap for the woods rat, not for the baby of the Principal Chief! If she was hurt or killed, he and his mercantile both would bear a stigma forever, and Tay Nashoba, who had never given Jacob the respect that he gave to Olmun, would never forgive him even though it would be just a terrible accident.
    The thought made him pick his feet up higher, ready to call out.
    Too late. Cotannah ran into the space where the bricks would fall. He ran faster.
    The wind was moving the large branches of the sycamores now, setting them swaying, knocking one of them against the opposite end of the board that held the stack of bricks. Damn it