Always Leoti

By David Rory O'Neill

A novel exploring time and relationships. Fourteen short stories in which we follow the same characters in different historical periods.
For Leoti, growth shaped her life in dramatic and not always welcome ways. Her childhood in the small settlement of Azure in the lee of the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana was happy and normal. Her mother, father and two brothers were all reasonably content folks with few of the hang-ups and problems reservation life can bring to native peoples. The Chippewa and Cree tribe of the Rocky Boy reservation had been astute and careful with their resources, their income from natural resources and later, the Northern Winz Casino, among other modern developments, meant a higher standard of living than was usual on reservations.
As the girl reached pubescence things changed. She began to have visions and was troubled. The shaman woman spoke to her and saw she had the magic. She became apprenticed. As she grew to womanhood Leoti suffered as she grew rounder, taller and more beautiful than her cousins and aunts. She was no longer of her band and they called her names and thought her mother must have lain with a white-man so they called Leoti: Métis-Mistik, meaning ‘mixed-race tree.’ No more flower of the prairie. Leoti left her band and her lands and travelled west.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Rory O'Neill
• Release date: May 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463062616

David Rory O'Neill

What sort of writer am I?Take DH Lawrence's sensuality and sensitivity, mix in a big dollop of John Steinbeck's earthy humour and truth, spice with a dash of Joyce's inventiveness and bawdiness. Sprinkle in a spot of Becket's radical originality. Cook in a slow simmering cauldron over an Irish peat fire given extra heat by the Scots/Irish hard burning coal and dish up in a new bowl of non-conformist Belfast manufacture. That's me. These are big names to live up to but I try.I live in beautiful and splendid isolation over looking the Shannon Valley in County Clare, Ireland. I'm a bit of a cultural orphan - but thanks to the beloved B, I'm very happy in our eclectic art and book filled rural nest.

Book preview

Always Leoti.

David Rory O’Neill.

Published by davidrory publishing at Smashwords.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Copyright David Moody 2019

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Belfast until troubles and tribal violence drove him away, David grew to be a non-conformist and independent soul clinging to his counter-culture ideals. He found peace and his true calling as a storyteller in the literary Irish tradition. He now lives in a lovely restored old art and book-filled house in the lee of the Silvermine Mountains, Tipperary, Ireland. He shares his life there with beloved Brigitte. David Rory O’Neill has written twenty novels and more are bubbling and brewing.

http://davidrory.com

Dedications:

For Brigitte who showed me what love can be.

For Ria who is loved and is my one true legacy and who now has given me a grandson – Art Leonis Parker Elliott.

Cover art by the author .

Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

David Rory O’Neill. Ireland. 2019.

Also, by David Rory O'Neill: Available as paperback or eBook.

Always Leoti.

The Butterfly Effect Trilogy:

Bonny, the Butterfly Effect.

Lauren, the Butterfly Effect.

Chepi, the Butterfly Effect.

The Prairie Companions.

The West Cork Trilogy:

1 Surviving Beauty. 2 Beauty’s Price. 3 Blue Sky Orphan.

4 The West Cork Trilogy. Omnibus (eBook)

The Daniel Series:

1 Conflict. 2 Challenge. 3 Passion. 4 Grip.

5 Judgement. 6 Pyramid. 7 Trial.

The Daniel Series box set: The Adventures of Daniel, Lauren and Bonny. (eBook)

Rachel’s Stories. Paperback omnibus.

Novellas

Skellig Testament. Novella (eBook)

Animal. Novella (eBook)

Rachel’s Walk. Novella (eBook)

Rachel’s War. Novella (eBook)

Rachel’s Might. Novella (eBook)

If you enjoyed this novel please leave a review on your suppliers website – reviews are the lifeblood of the modern author. UK English used so you will find grey not gray and colour not color – these are not mistakes. (Sorry Noel Webster)

Contents:

Chapter 1. A Joining.

Chapter 2. 849.

Chapter 3. Travel.

Chapter 4. 1670.

Chapter 5. Family

Chapter 6. 1885.

Chapter 7. To Ireland.

Chapter 8. 1917.

Chapter 9. Too Far.

Chapter 10. 1945.

Chapter 11. Montana.

Chapter 12. 2035.

Chapter 13. Time.

Chapter 14. Far Future.

Introduction:

A novel exploring time and relationships. Fourteen short stories in which we follow the same characters in different historical periods.

For Leoti, growth shaped her life in dramatic and not always welcome ways. Her childhood in the small settlement of Azure in the lee of the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana was happy and normal. Her mother, father and two brothers were all reasonably content folks with few of the hang-ups and problems reservation life can bring to native peoples. The Chippewa and Cree tribe of the Rocky Boy reservation had been astute and careful with their resources, their income from natural resources and later, the Northern Winz Casino, among other modern developments, meant a higher standard of living than was usual on reservations.

As the girl reached pubescence things changed. She began to have visions and was troubled. The shaman woman spoke to her and saw she had the magic. She became apprenticed. As she grew to womanhood Leoti suffered as she grew rounder, taller and more beautiful than her cousins and aunts. She was no longer of her band and they called her names and thought her mother must have lain with a white-man so they called Leoti: Métis-Mistik, meaning ‘mixed-race tree.’ No more flower of the prairie. Leoti left her band and her lands and travelled west.

Always Leoti.

Chapter One. Joining.

Leoti saw the young man enter the tipi and sit cross-legged in the circle near the entrance. She noted him because of his hair. She’d never seen anything like it. It was vivid red like old gold, and the sun low behind the hills shone through the canvas and through his hair so it looked as if it was ablaze. He wore it long and the natural curl gave him what was now called an Afro. He also wore a beard, full, curly, and as burnished as his hair. He seemed to notice her gaze and a big smile now split that beard. His pale blue eyes widened and his face showed welcome and pleasure. He did not have the glazed look of the others in the tipi who had been smoking dope heavily all day.

He was dressed in what was becoming the uniform of the young, a long flowery kaftan and wide bottomed cotton jeans. Leoti smiled more as she noted the unusual type. They had buttons up either side at the front holding a flap. She’d seen this pattern in the doeskin trousers made by women of her band. She knew the modern trend was to call them ‘Loons’. She noted this because she had looked at the large crutch bulge made in the thin cotton material as the young man now reclined with his legs straight and supporting himself on one elbow. He was tall, over six feet she decided, and thin but not weak looking. He continued to meet her gaze as he relaxed and his face and eyes showed tiredness. He yawned and covered his mouth politely with his hand.

He raised his eyebrows in a face signal that spoke to her of a long day. There was a question in the expression too and she answered it by rising and coming to him. She reached a hand, which he took, and held softly. As they walked, she felt his thumb move on the back of her hand, rubbing in a gesture that made her smile. He was gentle and kind.

She led him across the camp to her own tipi. She held the flap and then closed it when he was inside. He stood near the bed and looked at her openly and again there was a question. She answered by walking to him and unbuttoning the kaftan. He stood impassively as she undressed him. When she knelt and unbuttoned the flap in his trousers, his penis sprang stiff from its confinement. She looked up at him and again he spoke with expression, a slight nod and a half smile and said, There it is. I am not ashamed.

She laid a finger on the curly ginger hair of his pubis and smiled. It looked so soft and like a little girl’s curly hair and yet this huge stiff pulsing penis rising from it spoke of masculinity unashamed and strong. He knelt then and leaned close to her waiting for permission to kiss. She closed the distance and their lips met. He came close again and kissed once more, but this time he laid a hand behind her head and gently ran it down the long dark brown hair tied at her neck. He ran his hand rippling, feeling, all the way down to her round ass and rested it there on her hip. A big swell of hip. The swell some found excessive. As he kissed, he explored with the other hand the front of her body, slow, and again questioning, waiting for permission in her kiss before touching her breasts and between her thighs.

Leoti rose then and stepped out of her long beaded buckskin dress. She stood before him naked but for small panties. He looked at her and his eyes showed wonder and appreciation. She felt him stroke her body all over with his eyes. He closed his eyes for a moment as if thinking. When he opened them again he looked into her dark pool eyes and the vivid sapphire of his shone with understanding so she knew then he would know how to make love to her. She lay on her rug and he stretched out alongside, propped on one arm. She felt the prodding of his hardness on her thigh. But it was just there, not insistent; not demanding. He began a new exploration with his long fine fingers. She looked at the golden down of hair on his arms. He was naked now and she began to explore his body with one hand. Still there were no words and none were needed but for this: He said, Aaron.

She said, Leoti. I am virgin.

He said, I know. I will take care.

She said, I am burning.

He said, Let me quench you, and he lay down between her thighs. She looked down at his bright eyes between her legs and the vivid fire of his hair and then she saw what he would do and her body quivered. A ripple ran down her belly and the ample flesh of her thighs and then he smiled and his tongue came out and his hands that rested upon her mound moved. His thumbs parted her. She had little hair but for a tuft above, so his tongue touched her soft and moist and instantly found her hard aroused clitoris. She threw her head back and arched and her feet were on his back so she spread more and she was gone.

Leoti had known orgasm since she was eleven but the power of this, the mind emptying power of this, was new because it was him, his appetite not hers. He was huge and hard and male and rampant but he was touching her with beams of light and electricity and flashes in her mind and spirit so she was selfless, empty of everything but sensation in her body. Her hungry body so full and female it had frightened others but this exotic man with the fire for hair and the cock so big and proud knew no fear. He wanted her excess, he was feeding on her excess and the more she writhed and howled and gripped him with her thighs the greater his hunger grew. He slurped, hummed, moaned, and spoke words to urge her on. When she rippled and her belly convulsed with yet another peak he shouted: Yea, yes again, again yes, more, cum again.

***

Leoti’s passage into womanhood had begun early in her life and was dramatic. She’d always been a pretty girl with a fine round face and unusual brown rather than black hair. Her dark brown eyes could look jet black so they seemed dilated. She had a shower of freckles across her cheeks and nose and thick shapely and expressive lips. She had a habit of dropping her chin and peering up through dark long lashes in a coy way that made her seem ageless. This girlish pretty face and apparent coyness got her the name Leoti, which means: flower of the prairie. This flower now put on a growth spurt that saw all the female attributes become excessive. Her hips grew wide, her waist narrow, her high breasts grew full. The nipples darkened and became thimble big. Her thighs bulged and her walk took on a sway and wiggle that drew eyes. She was not fat like many of her friends; she was not prone to becoming the strong thick square of her mother. Leoti was tall, five-ten and she had curves, oh so many curves of the kind that western men worshipped and put in their churches of objectification. The flower was blooming in ways that her band found uncomfortable. The men looked at her with hunger, disconcerted by the ageless girlish face and womanly excess of body. The women looked with envy and all began to shun her. Leoti’s excess was not just in body. Her spirit drew her to excess too. She ate too much, she played with her sensual responses too much and she dreamed of love and sex and her own hunger for experience. She longed for things she could not yet see, so her bulging body, and moist places ached for something, something she felt, and sensed but could not describe. She hadn’t the words yet for what made her itch and writhe in the dark hours.

In April 1966, Leoti had uprooted herself from the place and the people that grew her and got a Greyhound bus going west. Across the Rockies and down to the sea, to San Francisco there to plant herself among the new age flower children grown not on the prairies but the minds of poets and the LSD fuelled dreams of disaffected urban youth. She wandered for days until she met a girl who took her hand, put a flower in her hair, and led her to a settlement in the hills above the city on Sweeny Ridge. The girl she went with said there was a tented commune there that was a gas.

***

Leoti opened her eyes and looked down at Aaron. He rested his head on his hands and grinned at her. His face shone with her wetness and his eyes blazed with triumph and pleasure. Leoti asked, What about you? Do you have needs?

Yes, but not yet. I want to enjoy your afterglow, later, later.

He moved back alongside her and she saw his penis was no longer rampant stiff; it lay across his thigh, heavy and big, and a small drip of clear moisture beaded on the purple swell. He saw where her eyes were and said, I came close to cuming. I love your orgasm so much it made me satisfied like I came myself. That’s why I’m no longer urgent. Relax and let me kiss you.

He dried his face with a white cloth from his pocket and she wondered at this care. He leaned and kissed her once so she tasted the hint of herself and he waited to see if she minded her taste, and when she didn’t, he kissed again and her mind said, "What wonder is this? He is so careful with me and is so tender and yet so hungry.

His taste became not her but him and the chemistry stirred her again so she felt herself puff and her hand went between her legs. His hand found hers and moved it so his hand rested on her swollenness. His fingers rippled and she sighed and her mouth opened and his tongue explored and penetrated her mouth. Her eyes were open and so were his. They were filled with wonder and sparks ignited in the dark of their pupils. Awe at the sharing of the newness and the excitement of what might happen next.

Leoti orgasmed again three times from his fingers and his kissing and above all from Aaron’s invited invasion of her senses. She felt sleep come and he rolled on his back and guided her to his shoulder. His hand massaged her swelling hip and his arm down her back cradled her. He pulled the furs over her and she sank into him and was gone.

Leoti woke from sleep to find Aaron gone from her side. She sat up and wondered if he’d fled but then noticed his plain leather moccasin sitting at the bottom of the furs. She picked one up and examined it. Obviously made from a kit. It was not authentic work but had been well sewn. She crawled to the flap and peered out. A few feet from the tipi, Aaron knelt over a small fire that was beginning to crackle into life. Her coffee pot hung on a well-made hook over the fire. She was impressed. Not many knew how to do such a thing and she’d never met a white boy who could or would do it. He turned and smiled at her. Do you take it black? I have some jerky and have put damper to bake here. Is that alright?

Leoti grinned and laughed. His voice was new to her. They’d not spoken all night. He sounded unfamiliar, not American, and not Canadian. She could not place the accent but thought it might be Scottish.

He asked again, Well?

Yes, black is great. I take sugar. What is damper?

A bread made with baking soda and raisins. It is Australian I think. It will take maybe fifteen minutes. I have some jam in my bag, I mean jelly.

Where are you from, Aaron? I do not know this voice.

I’m from Belfast. Northern Ireland. And you?

"Nêhiyawi, from Montana. You say Cree."

He came and pushed her back into the tipi gently. Lie down. I’ll bring breakfast in bed, Leoti.

He came back tossing the still hot damper from hand to hand and laid it near her feet. She felt the heat and sighed at that and the glorious smell.

He came back quickly with two mugs of steaming coffee and broke the bread in two. Then he dug around in his battered canvas rucksack and produced a small jar of black jelly and opened a spoon on his big penknife. He handed it to Leoti and watched, smiling, as she spooned out some of the jelly onto the bread. An unfamiliar but enticing smell rose from the hot bread. Aaron sat on his knees and munched the bread, trying not to grin too much. Leoti grinned too and wondered why the spirits had brought this young man to her now.

***

Aaron was grinning because he felt so amused by the situation. It was all so surreal and beyond anything he’d experienced so far on this adventure. He’d been living in a squat on Downey Street in the Haight-Ashbury district. This had become the centre of the flower-power hippy culture that had drawn Aaron to San Francisco. That experience had not been great so far. Aaron was shy and careful. He didn’t do all the drugs offered, restricting himself to smoking pot. He didn’t trust the idea of doing acid, the loss of self-control being a scary concept to this contained and careful young man. He’d been invited to trek up to the hills overlooking the city, to Sweeny Ridge. The girl he went with said there was a tented commune there. They rode a tram and then walked for hours before finding the camp. Mostly Native American style tipi, a few modern tents and the odd wood and sod shack trying in vain to replicate a wigwam. His walking companion quickly left him when she met friends. Aaron wandered around feeling lost but curious. He saw a large tipi with fifteen people laid in a circle inside. The flap was open and the smell of pot drifted out. Aaron stood looking in until one guy beckoned him in and passed him the large circulating four-paper joint. Aaron reclined, took a few good tokes and passed it on. As he looked around, his eyes were drawn to a remarkable looking girl across the space who was looking at him with unconcealed curiosity and a message in her black eyes that made him smile at her. She was an extraordinary looking girl. Tall, with big sweeping curves and long dark brown hair tied behind. Her skin was dark chestnut and she had a line of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She held her head, chin down and looked up in a way that might have been coyness but the look was too knowing to be innocent. Her lips were full and her smile open and inviting. She wore a long buckskin dress with many beads and soft moccasin boots. She was obviously a Native American.