Wild Splendor Page 5

  It had not been her destiny to love Sage, nor had it been his to love her.

  She went to her door and unlocked it. Scarcely breathing, she peeped around the corner. When she saw no activity in the corridor, she rushed from the room, through the parlor, and out the front door.

  She was soon lost in the haze of dust and even had to feel her way across the courtyard. When she reached the stagecoach and found that she was the last to board, she threw her travel bag up to the driver and took only a moment to glance over her shoulder toward the house that her father had so lovingly shared with her.

  Then with tears warming the corners of her eyes, she hastily boarded the stagecoach.

  “Lord have mercy, Leonida,” said Carole, the mother of a five-year-old son, as Leonida squeezed onto the seat with them and two other children and women fitted tightly together. “I was wondering when you were coming. I thought you weren’t going to make it. The stagecoach should be leaving any time now.”

  “Yes, I know,” Leonida said, giving Carole a wavering glance. Then she looked slowly around her at how many were squeezed in. Besides Carole’s son, Trevor, who was snuggled onto his mother’s lap, his eyes wide with fear, there were four other adults and five children, squashed into a space hardly big enough to breathe, much less move.

  It was obvious that this flight was an act of desperation. The fear of Indians was quite evident in the depths of each of their eyes.

  Leonida herself was not all that afraid, for she was too angry and disgusted with Harold to consider that she had as much reason to be afraid as those settlers whose lives had been snuffed out the previous evening.

  And she knew that no matter how many soldiers escorted this stagecoach, if Indian renegades wanted to stop the stagecoach and murder everyone, they could.

  “Leonida, are you afraid?”

  A tiny voice brought her out of her deep, troubled thoughts. She looked down at Trevor and put a hand on his brow, smoothing a lock of raven-black hair out of his eyes.

  “Am I afraid?” she said, gazing down into wide, dark eyes that reminded her of someone else’s eyes in their darkness.

  Sage.

  Oh, if she could just forget that she had ever met him.

  Her hand went to her throat, where the squash blossom necklace lay. As long as she had that necklace with her, she would always be reminded of Sage.

  “Well, are you?” Trevor persisted, reaching a hand to Leonida’s arm, giving it a slight shake. “Leonida? Tell me.”

  Leonida turned to Carole. “Can I hold him for a little while?” she asked, reaching out to Trevor.

  Carole nodded and moved Trevor into Leonida’s arms. Leonida snuggled the child close, even though she was already almost too hot to breathe. “Honey, let’s not talk of being afraid,” she murmured. “Let’s make this story time instead. Would you like me to tell you and the other children stories to get your minds off your fears? My father was a master storyteller. I’d love to share some of his stories with you.”

  Carole smiled warmly over at Leonida, as did the rest of the mothers. All of the children chimed in at the same time, telling Leonida that they wanted to hear her stories. Leonida began telling the story of the frogs who ate too much bread and blew up like balloons and floated away, and the one about twin rabbits that had nothing better to do than to eat the flowers in the gardens in the cities; because of this habit they were turned into flowers themselves.

  Leonida continued telling her special stories until the children had all drifted off into a sound sleep. Left awake were the mothers, within whose eyes lay the haunting fear not only of what lay before them but also of what they had left behind them—their beloved husbands, left to settle the differences between the whites and the redskins.

  Leonida lifted Trevor over onto Carole’s lap, then leaned her face closer to the window, trying to inhale a breath of fresh air. Her mind was not on any soldier; instead it was on the handsome Navaho chief whose life was soon to be turned topsy-turvy.

  Chapter 6

  But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies

  With a suspicious air—

  —EMILY DICKINSON

  Day lay golden along the top of the cliffs. Like a desert mirage, the canyon spread an emerald counterpane in the midst of an arid land. Irrigated by springs that swelled to a creek, the valley bloomed with willows and lofty cottonwoods. The canyon and the village of hogans nestled in the shadow of a colossal rampart of red rock wall.

  Sage took the saddle and bridle off his stallion and began tying a thong about his animal’s lower jaw, then stood with one hand on the horse’s withers as he turned to welcome two of his most trusted scouts, riding hard toward him.

  Something in Sage’s heart told him that the scouts were bringing more bad news. It was in their eyes and the set of their jaws and the way they made such haste into the village. Sage was not sure that he was ready to be told anything else. He and his people had just arrived back at the stronghold, the journey from Fort Defiance a quiet one.

  Although Sage and many other Navaho leaders had said they would not leave this land that had belonged to their ancestors, he knew that to stay meant death to many of his people. Kit Carson had become someone foreign to the Navaho. He had stopped being Sage’s friend when he aligned himself with the other white leaders whose lives were fueled by greed and cold hearts toward all Indians.

  As Sage’s scouts wheeled their horses to a thundering, dust-flying halt, his thoughts returned fleetingly to the moment when he had held the lovely white woman in his arms. In that instant of passion he had forgotten everything but the woman.

  But now, thinking back, she was to him like the peace that had once sealed hearts in friendship between himself and the white leaders.

  Forever gone.

  “What news have you brought me?” Sage asked, forcing his thoughts back to the present. “It is hogay-gahn, bad?”

  Spotted Feather stepped forward and placed a heavy hand on Sage’s shoulder. “Yes, it is hogay-gahn,” he said. The silver buttons on his leggings flashed in the sun, his waist-length black hair fluttered in the breeze. “A lie was spread to those in charge at Ford Defiance, and to Kit Carson. It was said that you led a recent raid that killed many settlers. Because of this lie, and because the white leaders believed it to be true, the white pony soldiers have been ordered to round up our people, and to kill you if you resist.”

  Sage’s heart began pumping wildly within his chest. His eyes flared with rage. “And so they go this far, do they?” he said between clenched teeth. “It is not enough that they have given the order that our land will no longer be ours. But now they will take it by force. Even kill me, while doing it?”

  “Only if you resist,” Spotted Feather said, lowering his hand from Sage’s shoulder. “Only . . . if . . . you resist.”

  Black Thunder stepped forward, his dark eyes narrowing. “Let us gather together many Navaho and attack Fort Defiance,” he growled. “Let us show them that they are wrong to go against us in such a way. Let us fight for our land to the death. That is the honorable way.”

  Sage nodded. “We will not go against the whole United States Army,” he said. “But we will use a tactic used before that made the white leaders stop and take notice. Although the strategy is unpleasant to me, I see that we must blackmail the white leaders into changing their minds.”

  “Blackmail?” Spotted Feather said, arching an eyebrow. “Why do you plan blackmail? And how will this blackmail be carried out?”

  “We will use white women and children as bargaining tools,” Sage said, smiling slowly.

  “And where do we get these captives?” Black Thunder asked, as he curved his fingers around a knife clasped at his waist. “Do we take scalps from some and leave them dying beneath the sun, to prove we have others as hostages?”

  “No, no scalps,” Sage said, his thoughts once again catapulting to Leonida and the beautiful color of her hair. It was as golden as the sun, and it gave him a feeling of forebod
ing to think even for a moment of seeing it hanging on a scalp pole.

  “And no, no deaths,” Sage said in a deep growl.

  “Where do we get these captives?” Black Thunder persisted. “Do we raid the settlers’ homesteads since we are already being accused of the atrocity anyway?”

  “No,” Sage said dryly. “We will not raid the homesteads to get our captives. We will go in search of a stagecoach. Those who journey aboard that sort of travel vehicle are usually related closely to those in charge at the fort. Those will make the best bargaining tools of all.”

  “There are always military escorts,” Spotted Feather said, leaning his face close to Sage’s. “Do we kill them?”

  Sage glowered at Spotted Feather. “Did you not hear me say there are to be no deaths?” he snapped angrily. “We will avoid killing at all costs. We kill only if forced to save our own lives.”

  Sage gave his horse a fond pat, then walked away from it. He looked over his shoulder at his two scouts. “Spread the word. Let us make haste in preparing ourselves. I will be waiting in the sweat lodge for my warriors.”

  Hardly aware of anything around him, his mind so torn with feelings, Sage walked through his village, paying no heed to those who spoke to him from the doorways of their hogans or from the outdoor cook fires where many had gathered in the late afternoon. He was hardly even aware of the pleasant aroma of corn roasting over the large, communal outdoor fire, or of the sounds of the looms at work throughout his village. In his imagination he was experiencing an impossible dream that involved Leonida.

  He was feeling her deeply within his heart.

  He was tasting her.

  His fingers were warm on her body, arousing her.

  Oh, how he wanted her.

  Oh, how he was missing her.

  As he stepped up to the four-foot-high conical sweat lodge, many of his warriors were already assembling around it. He nodded to them, his mind now back where it belonged, on what was right for his people as a whole instead of just himself, a man who hungered for a woman.

  Sage shed his clothes while Spotted Feather built a fire close to the sweat lodge and began heating stones in it. Sage had seen to it that the hut was made large enough to seat as many men as were required for warring, and each of them bent down and entered after he had stripped himself.

  Wedged together in a wide circle inside the low, pitch-dark enclosure, the warriors sat with their legs crossed and their heads lowered. They were silent as Spotted Feather began shoveling hot coals into the lodge.

  After enough rocks were piled in the center of the floor, Spotted Feather set a huge wooden vessel of water inside, removed all of his clothes, then crawled into the hut and sat down beside Sage.

  Slowly and methodically, Spotted Feather began splashing water from the container onto the hot rocks. A wave of intense heat wafted around the inside of the hut, striking the warriors’ bodies, causing them to sweat profusely. Some who got too hot sank their heads lower, between their legs.

  “Han-e-ga! Han-e-ga! ” rang out among the men each time water splashed on the rocks, meaning “good.”

  Then Sage began singing softly, Naye-e sin, the War Song. After the song was finished, the men would put special war feathers in their hair. Ornamented with turquoise, the war feathers were never seen by women or children. Each of the warriors believed that if a woman or a child saw his war feathers, it might cause him to behave like a woman or a child in battle. For Sage and his men, such behavior would bring disgrace to the god Nayenezrani, who had given them the War Song and the rituals surrounding it.

  After singing and taking the sweat bath, they left the lodge and dived into the river to cleanse themselves, then banded together as they dressed in their finest warring gear. They put on war shirts made of the thickest buckskin obtainable. Since Sage was their chief and the wealthiest of them all, he used four thicknesses of buckskin, glued together with sticky gum from leaves of the prickly pear cactus.

  Each of the warriors fortified himself by eating dried yucca, which would give him energy, and then they all mounted. They made a fine sight on their beautiful horses, the men wrapped in striped blankets belted at the waist, with the silver buttons on their tight breeches gleaming in the sun. Their brightly painted lances bristled fiercely at their sides, and many of the men carried bows and arrows and rifles as well.

  Sage felt displaced. Never had he expected to have to go against the white pony soldiers for any reason. Especially not now, for he did not want to think that Leonida might be harmed. At this moment in time, her heart was pure toward the Navaho. But how would she feel once she discovered that he was capable of abducting innocent women and children? He despaired to himself.

  He sighed heavily, knowing that he must restrain himself from ever thinking about her again or caring what she thought about anything.

  She was now as much his enemy as Kit Carson was.

  Chapter 7

  A creature might forget to weep, who bore

  Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.

  —ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  After a full night in the stagecoach, having stopped only long enough at daybreak for everyone to see to their personal needs in the privacy of the bushes, and for everyone to partake of a quick meal of cold beans and beef jerky, Leonida was now squeezed back inside, among the whining children, long tired of hearing stories, and their mothers, who had ran out of ways to please them.

  It was midday, the sun was pouring down from the sky in a beating heat, the worst of it seemingly trapped inside the stagecoach.

  Leonida fanned herself with one hand as perspiration trickled down her face. She drew her drawstring blouse partially away from her chest, where perspiration was beading up in the valley of her breasts. As she held the blouse away from her skin, she blew down the front of it, receiving at least a moment’s relief.

  Feeling lucky to be sitting beside a window, Leonida leaned her face over close to it, flinching when the driver of the stagecoach drew back his whip and uncoiled it, snapping it like a fusillade of rifle fire.

  Chains clanked. Axles groaned. The horses strained in their harnesses as the stagecoach moved along on its way in a great cloud of dust. The driver whistled softly through his teeth while the military escorts kept a steady pace beside, in front of, and behind the stagecoach.

  Trying to ignore the complaining children, Leonida settled herself as comfortably as possible against the back of the seat again. Once again fanning herself with her hand, she closed her eyes and became lost in thought. Always her thoughts returned to Sage. It gave her an empty feeling at the pit of her stomach to realize that she would never see him again.

  Leonida recalled something her father had said long ago before they had moved to Fort Defiance, that among all Indian tribes, the Navaho were the most difficult to control. After arriving at Fort Defiance, though, he had come to understand that the Navaho, except for a few renegades, were a gentle, caring people who kept to themselves, leaving the whites alone.

  She bit her lower lip as she thought of her father and how he would have handled this situation. If he had been alive, there would have been more bargaining with the Navaho, instead of just giving them an ultimatum. Even Harold and Kit Carson understood the dangers, or they wouldn’t have sent the women and children of the fort to find temporary shelter and safety elsewhere.

  As the stagecoach rounded a clump of thorn bushes in a flurry of dust, pitching Leonida forward, her eyes flew open wildly. She grabbed for the door and steadied herself. Then she gasped when she heard the sudden shrieks of Indians and gunfire approaching the stagecoach from behind.

  Leonida’s heartbeat quickened at the thought of an Indian massacre. Panic had seized the women and children, and they screamed and clutched at one another. Leonida turned from them and leaned her head out of the window just in time to see a long Indian lance pierce the arm of one of the soldiers, and she watched as gunfire felled others.

  The Indians came into
view, riding like the wind, their backs level with their horses. Gritty dust rose from the trail in clouds, blocking the sight of the other Indians. But Leonida could still hear their murderous cries, and the screams of the soldiers as they fell from their horses.

  Then the dust cleared somewhat, and Leonida paled when she recognized Sage among the Indians advancing closer and closer to the stagecoach. She was shocked and disappointed that Sage was taking part in this dreadful raid. All along she had seen him as a peace-loving man, incapable of violence such as this.

  She gasped as Sage raised his rifle and aimed at the stagecoach, leveling the gun on the driver. She was glad when he didn’t shoot immediately but shouted to the driver to stop, at least giving him a chance.

  She inhaled a deep breath when the driver did stop the stagecoach. Not only did he throw down his arms but the soldiers who were not wounded stopped their horses and dropped their weapons to the ground, soon thrusting their hands into the air, giving up the fight to the Navaho.

  From the shadows of the stagecoach Leonida watched Sage closely as he rode up close and drew a tight rein. Sage ordered the driver down, then his gaze moved to the door.

  “All passengers step to the ground,” he shouted, motioning with the barrel of his rifle toward the door. “One by one, leave the stagecoach. Quickly!”

  Leonida’s trembling fingers reached for the door latch.

  “Quickly!” Sage said, this time more impatiently.

  With the children crowding in behind her, crying, and the women sobbing, Leonida slowly opened the door. The moment she moved out of the shadows and Sage got his first glimpse of her, she heard him gasp. As she stepped out, she looked up. Their eyes momentarily locked. But Leonida could not continue looking at him, for she was torn with too many feelings about him right now.

  There were several wounded soldiers lying on the ground, groaning with pain. It was hard to believe that Sage had led an attack that had caused such suffering. And even though she perhaps understood that he had to retaliate in some way to prove a point to Kit Carson and Harold, she could not condone such violence.