Adobe Palace

by Joyce Brandon

  “But the newspaper said that scientists have proven that germs kill people,” Nicholas whispered.

  “Those are the same men who would come to Arizona and conclude that buzzards and maggots are the cause of death of all the livestock or wild animals that die. I know that what I told you isn’t the accepted theory, but it’s not original with me. There are some brilliant scientists who believe the same way.”

  “But how come?”

  “Because Indians don’t fit in, don’t even want to fit in. America’s like a river. People who aren’t willing or able to swim in the mainstream of life get pushed into stagnant places. Eventually they die, the way Young Hawk and his family did when they caught the measles.”

  “Steve!” Samantha looked stunned, as if she could not believe he had gone so far.

  “Nicholas knows how they died. Why do you think he’s sick?”

  Icy with rage, Samantha stood up, took Steve by the arm, and led him outside the door. So furious she could barely speak, she slammed the door and faced him. “I’ll decide what to tell my son,” she whispered. “I’ll decide how to heal him.”

  Steve forgot everything except the fury he felt at her for denying the truth. “You can’t even heal yourself. How the hell do you expect to heal your son?”

  “What?”

  “You’re so hooked on Lando, you can’t do anything else.”

  “I thought you said I was perfect!” Samantha whispered.

  “I didn’t say you were perfectly behaved.”

  “Get back into bed!”

  “All right, I’m going. But that doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility to the boy.”

  “What responsibility?” she said, running after him. At the door to his room, angrier than she’d ever seen him, Steve stopped and faced her.

  “Your responsibility to heal yourself. The Indians may not fit in this world, but they know better than to keep a shaman who can’t even heal himself. An Indian shaman gets sick, they pick another.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Kids learn by example. You want your son to get well, you have to show him how to let go of grief and live, dammit.”

  “What if all you did was put a lot of terrible ideas into his head?”

  “Then he’ll die, and it’ll be my fault. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Sudden tears flushed hotly into Samantha’s eyes. “No.”

  “Little boys are people. He knows he probably gave the measles to Young Hawk. Why the hell do you think he ran right to their graves?”

  “I ho—hoped he didn’t know.”

  “Hopes don’t make it so.” She looked tense, miserable, and scared. He wanted to shake her or take her into his arms.

  “I know what he’s going through, Samantha. I went through it when I was a boy. It just made it worse that no one would put words to what was eating at me. A boy that young doesn’t know the words. He just feels the pain and gets sick. He isn’t doing this on purpose. But if I tell him what he’s doing, maybe he can stop.”

  “But maybe he can’t.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Halfway up the hill to the Forrester house, Rathwick stopped his horse. Coming down the hill, Elunami rode bareback on a small pinto. A bundle, probably of her clothes, protruded on either side of her saddle. Her face was still scratched from tearing through the thickets to save the boy.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To turn myself in.”

  “You don’t care to live any longer?”

  “I don’t care to hide any longer.”

  “Tristera, dammit!”

  “My name is Elunami,” she said, her voice steely. “If you won’t take me there, then kill me yourself.”

  He dismounted and pulled her down beside him. The agony in his eyes as he faced her made the thought of her death bearable to her. He had loved her a little. He might never have the courage to tell her, but he had cared for her.

  Elunami slipped a knife out of its sheath on her belt. Her hand pressed the cool handle into his hand and squeezed his fingers around it. “Do it quickly.”

  In that second, Rathwick realized what it was to be Indian in a world dominated by white men. How it must feel to live without hope. To be treated no better than dogs.

  “You must think me an animal. No,” he said, repulsed.

  Elunami shook her head. “It might be harder later, if you have to watch someone else do it.”

  His heart felt crushed. He took her by the shoulders and shook her. Touching her robbed him of control. Before he could stop himself, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her soft, sweet skin, her lips, her eyes. Once started, he could not stop himself.

  Elunami accepted his hungry kisses. A knot that had burned in her chest for weeks seemed to dissolve, but something still did not feel right. While meditating in the hidden valley she had had a number of visions that she had not understood. Now, as if they had germinated in darkness for the last week, she realized their meaning.

  The Ghost Dances were wrong. They would only lead her people into greater trouble and discord with the whites. The Great Mystery wanted all his people, even the Hopi, to realize that this life is transitory and that to lose touch with that and become attached to any part of this creation, be it land or customs, is to lose touch with the eternal.

  Life is a flow, a river, and it cannot be stopped. To survive in any fashion, the Hopi needed to adjust to changes, to flow with the rest of society, to let go of the old ways, and to find new ways to live that honored the essence of the old and the new.

  And that was why she had to live. She was the only one who knew this. The others wanted to dance the Ghost Dances and bring back the old days when the land was theirs—empty and beautiful and free. But those days were gone, and they could never come back. The increasing numbers of white people flooding into the West could not be stopped.

  For the first time in her life, she knew what she was supposed to do.

  Elunami pushed against Rathwick; he slowly relinquished her lips and raised his head.

  “I love you. Marry me. Come away with me.”

  “I cannot.”

  “I thought you loved me, too, at least a little…”

  “I do love you. But my people need me. This is a hard time for them.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I don’t know, but I cannot abandon them now. They are about to lose the only way of life they have ever known.” It was becoming clearer as she spoke. Losing their right to live in the pueblos would throw them into chaos. They would need the help and guidance of one who had lived in chaos all her life.

  “You won’t make a difference. You’re just one woman. But you would make a difference to me.”

  His words healed something in her. “Thank you.”

  “I resigned my commission. I’m a free man. We can make a life together. Please stay with me. Marry me.”

  “I cannot.”

  Rathwick groaned. The look in her shining eyes appeared unchangeable. She would sacrifice herself, trying to help them adjust to the travesty the government had visited on them.

  “Elunami, I need you.”

  “Not as badly as they’re going to.”

  “What makes you think they’ll accept your help?”

  “If they don’t, then I’m free, but I think they will. When they had to negotiate with the Great White Father, they came to me.”

  “Then let me come with you. I’ll live among your people…”

  “No,” she said softly. “If I marry a white man, they will never trust me. I’ll never be accepted as one of them. It is hard enough for me already as a half-breed.”

  Seeing her determination, he felt torn between admiration at her idealism, and hopelessness at her belief that she could actually make a difference. What she planned would doom their chance for a life together, possibly doom her as well. She was too young for such a terrible, killing burden.
r />   “You’re too fine to spend your life for them.”

  “I’m not good enough. And I must.”

  “God…Elunami…”

  The look in his eyes told her all she needed to know about him. He loved her. Wonder and joy filled her. She smiled at him through tears, but it changed nothing. She had to go to her people. She had to do what she could to help them through this catastrophe that was about to befell them.

  A fat raindrop—warm and wet and startling—splattered on her upturned face. At first she didn’t realize the significance of it. Then she did. “It’s raining,” she whispered.

  Rathwick tilted his face to the sky. A half-dozen fat raindrops splattered on it. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. The few raindrops turned into a steady downpour, the kind that looked as if it would last a week.

  Joy filled Elunami. Tuvi had been right. When your heart is pure, the rain will come.

  Samantha looked out the window at water running in small rivulets around the house. Ten days had passed since they’d returned from the hidden valley. It had rained for the last five. Ian reported the reservoir above the house was half full; for the first time, they had water in the storage tank behind the house. That was a relief. The lack of water had been the one thorn in her side.

  Steve healed quickly. He discarded the sling and seemed almost well. Nicholas gained strength every day, but he still ran a fever every night.

  “Is Tristera back yet?” Nicholas asked, as if reading her mind.

  “No.”

  “Maybe she’s dead.”

  Samantha started to deny it to spare him worry, but she looked at his solemn face and nodded. “I’m worried, too.”

  “But maybe she’s okay,” Nicholas said. “I think I’d feel different if she were dead.”

  Quick tears of pride filled her eyes. “I think you’re right. I think we’d all feel differently if she were dead.”

  That night the fever didn’t come.

  On Thursday Samantha received a letter from her attorney.

  We won in court. I have to tell you, though, we shouldn’t have. Crows Walking had papers to prove his ownership of your land. Apparently your husband bought the property from a man who had no right to sell it.

  The way the award was granted to us, Crows Walking might be able to take the land if he reimbursed you for the full cost of your improvements. As you can imagine, that is patently impossible, so you have nothing to fear. Crows Walking has little more than the shirt on his back…

  The court was very unhappy with Crows Walking for waiting so long to come forward with his claims. Fortunately this particular judge refused to honor the old land grant. I was right to keep this from going to court as long as I did, though. We had a newly appointed judge who disdained just about everything to do with Indian rights. So, the land is yours, Mrs. Forrester. Forever, if you should live so long.

  The letter went on, but tears of happiness blinded her. Nicholas was getting better—and she would keep her land. Gratitude and joy were so strong in her they were almost insupportable.

  “Rider coming!” Juana called out.

  Samantha wiped her eyes and hurried down the stairs. At the front door, she saw Elunami riding toward the house. With a glad cry, she picked up her skirts and stepped outside.

  Elunami rode up to the porch and dismounted. Samantha skipped down the steps to embrace the girl.

  “Elunami, I was so worried about you!”

  “I should have come back sooner, but I went on the train to visit my people.” Elunami looked freer. There was no anger in her soft brown eyes.

  Steve joined them in the parlor, and Elunami told them that Rathwick had resigned his commission. Four days ago he and Lawson had testified before a special grand jury in Phoenix. They told of the plot to kill Elunami’s entire party to prevent them from telling the Hopi that high government officials had substituted different wording in the treaty that was signed.

  “This official must have been new,” she ended. “Otherwise he would have known better. For years they’ve broken their treaties with us. When we complain, they just ignore us.”

  “So your name has been cleared. Where will you go?” Samantha asked. “What about Rathwick?”

  “He asked me to marry him. I told him no. I have to stay with my people. And that they would never accept me if I were married to a white man.”

  Steve settled back in his chair. If he knew anything about men, Rathwick would not give up that easily.

  “Where will you go?”

  “Back to Third Mesa.”

  “Surely not right away?”

  Elunami looked from Steve to Samantha. It was apparent they had not settled their differences. “Perhaps I could stay a week or so.”

  That afternoon Arden Chandler rode up to the front door and hailed the house. Samantha immediately sent for Steve. She hadn’t really had a chance to look at Chandler the day Steve had been hurt. Now she realized that he was an older, grayer, rougher version of Steve’s dark smoothness.

  He dismounted at her urging.

  Steve walked around the side of the house. Seeing the two of them together was a revelation. It was apparent that Steve was Chandler’s son.

  “Oh,” she said softly.

  “What?” Steve asked, frowning at her, then at Chandler.

  “You look so much like him.”

  “So, you’re the reason she tried to kill me all those times,” Steve said.

  Chandler cleared his throat. “I leave a deep impression on womenfolk,” he said dryly. “I guess I’d better explain some of the background. I’m ashamed to tell you this, Mr. Sheridan, but it was my fault as much as Chila’s, maybe more so.”

  Samantha realized they needed to be alone. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to check on Nicholas.”

  Steve watched her leave, then turned back to Chandler, who looked uncomfortable. “Please, call me Steve. Would you like to sit down, sir?”

  Chandler walked toward a shady knoll and eased himself down onto the grass. “Ah, that’s better. Riding in the sun at my age isn’t real smart. Well, I’ve stalled long enough.” He looked down at the grass and picked a blade of it.

  “When I was a young man, Chila, who was my wife then, contracted scarlet fever, which left her fragile for quite a long spell. During that time I—I’m ashamed to say…I took a mistress who died in childbirth.” He expelled a heavy breath. “I frankly didn’t know what else to do, so I took the baby—you—home and gave you to my Chila, who, at that time anyway, hadn’t been able to have a child. At first I thought I would tell her the truth, but it didn’t seem to be necessary. She loved you and took good care of you. Then one day when you were about four years old—”

  “Four and a half,” Steve interjected.

  “Four and a half years old…someone told her that you were mine, not hers. That day she changed toward both of us, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Chila was basically a good woman, Mr. Sheri—uh, Steve. Oh, she had her flaws, but she always had a good heart.

  “After she found out that you were my son, she pitched a fit and stayed about as mad as a woman could stay for a lot longer than I expected. She was pretty hard on us both. I guess, being young and all, and not understanding what was wrong, you just got tired of being mistreated and ran away. I searched everywhere. But it was as though you’d disappeared off the face of the Earth.

  “Then about two weeks later, the sheriff came and told us they’d found the body of a little boy. Chila insisted on going with me to see it. We couldn’t tell exactly, because neither one of us remembered what you’d been wearing, but it looked like it could have been you. The body had been in the water so long the skin had swelled up. We figured since no one else was missing a boy, it had to be you.”

  Chandler expelled a heavy breath. “Chila was so grief-stricken she went wild and tried to kill me.”

  “She hasn’t changed much,” Steve said dryly.

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Wha
t was my real mother like?”

  Chandler squinted at the sun a moment. “She was dark like you. Part Italian. Her name was Flamenia, Anna Flamenia Gaspari. Her father was Italian, her mother French. Blackest hair I ever seen. And the prettiest eyes. Like yours, only brown. You’ve got some green in your eyes. Didn’t get it from her. She was too young to die, though. I’ve never stopped missing her.”

  Steve sensed that Chandler wanted to ask his forgiveness, but he didn’t know how. And, even if he did, Steve wasn’t sure he could give it. Somehow his crime seemed worse than Chila’s. And even though Chandler did resemble him, Steve felt no emotional connection with the man.

  “Well, thanks for coming. I’d better get back to work,” Steve said, standing up.

  Chandler looked crestfallen. But he only nodded, struggled to his feet, and walked toward his horse.

  Steve suddenly felt bad, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from walking away. He strode behind the barn and stopped, feeling foolish. He supposed he should go back to work—if sitting in a chair watching men work could be called that—but he felt disoriented. He walked away from the barn before Samantha could come out and ask him what had happened. He felt odd enough without having to explain.

  He climbed up the mountainside until he reached a small plateau far away from the activity down at the house. He lay back, panting. It was his first climb since his recuperation.

  Below, he saw Chandler riding slowly down the hill.

  Birds called out overhead. The wind ruffled the trees and bushes, sounding like rain. The pine mat beneath him was spongy and soft. He felt shattered inside.

  A wound had opened in him—an ancient raw oozing wound that had been hidden from him all these years. It didn’t make any sense to his mind. But his heart realized he’d known his mother was dead. He’d known she’d died giving birth to him. He closed his eyes and let this knowledge seep into all his parts. Awash in grief, he finally turned over and wept.

  Arden Chandler probably was his father. It was good to get that out and to realize his father had not deliberately abandoned him to Chila Dart’s wrath. He had just been overwhelmed by it. That wouldn’t have been good enough for a little boy, but it was enough for the man he was now. Steve had been overwhelmed by his share of women. A woman’s anger was a formidable thing.