Frieda tottered back to the sideboard on those dainty ankles of hers that supported so much abundant flesh. “How absolutely Aryan of Burke. To stand in their schoolhouse and tell them to devote their attention to plowing!”
“What a hypocritical bitch you are,” Lawrence said. “Considering your own family’s attitude of superiority.”
Startled looks ping-ponged around the room. Assured that he had captured everyone’s attention, he said, “My wife’s cousin is Baron Von Richthofen, the German flying ace.”
She smiled cheerfully, her long, dangling cigarette bobbing. “Don’t be such an ass, D. H.”
Peg intervened. “Now, now, you two, you’re revealing your psychotic sides to our good doctor.”
Jung was leaving the next day. The cocktail party was a combination farewell party and the Taos Society of Artists monthly meeting, but it seemed to be turning into a political hash over an incident Peg obviously considered dangerous.
Lawrence removed the pipe from his mouth and raised his glass. “To your new home, Alessandra.”
She nodded, acknowledging the toast. After days of clearing rubbish, restoration would begin in the morning.
Henri set aside the mandolin he had been idly strumming and hoisted his glass. “And to your new life in Taos.”
“To your new life,” Peg said simply but meaningfully. She raised her own glass, filled with Taos Lightning. Following Prohibition, the fame of New Mexico’s hard drink was spreading across the country. Distilled from fast flowing streams in hidden valleys, the potent aguardiente was flavored with gunpowder, tobacco, and pepper . . . or so Peg swore.
Lifting her already empty glass, Alessandra responded, “And to my new acquaintances.” Among these highly creative people, surely she could capitalize on their artistic expertise.
“Here, here!” said Blumenschien, who the others affectionately called Blumy. “I’d also like to propose a toast. To us, the co-founders of our newest cause célèbre, The Indian Defense Association.”
From his corner chair, Tony regarded the toasting with an indulgent smile and downed his own glass in one gulp. Peg had explained that when he had married her he had, at her request, given up his Peyote Ceremony. He certainly hadn’t given up alcohol.
My kind of man, Alessandra thought. Social reformer though she might be, she could never have been accused of backing the Temperance Movement.
Once again, Peg deftly steered the conversation back to the Taos Indians. “Burke is also demanding the immediate return of the Indian boys who were taken out of school for religious training for their initiation ceremony.”
At the mention of taking boys out of school, Alessandra’s head swiveled.
“How can these boys ever learn the spiritual values of their people?” Frieda asked indignantly. “Cut off their hair, forbid them to speak anything but English, forbid their religion . . . why, it’s dreadful!”
Alessandra’s eyes narrowed in agitated concentration. Had she not done the same, taken Jeremy out of school to learn of values other than western ones? Her gaze shifted to Dr. Jung. He alone of the men was dressed formally, in a beige, collarless suit with a brown satin vest. Surely, he would understand this need to absorb both the yin and the yang? “Exactly what are the initiation ceremonies for?” she inquired.
“It qualifies the boys to be called men and enter the tribe,” Peg explained, “but only after undergoing more than a year of rigorous physical and spiritual training . . . and only after having had a vision.”
“Good God,” Lawrence scoffed. “Why not just pop a handful of those peyote cactus buttons all at one time and forget about the eighteen months?”
“I wouldn’t take such visions lightly,” Jung chided, tapping his pipe. “God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions. You know, I talked to that Taos shaman today. What is his name?”
“Manuel Mondragon,” she blurted, but no one noticed how unlikely her riveted attention was. Now her heart was in her throat, threatening to choke her breathing. Had she lost her mind? She leaned forward, as if to soak up the energy emitted by his name on the others’ lips.
“Yes, Manuel Mondragon. I had the extraordinary sensation I was talking to an Egyptian priest of the fifteenth century before Christ.”
“Visions won’t counteract the capitol,” Peg said, bringing the subject back around to the government’s latest assault on Indian spirituality.
Blumy piped up, “Criminy, Burke’s even gone so far as to forbid white people under thirty from attending the ceremonial dances. Claims they’re too immoral.”
“And our tango isn’t?” Peg quipped as she replenished Alessandra’s glass. “But that’s not the worst. Burke is bent on taking Blue Lake from the Indians.”
“We could prepare a petition,” Andrew offered, sweeping the tip of his cane in a semi-circle to include the gathered artists. “Show that the Taos art community supports its Indian friends. We could even publish it in the Taos Daily News.”
“Skip the petition,” Alessandra fired back. “Why not go straight to the top?”
All heads rotated in her direction.
What are you all thinking? Or not thinking? Her crossed leg bobbed with her words. She took a deep draught of gin and forged on. “Blue Lake is a sacred spot to the Indians, right? Burke is violating the constitution – freedom of worship! Why don’t a couple of you trek down to Santa Fe and corner Governor Mechem about Burke? Force the old fart to listen.”
“What if Mechem won’t do anything?” Blumy asked. “Then what?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Alessandra said easily, “I’ll write my husband. Ask him to do some investigation on the BIA guy, Burke.”
From across the room, Tony pronounced with quiet dignity, “You are one smart man, Mrs. O’Quinn.”
Only then did she realize the sinkhole she had blundered into. She began to cough and fished out her handkerchief from her skirt pocket. What had happened to her common sense? Why had she really offered her services? Out of genuine concern for the Taos Indians’ predicament – or to connect in some way with Man? The latter could certainly be ascribed to her selfish ways, her father and husband might charge. But then what did they know of alchemical forces outside one’s control?
* * * * *
The big, shirtless man left the ramada shed with its litter of wood chips and the water press. The smooth-grained, wet deer hide stretched tautly over its octagonal aspen frame.
He preferred the round hoops of cottonwood, because, otherwise, he had to journey high into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for the aspen. And he preferred the round hoops because the circle had power and motion.
Through the drum’s tones and rhythms, he transcended time and space to communicate between the spiritual and physical realms. The secret of achieving a particular tone had to do with the tension involved in stretching the deer hide just so. This reuse of the hide as a drum, using even the oil from the deer’s brain to tan the hide, ennobled the animal’s death and served as a healing tool. It was part of his people’s awareness that all things had consciousness.
His tribe had always been skilled in leatherwork, the making of moccasins and garments. But the art of drum making had been passed down through his family for generations, as had the role of shaman. He inherited the responsibility to know the ritual and lore that had preserved the continuity of the Taos Indians since their beginning, their emergence from Blue Lake.
Often he reflected that his Indian name should have been Deer Man or Spirit Traveler or something more appropriate to his calling. But Bear Heart had been bestowed upon him for both his size and the object of his first vision quest as a young man, a heart struck lifeless by a bullet. What the vision meant he still didn’t know. He often wondered if, as a young man, after five days fasting in the forest surrounding Blue Lake, he had foreseen his own death.
In a flowing stride, he skirted his fallow squash field and the cornfield with its Indian tea plants seeded between the rows. He stopped beside the impo
sing man squatting patiently against an enormous cottonwood.
Together the two sat on their haunches in the shadows of bare branches drooping over the Madre del Pueblo. Come spring, water would be released into the acequia, and it would irrigate his fields. Despite the fact it was early March and still chilly, the sun burned fiercely at that altitude. In silence, the two men plucked sprigs of wild mint to chew and freshen the breath.
After a peaceful while, they talked in voices that were soft, musical, like the sigh of the wind or the murmur of an acequia.
Tony said, “You did not come to Peg’s last night.”
“No.”
“You do not come to work on the Washington woman’s house this morning.”
“No.”
“She wants to get well.”
A crescent-lip smile formed. “Then she should talk to the Great White Father in Washington.”
Tony sifted freshly tilled brown earth between his fingers. “She is walking out of herself.”
“She is like the rest. They . . . do. They do not . . . be.”
“Peg. She learn to be.”
“This one is not Peg.”
“No. This one . . . do. This one rages against our mistreatment.”
Bear Heart wanted to deny the yearning he felt for this woman. Her nearness set his blood to beating madly. She was strong, warm, honest, and somehow innocent despite her years. Was it her innocence that took him captive? He wanted her as he had wanted nothing before. But there was such a thing as duty to his people and the honor of his word given to Mud Woman’s parents. But this white woman, her dark hair curling like wagon springs, making her look more girl than woman, the soft curve of her breasts, her slim beauty . . . like a thudded drum, his body vibrated with fierce desire for her. If he could barely trust himself, how could his people trust him? This subtle torture was growing intolerable, and the restraint he put upon himself took all his steadfastness. He did not want this intimacy. But could he let her walk out of herself?
He plucked another sprig of wild mint. His two long black braids, tied with red strips, swung forward. When he raised his head, his dark brown eyes sparked with annoyance. Then, he squared his broad shoulders in resignation. “I come to work on the house. But that is all.”
After his friend left, Bear Heart went back to stringing the sinew through the deer hide. He tried not to give thought to anything but the moment, the moment of working with Brother Deer and Father Drum. Yet the woman’s image kept intruding. The woman with the funny name. Al-ass-and-ra. With eyes blue like cedar berries. Old eyes, wise eyes. But not wise enough to understand herself. To understand not only the powerful pleasure but the agonizing pain a relationship with him would bring.
The figure cutting across his fields drew his attention once more from his work. This time, his visitor was his friend Henri, who gave no conscious thought to the tender corn shoots he trampled. Sighing, Bear Heart once more laid aside the deer hide and hoop.
“Man!” Henri shouted, as he drew near. “You old renegade. I got saltwater taffy for you.” He held up a brown paper sack. “You got hooch for me? Maybe a little corn whiskey? Better yet, a little peyote left over from one of your road trips?”
Remaining seated on the maple stump, Bear Heart waited. He felt a grin tugging at his mouth. Whenever Henri was near, a lightness swirled around him. A good person, this man.
“Peyote might take you down a road you no like.”
Henri passed him the sack and squatted opposite him. Behind his glasses, his eyes grew serious. “The saltwater taffy’s a bribe, Man.”
With a twinkling eye, Man fished out one of the sticky white globs. “For candy, I will pose with a wooden Indian.”
Henri grinned then turned serious. “I want more, Man. I want you to heal the white woman you met at Peg and Tony’s.”
Twice now, in the space of an hour, messengers had come, appealing to him to heal the woman. The mystic in him could not ignore this synchronicity. The masculinity in him could not avoid the obvious. She was intense. Fanciful. Capricious. Magnetic. The evening’s firefly. And he wanted to crush her to him until she should beg his mercy.
“Do you remember her?” Henri went on, “The beautiful one, not much taller than your ribcage? Alessandra O’Quinn?”
The candy’s sweet, juicy flavor turned tart in his mouth. Remember her? He had known her forever.
Chapter Four
Plumbers, electricians, architects were not to be found in her Refuge-Out-Of-Time. Not so much her need to regain her health but her desire for autonomy impelled Alessandra to remain in Taos, despite the fact she was still without a home. Autonomy meant revitalizing her art work and marketing it for money.
Well, to be fair . . . autonomy and unrelenting fascination. Fascination with an illiterate Indian who drenched her in forgotten sexual desires with just one penetrating glance from his sphinxlike gaze.
The restoration of the rented adobe by the Taos Puebloans hired by Tony was taking much longer than she anticipated. No hurry or hustle in their work, only a concentrated, community effort of the creative moment carried out in a spirit of singular energy.
Her sense of injustice at their treatment continued to nag her. She knew she had to be circumspect in the letter she was drafting to her husband. Rather than circumspect, the General would have used the term Machiavellian. Brendon was astute and might extricate from her letter far more than she might intend to express. Several times she had wadded up her efforts and restarted.
Today, just as they had done for thousands of years, the Indian men mixed mud with straw and a little sand to shape bricks. Then the still-wet mud bricks were quickly laid out in straight rows on the ground to dry in the intense sunlight.
For several days, Alessandra had watched the rebuilt walls go back up. But not until Manuel Mondragon’s arrival today had she realized she had been waiting for him. Waiting? No, yearning. Yearning for something more. Something that elicited a spark of life from her again.
Early on, her paintings had. And Jeremy’s birth had. Somehow, she had allowed her soul to be parted from both. And both, she knew, were only a portion of her. But this man, she sensed, held the secret to her full blossoming. Her soul was still but a bloom. A bloom that could fade before it ever flowered.
And yet that flowering was unlikely to come. At least, Man would not be the source. For was she not married? She set herself to the task of imposing a rigid self suppression now that he was here, imposing a ceaseless watch that she did not betray her girlish, immature wanting.
Beneath March’s beguiling sky, Man straddled a high wall and hammered each adobe brick into place with the end of a trowel. Like the other Indians, he wore a thick wreath of cottonwood leaves to shade himself from the hot sunlight. For all the world, he looked like a modern day Christ.
Occasionally, the Indian women passed pails of mud to be spread over the next dry brick. A young Pueblo woman in buckskin-wrapped leggings and a blue and white calico dress appeared to single out Man. Alessandra noticed that the woman, who couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen, passed her refilled pail of mud most often to Man.
“Who is she?” Alessandra asked Peg, who had strolled over from Los Gallos on her daily visit.
“Mud Woman.” Peg’s smile contained a child’s dimple. “Her name has nothing to do with those mud buckets the women carry. She’s a potter. Actually, her work is well known among the northern Pueblos.”
Mud Woman moved with exceeding grace, if one discounted the way she and all the women were forced to walk spread-legged because of their thick, tubular moccasins. Like the other women, a mud-splattered bandanna covered her head, all but her shiny black bangs.
Peg looked at Alessandra curiously. “I understand Mud Woman was promised to Man, since her first bloodletting. Tony tells me Man’s first wife died.”
“Oh.” She choked back irrational tears. How absurd to mourn the loss of something that had never been hers to begin with. But with her vanquished fan
tasies and dreams, the famed Taos light didn’t seem as bright that afternoon. In the weeks that followed, she never once allowed her thoughts to do more than merely acknowledge Man’s presence along with the others, rebuilding on the little adobe.
But her mind and her body worked independently of one another. Instinctively, her body signaled with pin prickles of heat when he arrived, even where on her house he might be working by the furious flush rising from her throat to suffuse her face the nearer he was. If only she could will her body to ignore him.
The Indians didn’t exactly ignore her, but neither did they seek her out. An outsider, she watched and listened. Their singing, laughter, and joking contrasted sharply with the sullen machinery workers in the dingy cities of the northeast. One morning, when both Man and Mud Woman failed to show, she felt fretful and restless. Finally, she wrapped a red bandanna around her mass of curls and joined the women in their work. Emulating them, she slapped layers of a mud and straw plaster onto the exposed brick. She stroked and smoothed soft glossy clay on the bricks with as much loving care as she had once stroked and smoothed lotion over Jeremy’s baby soft skin. The simple act of mixing the wheat straw from last year’s harvest and molding it into bricks was so rewarding and the most relaxed she had felt in weeks.
Or perhaps the relaxation came because of Man’s continued absence. The temptation to glance at him, to watch his rippling muscles at work, to image herself enfolded in those bronzed arms, was almost more than she could resist.
On Saturday, even Jeremy and Jose got into the act. But their work turned into horseplay. Daubs of mud became grenades the two pelted at each other with wild whoops of laughter.
Indian Affairs (historical romance) Page 5
