All the Kaibeto teachers faced unusual problems, but then, maybe the teachers were unusual. Misfits, as Marshall had facetiously commented?
There was the wasted-looking forty-year-old woman who had kicked her tranquilizer habit but had been unable to convince the Denver school board. There was the young black teacher—he had been unable to find a job in a small, all- Hispanic Texas community. And Linda McNabb, unmarried and a mother. Even in such a liberated era, the Baltimore school system had refused to hire the pregnant woman two years earlier. The BIA, desperate for teachers, hadn’t. Redheaded Linda was enthusiastic about being able to keep her toddler on the school grounds with her and have an Indian woman for a nurse, since the Indians were noted for their love of children.
As she watched the children play during recess, Abbie thought that she herself was one of those misfits. But would she ever find out where she did fit?
Karen Many Goats, her impetigo already fading, gave a war whoop as she swished down the slide. And Joey Kills the Soldier pushed three other children on the merry-go-round—his stagecoach, he had told her the day before. Beyond, on the basketball court that was cracked like a jigsaw puzzle, the older boys were already practicing for their first intertribal game.
Abbie was on duty for the thirty-minute recess, and an uneasiness assailed her as her gaze scanned the playground. Four or five more times her gaze swept over the raucous children before she realized what it was that bothered her. Robert was no longer out there. She crossed over to another teacher, a recent graduate of Brigham Young University, who was off duty that period.
“Did you see Robert Tsinnijinnie leave?” she asked Becky Radley.
Becky looked up from the letter she was writing to her new boyfriend, a lumberjack in Flagstaff. “Uh-uh,” she replied vaguely.
Abbie tried to contain her exasperation. The young woman showed far less interest in the children than she did in young men.
I’m definitely approaching old age, Abbie thought. Or was I ever that uninhibited? Maybe that was my problem, why I couldn’t be as free-thinking as Brad wanted. Maybe that explained the rumors of his interest in an eighteen- year-old waitress at the Philadelphia Lawyer’s Club. Eighteen. The same age as the twins. Becky, for that matter, wasn’t much older.
Abbie shook off the intruding thoughts. “Could Robert have gone for a drink of water?” Becky plucked at an oily lock of mud brown hair. “Gee, I don’t know. I didn’t see—”
Abbie whirled and went back to the classroom. Empty. Robert’s picture of Navajo Mountain still lay on the table. She started down the hallway, looking in the vacant classrooms. The heels of her sandals clicked on the tile, echoing up and down the green-tinted hall. Maybe the dormitory. She found Dalah in the linen room, shoving an armload of sheets into the mouth of the monstrous dryer.
“No, I haven’t seen him,” the young Indian girl said. She clacked the dryer door shut and straightened, shoving back the curtain of ebony hair that had fallen over her shoulder. “He could have run away. Often the children go back home.”
“How far away does he live?”
A frown etched Dalah’s lovely features as she tried to remember. “Too far,” she said at last. “His father is a migrant worker somewhere in California.”
“Do you have any idea where he might go?” Abbie demanded.
“Well, he seems to be interested in silversmith ing. He once came to Cody’s house when I . . .” Dalah blushed.
Abbie guessed the rest—and was surprised that Cody’s amorous interest in the attractive Indian girl should nettle her. “How far away does Cody live?”
Dalah pursed her lips in the Navajo fashion of estimating. “Oh, just beyond the trading post, maybe a mile or so back up the canyon draw—in the old Spanish mission.”
Abbie sighed. To the Navajo, a mile or so could be a block or nine miles. It all depended on how far the lips and chin jutted. And that was something Abbie had not learned to judge yet. She could use the government Jeep—this was an emergency—but she didn’t know how to drive a stick-shift vehicle. Besides, she didn’t dare alert Miss Halliburton unless it was necessary. Losing a child was not the way to start a successful teaching career.
Abbie didn’t even consider the old wagon and the two burros corralled behind the Jeep’s shed as possible transportation. The school sometimes used the wagon for outings, but Abbie had never hitched up a burro. She doubted if she knew a harness from a hackamore.
She had gone no more than five hundred yards down the road when she gave up and took off her high-heeled sandals. Her hose would be ruined, but the sand wedged between the leather and her toes had abraded her skin unmercifully. Sandals in hand, she stopped in at the trading post, hoping that Robert might have come there. She found Orville back in the pawn room. Like all trading post owners, he kept a pawn room where the Navajos traded their jewelry for credit. Turquoise and silver ornaments, tagged with the owner’s name, were mounted all over the walls.
Orville draped a heavy squash-blossom necklace over a hook and shook his shaggy head. “Nope, haven’t seen the little devil.”
Abbie thanked him and set out again, following the dirt road that paralleled the bend of the cliff on one side and Kaibeto Wash on the other. Ahead in the distance rose Navajo Mountain, which was actually in the state of Utah. Dalah had told her that the Navajo believed that when you died your spirit would go to the sacred mountain.
Though rain clouds squalled now over Navajo Mountain, her bronze silk sheath clung to her waist and breasts where she was freely perspiring. The sandals seemed to weigh twenty-five pounds. A mile or so turned out, she figured, to be two and a half miles. She sighted the rusted green pickup parked next to a mesquite-palisaded corral before she did the mission. In the corral an Appaloosa eyed her suspiciously.
The Jesuit padres had built the mission where the draw angled up to the north, creating an expanse of greasewood-studded plateau. Large, shady olive and fig trees, which the padres must have planted, belted the mission. No large cross topped the pink-tiled roof, but the ochre- plastered bell tower still housed a copper bell that rang irregularly with the breeze.
Abbie approached the open massive, hand- carved double doors. She found it incongruous that she should feel a natural reverence toward the abandoned place of worship, when the man who lived there obviously carried on his affairs of passion without any consideration for religious desecration.
“Hello?” she called out. No answer.
She stepped inside the outer room. It was like stepping into a refrigerator. The adobe tiles cooled her aching feet. When her pupils adjusted to the dim interior, she found not the barnyard condition that she had expected of a pariah like Cody Strawhand but a well-planned though sparsely decorated room. It was dominated by masculine furniture of good quality. The man was obviously not a starving artist.
The randomly hung paintings above the rust- and-salmon-splashed sofa captured her interest. Vivid colors and strokes—scenes of southwestern landscape, weathered Indians and cowpunchers, maverick cattle and grazing sheep—leaped out at her. She inspected the paintings more closely. The name in the bottom right-hand corner was Deborah Strawhand. His wife? One of his wives?
Feeling like an intruder, she stepped to the room’s far end and called out again. What if he were asleep—or, worse, otherwise occupied in bed? A flush of heat swept over her and she swore silently. Her imagination had to be as vivid as those paintings! Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be kissed by Cody. Different. Exciting? Yes, damn it. Funny, she couldn’t begin to imagine anything further— going to bed with him. Brad had been the only man she had ever given herself to.
Hesitantly, she followed an arched corridor that opened into a courtyard. Then, from beyond the flagstoned well where a clapboard building formed the fourth wall of the courtyard, she heard a steady thudding. Curious, she moved along the shaded portico that rimmed the courtyard. At the door to the dingy gray frame building a blast of heat hit her. I
nside, the pegs hung with saddles and reins indicated that the place must have once been a carriage house.
Before an anvil Cody, naked to the waist, wielded a hammer. A leather apron was tied over his faded jeans. The reflection of the forge’s blaze flickered across the copper flesh of his torso. Sweat sheened his skin and ran down the channels where his tendons and muscles and ligaments came together, then separated, with each lithe movement of his chest and arms. A swath of hair fell over the red bandana knotted about his forehead.
She stood transfixed, awed by the man’s beauty. Her heart seemed to pound in tempo with the thud of his hammer against the silver bar. Then after a moment it seemed she forgot how to breathe altogether.
Cody lifted his forearm to wipe it across the flannel headband and halted in mid-action. His dark eyes locked with hers, and embarrassment washed over her. He couldn’t have failed to see the open admiration in her gaze. Only then did she notice the boy who silently watched at his side. Robert. A sigh of relief expanded her air- starved lungs.
Cody laid aside the hammer and wiped his hands on the back of his soot-smudged jeans. During this time his gaze never wavered from hers. When at last he crossed to her, she was able to collect her scattered wits. Had she not faced too many dignitaries to let this single man bemuse her?
“Yes?” he asked.
Again, that electrical current charging the air around them. So stong she caught herself from swayig. With an effort to recollect herself, she nodded toward Robert. Not a flicker of fear showed in the boy’s face. “Robert—he ran off from school. I’ve come for him.”
* * * * *
Purposely Cody let his gaze move insolently from her eyes—breathtakingly shaped but a frosty blue at that moment—down to her breasts. They were full and round with feminine maturity. And decidedly sensual with the sweat-dampened silk clinging to pouting nipples. He clamped down the urge that stiffened his jeans. He had had enough of her kind of woman.
The chic sorority girls at Arizona State University, later the sophisticated socialites who had more interest in him than merely being a patron of the arts, who appreciated more than his jewelry. To them he was an Indian and thus different. And that made the Anglo women want him. It amused him that they found his Indian blood intriguing when he was seven-eighths white.
And then there was his mother, the Anglo who had abandoned him—a woman much like the lovely one before him. Strikingly blond, obviously wealthy, undoubtedly spoiled. And with a brittle veneer that would crack under pressure.
He said as much. Bluntly. “Aren’t you, too, running away from yourself? Why don’t you hightail your pretty, expensive ass back wherever you came from and face your mid-life crisis there instead of taking it out on Indian children?”
She blanched, and he prepared himself for the inevitable slap of a scorned woman. But a slow smile—a dazzling smile—formed faint creases in her otherwise smooth complexion, a complexion as creamy as his was bronze. A slight flicker of admiration for her composure and self-restraint registered on his mental scorecard.
“Mr. Strawhand,” she said stiffly, “my concern is for the children, not my feminine libido.”
He saw her eyes, eyes as blue as the sky in a second-grader’s coloring book, widen at her mistaken choice of words. A lopsided grin eased his harsh features. “Is libido a Freudian slip, Mrs. Dennis?”
At the vulnerable look that suddenly replaced her frigid gaze, he was almost sorry for his sarcasm. But her socialite’s mask quickly slipped back into place. “Hardly. Only the truth, which I doubt you would recognize. The truth is, I suspect that you are also running, Mr. Strawhand.”
She waved her hand in a gesture disdainful of their surroundings. “Your façade of anger protects real fear, I susupect. Yes, I suspect you’re afraid to face society’s demands, so you hide out here, don’t you? Play-acting at being a craftsman.”
He wanted to wipe the supercilious smile from her face, to grab her to him and kiss away the haughtiness that iced her expression. He promised himself that he would if she ever so much as crossed his threshold again. He would play the role of the savage Indian to her affronted maiden.
His lips formed a mocking smile. “Since communication on any level but the most superficial appears impossible, I will address myself to the problem of Robert. Some Indian children adapt wonderfully to boarding school life. Others are desperately miserable away from their families and never adapt. Robert tells me that he’s worked in the fields alongside his father since he was almost four. He misses him terribly. When you take Robert back with you, don’t punish—”
“I would never do that,” she protested.
‘‘They do. Indian boarding schools use forms of discipline that are dehumanizing. I won’t traumatize you with the details. Suffice it to say that Miss Halliburton, at least, relies only on a good, swift willow switch for the more difficult children. But with some—like Robert—that won’t work. Patience”—he shrugged—“and even then I couldn’t guarantee your rate of success.”
Before she could protest he took her shoes from her and knelt before her. One hand firmly grasped her ankle and lifted. Involuntarily she caught his shoulder for balance while he slid her left foot into the high-heeled sandal. His flesh was warm beneath her touch. She repressed the desire to stroke the velvety skin. His dark hair brushed tantalizing near the hem of her skirt. She thought of the runs that were probably ruining her hosiery and wanted to cringe.
How like her, Brad would have said. How practical she had been in the face of what should have been wild, uninhibited lovemaking. She had often wanted to cry out that it wasn’t her fault, that she couldn’t help the direction of her wandering thoughts.
Frigid. Such a repulsive word.
“Keep to the rim of the wash,” Cody said as he slipped her other foot into its shoe. “The rain has washed the banks smooth of pebbles there and packed the sand.”
He stood, and she looked up into his inscrutable face. “Thank you.” The words were almost inaudible.
“Walk in beauty.” It was the ancient Navajo form of a combination blessing and farewell. He turned then to Robert, who had never moved throughout the verbal sparring, and nodded curtly at the boy. Like a puppet whose strings had been released, Robert moved forward to join Abbie.
She escaped out into the sunlight with the boy, escaped the sensual enthrallment that had held her Cody Strawhand’s captive.
But Robert had no intentions of letting her “walk in beauty.” When the two of them reached the bridge, the boy would not budge. She wasn’t particularly happy about crossing the bridge either, but for a different reason. She faced him. “I’m thirty-seven and you’re eleven,” she said, doubting if he understood her, “and I’m not going to let a child win this battle.” She pointed in the direction of the school. “Now march.”
Robert’s black eyes glared at her; then suddenly he spit at her feet. Shocked, Abbie looked down at the spittle that formed a minute puddle in the sand. In a flash of a second the sand absorbed it. She looked up at the boy. His face was as blank as a blackboard. Clenching her fists, she controlled her desire to punch the brat.in his shoulder. “You little beast,” she said, smiling.
He blinked, unable to hide his wariness. Her hand shot out to grab his ear in a secure hold. So much for the patience Cody had advised using with the boy. The wrestling hold had served her well when dealing with Jason and Justin. She jerked upward and pulled him along with her across the bridge. He tried to dig in his feet and pull away, but she only squeezed tighter. Once she reached the other side of the bridge, she let go.
“Every time you run away, I’ll come and get you,” she warned. “And the other children will laugh at you for being pulled along like a sheep by the horns.”
She didn’t know if he understood the words, but the flicker in his eyes at her next words betrayed his comprehension of the idea, at least. “Walk in beauty, Robert Tsinnijinnie,” she snapped and, turning on her heel, left
Chapter 3<
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Abbie hesitated over the list. Perfume wasn’t among the basic personal articles printed out on the Teacher’s Order Form. Following the grocery heading with its itemized canned goods, meats and dairy products, there came the “personal articles”—toothpaste, hair spray, deodorant. But no listing for perfume. And she had used the last of her expensive stock for the rewards.
She smiled, thinking how well the inducement to learn English words was working out. The children were intrigued with the fragrant spray. And Leo Her Many Horses, who most enjoyed smelling the delightful odor that strangely drifted from the glass bottle, had already mastered so many of the elementary words that she thought he might soon be ready to try a reading primer.
Boldly she penned in the name of an inexpensive brand of perfume—all that she could afford now. She only hoped that it could be purchased in the Tuba City drugstore, though she doubted that any store in the small Navajo town carried luxury items like perfume, rouge or fingernail polish and remover, which Joey Kills the Soldier called “eraser.”
Abbie wished that she could go into Tuba City herself. Oh, just to eat a hot fudge sundae at the local ice cream parlor! If Tuba City even had one, which she doubted. She hoped that she would have enough money saved to purchase a car when her two-week vacation came at the end of the school term, seven months away. As it was, staying in the apartment on the weekends was driving her nuts. She had completed all her correspondence and read all the back issues of Town & Country that had finally caught up with her at her new address. No PC’s, laptops, or Ipads were to be had at Kaibeto. Perhaps, she could smuggle one in next year ~ if she wasn’t fired first.
Earlier that week Becky had grudgingly offered her a ride into Flagstaff when she went to visit her lumberjack, but Abbie had demurred. Flagstaff. Gateway to the Grand Canyon. Suddenly the college town with its tourist and lumber industries seemed like a large metropolitan city in comparison to the isolation of the Kaibeto Boarding School. Next time Becky offered her a lift into Flagstaff, she would accept.
Wind Song Page 3
