Wind Song

by Bonds, Parris Afton

  Oh, God, it’s happening . . . I’m coming!

  “Cody,” was all she whispered when it was over. Tears filled her eyes. Never had anything quite like that happened to her. Cody’s only purpose had been the pure act of giving her pleasure. The aftermath left her spent and shaken.

  His fingers brushed the tears from her cheeks. “It’s all right, Abbie.” He gathered the blanket around her and drew her against him.

  * * * * *

  Just above a mesa the Little Dipper’s handle swung out to measure the passing of the night. A soft morning mist floated over land as red as Cody’s bandana and baptized the fertile earth. Paprika-colored streaks tinged the dawn sky, reflecting off the pickup’s window. The sunrise brought the new day, a day cleansed of old impurities.

  Next to Cody, Abbie snuggled deeper in the fleecy gray blanket. She too felt renewed, as if her entire past had been cleansed away. Yet she could not bring herself to look fully at Cody just yet. Past inhibitions warred with the delight that she had found at Cody’s hand. Why had Brad withheld that pleasure from her? And yet it was a weakening pleasure, for she found herself wanting Cody all the more.

  Cody took his eyes off the dirt road and looked down at her' with that half smile of his. “You know, Abbie, I get damned tired of taking you back to your apartment.”

  Shyly she met his teasing gaze. Her lips unconsciously parted in the smile of a woman who has discovered what it is to feel truly sensuous. “Are you suggesting that I get my own transportation from now on? Perhaps a buckboard?”

  He wheeled the pickup into her apartment driveway and turned to her, laying his arm over the back of the seat. “No, I’m suggesting . . .

  He looked down into her upturned face and put his fingertip on the indentation in her lower lip. “You know, Abbie, that blanket you’re wearing . . . to the Navajo, when a woman wraps herself in a man’s blanket it represents the commitment she’s making to him. The Anglos call it marriage.” His fingers traced the bow of her upper lip. “I want that commitment from you.”

  She searched his countenance, expecting, hoping, to find humor lurking in his brown eyes or at the corners of his long mouth. She found only the implacable set of his square jaw and the uncompromising line of his lips.

  Her face grayed. A fear, similar to the fear she had of heights, churned her stomach. She had just been released from a twenty-year commitment. The thought of surrendering the freedom of her soul again . . . it was like a life-long prison sentence. “Cody . . . I can’t.

  “You can’t?” he challenged. “I’ve watched you bridge the cultural and social barriers you have encountered here. So, the question is then, can you bridge the barrier of yourself?”

  “You ask too much of me.”

  His lids narrowed over eyes as hard as obsidian. “I won’t settle for less. I won’t be a diversion for you. An outlet for your pent-up sexual frustrations.”

  All those years of self-discipline, that proud mask of cool control, exploded in the slap she delivered. He didn't move. The imprint of her fingers against the high ridge of his cheek slowly reddened, and her mouth dropped open at what she had done. She expected instantaneous retribution, but he merely said, “I’m giving you one month to make the decision, Abbie.”

  “Or what?”

  He leaned across her and opened the pickup door. “Or I’ll make it for you.”

  Inside her apartment she hurled the blanket across the bedroom. Cody and his damn ceremonial marriage blanket! Who was he to issue ultimatums? And yet his threat had been very real. She sensed that he meant to have her. And he was the kind of man who would let nothing stand in his way.

  One month. She alternately fretted and fumed about the ultimatum over the following weeks. Cody. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. She saw his face in every Navajo child, in every leathery old Indian and wrinkled squaw, in every handsome brave and modest maiden. Those deep, dark eyes that concealed the mystery of life. Those generous lips that promised days of laughter and nights of rapture.

  About that one rapturous night, the night of the wind song ceremony, she would not let herself think. His cutting words had unerringly found those feelings about which she was most sensitive. She had trustingly opened herself to him, trying to suppress the inhibitions that had frozen her all those years. And he had used them against her.

  No, she couldn’t allow his overpowering sensuality to weaken her again. She was resolved to stand on her own two feet, to be her own person before it was too late. Commitments were binding. And she had been wound up with so many commitments that she felt like a spool of thread.

  She tried to concentrate on the upcoming holidays. She was attempting to teach the children Christmas carols, and often she would end up laughing when they inadvertently combined “Away in a Manger” with one of their own ritual chants. With their angelic dusky faces with the rosy cheeks and great lustrous eyes they were little cherubs who took her mind off the month that was rapidly running out.

  The teachers decorated the school building for the holiday festivities with wreaths of cedar and pinon and juniper berries. Abbie hung up the children’s drawings of the nativity scene— invariably mangers set in a desert of red sand. It struck her that this land she found so strange and often unappealing greatly resembled the Holy Land, with its shepherds who watched their flocks by night, and her heart warmed once again to the little shepherds in her classroom—warmed to all but one, churlish Robert.

  Excitement ran through the air as the last days before the Christmas vacation approached. Marshall stopped by for coffee and mentioned that he would be visiting his daughter in Oklahoma for the holidays. Jason wrote that he and Justin were going skiing in New Hampshire for the Christmas season.

  And herself? What was she going to do?

  The week before school let out, she spent the nights hand-sewing miniature Christmas stockings for her students, stuffing each stocking with a candy cane that she had asked Marshall to buy. She faced a countdown of four days. Surely, she told herself as she worked the needle in and out of the red felt, she and Cody could discuss the issue like two civilized adults.

  But there was nothing civilized about passion, was there? Passion, she was discovering, was a primeval, irresistible force, a force that she was not yet ready to reckon with, certainly not when dealing with a man of Cody’s sensual magnetism.

  When the last day of school arrived, the children were unable to keep still in their seats. They were excited—and she was anxious. Her month was up.

  She didn’t even attempt to teach that afternoon, but played games with the children. Their favorite—cowboys and Indians. Yet each child refused to play the part of the Indian, because they were not Indians. They were Dine’e—the people. She ended up hiding behind her desk, drawing her bow against thirty-four cowboys. Even Robert partook of the merriment. She noticed that he wore a beautifully crafted bracelet of silver and turquoise that was much too large for his thin wrist. The gift for his father that he had been making at Cody’s shop?

  At last the dismissal bell rang. She lined the children up in front of the classroom door and, as they left the room, handed each the stocking she had made. Most of them shyly accepted the gift and exited. Julie Begay pulled at Abbie’s dress until Abbie knelt and then threw dimpled arms about Abbie’s neck in a tight little hug.

  Delbert bestowed a small smile that gave Abbie hope that perhaps she was succeeding at Kaibeto. Robert jammed his stocking in his jean’s pocket and stalked past her. Outside the building parents waited eagerly for their children with burros, buckboards and battered pickups. For some parents this would be the first time in four months they would see their children.

  Abbie followed the children out to the steps to see them off, waving at one child, blowing a good-bye kiss to another. She bid good-bye to all except Robert. The boy stood on the steps, his eyes slowly sweeping the grounds. One by one the children went off with their parents until only he was left. Abbie stood behind him, uncertain what to
say. Would he understand her anyway?

  Thirty minutes passed, yet Robert never moved from his position. The sun was setting, the air growing colder. Still he did not move. She hurt for him. His little face was set as hard as those carved at Mt. Rusnmore. She knew that all the tears he choked back were being shed inside his heart. Soon darkness would bring its blanket, and he would have to return to the dormitory with the few other children who had no homes to go to.

  What a sap you are, Abbie Dennis. She touched his shoulder. “Robert, you’re going to spend the Christmas holidays with me.”

  She wasn’t particularly delighted with her idea, but she just couldn’t leave him to spend the holidays alone. Besides, he was the solution to her own problem, albeit a temporary one. Cody couldn’t very well demand anything from her when Robert was staying with her. Maybe by the time the Christmas holidays were over her longing for Cody would subside; maybe time would dull his want of her.

  The boy remained staring off into the distance where Navajo Mountain dominated the horizon. She touched his arm again. “Robert, come with me.”

  He looked at her then, and all his resentment flared in his eyes before his lids dropped. Maybe she didn’t understand his language, but his resentment—that she understood. He had never wanted to come to the boarding school. It was the bil'langali’, the Anglos, who had forced him to leave his father.

  Gently she took his wrist and tugged him down the steps, but at the bottom he jerked away. “Now listen, Robert Tsinnijinnie, I have—”

  He jutted his head forward and spat, this time aiming—quite successfully—for her face.

  She gasped. Incredulity followed by rage swept over her. Her hands balled into fists. The boy tensed, preparing for the coming retaliation.

  She smiled, a formidable smile that had often made the twins wince. What she did next was an outrageous thing to do, but the situation demanded something outrageous—so she simply picked up Robert’s thrown gauntlet . . . and spat back at him. Shock almost toppled the boy. It was wholly unexpected for a woman to do what she had just done.

  Before he could gather his wits about him, she grabbed him by his ear—as she had once promised she would do—and pulled him along beside her. They passed two older students, both girls, who giggled behind their hands. A dull rose tinted Robert’s cheeks, but she knew he wouldn’t fight her. It would be too degrading for a warrior to fight with a woman!

  This time he offered no resistance when she led him over to the dormitory. She knew without being told that it was only a matter of time before he would try to run away again, but this time she doubted he would run to Cody. She sighed as she watched Dalah pack his clothes in a paper sack. She would just have to keep a close eye on the boy.

  That evening Robert stood at her apartment window, his hands jammed in his pockets while she fried chicken. Some Christmas, she thought. Neither of them could converse with the other. He resented being there, and she—she had to smile wryly at her predicament—she, who wanted no commitments, had saddled herself with this little savage for the duration of the holidays. She shouldn’t have been so impulsive. She had already spent a lifetime paying for her impulsive marriage. Would she never learn?

  She forked the last piece of chicken from the frying pan, wondering just how she was going to entertain the child. Hiking? One could only hike so much. Camp-outs? Too chilly now. Besides, he would have to build the fire, and she would bet he would be just stubborn enough to sit there until their faces turned blue.

  The front door suddenly opened. Robert was hitting the road already! “Damn!” she muttered and dropped the fork, heading for the living room at a run. She came up short to find Cody standing in the doorway, his hand resting on Robert’s shoulder.

  Slowly, purposefully, Cody shut the door behind him.

  * * * * *

  Cody saw the fear, the same mistrust that clouded Robert’s eyes at times, leap into hers. He had been foolish, thinking he could demand what had to be freely given. He had spent the four weeks worrying that, like Robert, she too would run, that the holidays would draw her back to her family. He had even asked Orville what he knew of her holiday plans, and that had been a stupid thing to do, because beneath that mop of a mustache the old man’s mouth had grinned like that of a kid who had just been let in on a secret.

  Even when Orville had confirmed that Abbie would be staying at Kaibeto during Christmas, Cody had known no way out of his dilemma. He couldn’t just throw her over his shoulder and ride off as his ancestors had done when they had robbed other camps for brides.

  But he wasn’t about to walk away without Abbie. He glanced at Robert, who had turned indifferently back to the window. “I see that another man has already claimed you.”

  She wiped her hands nervously on her apron. “It seems that Robert and I are stuck with each other. His father . . . he didn’t come, Cody.” She spread her hands. “And there didn’t seem to be anything else to do but invite Robert home for the holidays.”

  Home for the holidays! The idea came to him like a bolt of welcome lightning. It would be a surprise for his father and Deborah, but it would resolve the dilemma he faced with Abbie. He crossed the room toward her. Before she could retreat from him, his hands encircled her waist to untie the apron. “Get your things, Abbie. You and Robert are coming with me.”

  She clutched at the apron and the fear he had hoped to dispel still lurked in her eyes. “Cody . . . I can’t. I can’t just up and leave and—”

  “You assumed responsibility for Robert, and the boy deserves to celebrate Christmas with his kind, with his people. We’re going to New Mexico, to spend Christmas with my parents. Their house—Cambria—sits in the midst of a Navajo rancheria.”

  She looked toward the boy, and Cody could see that she was vacillating. He wouldn’t give her a chance to refuse. “Abbie, my father still sits on the Navajo Tribal Council. If you don’t come with me, I’ll see to it that pressure is brought to bear on the BIA to question your competency as a teacher.”

  Her eyes flashed. “You never wanted me here to begin with, so why—”

  “But I want you. Are you coming?”

  Chapter 7

  As much as he tried, Robert couldn’t hide his excitement behind his usual impassive facade. The boy’s inky eyes glowed like rekindled coals as he stared out the window of Cody’s private plane, a Cherokee 235. The four-seater airplane winged its way through the night toward the seventy-six thousand acres that were Cambria.

  “All of that is owned by one family?” Abbie asked incredulously.

  “At one time Cambria, which belonged to my great-grandmother, was the largest land grant in the United States. Over five million acres.” Cody kept his eyes on the instrument panel. “Over the generations portions have been sold off because they were too costly tax-wise. It’s still too much for my father to oversee at his age.”

  Far below passed the pinpoints of lights of Gallop, then Albuquerque; off to the left was Santa Fe. At last they reached the flare-lit dirt strip of Cambria’s airport. Cody deftly pulled the yoke back until the stall-light flashed, then eased the plane smoothly onto the runway. Abbie exhaled the breath she had held since they took off from Pulliam Airport at Flagstaff. Flying in a commercial aircraft hadn’t ever bothered her, but flying in Cody’s private plane had. And the sensually charged air between them was only intensified by the Cherokee’s small cabin

  When he extended his hand to help her step down from the wing, her legs were trembling so much that she thought her knees would buckle. They did. She collapsed within the warmth of his arms as the chilly December wind whirled about them. “I’m taking the bus back,” she muttered against his chest.

  “Buses aren’t any safer and not nearly as fast.”

  “I feel like going on my knees and kissing the ground.”

  He tilted her chin up. “How about kissing me instead, Abbie?”

  “You promised tonight that—”

  “—if you came with me to Cambria, I w
ouldn’t force you to do anything you didn’t want to,” he finished, his lips tickling the hollow just below her ear. “But that doesn’t exclude persuasive tactics, does it?”

  She nodded toward Robert, who stood before them, holding his sack of clothes. He seemed to look right through them. Cody sighed. “Your watchdog.” He placed his hand on Robert’s shoulder. “Listen, son, we Navajo have got to stick together. It’s the two of us against all of her.”

  The blast of a car’s horn interrupted Cody’s council of war. Taking the two suitcases, he steered her and Robert toward the four-wheel Blazer that had just driven up. A slender woman wrapped in a white wool coat got out and hugged Cody to her. The wind swirled her sophisticated short-styled hair so that the silver strands that intermingled with the brown seemed to have a life of their own. She stepped back from him, and Abbie saw by the car’s lights that the attractive woman was much older than Cody, maybe in her sixties. But her high-planed cheekbones stretched her skin firmly. The woman had to be the stepmother he had mentioned during the plane ride. And his mother?

  “Cody,” Deborah said warmly, “it’s been too long.” She turned to Abbie. “And you must be the schoolteacher he told me about on the phone tonight.” She took Abbie’s hand, and her dark, tilted eyes misted. “We’re deeply grateful to you.”

  “But I did nothing,” Abbie said, restraining the impulse to add that she hadn’t even wanted to come.

  “You’re the reason our son came home. That’s enough.”

  “Deborah,” Cody admonished affectionately, “it’s cold. Please get in the car.”

  Behind the wheel sat a man whose thick hair was iron gray. The eyes he turned on Abbie were as dark brown as his corduroy hunting jacket— and as warm. “It’s a pleasure to have you as our guest, Mrs. Dennis.”