Dust Devil

by Bonds, Parris Afton

"Do you wish it so?”

  Rosemary stamped her foot in frustration. "No. You will have Adala, so do not be planning to add me to your list of wives!”

  "Ahhh.” His mouth quirked in comprehension at her defensive action. "But Adala had no place to go after the soldiers captured her parents last month,” he pointed out. "And she is not yet my wife.”

  "You are refusing to understand me!” she had exclaimed and spun away, leaving him with his wicked smile.

  She shifted the water jars in her arms as she reached the hogan and gingerly set them down before she began to string one jar from a willow rafter to keep the insects out. She was relieved that she would be alone for another night, for Lario had gone out on one of his "rescue missions” as she referred to them.

  She would not have to lie awake on her own pallet and hear the steady cadence of his breathing. She wondered if sometimes he thought about that one night they had made love during the sandstorm . . . and if he still desired her. Was it their daughter who slept at her side that prevented him from coming to her in the night — or was it his love for the delicate, lovely Adala?

  And from there Rosemary’s thoughts conjured visions of Lario’s dusky hands and generous lips making love to Adala as he had to her, and she felt the bite of jealousy. Ridiculous! she reminded herself. Lario is but an Indian. It is only that he is educated that makes him seem more — more what? Human?

  How bigoted she was! Why not admit she wanted him? But she knew she never could submit to him, could never be one of many wives, as was the Navajo practice. If nothing else there was always the specter of the Sepoy Rebellion to loom between them.

  She realized how absurd her speculation was, for Lario had never intimated he wanted her for a wife. Or that he even wanted her. He had wanted her only for his daughter’s nursemaid. She was angry with herself, realizing that even with him gone most of the time, she still thought about him. It would be better, she chided herself, to think instead about escaping from the canyon and making her way back to Cambria and Jamie.

  She should try while Lario was away. In another day or so, she knew he would be returning, probably bringing back several dozen more Indians that had been captives bound for the Bosque Redondo Reservation. But she might as well be separated from Cambria by an ocean so little did she know about finding her way back. Better to wait and hope for rescue.

  And then the thought struck her that Lario might not return. What would become of her and Stephanie? Would the Navajo turn on her then?

  But for some reason she felt that Lario would always come back. He and his brother Hasteen were fighters, survivors. The youngest brother she worried about more, for Guayo was neither as powerfully built as Lario nor as experienced as the rebellious Hasteen in battle. Guayo was a shepherd by nature whose gentle manner earned her reluctant friendship. She had even given him the bracelet Lario had made for her that first Christmas after Guayo saved Stephanie when she tumbled into a mountain stream.

  Having strung both water jars from the rafters, she stepped outside in search of Adala, who had kindly offered to take Stephanie with her for the day to tend sheep. Rosemary was coming to genuinely like the young Indian girl, though she could not understand her complacent acceptance of another woman sharing her future husband – for surely the young girl’s imagination must assume that with Lario and Rosemary sharing the same hogan, they also shared sex, as well. But then that was the way the Indian women were brought up from childhood. Of all the tribes, the Navajo men were most notorious for their polygamy. Rosemary was sure if she loved a man as Adala loved Lario she would scratch the woman’s eyes out. Yet Adala treated her as a deezi, a sister.

  She shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight. More and more hogans now dotted the canyon as the numbers of liberated Indians brought back by Lario and Manuelito mushroomed. But only a few women and children moved among the hogans, the rest still tending the sheep in the higher ranges where the grass grew more tender. She thought about taking the opportunity for privacy to go down to the cold, rushing stream and bathe, but she had no sooner returned to her hogan for the amole root the Indians used for soap when there was a commotion from the direction where the ponies were picketed.

  Once more she stepped outside. The men were back! Seven or eight new Indians, mostly Navajo, but she recognized two as Apaches, were looking about the rancheria at what would be their new home. Lario strode toward the hogan with his two brothers falling in behind him. Hasteen raised his fist in an angry gesture and said something that she could not catch. Guayo turned away as the men reached their mother’s hogan, but Hasteen caught sight of Rosemary and pointed at her, saying something now that she, with her limited knowledge of Navajo, did not comprehend, then . . . "You are wrong, Lario!”

  She stepped back, allowing Lario to enter. "What was that all about?” she asked in English, enjoying the rare, opportunity to use her native language. Stripping off his stained shirt, he looked tired. The cheekbones were emphasized by the gauntness beneath them, and a cut beaded with fresh blood drops across his upper left arm. "You’re hurt!”

  Lario shrugged and threw his long frame on the blanket. "Some of the soldiers did not wish to give up their prisoners.” She came over and looked down at him. "Are you admitting that it bothers you to kill?”

  His gaze slashed up to hers. "Do not try to provoke an argument. I am too tired.” But he propped himself on one elbow, and she saw the pained effort it cost him as he winced. "Yes,” he answered her. "It does bother me. But it is worse to watch my people die senselessly. And no amount of argument for or against can change what is bound to happen.”

  "Then why bother to make these forays?” she demanded, her abhorrence for killing charging her anger anew. "If you cannot change what will happen, your attempts are just as senseless!”

  Lario reclined again and put one arm over his forehead. "I know,” he said.

  Suddenly she felt contrite. The enormity of the burden he carried hit her . . . that through his education he was able to see what the future held for his people, to see the futility of his efforts but unable to cease working, to cease hoping. "I’m sorry,” she said. "I know it must be difficult for you.”

  She took a gourd hung from the wall with other utensils and filled it with water from one of the suspended jars before returning to kneel at his side. "I have been lazy today,” she confessed. "There is no food ready for you.”

  She was fully aware of the magnitude of her confession. In another hogan such laxity could be grounds for a beating.

  But Lario, she knew, took into account that she was not accustomed to serving but to being served and was therefore more lenient with her.

  He took the gourd from her, saying, "My stomach does not hunger for food this moment.” Then, "An Indian child stepped in the way of the gunfire. The same age as Sin-they.”

  Rosemary now more thoroughly understood Lario’s despondency. Despite the apparent hopelessness of his purpose, his effort was worth it for every captive he freed. But to lose a child — She put out a hand to touch his bare shoulder, and it was she who wined at the heat emanating off it. Male heat. "But there were many others you brought back,” she forced herself to continue in an even, controlled voice.

  He switched his intent gaze on her, and she blushed . . . a blush that turned to anger that she should capitulate so easily to her enforced captivity. Her black lashes snapped upward, and her gaze met his in fierce combat. "Let me go, Lario! When winter comes, there won’t be enough to feed everyone here. Why keep me?”

  Taut silence stretched the moment like a drawn bowstring. Then, "You are free to go.”

  Her eyes widened. "You mean it?” she whispered.

  His blacker-than-hell eyes were shuttered. He handed the gourd back to her, empty. "Yes. But Sin-they stays.”

  "Why?” Rosemary cried out. Then she took a different tack. "Would you deny her the education you had? Would you watch her starve through a freezing winter? Or go shoeless and lose toes to frostbite? Would y
ou have her grow up like this?”

  "There is love here for her,” he said quietly.

  "There is love for her at Cambria!”

  "Is there? Let me ask you . . . would you want your daughter bedded by your husband when she had ten summers — or nine, or eight?”

  "But she’s his —”

  "It would not make any difference,” Lario snapped. "You know the kind of man Rhodes is.” He grabbed Rosemary’s wrist. "And what do you think will happen to Sin-they should he discover she is not his child?”

  "I’d make certain he never found out.”

  "Would you take that kind of chance with our child?”

  She pulled her arm away. She kept her eyes on the reddened skin about her wrist where he had gripped her, for she could not meet his gaze. She was as trapped by circumstances as he was.

  And as if he sensed and understood her dilemma, his hand came up to cup her chin. He tilted her face so that her gaze was forced to meeting his searching one. "It has taken me many years to learn there are some things I cannot change.”

  Her lips curled scornfully. "Yet you keep trying, do you not? And so will I.”

  "Were you any happier at Cambria?”

  "But it is my home. The only home I have.”

  "Your home is here — with your child.”

  Can you not see that I am a white woman, she wanted to scream. That I don’t fit in. You ask too much for me to lie in the darkness at night and listen as you take Adala to your bed.

  But she stifled her mutinous thoughts and rose, saying, "I will bandage your cut.”

  With a high-pitched shout of "Da!” Stephanie came toddling into the hogan, a broad smile dimpling her rosy cheeks. Twice she almost tottered off balance before she fell laughing into his outstretched arms. Rosemary watched his strong, brown hand tousle the bright red-gold curls and felt a moment of deep contentment. But Adala’s shadow in the doorway dispelled the peace.

  How long before Lario took the young woman for his wife?

  CHAPTER 19

  From where she sat, Rosemary pitched the last of the wood chips onto the dying faggots. The wood of the quaking asp gave off almost no smoke for enemy eyes to detect. She held her hands to the warmth that leaped from the sudden flicker of orange-red flame. Beneath the gray woolen blanket wrapped about her, Stephanie snuggled in sleep close to her side. Her daughter’s little body was toasty-warm, unlike Rosemary’s cold toes and nose.

  The February snow blew in through the small chinks in the mud and stick walls of the new hogan to settle in little drifts that quickly dissipated with the next draft of wind. Lario had been gone six days now, two days longer than he had planned, and she was worried. What if he lay bleeding to death from a bullet? Or was lost in the blizzard that roared in from the north the day before?

  There was a swishing sound behind her, and she jerked about in surprise. Hasteen stood in the doorway. A limp rabbit dangled from one hand. Snowflakes glistened in his hair and on his sooty eyelashes. "The deer and the antelope have moved further south,” he said.

  "Thank you, shee-kizzen,” she said, using the Navajo word for brother. All she could think was that at least they were not yet reduced to eating the camp dogs.

  Hasteen continued to regard her with unwavering gaze, and she realized how much of a man he had grown to be in the year that she had been at the rancheria. What was he, twenty-three? The mustache he affected made him seem older. Like Lario, he wore his hair in a chongo, drawn back from his long, somewhat rawboned face. But his eyes were more slanted, more Oriental with none of the brilliant lights she found in those of Lario’s. And his nose and chin were longer, almost pointed.

  When Hasteen did not look away, as he usually did when he was in her presence, she suddenly wondered if something was wrong, if Hasteen knew something she did not. "What is it?” she demanded.

  "I am not a brother to you.”

  "You are Lario’s brother,” she began, not yet understanding.

  He moved forward into the hogan and dropped the rabbit at her feet. The pelt sparkled with a thousand tiny crystals, and the velvety brown eyes were glazed over. She was so hungry she thought she could eat the rabbit raw. "But you are not his wife,” Hasteen said. "And I bring you food. I offer my shield as your protection.”

  She tilted her head far back to look up into the hard countenance. "Hasteen, your brother asked this of you—to protect the rancheria while he and Manuelito were gone.” Then she thought she caught the implication in Hasteen’s words. "Oh, I see,” she said, hurt. "It is that I am not of the rancheria—not a Navajo.”

  "It is that Adala will have sixteen summers the rising of the next full moon. Lario will take her to his bed for his wife.” A muscle flickered in Rosemary’s cheek. Otherwise she did not betray the fear that now clutched at her heart. When Lario married Adala, she knew she would no longer be able to stay in his hogan. But where would she go? What would she do? Lario would never let her take Stephanie with her. And she would not leave without her.

  Her arm slipped down to pull Stephanie closer to her. "I have known that this day would come.”

  For some seconds Hasteen said nothing. She did not break her gaze with him, for it would have been impolite.

  98

  At last he said, "I have taken two ponies in raids. They are outside. For Lario.” He noted her frown of confusion and explained. "I wish to pay him for taking you as my wife.”

  Her mouth dropped open. After a naked moment she said, "I already have a husband, Hasteen.”

  His lips thinned out in disgust. "Senor Esteban—the Dine’e know what kind of man he is!”

  "But he is still my husband.” She saw the hard glint in Hasteen’s eyes. She could not afford to offend him. "I will have to think on your offer.”

  His eyes were suddenly alert, and he spun about just as Lario stepped through the doorway. "What offer?” Lario asked, looking from her to his brother.

  "Hasteen wants to take me as his wife,” she said. "I have told him I already have a husband.”

  "Her husband is as the dead,” Hasteen said. "He does not exist for her here.”

  Lario walked by both of them, stepping over the rabbit’s carcass. He pulled the soggy poncho over his head and dropped it near the fire to dry. His long black hair fell loose about his shoulders and was damp. "She does not want to take a husband here, maybe.”

  "You keep her — but not as a wife. If you do not wish to offer her your protection, then I offer her mine. She must make a choice.” Hasteen turned on her.

  Lario cocked a brow at her. She drew the blanket tighter about her in frustration. Obviously Lario did not intend to help her in making the decision. "Stephanie?” she asked in desperation.

  "Sin-they will be here as always at the rancheria,” Lario said. "Loved by all the Dine’e.”

  She wanted to strike back at Lario’s dispassionate attitude, to say she would accept Hasteen’s offer. But the idea of bedding with Hasteen was repugnant. Unlike Lario, he did not bathe except on ceremonial days — the same as did most Navajo. She could not settle for either — being less than first and only with Lario, or being first with Hasteen.

  She knew then she could wait no longer for rescue. She would have to try to escape the rancheria. There was no other choice. "Give me the days of one complete moon to consider on this,” she told the men. "I shall have my answer then.”

  Enju—it is well,” Hasteen answered and left the hogan. Lario dipped the gourd into the water and turned to her. "I have hunger.”

  That did it. She had never liked skinning rabbits. A deer she could—but not the small furry rabbit. She slipped out of the blanket, forgetting her sleeping child in her anger, and crossed to stand before Lario. Her hands balled into fists. "Then you prepare the rabbit! As Hasteen said, I am not your wife!”

  Laughter lurked in his eyes. "But you are my yisndah— my captive. I could make you.”

  Rosemary’s eyes narrowed. "You wouldn’t!”

  He continued with
a shrug. "But then I am welcome at the cooking pots of other hogans. I will not go hungry. But what of you?”

  "What do you care?” she cried. She jerked the water jar from its rawhide ropes and hurled it at him.

  The clay jar shattered on the ground in fragments. At the sound Stephanie turned fitfully, then settled again into a peaceful sleep, blissfully unaware of the fury that crackled like electricity between her parents.

  He took a step toward Rosemary, and her eyes widened in fright at what she had done. His shirt clung to him, dripping water, and his damp buckskin britches molded his narrow hips and muscled thighs and the thick mound at their apex. She began to back away from the anger that smoked his eyes.

  He shrugged out of his shirt and took another purposeful step toward her. In the firelight his bare chest gleamed like polished copper. Then he began to work at the loops that buttoned his pants. Her fingers flew to her lips. Despite the fact they shared the hogan, they had yet to undress before each other. Most of the time he was away, and the few evenings he spent in the hogan the fire had either already burned low or she had turned away in feigned sleep.

  Perhaps it was the strain of the two of them living together, but not as man and wife, or maybe it was the tension that flared between them now, but suddenly she felt panicky laughter bubbling in her throat. Now her hands clamped over her mouth, as the laughter threatened to spill out, and she moved to put the firepit between her and him.

  The buckskins slid to the floor. His body was beautiful. He was tall and sinewy and lean with the physical fitness of a man who lived off the land. Bands of muscles laddered his stomach. Her hands dropped from her mouth in open awe, but there was still the smile of laughter on her lips.

  Lario saw it, and the faintest smile twitched at the comer of his mouth. "The doe has no fear of the hunter?” he asked and moved toward her.

  "No, it’s — ” Then she started to laugh in spite of her determination not to. She turned and ran around the mound of blanket that wrapped their child. "No, Lario!” she tried to cry out as he took up the chase, but the fits of laughter choked her and tears sprang to her eyes.