Wild Splendor

by Cassie Edwards

  As he tethered her horse to a tree, Leonida looked over her shoulder at the campfire. “Perhaps we could join the others at your camp?” she murmured. “I would enjoy seeing your sister again.”

  To her surprise, Sage took her by an elbow and began ushering her in the opposite direction, away from the campsite. With parted lips and widened eyes she gazed up at him, half stumbling as he continued guiding her through the forest, stopping at a creek that spiraled like a silver snake in and about the trees.

  “Sit,” Sage said, nodding toward the ground. “No one will disturb us here.”

  Leonida’s stomach did a strange sort of flip-flop, and her heart skipped a beat as he gently pushed her to the ground, then sat down beside her. She smoothed her wrinkled dress with a hand as she stretched her legs out before her, feeling strangely at ease with this Navaho chief, even though she had only met him that afternoon.

  Yet she could hear her father’s warnings flashing in her mind: not to trust so easily, always to be wary of Indians, no matter their reputation. Little was actually known of what made their minds work, and to most, they were still vicious, heartless savages.

  Leonida’s own relationships with the Navaho Indians of this area had proven that the bigoted white people were wrong about them. That they were going to be forced to live on a reservation was an injustice she wished that she could right. But she was only one person, and a woman. The voice of a woman carried no weight.

  “It’s quite beautiful here,” Leonida murmured, breaking the silence. “I’m so glad to be here instead—instead of back at the fort.”

  She swallowed hard and momentarily closed her eyes, trying to blank out the anger that welled up inside her every time she recalled Kit Carson’s words, that it would be best for the Indians to be placed on reservations, that he saw no other choice but to force the Navaho to join the Mescalero Indians at Fort Sumner.

  “It is a place of peace,” Sage said, leaning back on an elbow. As he stretched one long, lean leg out before him, the silver buttons on his trousers caught the rays of the moon in them. “But what Sage likes best of all is to sit on a knoll, watching the horses of my village feed, when others of my village like to sit down for smokes and gossip. Nature is where I would rather be than around a fire, speaking of others’ private lives.”

  “I have never been one who enjoys gossip either,” Leonida said, smiling over at him. What he had just said made her ever more aware of how wrong it would be to imprison such a man within the confines of a reservation.

  He was a man who inhaled freedom as though it were the very air that he breathed. To take it away from him would be the same as snuffing life from him.

  Yet there was nothing that she could do to change what was to happen. She would try to absorb every moment with Sage, for it just might be the last.

  “I did not think that you would be the sort to meddle in others’ affairs,” Sage said, returning her smile.

  Those words stung Leonida to the core, for as badly as she wanted to meddle this time, she could not. Her words were powerless among men like Kit Carson and General Harold Porter.

  She blinked her eyes to keep tears from splashing from them, then peered up at the heavens. Starlight, pale and cold, silhouetted the ragged oaks that stood tall and statuesque over her. She listened and enjoyed the sound of the water cascading over the stairs of stones in the cool stream, the rich bass of bullfrogs, and the rasp of crickets.

  “I so love this time of night,” she murmured. “Just look at the stars. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  She turned her eyes away from the sky and peered into the darkness. “And just look at the fireflies,” she said, sighing. “Their cold sparks are like the fires of miniature lanterns blinking off and on in the night.”

  She laughed softly and gazed over at Sage. “Now if it were midday, who could enjoy any of this?” she said. “There are always snakes to fear when the sun is high in the sky.” She hugged herself with her arms and shuddered. “If there is anything that I detest, it’s snakes.”

  Sage stared at her for a moment in silence, unnerving her, for suddenly his dark eyes seemed lit with fire. She relaxed when he began talking, friendly as before. She had thought that she had said something that had irritated him, yet was unable to touch on exactly what it might be.

  “The Navaho have stories full of poetry and miracles about such things as you speak of tonight,” Sage said, looking away from her. He began picking up pebbles, tossing them one by one into the creek. “The stories are told by the elders of the Navaho villages in the wintertime when the snakes are asleep.”

  He moved a hand to her cheek. “The desert country is full of snakes, poisonous and otherwise,” he said softly. “But to the Navaho, snakes are the guardians of sacred lore and will punish those who treat it lightly.”

  Leonida’s eyes widened and she swallowed hard.

  “I did not know . . .” she murmured, strongly aware of his hand on her cheek, the heat of his flesh against hers. Feelings foreign to her began warming her through and through. “I’m sorry. I never meant to speak so unkindly of snakes. It’s just that long ago, when I was a child, I was bitten by a rattler. I . . . almost died. A preacher was even brought to my bedside. He said many prayers to God before I began to recover.” She was torn with feelings when he drew his hand away and again began tossing pebbles into the water. “I imagine you have a Great Spirit that you pray to?”

  “There are many spirits that we pray to, not just one,” Sage explained. “Their names are Changing Woman, Sun, First Man and First Woman, Hero Twins, Monster Slayer, Born of Woman, and White Shell Woman.”

  Leonida’s head swam as she tried to remember all of the names that he was giving her. She was quickly learning one of the main differences between her culture and Sage’s, and knew that this was only the beginning.

  “The primary purpose for Navaho ceremonials, or ‘sings,’ is to keep man in harmony with himself and the universe,” Sage continued.

  He laughed softly. “I see that what I have said confuses you,” he said, moving to an erect sitting position. He wanted to reach out and take her hand yet refrained, afraid that it might frighten or offend her.

  In due time, he kept telling himself, in due time he would know the taste of her lips and the touch of her flesh. For now, words were enough, at least until she knew that she could trust him, that he wasn’t a “savage.”

  “Yes, I am confused,” she said matter-of-factly. “Yet I understand that there are many differences between your customs and mine, and I accept that.”

  “Not only customs,” Sage said, his voice drawn. He rose to his feet and offered Leonida a hand, which she took and stood up beside him.

  Her heart pounded when he kept her hand in his as they began walking slowly beside the creek, then headed back toward her horse.

  “Sage’s people see that white men are beginning to understand they did not mean to harm the Navaho,” he said. “The whites have their own ideas of law, and they carry them out just as carefully as the Navaho. The two ways are different and cannot keep clashing. It is good to think that warring is a thing of the past, an ugly past filled with hatred and bigotry.”

  Leonida stiffened and did not offer a response. She knew that if she said anything now, it would come out all wrong. She did not want to be the one to bear sad tidings, knowing that he would find out soon enough. There was to be a meeting tomorrow at the fort, and he would be one of the many Indian chiefs in attendance.

  There he would surely learn early enough the fate of his people.

  “As you know, the language of the Navaho is not the only language used by my people today,” Sage said as he stopped beside her horse and began smoothing his hand over its sleek brown mane. “Sage’s English is clear enough, is it not? It was learned from trading with white people and also from Kit Carson, with whom Sage has shared many smokes many times in the past.”

  He turned to Leonida, pleased to be talking of his association with Kit
Carson, not knowing that very man was planning a future for Sage’s people that would drastically change his feelings for the “pathfinder.”

  “Kit Carson has been known to me for many moons now,” he said, proudly squaring his shoulders. “Sage has watched Kit Carson lasso a wild horse and throw his rope with the sure aim of an arrow. Kit Carson was an agent for the Utes a few moons ago, and because he so well cared for them, they gave him the name ‘Father Kit.’”

  He turned from Leonida and stared into the distance, thinking of tomorrow’s meeting, when he would be clasping hands of friendship once again with Kit. Carson. He turned smiling eyes down at Leonida again.

  “When the sun sits high in the sky tomorrow, Sage and many other Indian leaders will speak of peace and harmony again with Kit Carson and the leaders at the fort,” he said thickly. “We shall share many smokes. It will be a good time. Sage will then return to his home in the mountains content.”

  His eyes became shadowed as he leaned down closer to Leonida. “There will be one thing missing in my happiness,” he said, gently touching her cheek with his callused fingers.

  Leonida’s heart seemed scarcely to be beating as she gazed up at him, his lips so close, his eyes so filled with something quite unfamiliar to her, yet seeming to reflect deep feelings for her. “What is that?” she asked, her voice breaking as she was forced to swallow quickly. Her motions were becoming overwhelmed with a delicious sort of languor.

  “There is no one woman that I can call mine in my life,” he said. “Without a woman, a man is not complete.”

  He leaned so close that his breath was warm on Leonida’s lips. “The man you have chosen. Does your heart agree to this choice?” he asked in barely a whisper, yet it echoed over and over again within her, for she could tell that he was feeling much more than what he was saying.

  And so was she.

  She knew that it was useless to allow her feelings to go any further than this, for tomorrow he would hate all white people, her included.

  “I don’t know how to answer your question,” she said, seemingly swallowed whole by her thunderous heartbeats.

  She jumped with alarm when someone came upon them from behind. She wrenched herself away from Sage, then laughed softly and relaxed when she found sweet and frail Pure Blossom standing there, the squash blossom necklace held between her hands.

  “Yours,” Pure Blossom said, holding the necklace over toward Leonida. “Take. Please take and keep.”

  In her mind’s eye Leonida was recalling the very instant when Harold had taken the necklace from her. It gave her much pleasure that she was being given a second chance to have it, and to defy him at the same time.

  “It is so lovely,” Leonida said as Pure Blossom draped it across her fingers, then stepped back, smiling from ear to ear.

  Leonida turned to Sage. “I know that your sister speaks good enough English, but how can I say ‘thank you’ to her in Navaho?” she asked.

  “Thank you is not usually spoken in words, but performed instead with deeds,” Sage said, then smiled. “But you are not Navaho. You can say Uke-he to my sister.”

  Leonida turned back, smiling. “Uke-he, Pure Blossom,” she murmured.

  Flattered, Pure Blossom nodded, then ran back to the campsite and joined the others.

  “Your sister is so sweet,” Leonida said, admiring the necklace.

  “All of my people are good,” Sage said, then took the necklace from Leonida’s hands and stepped behind her. Leonida could not help but tremble when his fingers touched her neck as he fastened the necklace.

  When he stepped around in front of her again, his fingers now on her shoulders, Leonida’s breath was stolen as he moved his lips toward hers, his dark eyes burning like fire. As his lips covered hers in a quivering, lingering kiss, everything within her seemed to blend into something sweet and wonderful.

  Yet, fearing these tumultuous feelings, knowing that Sage would soon be gone, she wrenched herself free and quickly mounted her horse and rode away before he had a chance to ask her why.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she knew that she would never forget the hurtful questioning in his eyes as she rode away. It was as though she was the one who was going to betray him, or even that she may have already been guilty of it.

  Her hair loose and flying in the wind, her silk dress hiked past her knees, Leonida bent low and rode hard out into the open, away from the creek, away from the wondrous, sweet sounds of night, and away from the man that she now knew she loved with all of her heart and soul.

  “Why?” she cried to the heavens. “Why did I ever have to meet him? Why did I have to fall in love?”

  Her heart seemed to drop to her feet when she caught sight of a horseman riding toward her in the distance.

  “Harold,” she gasped, drawing the reins tightly. As her horse skittered to a sudden stop, she tried to straighten her hair, and then her skirt, dreading the questions and even more the answers that she might have to give him.

  While she tried to make herself more presentable, her fingers came in contact with the necklace, and she groaned.

  “I will not allow him to remove it from my neck twice,” she finally decided, lifting her chin stubbornly.

  She gave him a cold look of defiance when he wheeled his horse to a stop beside hers.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he said in a feral snarl, frowning at her. “Where the hell have you been? And look at you. You look like some wild thing, your hair all blown, your lovely dress all wrinkled and soiled.”

  She refused to tell him where she had been, or with whom, knowing that it was enough for him to know that she had fled because of what he was planning with Kit Carson and the others.

  She saw him turn pale and his eyes widen with horror when he discovered the necklace around her neck. “My God, woman, isn’t that the same necklace . . . ?” he said.

  He reached a hand toward her to yank it off.

  Leonida covered the necklace with her hand. She glared over at him. “Don’t you dare,” she threatened, then rode away from him, at least for the moment smiling triumphantly.

  Chapter4

  . . . the sunflower turns to her god when he sets,

  The same look which she turned when he rose.

  —THOMAS MOORE

  The mountain shapes were softer than the skies. Canyon wrens darted in and out of the mesquite, trilling their startling but melodious songs.

  The smoke from the large outdoor fire curled skyward in the courtyard of the fort. Around it sat the many Indian leaders who had come to the fort for a council with Colonel Kit Carson and the leaders at the fort. Everyone was sitting in a wide circle around the fire, Leonida among them.

  Dressed demurely in a plain cotton dress devoid of any trim, her hair drawn back with a ribbon, Leonida sat in silence, looking and absorbing, while a long-stemmed pipe was passed around the circle of men.

  Leonida ignored the occasional angry glances that Harold sent her way; she had defied his orders to stay away from the meeting. She felt a trace of hope that the Indians would be given a choice of where they wanted to live instead of being automatically forced onto a reservation. She knew that the other Indians had been rounded up without notice and marched to the reservation, as the Apache had been forced to do. At least some semblance of respect was being shown the Navaho by first talking to them about it.

  Also, she hoped to get to speak with Sage before he left, to apologize for her hasty retreat the night before. She now regretted it, for she had not slept a wink all night, worrying about what he must think of her to allow a kiss, then to flee from it. She could not let them part forever without telling him that she had not meant to lead him on, that she had true feelings for him, though telling him was perhaps foolish.

  Her heart pounding at the prospect of allowing herself another glance across the fire, Leonida lifted her eyes slowly. She could not stop the thrill that enveloped her when she gazed at length at Sage again. He was dressed in his fi
nest clothes. A striped blanket was wrapped around his shoulders and belted at his waist. His deerskin moccasins reached to his knees, his tight breeches were slit down the side and edged with silver buttons shining in the sun. A red silk handkerchief was tied around his brow to hold his sleek black hair in place.

  As he looked her way and she discovered that he seemed indifferent, she flinched and turned quickly away, shame overwhelming her.

  Soon, unless the plans had changed, Sage’s eyes would fill with feelings, those of hate and anger, directed toward her as well as Kit Carson and those responsible for the fate of his people, for she was white, as were they, soon to be Sage’s enemies.

  Fighting back tears of frustration, shame, and hurt, Leonida lifted her chin and stared ahead, not resting her gaze on any one thing. She crossed her legs on the ground before her and stiffened her arms, placing her palms on her knees, gripping them so hard that the flesh of her fingertips turned ghostly white. She swallowed hard and began dying a slow death inside when the conversations began and grew more heated as each moment passed.

  Nothing was in the Indians’ favor.

  Leonida grimaced as she listened to the debate between the two factions of men, Kit Carson and Sage now the main speakers.

  Kit’s voice became measured and calculated.

  Sage’s became cold, his face grim with anger as he rose to his full height over the circle of men, towering over Kit, who moved over to stand next to him as their debate heated up even more.

  Leonida smiled, somehow pleased that Sage was so much taller than Kit. It was a well-known fact that he was the runt of fourteen Carson children, and when he was sitting down he always tried to conceal his short legs.

  “Damn it, Sage,” Kit said in his soft-spoken way. “You know I’ve always been sympathetic to Indians. But now I’ve got to think of the settlers. The settlements and ranches are being raided. Caravans are being plundered. Travelers are being killed. To stop the raids, all Indians must be transferred out of the territory, even the Navaho.”