Wild Splendor

by Cassie Edwards

  Sage came into the dwelling after having council with his warriors. He sat down beside Leonida and also gazed at his sons, pride swelling within him. Runner had never been jealous that his little brother was Navaho like his father, perhaps because Runner looked Navaho in many ways himself now.

  Sage reached for Leonida and drew her to his side. Together they looked over at their bright-eyed daughter, who was strapped to a hard-back cradleboard. She had been propped against the wall of the hogan, where she could look around while Leonida was hard at work.

  “Pure Blossom is learning today also?” Sage said, laughing softly. “Look how she looks at you. She has been watching you make your basket. She will be as skilled as you, my wife, when she matures enough to use her fingers.”

  “She’s been the sweetest thing today,” Leonida said, laying her basketwork aside. She went to the cradleboard and began untying the thongs that held her daughter in place. When Pure Blossom was free, Leonida scooped her up and held her out for Sage.

  Sage took his daughter, who was dressed in a fringed doeskin gown. “Is she not even more beautiful than the stars?” he exclaimed, smiling broadly.

  Leonida stroked the eight-month-old baby’s hair, thick and black already. “Yes, she is ever so beautiful,” she murmured. “I’m so glad that she has Navaho features. It is only right that she does since she bears your sister’s name.”

  “My sister would have received much joy from the children,” Sage said solemnly, gazing from child to child. “She so loved children. She was such a child at heart herself. So innocent. So lovable. She never seemed to be aware of her afflictions. She accepted them without question.”

  “You still miss her, don’t you?” Leonida said, taking Pure Blossom back as Sage handed the child to her.

  “As you also miss her,” Sage said, smiling over at Leonida.

  The baby began fussing, and it quickly turned into full-blown crying. Leonida rocked her back and forth in her arms. She gave Sage a glance. “Darling, take the boys out for awhile, while I feed Pure Blossom.”

  Sage gathered his sons up into his strong arms, and even though Runner was much too big, carried them outside on his shoulders, leaving Leonida and Pure Blossom alone, to relish these moments as mother and daughter.

  Leonida pulled her drawstring blouse down from her shoulders, releasing her milk-filled breasts. Laying Pure Blossom in the crook of her left arm, resting her child’s tiny head there, she lifted her breast and placed the nipple inside Pure Blossom’s tiny mouth. She watched her child taking nourishment. Pure Blossom’s tiny hands kneaded the breast, and all the while the baby made soft, contented noises as she looked trustingly up at Leonida.

  With her free hand, Leonida played with Pure Blossom’s dark hair, trying to curl its ends, laughing when she found, as before, how impossible it was to do anything with her daughter’s stiff, dark locks. It was made for braiding. And that was as it should be, since her daughter had all of her father’s features.

  Gazing into the baby’s dark eyes, fringed by thick lashes, she could see her beloved husband’s eyes. No one could look at the high cheekbones and the lovely smooth, copper skin and deny whose child she was. She was her father, except in the delicate lines of her face, and the tiny, perfectly shaped lips and her delicately pretty nose.

  Leonida ran her finger over the bridge of her daughter’s nose. “Just perhaps you have one of my features,” she whispered, smiling.

  Becoming tense, Leonida shifted her attention from her daughter when she heard the sound of horses outside the hogan. She gazed at the door, wondering who had just arrived. She doubted that she would ever relax when she heard someone arriving at the stronghold.

  She tried to force her thoughts back to her daughter, but she could not help but glance toward the door. She would hear someone talking, and then Sage responding, yet no matter how hard she listened, she couldn’t hear what they were saying!

  “It seems like an animated conversation,” she whispered to herself, becoming even more wary.

  Knowing that Pure Blossom should have had her fill from this breast, she lifted her to rest against her bosom and began softly patting her back, glad when the child gave out a healthy burp. Then she placed Pure Blossom’s tiny lips to her other breast.

  Leonida’s eyes widened when Sage came back into the hogan, the children no longer with him.

  “The young braves are all right,” Sage said, seeing her anxious look as she looked past him. “They are playing with the others.”

  “Who came to the stronghold?” Leonida asked.

  “Scouts,” Sage said, his eyes troubled. “They brought news of Kit Carson, and news that I do not know to trust.”

  “What sort of news?” Leonida said, glancing down when she no longer felt her daughter’s lips moving on her breast and discovering that she was asleep. She slipped Pure Blossom away from the breast, and Sage took her and placed her on a deep pile of blankets in her crib, covering her then with a soft doeskin pelt.

  “And what about Kit Carson?” Leonida prodded, pulling her blouse back up in place and retying the drawstring.

  “After leaving Fort Defiance, Kit became Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Colorado Territory,” Sage said, settling down on the blanket beside Leonida. He stared blankly into the flames of the fire. “He was not there long.”

  “Oh? He was assigned elsewhere?” Leonida asked, noticing some sort of book slipped into the waistband of Sage’s dark breeches. She was puzzled, having never seen Sage with any books before, and wondering where he might have gotten it.

  “Kit Carson was assigned to the Land of the Dead, it seems,” Sage mumbled. He looked slowly over at Leonida. “The great pathfinder is dead.”

  “How terrible,” she murmured, torn with conflicting feelings about his death. She was both sorrowful that such a man as he was gone and worried that because of his death, Sage and his people would no longer have a protector.

  Sage slipped the small book out from the waist of his breeches and gave it to Leonida. “This is a gift from Kit Carson to you,” he said.

  Wide-eyed, Leonida accepted the booklet, stunned that Kit would think enough of her to remember her in such away. Yet in the short time she had known him, he had learned of her love of reading and storytelling. As she read the title of the book, she realized that she was not the only one who loved to tell a story. This book was Kit Carson’s memoir, titled Dear Old Kit, published in 1856.

  “What a wonderful thing to have,” she murmured, thumbing through it. “From what I know about Kit, he knew not how to read or write. He must have dictated this to someone.”

  She closed it and held it to her chest. “This is such a treasure, darling,” she said, sighing. “One day soon let me read it to you?”

  “That would please me,” Sage said, then frowned nervously. “But that reading cannot be done soon. I have other plans that must be carried out, although I somewhat fear them.”

  Leonida scooted closer to Sage. She took his hand in hers. “Darling, you’re frightening me,” she murmured. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  Sage placed a gentle hand on her cheek, then took both of her hands in his. “I did not mean to worry you,” he said. “And so much of the news that has been brought to me should make me rejoice. But I can never trust the word of the white man.”

  He paused, then continued, Ulysses S. Grant is now the white father in Washington, and he has decided he will no longer negotiate with any Indian tribe. He plans to send them all to reservations, where he promises they will be cared for by the government. But I do not trust his promises. This chief fears it is more likely that Grant hopes to tame us, to take away the beliefs and traditions that make us who we are, to destroy our freedom, yet . . .”

  Sage paused again. He eased his hands from Leonida’s and rose to his feet, slowly pacing back and forth.

  Fearing what else Sage had to say, Leonida rose quickly to her feet and put a hand on her husband’s arm, stopping
him. She gazed up into his midnight dark eyes. “Yet what?” she said, her voice stiff.

  Sage lifted a hand to her hair and wove his fingers through her shoulder-length tresses, looking down at her with heavy lids. “Yet my scouts have brought news to me about our people, the Navaho who had been imprisoned in New Mexico,” he said thickly. “The United States government has signed a treaty with them, allowing their return to their homeland, yet cleverly assigning them a huge area of our homeland which no one else really wants. It is my duty to go and see if this is true. If it is, I must invite my people to come to our new stronghold, where no one wants for anything. They do not have to accept the poor land they have been assigned. We can share equally with those who wish to accompany me and my warriors back here.”

  Fear suddenly grabbed at Leonida’s heart. Now she knew why Sage had hesitated at being glad over this news. “This could be a trick to draw you from the stronghold,” she said, her voice breaking. She moved onto her knees before Sage, imploring him with anxious, fearful eyes. “Darling, Kit Carson is dead. Without him, can you truly trust to return to Fort Defiance? Perhaps what was told your scouts is all made up, to lure you from your stronghold.”

  “I have thought of that and, yes, I do fear it,” Sage said, taking her hands and holding them to his chest. “But when my scouts were discovered hiding near the fort and invited inside, with promises that they would not be incarcerated, and were given this information, it did seem real enough.” He glanced down at Kit Carson’s book, then up into Leonida’s eyes again. “And there is the book. Kit had left it there for you, should the soldiers ever see you again. They were considerate enough to send it with the scouts to give to you. Does not that seem a sincere gesture?”

  Leonida gazed down at the book, then back up at Sage. “It would seem so,” she murmured. “Yet it could be a part of the trick, darling. Please don’t go. Why risk everything for those people who turned their backs on you? Why?”

  “Because they have been forced to live a life of degradation long enough,” Sage mumbled. “This land they have been assigned to may not be fertile enough to raise crops. They might starve.”

  He shook his head slowly back and forth. “Yet I still cannot understand why the white leader would imprison one Indian and let the other go, except perhaps to see them die slowly because they do not have enough food due to the land being too poor to raise it.”

  He frowned down at Leonida. “That has to be the answer,” he growled. “So you see, my wife? I must go and do what I can to help my people. It is time for me to forget the past and their lack of faith in their leader. It is time to give them a new purpose in life and cause to see how wrong they were ever to walk away from what I had promised had they stayed.”

  “I know that you must,” she murmured, flinging herself into his arms, hugging him tightly, as though it might be the last time. “I never doubted that you would.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to blot out doubts that she would have to carry with her the whole time he would be gone, yet unable to. She doubted she would ever learn to trust her husband’s safety on her own.

  Chapter 35

  Quietly you walk your ways,

  Steadfast duty fills the days.

  —EDWARD ROWLAND SILLS

  Sitting before a crackling fire in her adobe home, Leonida was busy peeling “paper” bread from her stone fireplace griddle, which had been Pure Blossom’s most treasured possession, handed down from generation to generation. Leonida had been taught that paper bread was a treat, usually reserved for festive occasions. She was preparing for her husband’s return, knowing that he would be home again soon. And when he returned with those of his people who had been parted from their loved ones so long—ah, but would not there be a grand celebration?

  Smiling assuredly, telling herself over and over again that Sage would return safely, that the soldiers had not tricked him, Leonida carefully folded her paper bread in quarters, then began making another piece of the Navaho delicacy. She carefully spread with her hand a thin batter of blue corn meal on the smoking-hot griddle, allowed it then to bake a few seconds, then lifted it off. Pure Blossom had told her that years of practice were needed before one could smear the batter without burning fingers. Leonida was proud that for her that was not true. She had no scarring on her fingers from being awkward while cooking.

  Besides preparing her “paper bread,” she was cooking a thin corn gruel in a pot on the fire. For the last two evenings Leonida had hoped that Sage would arrive in time to partake of the evening meal with his family. The children had missed him. Even little Pure Blossom had been more fussy, which meant to Leonida that her daughter was missing the stronger arms of her father. As Leonida felt so much more protected while within her husband’s arms, surely also her daughter had instincts enough to feel the same.

  Thinking that she had enough paper bread prepared, Leonida began cleaning up the mess she had made, keeping an ear out for sounds at the door of her hogan. She was ever listening for the sound of many horses’ hooves, eager to rush out and fling herself into her husband’s arms if it were he.

  She sighed. Still all that she heard were the children’s voices as they played close by with a group of other young braves. It did her heart good to hear her children enjoying themselves in this world that was fraught with questionable deeds and heartache. Before she had moved to Fort Defiance she had never even thought about the plight of the Indians. She was just like everyone else—not thinking about the Indians at all. They were far, far away from where she lived, a part of the wilderness, desert, and mountains.

  Never in a million years had she thought she would meet and fall in love with a handsome Navaho chief and marry him, becoming a part of the Indian community herself, taking on their same problems, pain, and injustices.

  Sudden shouts outside the hogan made Leonida suck in a deep breath. She then heard the sound of horses in the distance.

  “Sage,” she whispered, placing her hands at her throat. “He’s home. Oh, thank the Lord, he’s home.”

  Aflutter with excitement, Leonida went to the crib and checked on Pure Blossom. She turned and started toward the door, then stopped and gazed down at herself. “I’m a sight!” she groaned, seeing the flour smeared on her colorful skirt. Her hands went to her hair, finding it mussed up from her long hours of cooking.

  “I can’t let him see me like this,” she fretted.

  She peered at the door, her heart thumping. “But I can’t take the time to clean myself up,” she said aloud. “I’m too anxious to see him.”

  Not thinking anymore about her appearance, Leonida rushed out of the hogan, her fingers working with her hair, trying to make it more presentable. She could see Sage now. He was only a short distance away, riding straight and tall in his Navaho saddle, yet his expression was not that of a happy man.

  Leonida’s footsteps faltered when she saw what might be the reason for her husband’s grave attitude. She was mentally counting the men, women, and children who were sharing rides with Sage’s warriors. There weren’t nearly as many of his people returning as she had thought there would be.

  Fear gripped Leonida’s insides. Yet she was sure that not that many had died on the long walk to Mexico. How could it have been that many?

  Her thoughts stopped short and her eyes grew wide and disbelieving when she caught sight of at least ten sheep and the same number of goats trailing behind the returning Navaho, being herded along by two young braves.

  Runner and Thunder Hawk came running up to Leonida, each grabbing one of her hands. “Daddy is home,” Thunder Hawk squealed, peering up at Leonida with his wide eyes.

  “Yes, Daddy is home,” Leonida said, feeling torn. She was concerned about the number of people returning to the stronghold, yet surprised and happy about the sheep and goats. The animals would be a blessing. The people’s yarn had been all but used up. They had hungered for mutton and goat’s milk. And soon they would be blessed with many more sheep and goats.
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  She turned her eyes back to Runner, wondering why he was so quiet. Then she found out. His thoughts were on someone besides his daddy.

  “I wonder if he got to talk to Adam,” Runner said, now more than half as tall as Leonida. He peered ahead. “I wish I could have gone with Father. It would have been good to see Adam again.” He shifted his eyes, gazing up at Leonida. “I miss him even though I haven’t seen him for five winters. I wonder if he misses me also?”

  Leonida hurried her pace as the horses came closer and closer. “I’m sure Adam has missed you as much,” she reassured him. “He has probably even sent a message to you with your father. He’s probably as practiced in his skills of writing as you are.”

  Runner suddenly broke free and began running hard and fast toward Sage, waving at him and shouting a greeting in Navaho. The path leading to the returning Navaho was now filled with the people of the stronghold, yet there was no singing. Everyone seemed as solemn as Sage, apprehensive as they stopped to wait for the entourage to come to them.

  Even Leonida stopped and waited. She picked Thunder Hawk up into her arms, her heart thumping wildly as Sage’s eyes met hers in a silent hello. She watched as he stopped his horse and reached for Runner, pulling him up into the saddle with him, then proceeded onward. Runner smiled proudly as he sat as straight and square-shouldered as his father in his father’s fancy Navaho saddle.

  Leonida’s pulse raced, so wanting to be on that saddle with her husband, yet she stood quietly by, still waiting. Sage’s bridle jangled, and his chestnut stallion pranced, his head held high, the round silver conchas on the bridle flashing in the sun.

  And then Sage finally reached Leonida. He pulled the reins up tight, then lifted Runner down. Sage slid easily from his saddle and went to Leonida, hugging her and Thunder Hawk in one quick embrace.

  Runner came up to Sage and cleared his throat, to get his attention. “Father, did you get to see Adam and talk with him?” Runner asked quickly. “Did he by chance pen me a letter?”