by DiAnn Mills
I laughed. “What should I look like?”
He blushed, and I realized he was not a boy at all but a young man struggling with growing up. “Old. Pointed nose. Fat.”
I laughed again. “I’ll do my best.”
“Do you ride and shoot?” Alex said. “We spend lots of time on our horses. And you have to know how to shoot the rattlers.”
I moistened my lips and tried to form an appropriate answer. “I believe we won’t need to worry about rattlers until warm weather arrives. But I can ride.”
“She got you on that one.” Brice snickered. “I knew you couldn’t fool her about rattlers this time of year.”
“She’s working on mastering a rifle,” Miss Arnold said. “And she’s quite eager.”
Alex frowned. “I’m not wasting my time protecting you.”
Brice cleared his throat. “I’ll look out for her.”
Oh my. I was right. Maybe I could plant a wart on my nose. Oddly enough, I was looking forward to teaching these boys. Maybe I’d lost my mind.
“Are you boys minding your manners?” a tall, thin woman called from the doorway. She wore britches like Miss Arnold.
“Yes ma’am,” Brice said. “We’re talking to our governess.” The moment he spoke, his cheeks blushed apple red. Alex giggled.
Monarchs. They were certainly not butterflies.
Mrs. Monarch greeted me. “Come inside for a glass of lemonade. We could have lunch.”
The house was just as I expected, with rustic furniture and wall hangings that depicted the Southwest. Comfortable and welcoming. After an unusual but tasty meal consisting of a type of chicken soup that contained unfamiliar spices and a flat bread called a tortilla, Mrs. Monarch asked if I was ready to begin teaching the boys on the following day. I wanted to suggest that we wait until Monday, but keeping busy was important to me.
“I have a complete set of schoolbooks for each of them.” She shook her head. “I’m their mother, not their teacher, and they are sadly behind in their studies.”
“We’re fine, Mother,” Alex said. “What we need to know is right outside our door.”
Mrs. Monarch smiled at her son. “Perhaps while you are young, nature is a good teacher. But you will not always be a boy, and you must be prepared for the world.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, not having the faintest idea of what teaching was all about. “May I borrow a reading book and an arithmetic book?”
Brice rushed to his feet. “I’ll get them.” And he was gone.
I hid a grin. The boys were twelve, eleven, and ten, and their mother called them the Three Musketeers. I cringed with my lack of knowledge, but I refused to let my foreboding show. “Is eight o’clock in the morning a proper time to begin? And when would you like for my day to end?”
“Five o’clock is fine. And I do want them to enjoy the out-of-doors along with their studies. I’m sure you best know how to arrange that.”
My insides were beginning to swirl. Grandfather had always said that a person should be prepared in season and out of season. And I hadn’t the faintest idea what season I was beginning.
After lunch, while Mrs. Monarch and Miss Arnold discussed having some horses shod, I stepped outside into the court area, which faced a large open plain. The house was U-shaped and most pleasant. I walked several feet beyond the perimeter and allowed a faint breeze to bathe my face. A mountain range in the distance looked most beautiful, and I wondered about the source of water.
A strange sensation swept over me. Eerie. Haunting. I whirled around, expecting to see Grandfather before me…Grandfather with his lined brow and pale skin. But no one was there. My breath caught in my chest. There to the right near a small tree stood an old Indian with long, flowing silver hair. I blinked, and he was gone.
CHAPTER 8
One week later
In the late afternoon sunlight, Tahoma watched his father angle toward him, his gait slow. The aging man gripped his left side.
“I have need of your skills,” he said.
Tahoma heard a catch in his father’s voice and saw the blood stained on his shirt and seeping through his fingers. “What happened?”
“Danger has already sharpened its knife.”
He started to stumble, and Tahoma rushed to his side. “You’ve been hurt.”
“A little. I stopped a man from shooting Eva Fortier.” Wet and dried blood clung to the lower left of his father’s shirt. “Would you patch up an old warrior?”
Alarmed, but hiding his concern, Tahoma helped his father make the trek inside. He gestured for him to sit by the fire. “What of Miss Fortier?”
“I doubt she knew the danger existed, and there is a man at the ranch who guards her too.”
“Does he know about this?”
“No. And the wound isn’t deep. I’m here because I don’t want to frighten your mother.”
“You can’t keep this from her. She learns everything.”
He nodded. “I’ve been trying for thirty-five years. I don’t give up.”
Tahoma shook his head, pretending annoyance. “I suppose you want another shirt after I tend to you.”
His father laughed low. “You know me well.”
Tahoma also knew how to drive a bargain. “A clean shirt if you tell me what happened.”
“You’ve learned from your mother.” He breathed in deeply, a sign to Tahoma that his father was wounded worse than he wanted anyone to know. He shrugged off his shirt, revealing a ragged gash.
Tahoma lifted a kettle of hot water from the fire and poured it into a basin while his father scooted closer to the light. After gathering up a clean cloth, soap, and a bottle of alcohol, he pulled another chair close by the aging man.
“I surprised a man just as he lifted his rifle to fire. We both had knives.”
As always, Tahoma had to read what wasn’t said to figure out what occurred. “Did the rifle go off?”
“No.”
“Is the man dead?”
“Maybe.” His father gritted his teeth. “I took his rifle and left him.”
“You’re going to need stitches.” The rock hard muscles of his father’s leathered flesh meant stitching him up wouldn’t be easy.
“I thought so.”
Tahoma finished cleaning the wound and gathered up cotton sutures and a needle. “Are you cut anywhere else?”
“The man was lucky but once.”
“Where did he get knifed?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
Tahoma laughed, despite the situation, and his father joined him. “Had you seen the man before?”
“No. He had an automobile, but the tires are now flat. Whoever is after Eva wasted no time in getting here.”
“And you’re sure no one saw you?” None of them needed the law snooping around the village.
“You spent too many years with the white man. A Diné knows how to disappear.”
“And the government has overpowered us time and time again.”
“But not this time. Remember who you are, Tahoma.”
“Where is the rifle?”
“Hidden. No one can find it.”
His father believed Tahoma had forsaken his roots. In many respects, he had.
Tahoma reached inside his medical bag for his stethoscope. He listened to his father’s heart then let the instrument dangle around his neck. From the weakened sound, the older man’s failing heart continued to deteriorate, and the diagnosis saddened and angered Tahoma. His father needed rest to lengthen his life, but Tahoma knew the aging Nascha would not let his health dictate the future. If only his father could be convinced to seek hospitalization.
“Don’t frown at me as though you were the father and I the son,” the older man said.
“Your heart—”
He raised a hand. “My heart will last until my body is finished. Not one moment longer.”
Tahoma sensed a whirl of fury racing through him. “That’s nonsense. You’re wearing yourself out with t
his vow to Fortier.”
“Then let it happen. His daughter is in clear danger, and I must see that she’s safe. I left the man for dead, but who knows?”
Tahoma swallowed his exasperation. “If he’s dead, you could be charged with murder.”
“If he’s alive, he’ll be seeking revenge and trying even harder to kill her.”
“Why didn’t Murdock hire a professional bodyguard to look after the woman?”
“He did, and the man is working at Ghost Ranch. Murdock contacted me because he knew I’d not fail him.”
Father had spent every glimpse of daylight for the past seven days watching out for the young woman. “Well then, what about the fellow at the ranch? Can’t he take over for a while? And what about Charlotte Arnold?”
“This is my responsibility.”
“Would you at least think about what I’m saying? Every day you spend traipsing after that woman shortens your life.”
His father stood. “I am honored to have your concern. But would you have me die with regrets?”
Tahoma heard the urgency of a man who knew only dignity. “Would you have me see you die and not try to slow the pace?”
A weathered grin spread over his father’s face. “We are alike, even though you believe differently. Come, join me and your mother for the evening meal.”
“She is aware of how you spend your days?”
“Of course.”
“Have you told her about your health?”
“No. I don’t have to. She’s smarter than we are.”
They laughed, and it felt good. Tahoma’s mother was as feisty as her husband and perceived happenings long before they surfaced. The two men walked to the older Benally’s hogan and stepped inside, where the enticing aroma of roasted lamb tugged at Tahoma’s stomach. He hadn’t eaten since sunup. Too many patients, and Yanaba’s husband had been to see him about the couple’s baby. Tahoma refused to tell the man his wife might be carrying a lifeless child. Tahoma could be wrong, and he’d prayed God would have mercy on them.
God… He had to be disappointed with Tahoma.
“Someday you’ll understand what this means to me,” his father said.
“Maybe I do now.” Tahoma lifted a clean shirt from a peg and helped his father slip into it. “A knife wound and your heart. Mother will have plenty of questions.”
Once they reached the hogan, Tahoma’s mother greeted them. She still held the beauty of her youth, her hair untouched with silver and her eyes dark as the night. Her smile always gave him hope, and she possessed the wisdom of many revered women of the past.
“I hear your bellies pleading for food.” Her voice was soft and gentle. She stood from turning a leg of lamb over an open fire. The flames reached up and licked the browned meat, crackling and hissing with the drip of fat.
Tahoma touched a kiss to her cheek. “You are still prettier than any woman in the village.”
“Hush. You should be spending your free hours with a woman who will make me a grandmother.”
“I’m too young.”
“You’ll be old and toothless before I’m able to hold your son or daughter.” She nodded at her husband. “Tell me why your father is favoring his left side. And about his heart.”
Tahoma was not stepping into this cow pile. “I know nothing.”
“Then no one eats until I’m told about Nascha’s health.”
How could one little woman speak so quietly with so much force? “Mother, a doctor does not reveal his patient’s condition without permission, whether he be well or in need of my care.”
“I’m giving you permission,” she said.
Tahoma tossed his father a look for help.
Father wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist. “Otekah, what is there to tell? I’m an old man driven hard by his wife. Her smothering ways may be the end of me.”
She leaned her head into the curve of his body. “Maybe I want to have you with me for years to come.”
“As a man or a coward?”
She breathed in deeply then turned back to the fire. “I love you for who you are for as long as we share our lives together. But I’ve earned the right to hear the truth and not just what you choose to tell me. You have that gleam in your eye that I used to see when we were much younger—the spark of a good fight. I assume your injury has to do with Eva Fortier.” When neither Tahoma nor his father responded, she took a deep breath. Probably to make room for more words. “I know your heart is failing, and I know you are a stubborn man. What can I do to help?”
“Keep me warm at night and thinking about you during the day.”
Tahoma watched his parents silently embrace the truth. Would he ever find a woman who’d love him so completely?
He stepped outside to give them a moment to themselves and time for him to pray for guidance. Shaking aside the worry that God had deserted him, he stared up at the thousands of stars against a sea of black. At times he was overcome with emotion. The God of the universe had created all he could see and beyond—and still cared for a man who failed to acknowledge Him among his people. But the Bible said God was faithful, even when His children were not.
When would he have the courage to tell his parents and those he cared about that his faith was rooted in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ?
The answer came to Tahoma, although the divine solution wasn’t what he wanted to hear or even do. But he had no choice. With a nod to the heavens, he stepped back into the hogan.
“I’ll accompany you to Ghost Ranch until Andrew Fortier’s daughter is safe.”
CHAPTER 9
I shielded my eyes from the bright sun and quickly took count of my three charges. We’d spent most of the afternoon riding from one rocky area to another, exploring and discussing the terrain surrounding Ghost Ranch.
Miss Arnold’s britches and shirt, along with an old pair of boots, made me feel like I belonged in the high desert.
I hadn’t told anyone about the old Indian I’d seen for fear someone might think the desert sun had melted my brains. But his image stayed fixed in my mind—regal and frightening. In the wee hours of dawn, I recalled his long and flowing silver hair, weathered skin, and a bandana tied around his forehead. The curious part of me wanted to see him again, but the part of me that had tasted death feared a confrontation.
Since I’d arrived at Ghost Ranch, much of life had caused me trepidation. Before, I’d been accustomed to comfort and ease, with servants and the latest of modern conveniences. The most difficult of situations had come from Victoria voicing her dislike of Grandfather and Mr. Murdock. Those times had placed a burden in my heart for those I loved and given me a queasy stomach. Grandfather’s lectures now seemed like fairy tales next to the terror and sorrow that stalked me.
I’d written Victoria two letters about my new home, painstakingly describing the ranch, Miss Arnold, the ranch hands, and of course, the Monarch boys. I omitted target practice. She’d be ill if she knew I began my day by inserting cartridges into a rifle and attempting to blow tin cans off a fence.
My solace came with my three charges. Oh, I loved those boys immediately. They were full of life and vigor and spunk and pure mischief, all rolled up into bundles of joy. They tried my patience, which only made them more endearing. If I have my way, someday I’ll have half a dozen sons, and I’ll do all the boy things with them that these three were demanding of me. For certain we’ll live in the wild west where we can ride horses, love on mangy dogs, search for arrowheads, play cowboys and Indians, avoid snakes. Even shoot rifles.
I despised guns, but I saw the necessity of having a weapon. Victoria had frowned on my love of horses and riding. Once when I was ten, she caught me perched on a tree limb—dress torn. She’d used a strap on me, but Grandfather found out and threatened to dismiss her if she ever punished me like that again. This was a world apart from that one, and I eagerly grasped each new day. Because it might be my last.
Mercy, what had happened to me? Perhaps I was reliving a chi
ldhood I’d never had, like the lives of my boys. In fanciful moments, when I pushed aside the real reasons why I’d come to the high desert, I’d imagine what kind of man I could love and how he’d love me in return. He’d have to be gentle and rugged, and I didn’t care what he looked like. Of course, he’d want a houseful of boys.
That dream meant I wouldn’t be returning to Syracuse. I chastised my own thoughts. Victoria needed me, and I needed her. I had responsibilities between the two family inheritances.
“Miss Eva.” Alex dangled a lizard in front of my face. The small brownish-gray creature looked about six inches long and swung helplessly from the boy’s fingertips.
This was my sixth day with them, and I’d learned not to overreact to the boys’ pranks. However, my insides did a little dance. We’d been hiking over dirt and rocks, exploring the area and gathering all kinds of different-shaped stones. I’d expected a snake, not a lizard, so I guessed I was fortunate.
“I see you have a friend,” I said. “I hope you aren’t hurting it.”
Alex observed the helpless lizard. “I thought we could study him with your magnifying glass.”
“It, Alex. The lizard is an it.”
“Unless he’s a pet.” Alex grinned, and my heart melted. “So can we study him?”
“We can. Then you must let it go.”
He scrunched up his face. “I want to take him home.”
“You can’t make a pet out of this lizard any more than it could make a pet out of you.”
“How’s come?”
I touched his button nose. “Because you don’t know how to speak lizard talk.” Which was the best explanation I could come up with. But I knew from experience that if I could get the boys to think about what I said, it stimulated their minds and creativity.
“Miss Eva. We have dogs and horses, and we talk to them. But they don’t talk to us.”
I raised a brow. “How do you know?”
