“She shouldn’t be so damn pretty,” Damon growled, yanking himself away from Adam. He covered himself with one hand, while he rebuttoned his breeches.
“You’re vile,” Stephanie said, scrambling to her feet. She smoothed her skirt down, then wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.
She then stamped over and grabbed Adam’s pistol from its holster and thrust it into Damon’s stomach. “I would learn to control my lusts, if I were you,” she warned, her eyes flashing heatedly into his. “The next time you look at me, I won’t give you an opportunity to climb atop me again. I’ll just shoot you and get it over with.”
Adam chuckled. “That’s tellin’ him, sis,” he said, then his laughter faded as Damon glared at him.
“If you know what’s best for you, you’ll tell this sister of yours to back off,” Damon said in a feral snarl. “I could blow this whole deal sky high with the Navaho, and you’d see the last of your private spur and the town that you’re hankerin’ for. I could let them in on our little secrets. They’d skin you alive, Adam, if they knew how you’re schemin’ against them.”
“You . . . wouldn’t . . .” Adam said, paling.
“Want to put it to the test?” Damon said, chuckling. “Do it.”
Stephanie looked from one to the other. “What are you talking about?” she said, lowering the pistol. “What plans? What are you going to do to the Navaho?”
“Nothing, sis,” Adam said thinly. “Damon’s got too vivid an imagination for his own good.”
“Adam, you know that I’m willin’ to do anything to get rid of the Navaho,” Damon snarled. “With me on your side, we’ll both come out winners.” He shrugged. “I don’t care what you do or don’t tell your sister. You’ve got my word that I won’t be causin’ her any more trouble. As I see it, she ain’t worth it, anyhow.”
Stephanie’s blood was boiling mad. Knowing that she wasn’t going to get any answers from her brother, she stamped away and went inside her private car. She stared out the window as Adam and Damon continued speaking. She hated to see Adam with the likes of Damon. Her brother was easily swayed. He could become like Damon in the wink of an eye and there was nothing she could do about it.
Except perhaps warn Runner.
Yet she feared doing that. Runner was quickly angered, and so was Sage. She felt that it was best to let sleeping dogs lie, until they had to be awakened.
She went to her kitchenette and washed her hands, then put together a quick bite to eat.
Outside, Adam leaned close to Damon. “It’s best if you don’t go near my sister again,” he said, his voice low. “Damn it, Damon, what she is doing, by sidetracking Runner, is the best way to eventually ruin not only Runner and Sage, but the whole Navaho people. It might enable me and you to buy up the whole damn Arizona Territory.”
“Sounds good to me,” Damon said, shrugging.
Adam looked past him at the distant mountains crowned by the bright moon’s glow. He had a fleeting thought of Pure Blossom and how all of this might affect her, then brushed it aside as Damon began talking about the new town and the gambling halls, women, and hell-raising men that would frequent it.
“I know I’m anxious to become a steady customer at the saloons,” Damon said, slapping Adam on the shoulder.
They both laughed raucously.
Chapter 15
Love that is too hot and strong
Burneth soon to waste.
—ANONYMOUS
With her hands on her hips, Stephanie was waiting for Adam when he entered her private car. He had to have known that she would need explanations after what Damon had said about the Navaho.
And by the wavering of his eyes as he shut the door behind him and stood there, silently looking at Stephanie, she knew that she had been right.
“Adam, what’s going on between you and Damon?” she asked, her jaw tight.
Adam shrugged. “We’re friends,” he said. “That’s all.”
“How could you be friends with that beast?” Stephanie replied. “Twice now he has assaulted me. You should hate him, Adam. Instead, you continue to ally yourself with him. What is it that you are planning with Damon against the Navaho? Is that why you agreed to his friendship so readily? Because he has an axe to grind against the Indians?”
Adam raked his fingers through his hair and lowered his eyes. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he mumbled.
“Your refusal to answer me is proof enough,” Stephanie said.
She went over to Adam and forced him to look her straight in the eyes.
“Adam, how can you forget your past friendship with Runner so easily?” she murmured. “And Sage and Leonida. You surely can’t be seriously thinking about taking advantage of them. You came to get their approval, not to take from them that which is precious. Adam, you are wanting more land than is already allotted you. Isn’t that so?”
“And if I do?” Adam said, slapping her hand away. He turned to leave, but Stephanie stepped quickly between him and the door.
“If you do anything else to cause the Navaho problems, Adam, so help me I shall disown you as my brother,” she said in a low, warning hiss. “Do you hear me, Adam? I will no longer be your sister. And I will do everything within my power to see that you don’t get your way, even if that means getting a court order to stop you. If I have to travel to Washington and speak with the president about what you are doing, I shall.”
“You can’t be serious,” Adam gasped, paling. “You would ruin me.”
“Exactly,” Stephanie said, smiling smugly up at him.
“Stephanie, how could the Navaho mean so much to you that you would go against your own brother?” Adam said, his eyes suddenly angry. He clasped her shoulders with his hands, causing her to wince with pain. “We’ve meant everything to each other. You can’t go against me now.”
“Try me,” she said.
Adam dropped his hands to his sides, walked to the window, and stared out of it. “I believe you would,” he grumbled.
Anger was seething inside him. His careful plans were backfiring. When he had wanted Stephanie to ally herself with Runner, it had not been for her to forget her brother. It was only meant for her to sway the Navaho into approving all of his plans. Now it seemed that she was ready to do anything she could for the Navaho because of her feelings for the “White Indian.”
He turned slowly around and glared at Stephanie. “It’s because of Runner, isn’t it?” he said, his voice drawn. “You love him more than you ever loved me.”
“I do love him, but that is not entirely why I am so set against what you’re trying to do,” Stephanie said, torn by her feelings toward her brother. She loved him, yet at this moment, it was very close to becoming hate. “I just don’t like to see this change in you. Runner said that you are someone he no longer knows. I am beginning to feel the same way, Adam.”
She crossed the room to him, framing his face between her hands. “Adam, please stop your friendship with Damon,” she pleaded. “Make a solid friendship with the Navaho again. Tell them that you want nothing more than the land you have already been allotted by the government. If you go in peace, I am sure they will accept your private spur and new town because it is with an old friend that they will be giving their alliance.”
She paused, then added, “And Damon be damned.”
Adam took her hands and kissed their palms, then drew her into his arms. “Sis, I love you so much, and I understand what you are saying. But Damon’s a man I don’t think I want to cross. You have seen his true self. He is a shifty, crafty man who would do anything to rid his life of the Navaho. Who is to say what he would do if he realized that I was friends with the Navaho again?”
“There are ways to protect ourselves against him,” Stephanie said, easing from his arms. She lifted her derringer from its holster, where she had left it hanging on the back of a chair. She caressed the gun as she stared down at it. “I know that he’d better not try anything with me again. I will shoot
him, Adam. He won’t get the chance to touch me with his filthy hands again.”
Adam watched her smoothing her hand over the firearm for a moment, feeling trapped by her demands. There was no way he was going to give up the idea of taking more land, now that he saw it within his grasp. And to do that, he needed Damon.
No. He could not actually do everything his sister was asking, but he could put on a danm good act. He would go to the Navaho and offer apologies. Perhaps, this would also give him the freedom to be with Pure Blossom for a while longer.
Then, after Damon performed his role in framing the Navaho, there would be no one who could cast any of the blame on Adam. In the end, Damon would be the one who would be swinging from a hangman’s noose.
Adam smiled cynically. His sister was no longer his trump card. Damon was. And Damon would have no idea that he was being tricked all the way to the gallows.
“I’ll go to the Navaho and apologize,” he said quickly. He drew her closer to him. “Pretty sister, does that make you happy?”
Stephanie was slow to respond. She studied his eyes, hoping to be able to see if he was sincere or not, but she had learned long ago that her brother was a master at disguising his true feelings. As before, she would just have to take him at his word and pray that things would be put right with the Navaho.
“You are serious, aren’t you?” she finally said.
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.” The lie slipped across his lips way more easily than he would have thought possible. “In fact, Stephanie, I’ll go first thing tomorrow. I’ll take council with Sage and Runner. You can go with me, if you wish.”
Stephanie laughed nervously and walked away from him. She went to her liquor cabinet and poured some wine in two long-stemmed glasses. “No. I think not. I’ll let you do your own apologizing. But let’s drink to your success,” she said, holding a glass out for Adam. “And to much happiness.”
Adam sauntered over and took the glass from her. “Yes, to much happiness,” he said, clinking his glass against hers. “Especially ours.”
They emptied their glasses and set them aside. “Adam, today, when you rode past me and Runner, without your shirt and boots on, where on earth had you been? And from whom were you escaping?” she asked.
Adam absently raked his fingers through his hair. “Sis, it’s obvious that you are in love with Runner,” he said. “I’ve fallen in love with his sister, Pure Blossom. I had spent the night with her in her hogan. Sage found me there. He ordered me from the village. I have never been so humiliated.”
“You . . . and . . . Pure Blossom?” Stephanie said, stunned. “You slept with her? And . . . you . . . were chased from the village?”
Adam nodded.
“You just told me that you were going to go to the Navaho village and offer apologies and friendship,” Stephanie said solemnly. “How on earth can you do that, especially in light of what you have just told me?”
“Sis, that’s exactly why it is so important to go there,” he said softly. “Not only for you and me, but for Pure Blossom. I don’t think I can live without her.”
“Incredible,” Stephanie said, her eyes wide.
“Magnificent,” Adam teased back, then took her into his arms and swung her around, laughing happily.
Runner arrived back at his hogan just as the sky was brightening into soft pinks along the eastern horizon. Exhausted, he slung himself across his bed and fell instantly asleep. In what seemed only a few short minutes, a hand on his shoulder awakened him with a start.
When he found his father standing over him, his arms folded angrily across his chest, he sat up quickly.
“What is it, Father?” he asked, smoothing his hair back from his eyes.
“You have been gone a day and a night,” Sage said, eyeing Runner suspiciously. “What has taken you so long from your people?”
Runner rose to his feet and eluded his father’s eyes by going and stacking some fresh firewood into his fireplace. “I am sure that you have already guessed why,” he said, watching the flames take hold. “But I will tell you anyway, since you have asked. I was with the white woman.”
“After my warnings, you still go to her,” Sage said, disappointment in his tone. “She means that much to you?”
Runner looked up at his father, then slowly rose to his full height. “Yes, she means everything to me,” he said smoothly.
“Where did you go with her that took so long?”
“I took her and her camera many places.”
“You know the evil of the camera, yet you still gave the white woman assistance?”
“I understand your feelings, Father. I led her to locations of less value to our people, where there were no sacred meanings. I kept her interest away from our people while doing this.”
Sage kneaded his chin. “Yes, I see that what you did was, indeed, clever,” he said. Then he stepped closer to Runner. “You did this for the People. But also you did it for yourself.”
“That is so,” Runner said, nodding. “She has filled my life with something special. Father, I cannot help but love her.”
“I told you more than once why you should not allow this to happen,” Sage said, shaking his head slowly. “But my words fell on deaf ears.”
“I am sorry that you cannot accept the side of me that is drawn to this white woman,” Runner said, going to embrace his father. “Father, inside, where my heart beats soundly, it beats as a Navaho, instead of white. So will it be until the day I leave this earth to walk that long path in the Hereafter. Loving a white woman will not change that, ever.”
Sage patted his son’s back, then eased away from him.
“Many of our horses were stolen while you were gone,” Sage said, his eyes dark. “As you know, I have always spoken out against horse stealing. I have always urged our braves to remember that by treaties we made promises: no fighting, no raiding. If the People need something, do not steal, instead trade. But Damon Stout has caused me to go back on my teachings. We must steal back that which is ours.”
The thought of such a raid against Damon Stout filled Runner’s veins with excitement. He had waited a long time for his father to decide to retaliate against the wrong that was being done them at the hands of the white rancher.
“When do we go?” he asked, his eyes dancing.
“We will wait for some time, until Damon and his men are off their guard. At least a week,” Sage said. “We will leave under the cover of darkness. We will take as many horses from Damon as have been taken from us.”
There was a sudden commotion outside the hogan. There were many loud, angry shouts. Sage and Runner exchanged looks, then left the building in a rush.
Just as they stepped outside, they saw Adam. He was being half dragged between two Navaho braves, his eyes flashing angrily as he tried to pull himself free.
Sage turned cold when he saw Adam again, recalling how Adam had been in Pure Blossom’s hogan as though he belonged there. It had sickened him then; it repelled him now.
When Runner saw Adam being treated in such a way, he was stunned speechless. He did not want Adam in the village any more than anyone else, but it did seem that this was going a bit too far.
He stepped forward. “Let him go,” he said, finding it strange to defend this man whom he now considered an enemy. “Why are you treating him this way?”
“I forbid Adam ever to enter our village again,” Sage said, stepping up beside Runner. “And it is not because of what he is proposing to do on Navaho land. It is because of your sister, Runner. He shamed Pure Blossom by taking her to her bed.”
Runner paled and turned to face his father. “What are you saying?” he managed out in a gasp.
Pure Blossom stepped forward, her exquisitely long hair blowing in the gentle breeze.
“He went to my bed at my invitation,” she boldly announced, lifting her chin when everyone grew silent and stared at her.
“When he was discovered there, I sent him away,” Sage
mumbled.
Runner recalled seeing Adam on his horse without his boots and shirt. Now he understood why.
He turned to Adam, scowling. “You do this to my sister?” he snarled. “For your own selfish gains you do this?” He slapped Adam across the face, the snapping sound like a vast echo across the land.
Adam turned with the blow, then he stroked the stinging flesh of his cheek as he frowned over at Runner. “If anyone else did that, I would challenge him to a duel,” he said, his voice cold and angry. “As it is you, I shall pass on the suggestion. I have come to apologize, not to fight.”
“Apologize?” Sage said, raising an eyebrow.
“You do not know the meaning of the word,” Runner said from between clenched teeth.
“Please hear him out,” Pure Blossom begged, grabbing her father’s arm. “Please?”
Sage stared down at his daughter for a moment, then drew her against his side. “Speak your mind,” he said, glaring at Adam.
“I did not come to Arizona to make enemies with those of my past for whom I have always felt a fondness,” Adam said, stepping away from the braves as they let go of him. “Please accept my apologies for anything I may have done to cause hard feelings,” he said, his voice drawn.
“Are you saying you will rip up the tracks that are laid farther than Gallup?” Sage tested, his eyes wary.
“I can’t promise you that,” Adam said guardedly. “That, and my proposed town, is still in my plans. But nothing more. I am not asking for more land than the United States Government has already agreed upon. I hope that you will see there will be no harm done your people by that little that I have planned.”
There was a strained silence. Adam looked over at Runner. “Runner, please accept me again as a friend.”
Sage and Runner gave each other wary looks, then Sage nodded. “I understand that there is nothing I can do to stop the progress that the white father of this country approves of,” he said. “But there is one thing I can do.”
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