Wild Desire

by Cassie Edwards

  “That, also, cannot be captured inside the walls of your camera,” Runner said firmly. “Spider Rock is the legendary home of Spider Woman, who, according to myth, taught weaving to the Navaho.”

  Feeling unnerved by Runner’s formal manner today, Stephanie fell into a stony silence.

  Then a glimmer of hope began to shine in her eyes. In a sense, he had played right into her hands today. Earlier, before he had arrived to escort her, she had sent one of the men who worked with the work gang ahead to Gallup with enough money to make arrangements for a one-night stay in one of Gallup’s finest hotels. She had hoped that she could somehow lure Runner there with her.

  Now she had the perfect plan. He had said no to her so often today he would surely find it hard to keep denying her everything. Hopefully he would feel guilty and agree when she asked him to accompany her to Gallup. Little would he know that she had a room waiting for them, for a wonderful, carefree night away from Adam and Runner’s family.

  The night would be theirs: alone.

  She could already feel the fizz of the champagne as she sipped from a long-stemmed glass. Runner would be in bed beside her on satin sheets, tipping his own glass of bubbly liquid to his perfectly sculpted lips.

  “Would you go with me to Gallup?” she said suddenly.

  Runner gave her a quizzical stare. “Gallup?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Why would you want to go to Gallup?”

  “Our travels today have taken us quite close to the town,” Stephanie said. “Please let’s go to the lunchroom on the second floor of the railway station at Gallup. I’m starved. We didn’t bring enough food to last us until we return to my car. Please, Runner? We would only be there for a short while. Only long enough to get a bite to eat.”

  Although she was not trying to fight Adam’s battles for him, Stephanie felt that it wouldn’t hurt for Runner to see the sort of establishments Adam would like to build in the town that he was planning. She wanted to show Runner how good and decent it was. She only hoped that his attention wouldn’t be drawn to the many saloons in Gallup.

  Runner rode awhile in silence as he thought through her suggestion. He had refused Stephanie many opportunities to photograph interesting sites today. How could he continue to say no to her?

  But he was ready to take her into Gallup for other reasons as well. That part of him that was white was making him momentarily stray from his Indian ideals and way of life. He had always tended to his business and had left Gallup as quickly as possible, mainly to keep from having confrontations with Damon Stout’s ranch hands who seemed to be everywhere at once. He would be glad to have an excuse to take his time, to be able to see more of the town and the ways of the white people. As a child, he had been in restaurants in various cities, but it was hard to recall. He had only been six the last time his mother had taken him to such a fancy establishment.

  “If you wish, we shall go there,” Runner finally said. When he looked her way and saw how happy his decision had made her, he was glad that he had decided to do as she asked.

  He could not deny the strange excitement that he was feeling himself, and just as quickly felt ashamed. He had devoted most of his childhood and all of his adult life to the ways of the Navaho. He should not hunger to be a part of the white man’s world. Yet, as his horse rode closer to Gallup, he could not find the strength within himself to turn back in the direction of his village.

  When they finally reached Gallup, long shadows were rippling over the land. Crude buildings littered both sides on the Santa Fe Railroad tracks, which separated the business district from the private homes. But all were weathered and wind-beaten.

  As they rode up the main street, where horsemen and horse-drawn buggies roamed in both directions, Stephanie and Runner looked on each side of them.

  Everything was dark except for the lantern lights, which flooded the boardwalks along the thoroughfare with their golden glows.

  The farther they rode, the brighter the lights became, as well as the noise that wafted from the saloons. Pianos clinked out loud and merry tunes. Boisterous laughter and loud swearing came through the swinging doors. The sound of glass breaking and fights erupting from more than one of the establishments made Stephanie grow increasingly nervous.

  She gave Runner a troubled glance. His eyes were filled with an angry fire. His jaw was tight.

  “We’re almost there,” she offered.

  She now realized that she had been wrong to bring Runner to this town. It was a poor example of what she had hoped to show him Adam’s town might be. When she had ridden through Gallup on the train that one time, where the tracks connected to the private spur, she had not paid much attention to it, except to look up at the lunchroom and remember Adam having said it was an excellent place to get a fine meal and glass of wine.

  She was disappointed when she realized there were no fancy emporiums or restaurants. And there was only one hotel.

  Thank God, she thought to herself. The hotel was the most decent-appearing establishment of all. At least she wouldn’t have to fight off cockroaches or rats as she sipped her champagne.

  Something else soon drew both Stephanie and Runner’s attention.

  “The Big Tent,” she whispered.

  It was a one hundred-by-forty foot canvas structure, with a wooden dance floor inside. The tent glowed from the light of fifty lanterns as well as candles placed in cut-glass holders. It was open round the clock, with full bands playing both night and day. Music blared from the tent even now, as well as laughter and merriment.

  Stephanie blushed when she caught sight of some of the bawdy women who were known to frequent the Big Tent. Scantily dressed, and with their faces gaudily painted, they were standing at the door of the tent waving and shouting at Runner as he rode on past.

  Finally they arrived at the railroad station. An idle engine was puffing black, sooty smoke from its stack, waiting as passengers loaded into the cars, to be taken to various parts of the country. Stephanie and Runner drew rein on the opposite side of the building, away from the tracks.

  As Stephanie slid from her saddle, she looked up at the windows overhead. Soft light flickered from them, inviting and peaceful. She was anxious to get Runner in the lunchroom, hoping that he would forget the ugliness of the town, soon taken by the pleasant hotel accommodations.

  Outside, stairs led up to the lunchroom at the back of the building. A strained silence had fallen between Stephanie and Runner as they climbed the steps. When they entered the room, where many candlelit tables were occupied by fancily dressed men and women, all eyes turned to Runner.

  Although he was of a white heritage, his skin was bronzed dark from the sun and wind, and his hair was black, sleek and long like the Navaho, held back by a brightly colored bandanna. Today he wore fringed clothes, making him look even more Indian. Prejudice against him being there emanated from the other diners as Stephanie took Runner by the arm and led him to a table.

  Runner could feel molten hot eyes on him. He surmised that those people who were staring at him knew by the way he was dressed that he was the “White Indian” everyone had heard rumors about.

  Stephanie was only now aware that Runner would not know the proper manners required for dining out. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? She hurriedly sat down without his assistance so that it would look like she was the one who was uneducated in proper etiquette.

  When Runner still stood there, stiff and quiet, she feared that he was going to change his mind and leave. Then he scooted his chair out and sat down, and she heaved a deep sigh of relief.

  “I’m sorry if I am the cause for you being uncomfortable,” she said, leaning over the table so that only he could hear her. “If you’d rather leave, I would understand.”

  “I have faced worse ridicule,” Runner said, his shoulders proudly squared. As the candle’s glow shone in flickering shadows on Stephanie’s face, everything and everyone but her was forgotten. She was ever so beautiful.

  His uneasi
ness returned when a waitress stepped up and asked to take their order. He looked around him and noticed that there were several young ladies who served as waitresses. They wore long black dresses, flowing white aprons, and hair bows.

  “The menu,” Stephanie whispered over at Runner. “You must choose what you want from the menu.”

  She knew that he had gone to school, enabling him to read. Yet as he picked up the menu and his eyes began to scan the entries, she could see that he was confused.

  “If you wish, I shall order for both of us,” Stephanie suggested softly.

  “I shall order for you and myself,” Runner said, surprising Stephanie.

  “That would be fine,” she said. She closed her menu, turned a soft smile up at the waitress and twined her fingers together on her lap, waiting.

  “There are varied meals to choose from,” Runner said, trying to recall the taste of those things that were familiar to him long ago. “There is halibut, chicken, roast veal, and spring lamb for seventy-five cents each. This will be served with a vegetable and sweets.”

  The waitress began to tap her fingers on the pad on which she was going to write the order. “Sir, please make up your mind,” she said in a whiney voice. “There are others waiting.”

  “Two roast veal,” Runner said, closing the menu.

  “And two glasses of red wine,” Stephanie quickly interjected.

  The waitress nodded and walked away.

  Runner’s lips parted in a light gasp. “I do not carry money with me,” he whispered across the table to Stephanie. “I have no means to pay for these things.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” Stephanie whispered back. “Just try and enjoy it.”

  “I would much rather eat in the privacy of my hogan,” Runner said. He looked uneasily from table to table, aware that wondering, angry eyes were still locked on him. “To these people I am almost an alien. Do they not know that I feel the same about them?”

  “Who cares what they think? Anyhow, we won’t be here for long,” Stephanie murmured. She paused and then added, “I guess you are seeing, firsthand, what you have missed by living with Indians. I see that you do not regret your decision at all.”

  “If not for you, I would walk away now and not look back,” Runner said stiffly. He ran a hand across the white Irish linen tablecloth and stared at the Sheffield silver plate on which his food was now being served. As a long-stemmed glass was set beside his plate of food, he watched the glow of the candle reflect deep within it, like the stars at night, sparkling down at him from the heavens.

  “If there is anything else you need, please ask for me,” the waitress said, doing a half curtsy. “My name is Bridgit.”

  “I think that will be all,” Stephanie said, smiling up at the waitress. “Oh, just a minute. Please leave the ticket. I doubt if we will be interested in dessert.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bridgit said. She took the ticket from her pocket and placed in on the table beside Runner.

  After the waitress was gone, Stephanie scooted her hand over and took the ticket, tucking it in a pocket of her riding skirt. In silence, they ate within the soft glow of the candle’s light.

  Stephanie was glad when they left the lunchroom. As she went down the stairs, she was trying to get the nerve to ask Runner to spend the night at the hotel with her. But that was thrust from her mind the minute she stepped outside. One look at her pack mule made her realize that someone had stolen not only her precious camera, but even the saddlebags in which she had kept all of her photography equipment. Even her tripod had been taken.

  “No,” she cried, rushing to her mule. “It’s all gone!” She turned to Runner. “While we were eating, someone took everything from my mule.”

  Anger swelled up inside her. She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m surprised they even left the mule and the horses,” she spat out.

  Runner went to the mule and began walking slowly around it, studying the tracks made in the dirt of the street.

  “Runner, what is it?” Stephanie asked, moving to his side.

  “We will follow the tracks,” he said. “We will find the one responsible for the theft.”

  Stephanie paled. She knew the danger of Runner getting involved with the theft. She had already seen how people felt about him being the “White Indian.” If he confronted a white man over her belongings, and the white man was injured in some way, the law would more than likely take the side of anyone but Runner. In their eyes, he was Indian, through and through. They would take great delight in treating him no better than an Indian.

  “That’s not necessary,” she blurted. “Let it be. I have other cameras. I have more equipment.”

  Runner turned to her. “No one steals from my woman,” he said. “Especially not another woman. These tracks are made by a woman’s bare feet.”

  “A woman?” Stephanie gasped.

  “Come. We will find her.”

  She smiled weakly up at him. She knew that it would be a waste of breath if she tried to argue further. It was ironic how he would place himself in danger to get her camera back, when deep inside he hated the sight of it. By doing this for her, he was proving the depths of his love for her.

  Grateful for such a love, tears of joy blurred her vision as she walked beside him, the moon lending enough light for them to continue following the trail.

  When they came to a run-down shack at the far edge of town, Stephanie’s heart began to race. But who could live there, she wondered, a foreboding knotting inside her. The place had an unkempt, deserted look. No smoke rose from the chimney. The silence was broken by the wails of an infant coming from within the hut, wafting from a door over which hung only a sparse covering of buckskin.

  Stephanie gave Runner a questioning look, then her heart leapt as Runner brushed aside the buckskin at the door and stepped inside the shack.

  She placed her hands at her throat, afraid that gunfire might ensue. Instead, the only sounds that emanated from the building were the continuing cries from the child.

  And then Runner emerged again, carrying the child. Stephanie’s fears melted when a rosy little nose and bright, blue eyes peaked out from a blanket made of a soiled, limp gunnysack.

  Stephanie looked at the child a moment longer, then stepped past Runner through the low doorway. When she entered the shack and peered about in the windowless gloom, she discovered not only her camera equipment, but also a woman who was just coming out of hiding.

  “My child,” the woman said, her voice filled with panic. Her dark eyes seemed to take up all of her face. “Tell the man to give me back my child.”

  Stephanie looked over the woman slowly. She felt sick at heart, wondering when the woman had last eaten. She was emaciated, the skin drawn tautly across the bones of her face. The dress that she wore was no more than two gunnysacks sewn together, with holes cut for the head and arms to go through.

  Her blond hair was a tangled mess and Stephanie could smell her unpleasant odor. It was so strong, it burned the inside of her nose, and all of the way down her throat.

  “You were hiding,” Stephanie said. “Runner didn’t see you. I’m sure that he took the child because he thought it had been abandoned.”

  “My baby is all I have left in the world,” the woman said, tears sliding down her wasted cheeks.

  “Where is your husband?” Stephanie asked, looking slowly around the drab, squalid hut. It reeked of all sorts of unpleasant odors. The furniture was sparse. The fireplace was empty and cold.

  “There’s no husband,” the woman said. She looked anxiously around Stephanie as Runner came back into the shack, rocking the child in his arms.

  “You are one of the street whores I have heard about,” Runner said, yet without condemnation. He had been forced to tolerate ridicule all of his life. He had none to cast upon anyone else, not even a woman who sold her body to countless men.

  “Before the child, I was,” the woman said. She held her arms out for her baby. “Please let me have him ba
ck. He’s hungry. I must feed him.”

  “How will you feed him?” Stephanie said. She shuddered as she watched roaches crawling in and out of discarded filth-laden dishes on the table.

  “My breast offers my child warm milk now, but for only a short while longer,” the woman said, eagerly taking the child as Runner lay him in her arms. “My milk is drying up. I am being forced to find ways to get food.” She glanced over at Stephanie’s equipment. “Even if I am forced to steal, I will still find ways to feed my child.”

  Stephanie followed the path of the woman’s troubled eyes. They stopped on her expensive equipment. Now she did not know what to do. If she took those things back, the woman would have to steal from someone else. If she was caught, she could be placed in jail, and then what would happen to the poor child?

  Still, Stephanie knew that even if she allowed the woman to keep her things, it would only give the woman enough money to last for a little while. She would then be forced to steal again, and again.

  “What is your name?” Stephanie asked. She edged over toward her camera equipment, still not sure what to do. On the one hand, she did not wish to encourage thievery. On the other, if she was in the same position as this woman, she might also be forced to steal.

  “Sharon,” the woman said, sitting down on a rickety chair to feed her child.

  “Are you originally from Gallup?” Stephanie said, bending down to pick up her camera. She heard the woman gasp. She looked over and saw her eyes widen.

  “No,” Sharon said, her voice low and guarded. She placed the child’s lips to her breast. “I came with my brother. We had a fuss. He threw me out. I became a showgirl at the saloons. I found out I could make more money taking men home with me.”

  “This home?” Stephanie said, gesturing with her free hand around her.

  “No. When things were good I lived in the hotel,” Sharon said. “Then I met this man. I fell in love with him. I quit hustlin’. But suddenly he was gone. The very day I was going to tell him I was with child, I found out that he had left town. I . . . I . . . didn’t want to hurt my child so I didn’t go back to whorin’ around. I went to my brother and asked him to take me in. He refused. I didn’t beg him. I didn’t even tell him about the baby. I found this place. I made it my home. And to hell with Damon. I’d die before I’d ask for his help again.”