A slow rage was building within Runner. He forced himself not to react to Adam’s words, for he knew that once he unleashed his feelings, Adam would have more than a black eye and possible loose tooth to rave on about.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Adam taunted, his voice building in strength. “Runner, you don’t think like a white man. You haven’t since you joined forces with the Navaho. And you’re not even a shifty, sneakin’ half-breed. You’re white. Why can’t you act like it?”
Runner’s lips moved in a wry, bitter smile. But still he said nothing. He decided to walk away from Adam. He had seen and heard enough to know that the past was just that.
Gone. Forgotten. Dead.
He could not see anything in Adam that even resembled the young boy of so long ago.
This was the last time that Runner would try to make a measure of peace with Adam. It was impossible. Adam was no better than Damon Stout. They belonged together.
“You are walking away from me?” Adam shouted, stamping toward Runner. “How dare you! I’m not through talking to you. You lousy Indian lover. And you’d better prepare yourself into accepting that Stephanie won’t be seein’ you again. You stupid fool. You don’t even know when you’ve been suckered. Stephanie bedded up with you only to use you. She doesn’t love you. She has pretended, but only to help me achieve my goals. How’s that for a sister’s loyalty?”
A grave shadow came over Runner’s face. He turned a livid gaze and cold eyes to Adam.
Adam started laughing so hard that he didn’t know what hit him when Runner clobbered him in the mouth with a fist. Runner hit Adam over and over again. Their struggling bodies thudded to the ground.
Adam reached begging hands up to Runner. “Stop,” he said, his voice filled with pain, blood drooling from his mouth and lips.
Runner fell over Adam and straddled him. He held Adam’s wrists to the ground. “Tell me the truth,” he said from between clenched teeth. “Tell me that you lied about Stephanie.”
His eyes almost swollen closed, Adam rolled his head back and forth. “I . . . didn’t . . . lie,” he said, scarcely audible, the lie there so easy since his hate and resentment for Runner now ran so deep.
Runner stared down at Adam for a moment longer, then rose limply to his feet. He left Adam all bloodied up in the road and staggered away, his heart bleeding. He had totally trusted a woman who in truth had only used him. He was not sure if he could live with the knowledge.
His eyes dark and somber with thought, he rode tiredly out of Gallup.
Stephanie fell onto her knees beside the mound of freshly turned dirt. She had picked flowers from some cactuses. “What can I say?” she whispered, laying the flowers on Sharon’s grave. “I only knew you a short while, yet my grieving is no less than had I known you a lifetime.” She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of a hand. “It is all so tragic. How could it have been allowed to happen?”
She rearranged the flowers. “I’m so sorry about Jimmy,” she whispered. “I promise that I will never forget him. Perhaps our paths will cross again some day. If they do, I shall tell him about a mother who died valiantly for her son.”
The sound of footsteps drawing close caused Stephanie’s heart to leap. She turned quick eyes around and bolted to her feet when she found Damon Stout there, his eyes gaunt as he stared down at the grave.
“You’re mighty kind to see to her in this way,” Damon said, his voice breaking. “It was my responsibility. But I let her down long ago.”
“Get away from here,” Stephanie said, walking over to him. “Your sister wouldn’t want you near her grave. I shan’t allow it.”
“I’m goin’,” Damon said, looking sheepishly at the ground. Then he looked quickly up at Stephanie. “But I want you to know that I never wanted this for my sister.”
“It’s a bit late to be thinking that, wouldn’t you say?” Stephanie said bitterly, placing her hands on her hips.
“You don’t know the whole story,” Damon said, his eyes trying to meet Stephanie’s.
“I know enough,” Stephanie said. She nodded toward Damon’s horse, which he had left tethered down below. “Now go. I can’t allow you to contaminate your sister’s grave.”
“She was no angel before I turned her out of the house,” Damon insisted. “She was a thief for as long as I can remember. “When she was eight, she was caught stealin’ from a neighbor’s house. She just went in and helped herself to the neighbor’s expensive, fancy jewelry. When she came and lived with me after our parents died out East, she began stealin’ me blind. I had no choice but to send her packin’. It’s cost three quarters of my life buildin’ up enough money for me to have a ranch. I wasn’t goin’ to allow my sister to ruin it all.”
Stephanie listened raptly. She was finding herself sympathizing with Damon. The story that he was telling didn’t sound practiced enough not to be true. She doubted he ever opened up his life, or his heart, to anyone.
She glanced down at the grave, realizing that she didn’t know the woman for whom she was grieving. But no matter what Sharon had done while she was alive, she didn’t deserve to die such a violent death or be forced to live the life she had been living. Especially since she had a child to care for.
“I wish to hell things could’ve been different,” Damon said, shuffling past Stephanie. He went and fell to his knees beside the grave.
She was struck speechless when Damon stretched his arms over the grave, as though he was trying to embrace it, and began crying in body-wracking sobs.
Feeling as though she was disturbing a most private, intimate time in this man’s life, and seeing that his grief was genuine, Stephanie tiptoed away, then ran to her horse and stepped up into the saddle.
Confused and feeling empty inside, she turned her horse in the direction of the train hoping to find some sort of solace in her private car.
She looked over her shoulder at the “Big Tent” that she was leaving behind in Gallup. A part of her wanted to wheel her horse around and go and ask Runner to go home with her. The part of her that saw the need for Adam and Runner to become friends again caused her to ride faster away from Gallup.
Her hair flew in the wind as she leveled her eyes straight ahead.
Chapter 22
Loved you when summer deepened into June
And those fair, wild, ideal dreams of youth,
Were true yet dangerous, and half unreal
As when Endymion kissed the mateless moon.
—V. SACKVILLE-WEST
Adam grunted and groaned as he rode toward a hidden cove where he and Pure Blossom had planned a rendezvous. Not wanting Stephanie to see him before he had the chance to wash some of the blood from his face, he had not gone to his private car before coming to meet with Pure Blossom.
He also did not have the strength to go both places. He hoped to revive himself somewhat in the river that snaked beside the cove. It would be cold enough to shake anyone out of a stupor, even if it was caused by a beating.
“I’ll get even with him if it’s the last thing I do,” Adam growled out in a whisper. “He may think he’s got the upper hand now. Wait until I get through with him. He won’t know what hit him.”
He smiled ruefully to himself. He wanted to retain in his memory forever that look on Runner’s face when he had been told that Stephanie had been leading him on—that she didn’t truly love him, only playing him for a fool for her beloved brother.
His smile faded when he thought about Stephanie’s reaction. She might hate him forever. But it had been a risk worth taking. No matter what she said to Runner, in her denial of what Adam had said about her motives, it wouldn’t be all that easy for Runner to believe her, or trust her again.
He leaned low over his horse and gripped its mane. He was dizzy from the pain. His whole damn face and head seemed to be one massive throbbing. He could scarcely see through his swollen eyes. The cold river water might give him a quick reprieve.
Breathing hard, A
dam traveled onward, the horse moving at only a half trot. “How much farther?” he wondered to himself.
It seemed to him that he had been traveling an eternity. When they had chosen the rendezvous location, they had chosen a place that was between their two homes. Now he wished that he had made her come farther, which would make him not have to suffer so long, himself. Yet he had never in his wildest dreams thought that he would be in this condition.
“Damn him,” he uttered again. “Damn that son-of-a-bitch White Indian.”
Finally he saw the shine of water ahead. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, teetering as he tried to sit tall and erect in his saddle before he reached Pure Blossom.
He squinted his eyes and saw the shine of a campfire up ahead. He was almost there.
The woman who set his heart into a tailspin of rapture was waiting for him. She would have the blankets spread for their lovemaking. He hoped that he wouldn’t disappoint her too much when she discovered that he was in no shape to make love with her tonight.
He felt lucky to be alive.
He would never forget the wild look in Runner’s eyes when he had been pummeling him with his fists. It revealed to Adam that Runner surely was as close to hate as a man could get before he killed someone.
Beneath the soft rays of the moon’s light, Adam could make out a figure running toward him. He melted inside at the thought of being with Pure Blossom again. It was certain that she could make an honest man out of even the worst outlaw. The love she gave a man was born of innocence and sweetness.
A thought grabbed at him that made his shoulders sway with alarm: Runner. Runner would forbid Pure Blossom ever to see him again. Adam knew that Pure Blossom would know who was responsible for the fight after Runner talked to her.
He lowered his eyes, his chest tight, knowing that tonight would be the last night with Pure Blossom. Even if Runner didn’t order Pure Blossom not to see Adam again, he knew that it could never work out for them. It was better to cut it off now rather than later. It would be easier on both of them.
“Adam!” Pure Blossom shouted as she ran toward him. She waved her arms over her head in a greeting. “Darling. Yaa-eh-t-eeh. I did not think you were coming! What took so long? Were you and Runner having too good a time to leave one another? I would think that is wonderful, Adam. I so badly want you and my brother to be friends.”
Adam’s heart sank. He had forgotten that he had told Pure Blossom he was going to meet with Runner today. Now he would have no choice but to tell her the truth, or come up quickly with a clever lie.
The lie would at least get him through the awkward evening. He would leave the dirty work to Runner.
Adam wheeled his horse to a halt when Pure Blossom reached him. The moment she got a good look at him beneath the splash of the moon’s glow she saw his battered face.
Although his knees were weak, and he knew they would just scarcely hold him up, Adam slid from the saddle and reached his arms out for Pure Blossom, who looked as though she might faint.
She gave no thought to leaning her cheek against his bloody shirt. His embrace was all that she wanted. She twined her arms around his chest and hugged him to her.
“You have been beaten severely,” she murmured, her voice breaking. She clung to him. “How did it happen? Who did this to you?”
Adam stiffened. When she leaned away from him and gazed into his swollen eyes, he reached a hand to her silkenly smooth copper cheek. “I got in a fight at the ‘Big Tent,’ he said, shrugging. “That’s all.”
“My brother?” Pure Blossom asked softly. “Did you fight with my brother?”
Adam’s eyes wavered. He felt the coil of deceit tightening in his chest, then loosening the more she gazed so wide-eyed and innocently up at him.
He knew that he could not lie to her. Not now, or ever.
“Yes,” he said thickly. “It was your brother. We got into a fight.”
Pure Blossom heaved a heavy, weary sigh. “I hoped for so much more,” she murmured. “But it will never be, will it, Adam? It is impossible for you and Runner to be friends again.”
“Never,” Adam said, wincing when she placed a gentle finger to one of his eyes.
“I did not know that my brother had so much hate locked within him,” Pure Blossom said, drawing her hand quickly away when she saw the pain that Adam felt. “But it dwells within many of the People’s hearts. White men—if they could only be as decent and sweet as you. My people would never have cause to hate again.”
The knot of deceit began tightening again inside Adam’s chest. He avoided her eyes as he took his horse’s reins in one hand, and one of her hands in the other, and walked slowly toward the river. Each step that he took pained him severely. He now felt that he might even have a broken rib.
Even the more reason to hate Runner, he thought bitterly to himself.
When they reached the campsite, where a fire burned warm and cozy just inside the cove, Adam tethered his horse to a low tree limb, then turned to Pure Blossom. “Help me undress,” he said, his voice drawn.
Pure Blossom gave him a shocked look. “But, Adam, surely you do not wish to make love in your condition,” she said. “And I understand. Tonight we will just sit by the fire. After I see to your wounds, I will sing to you.”
“That sounds very inviting,” Adam said. “But, Pure Blossom, still, help me undress.”
She smiled into his swollen eyes. “Whatever you want, I will do,” she said, her slim fingers moving to the buttons of his shirt.
When his shirt was tossed aside and Pure Blossom saw the bruises on Adam’s chest, she gasped anew. “Runner is someone I do not know,” she said, her voice drawn. “My own brother? How could he do this?”
“Darling Pure Blossom, don’t you know that I got in a few of my own blows?” Adam said, wanting to defend his virtue. “So don’t think so badly of Runner. We men all have our own degrees of anger we must sometimes act upon.”
After Adam was fully unclothed, he eyed the river, then Pure Blossom. “Will you go in the water with me?” he asked solemnly. “I doubt if I have the strength to bathe the blood from my body by myself.”
Pure Blossom’s eyes wavered as she glanced down at the river, realizing how cold the water must be and fearing it. Her joints already ached. If she was exposed to those colder temperatures, who was to say how much more severe the pain would get? Yet she knew that Adam’s pain needed to be tended to now. She must forget her own.
“Yes, I will go with you,” she murmured, already unfastening her colorful skirt.
Soon they walked hand in hand into the water. Pure Blossom shivered as the chill crept into her bones, yet she held onto Adam with one hand, while her other splashed and caressed and cleansed his face and body, until all that was left were the bruises that would take time to heal.
With her body so temptingly close in the water, and wanting her so bad, Adam’s blood was on fire with need. He circled her waist with his arms and drew her against his body. Hurting from head to toe, and covered in cold water, he did not see how it was possible, but he could feel his manhood growing against her thigh. It was throbbing more intensely than his battered face.
“Adam?” Pure Blossom whispered, kissing him gently. “Do you truly think we should? Would it not cause you too much pain?”
“The true pain is in wanting you,” Adam said, anchoring himself solidly against the rocky bottom in a more shallow part of the river. He lifted her so that he could impale her with his manhood. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him.
As he began thrusting into her, she held her head back, moaning. He closed his eyes to only one pain, which was being quenched as he stroked within her. He pushed . . . he clung . . . he groaned.
And then the rapture moved between them, as the web of pleasure ensnared them. Their moans, sobs, and soft cries of ecstasy filled the night air. In the distance an owl hooted hauntingly, as though responding.
Sheer exhaustion flooded Adam’s senses
. He walked with Pure Blossom from the water. He crumpled down onto the blanket and lay on his back, panting.
Pure Blossom lay a blanket over him and started dressing. Then she began to experience pain, as never before. Sharp, throbbing pains were shooting from her fingertips upward. The knot on her back felt as though it was on fire, radiating pain down her spine.
She tried to hold back the tears. But by the time she was dressed, she was suffering so much that nothing would stop the flooding of her eyes. She sat down beside the fire and drew a blanket around her shoulders. She sobbed. She rocked.
Adam’s eyes were wrenched open by the sound. He moved to her side and held her. “Why are you crying?” he said, his voice drawn.
“My fingers,” Pure Blossom whimpered, giving Adam a pitying look. “My back. They pain me so. The cold water. It is the cause.”
Guilt splashed through Adam. He cradled her close and ran his fingers through her long hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m the cause.”
His hand moved downward, and he flinched when he discovered just how large the lump was at the base of her neck.
Flashes of memory were going through his mind of another young woman, another time: Pure Blossom’s namesake. Her transformation from a beautiful young thing had turned her into something grotesque.
He was also recalling how much Pure Blossom had suffered with agonizing pain in her fingers and other joints.
That was how his Pure Blossom would look one day. It caused an ache to swim through him to think of this ugly transformation of this woman he adored.
But he had to face facts. He now knew that it would happen. He also knew that he wouldn’t be around to witness it. Tonight would be their last night to be together, to share . . . to love . . . to dream.
“I love you so, Adam,” Pure Blossom whispered as she clung and rocked with him. “You look past that which is ugly about me. You are filled with such compassion. Such understanding.”
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