“I doubt that I could ever give up my firearm,” Stephanie said. “It seems to be a part of me, as though it were a third hand.”
They laughed and rode away, then grew solemn as they drew close to Fort Defiance. When they arrived, it was just in time to see Adam being taken toward a wagon, guards on each side, in a long line.
Word had spread that Adam was going to be taken away today, which had drawn a crowd of people, some Indians, some white settlers. They crowded around the soldiers, gawking and whispering and pointing as Adam was led roughly onward, the wagon now only a few feet away.
Stephanie and Runner dismounted and elbowed their way through the crowd and stopped only a few feet away from Adam. When he turned and his eyes locked with Stephanie’s, memories of her past with him once again flooded her. She fought back tears, not wanting him to see that she still held some feelings for him deep within her soul.
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when a woman carrying a baby broke away from the crowd and rushed toward Adam. With a keen puzzlement in her eyes, Stephanie watched the lady holding the child out for Adam, screaming something in a Mexican dialect at him, which Stephanie could not understand.
When the brisk breeze of morning swept the blanket away from the child’s face and Stephanie recognized Jimmy, Sharon’s child, she emitted a sigh of relief that the child was alive, yet her eyes widened with wonder as the lady tried to push Jimmy into Adam’s arms.
It was impossible for Adam to take the child: his wrists were handcuffed behind him. And Stephanie could tell that seeing Jimmy caused him anguish. His eyes wavered as he stared over at Jimmy, then at Stephanie.
“Stephanie,” he cried out. “Get the child from this woman. Raise him as your own. Jimmy is my child. Please . . . please . . . watch over him.”
Knowing what this confession meant, that not only was he Jimmy’s father, but that Adam had to be responsible for Sharon’s death, caused Stephanie to feel suddenly faint.
Runner slung an arm around her waist and steadied her.
The woman followed the direction of Adam’s eyes and soon discovered who he was shouting at. She rushed to Stephanie and thrust Jimmy into her arms, then began speaking in broken English to her.
“When Adam brought Jimmy to me, to feed from my breasts, and paid me a good amount of money to mother the child until he was ready to return to Wichita, by train, I agreed,” the woman cried. “But today I was told that he would be taken to the jail in Gallup. That means he would not come and get Jimmy soon. I cannot continue feeding and caring for his child forever. The money he paid me has ran out. Si? Do you understand?”
Stephanie’s head was spinning, finding all of this too hard to comprehend and accept. She gazed down at Jimmy, whose eyes were looking trustingly up at her, and in them she saw Sharon, and what she and Runner had promised the unfortunate woman.
Everything had changed when Sharon had been murdered, the child stolen from her arms.
Stephanie looked slowly up at Adam. When their eyes locked, she saw a soft pleading in his, but most of all, she was seeing the eyes of a killer. She held Jimmy closer to her bosom. She would take Adam’s child and raise him as though she were his mother. But not for her brother: for Sharon.
“Stephanie?” Adam shouted as he was dragged onward, the wagon only a few feet away. “Will you, Stephanie? Will you be sure that Jimmy is cared for? I would have taken him from Sharon sooner, and seen to it that he had a clean, fine home. But I never knew about the child! Not until only recently! She was wicked to the core, Stephanie! She deserved to die!”
A sob lodged in Stephanie’s throat. She turned her eyes away from Adam, then grew cold inside when she saw someone rushing through the crowd, toward Adam, a pistol drawn from his holster. Although the man wore a hat low over his eyes, to disguise his identity, she knew who it must be: Damon Stout!
He was hell-bent on killing Adam. He had surely also found out who was responsible for his sister’s death.
Just as Damon got a steady aim, the wind whipped the hat from his head, revealing his identity to the soldiers. People scrambled as the soldiers turned their rifles on Damon and shot him.
But they did not shoot him quickly enough. He had already fired off one shot, which was enough to send Adam sprawling to the ground, a mortal gunshot wound in his chest.
Stephanie handed Jimmy to Runner. Sobbing, she pushed her way through the stunned crowd and fell to her knees beside Adam. Forgetting why she should hate him, she lifted his head and cradled it in her lap.
“Why, Adam?” she sobbed. “How did you change so much that your life should end in such a violent, tragic way?”
“Sis, I wanted too much,” Adam said, coughing as blood streamed from his chest and mouth. He clutched one of Stephanie’s hands. “My biggest regret is disappointing you. Can . . . you . . . forgive me?”
“Adam, what about your mother?” Stephanie cried, purposely eluding his plea of forgiveness, for she was not sure if she ever could. “Didn’t you think of Sally at all?”
“My mother never truly cared for me,” Adam said, his voice growing weaker. “She only cared for herself, and making sure she had a husband to keep her in her silken fineries. You are too fine a person to see my mother’s imperfections.”
“There was also Sharon,” Stephanie said. “Why did you have to kill her? You did kill her, didn’t you, Adam?”
“You saw how she lived? In squalor. Had I known about the child, I would have taken him from her long ago.”
“But killing her?” Stephanie persisted. “Why did you feel that to be necessary?”
“I did not want her for a wife, but I wanted my child.” He paused and coughed.
“I never thought that I would ever be connected with the killing,” he continued, then smiled clumsily up at her. “And I wouldn’t have been, had Maria Gonzalez not come today and shown Jimmy to everyone.”
“You would have kept silent about your child?” Stephanie said, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I would have never known?”
“I was going to wait and see how the trial turned out,” he said, clutching hard to her hand as he now fought for each breath. His eyes closed, yet he continued speaking. “If I was to be hanged, my lawyer would have opened a letter stating that the child should be brought to you. Had I been set free, I would have gone for my child and no one would have been the wiser. Maria. Damn Maria. Because of her, Damon even found out somehow that I killed his sister.”
“Because of her, though, Adam, I now have Jimmy,” Stephanie said softly. “Had she not come today, and Damon still shot and killed you, how would she have ever known to bring Jimmy to me to raise?”
When Adam didn’t respond, Stephanie stiffened. She stared down at him, scarcely breathing. “Adam?” she said, then shouted, “Adam! No, Adam. Oh, God, no.”
She leaned over and placed her cheek next to his, sobbing. “Oh, Adam,” she whispered. “No matter what you did, I still love you. Please hear me say that I still love you.”
A firm hand on her shoulder made Stephanie flinch. When she looked up, and through her tears saw that it was Runner, she nodded and turned one last time to Adam and let her gaze travel over his face, then slipped away from him and stood.
“It is best that he is gone,” Runner said, his voice drawn. “He was wandering down the wrong road of life. He had already traveled that road too far to find his way back.”
“I know,” Stephanie said, wiping tears from her face. Gently, she took Jimmy into her arms and made sure the blanket was tucked snugly around him.
Colonel Utley came to her and stood over Adam. “Do you want to see to his burial, or do you want to ship him back to Wichita?” he said gruffly, giving Stephanie a quick glance.
“If you will, send someone to stop the train that Adam arrived in,” Stephanie said shallowly. “Take Adam to his private car. Send him back to his mother that way.”
“It’s as good as done,” Colonel Utley said, stooping to inspect the wound on A
dam’s chest.
“Let’s get away from this place,” Stephanie said, looking up at Runner through bloodshot, tear-swollen eyes. “Take me and Jimmy home, darling.”
“We are not yet married and we already have a son,” Runner said, chuckling as they walked together to their horses. Once there, Runner held Jimmy while Stephanie mounted her horse, then he handed the child to her.
“We shall make the child the best of parents,” Stephanie said, snuggling Jimmy close to her bosom in the crook of her left arm.
“It will not be hard to find someone among our Navaho mothers to lend a milk-filled breast to Jimmy until he is weaned,” Runner said, swinging himself into his saddle.
As they rode away from the throng of people, Stephanie forced herself not to look at Damon as he was being carried away. Nor did she take a last look at her stepbrother; she had already said her last, solemn good-bye.
Her eyes widened when she remembered someone else that had to be told the news about Adam: Pure Blossom. And Pure Blossom had not yet gotten the courage to tell Gray Moon about the child that she was carrying inside her womb, much less about the man who had planted his seed inside her.
“How do you think Pure Blossom will react to Adam’s death?” Stephanie asked as she gazed over at Runner, the fort now left far behind them.
“It is time that Pure Blossom faces up to many things,” Runner said, scowling. “By sunset tonight, Gray Moon will know all the truths about my sister. If Pure Blossom does not have the courage to tell him, then her brother will.”
They rode in a slow trot so that Stephanie would have no trouble holding the child safely in her arms. And when they arrived at the village and their horses were let loose inside the corral, they went together to Pure Blossom’s hogan. Runner had decided that Pure Blossom would be the first to be told about Adam’s death, and about Adam having fathered another child.
Gray Moon was sitting dutifully at Pure Blossom’s bedside. She was resting comfortably in a sitting position, her back against a cushion. She was laughing playfully with Gray Moon until Runner and Stephanie entered. She could not help but wonder about the child Stephanie was carrying.
Runner and Stephanie went on the opposite side of the bed from where Gray Moon was sitting. They knelt down on their knees beside the bed. With trembling fingers, Stephanie drew a corner of the blanket away from Jimmy’s face, so that Pure Blossom could get a good view of it.
“The child?” Pure Blossom said, leaning closer to take a better look. “Why did you bring this child into Pure Blossom’s hogan? Whose child is it?”
“Adam’s,” Runner blurted, knowing that perhaps what he was doing was cruel, but quite necessary. “The child is Adam’s. The child’s mother and Adam are dead. Stephanie and I will raise Jimmy as our own.”
Pure Blossom paled and grabbed at her throat, her eyes wild and wide. “Adam . . . is . . . dead?” she gasped. “And you say . . . this . . . child is his?”
Runner began explaining gently what he could about what had happened to Adam, and how the child happened to be involved.
He then turned to Gray Moon and gave him a silent look, and then turned back to his sister. “I have told you much today,” he said. “Now, my sister, do you not think that it is time for you to tell Gray Moon what he does not yet know?”
Pure Blossom raised a hand to her eyes and smoothed tears from their corners. She looked sheepishly over at Gray Moon. He had been far too quiet while Runner had been talking about Adam and the child. He had grown even more quiet when he had seen her reaction to everything that Runner had told her. This man who was so gentle and caring was soon to know the truth that might send him away from Pure Blossom, yet she knew that it was only fair to him that he knew.
She realized that he should have known even before now. If he could not accept the child she was carrying, it would be harder now for him to forget this camaraderie—this bond—that had been magically spinning between them since Gray Moon had saved her life and had revealed his hidden feelings for her.
Looking lovingly at him, Pure Blossom reached for one of Gray Moon’s hands and placed it on her abdomen.
“Gray Moon, beneath your hand grows a child within my womb,” Pure Blossom said, her voice soft and guarded. “The father was Adam. The man who died today. The man who planted his seed in another woman’s belly, whose child is even now held within Stephanie’s arms. I was foolish in who I shared my love with. But now my love is not foolish. I love you. Can you still love me even though I carry another man’s child within my womb?”
There was a strained, hushed silence as everyone waited for Gray Moon’s response.
Tears came to Stephanie’s eyes when Gray Moon finally gave his answer. He took Pure Blossom into his arms and held her close, his one hand caressing her stomach.
“My love for you is not that easily destroyed,” he said thickly. “When I fell in love with you, it was not measured in who you loved before me, or who you might have slept with. Not even the child makes any difference. My love for you is sincere and deep enough to include the child. We will be married soon.”
Stephanie and Runner rose quietly to their feet and crept to the door and left.
“And all is blessed today,” Runner said, smiling down at Stephanie.
She smiled up at him and nodded. “It does seem so,” she murmured.
Chapter 34
And on that long-remembered morning
When first I lost this heart of mine,
Fame, all I’d hoped for,
And love and hope lived wholly thine.
—JOHN CLARE
Several days later
It was now the fourth day of the “Chant Way Ceremony.” This ceremony had involved the creation of several sand paintings selected from the dozens used in the Chant Ways.
These paintings had been made primarily of colored sandstone ground into a fine powder. The “singer” and his assistants had trickled the pigments onto a bed of fresh sand on the floor of Runner’s hogan. Since Runner had asked for the ceremony, he had sat on the paintings, bearing a gift of cornmeal, facing east, the direction from which all Navaho blessings came.
Attracted by the ceremony, supernatural powers had entered the paintings and had made it their home, blessing Runner and his people for a long and happy life.
The “Blessingway” had been used to bless two new marriages—Runner and Stephanie’s, and Gray Moon and Pure Blossom’s. In these sand paintings, the Holy People had been painted in pairs, standing on rainbows, their means of transportation.
The delicate balance between the good and evil powers in the Navaho universe having been restored, the celebration drawn to a close, Stephanie and Runner lay naked in front of the fireplace on the exact spot where the sand paintings had been drawn and eventually taken away.
“The last several days were exhausting, but lovely,” Stephanie said, molding her body against Runner’s. The fire before them had burned low and sent off a pleasant glow into the hogan. The blankets and sheepskins were warm beneath them. “My happiness is shameful, my darling.”
“Our happiness has only just begun,” Runner said. He smoothed a fallen lock of hair back from Stephanie’s brow and bent to kiss her cheek.
Runner rolled Stephanie beneath him and enfolded her within his solid strength. A delicious shiver of wild desire quavered across Stephanie’s flesh as he reverently breathed her name against her lips in a soft whisper, then his mouth seized hers in an all-consuming kiss.
Her breath quickened when she felt him enter her with one quick thrust, magnificently filling her, his hands moving wildly over her slim, sensuous body.
Runner’s thrusts stoked fires within her that were spreading. When his hands moved to her breasts and began making maddeningly designed circles around her nipples, she moaned, the curl of heat growing in her lower body.
Runner pulled his lips away for a moment and gazed down at her, and Stephanie could see that his eyes were glazed and drugged with desire.
>
She closed her eyes and threw her head back as his mouth went to the slender, curving length of her throat and licked her flesh. She shuddered with building ecstasy as his tongue slithered downward and flicked across first one nipple and then the other. His warm breath stirred shivers along her flesh as he pulled away from her and knelt over, kissing his way across her abdomen, and then below.
Stephanie sucked in a wild breath, and stifled a cry of pleasure when Runner’s tongue found her pulsing center of desire. Her insides tightened and grew warm as his tongue parted her pouting lovelips, then titillated her spot. His mouth was warm and moist, his tongue swirled gloriously.
Intense pleasure bubbled over inside Stephanie as Runner started kissing his way back up her body.
Curling shadows spread within her as he gave her another heated kiss and pressed himself once again into her softly yielding folds. She locked her legs around his body and molded herself against him as his lean and sinewy buttocks moved in rhythm.
Silvery flames licked their way through Runner’s veins as he was overcome with a feverish heat of wild desire. His steely arms enfolded her and drew her closer into his embrace. The euphoria that filled his entire being was almost more than he could bear. He buried his face between her breasts and groaned as tremors surged through his body. He held her as though in a vise as he felt her own body quake with release.
Then they rolled apart, their hands still entwined. “It’s hard for me to remember ever living anywhere but here, with you, darling,” Stephanie said breathlessly. “It seems all so natural. So right.”
“And why should it not?” Runner said, leaning up on an elbow so that he could get a better look of her exquisite face. “You are now my wife. It is my duty, as your husband, to make you forget your past life, and those in that life who caused you pain.”
Wild Desire Page 31
