Deep Purple

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Then, incredulously, she heard a faint clip-clop somewhere down the trail. Her heart began to beat in time to those unseen hooves, loudly there in the silence of the cabin. Her lips formed the word even before she saw the man astride the burro. “Taro!” she shouted and ran from the house across the footbridge to stand waiting in trembling anticipation.

  Taro dismounted and, leaving the burro to graze on the short croppings, came to stand before her. He put his hands on her shoulders; felt her quivering beneath his touch. “You are cold?”

  “No, Taro. I am warm inside. I am shaking because . . .” Could she match the honesty he had demonstrated? “Because I am so glad of your return. I've missed you very much.” The words sounded so stilted in her ears. That was not at all what she wanted to say.

  Taro nodded. He bent down, his arm slipping beneath her knees to lift her, cradling her slender body against his chest. “I have missed you, also, Lotus Woman. My thoughts have ever been of you. You have come to a decision?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, snuggling deeper in the warmth of his embrace. “I had made it before you ever left.”

  "Hai, this I know. But it was necessary you have this time alone.”

  He carried her across the footbridge into the house and laid her on the mat. But when he would have tarried, his hands tracing her curvatures, she took them between her own. “Taro,” she rasped, “I can't wait. My body has waited too long for yours.”

  An inarticulate gasp escaped his lips. His arms went around her, and she clung desperately, pressing herself against him as soft little sobs racked her body. He held her, and his own eyes filled with tears for her.

  Then they fell upon each other, the need to consummate the desire that had been building between them overriding all thought. They tore at each other's clothing, anxious to touch one another, to share their love and lust and loneliness. She arched to meet and accept the muscle-striated torso that plunged into her.

  Nothing she had seen or heard, either in the blunt discussions of the rancheria or the coarse descriptions in the Crystal Palace, had prepared her for the mind-shattering impact of the physical union with Taro. Wave upon wave of a pleasure too great to sustain inundated her. Even the small, initial pain had evolved into a pleasure.

  Her mind reeled with the sensual attack of her body’s senses, so that she was only half aware when Taro, still united with her, moved his head to one side to study her face, his own mirroring puzzled concentration. A frown marred the otherwise smoothly planed face. “You were a . . .” He paused, not knowing the equivalent to mizu. “You had not gone to the well," he murmured.

  “The well?” she echoed, confused.

  "Mizu means 'pumping the water out of the well,’ ” he explained. “It is used to mean when a girl . . . ,” he paused, obviously searching for the correct term, “is first initiated into the art of lovemaking.”

  The smallest of smiles curved hers lips in her contentment. “Was I a virgin?” she said. “It seemed a minor point.” Her forefinger traced the line of the lips that hovered above hers, then lifted to follow the sweep of one winged brow.

  His hand caught hers in midmovement. “Still, it is great shame that I carry," he said, and Jessie, hearing the anger in his voice, realized it was directed at himself.

  “Taro, Taro,” she said softly, “there is no shame. I wanted you. You have made me a woman now, a happy woman.”

  Those slanted eyes drilled into her as if to read her thoughts. At last there came only the slightest nod before his slender hands closed upon her shoulders and his fingers began their mastery of her. “It's only just beginning. Lotus Woman," he whispered in a husky voice. “It is your time now to soar on wings.”

  She was stunned. She had not known that a man was capable of renewing himself several times within the night. The clientele of the Crystal Palace's dance-hall girls climbed and descended the stairs in such a brief span of time that she had hardly imagined anything beyond the simple, brief act of animal copulation.

  And she had not known that the word “pleasure” in regard to the sexual act had actual meaning to the woman.

  Yet throughout the night Taro brought her to a feverish pitch, playing her body as finely as a mandolin's strings, so that she quivered at his merest touch, fearing that she would snap if relief was long denied her. But his lovemaking, a part of techniques perfected over thousands of years, allowed her only moments of the splendid sensations to be followed by weak contentment before he brought her to the heights once more.

  Low animal whimpers of delight danced on her delirious lips when his fingers exerted the slightest pressure on her body’s intimate spots. “No more,” she begged, yet still she opened herself up to his lovemaking, the ultimate in the art of love.

  Even with the first shafts of dawn he was not finished with her but scooped up her limp body to place her in the tub of warm water he had moments before prepared. Her face, arms, and thighs were bathed with the tenderest care before he toweled her briskly, her skin shining with the attention, and laid her on her mat.

  Her fingers entwined in his when he drew the blanket up over her and prepared to move away. "Arigato," she said dreamily and was rewarded for her thanks by the soft smile that creased his beautiful face.

  “If I had my way. I would keep you here with me,” Jessie said drowsily from the mat as Taro shrugged into the hickory shirt.

  “You purr like a contented cat,” he teased. His gaze left her face, dropping to the swell of her breasts that showed just above the blankets she held across her nude body.

  She knew he was enchanted with her breasts, so different from the “small acorns” of his countrywomen, he told her, yet lacking the pendulous droop of those of the Anglo women he had known.

  This she did not let herself think about but instead shivered in delightful memory of what he had done to those breasts the night before. “If I do not leave now,” he said, “it will be your body I explore and not the mine.”

  After he left, she pulled on the robe and padded about the cabin, putting away the food staples that she and Taro had neglected the evening before in their haste to seek each other’s arms. She smiled to herself as she came across the coiled velvet length of ribbon, the color of persimmon. So, Taro had noted the string of rawhide she had confiscated to use as a tieback for her unruly hair.

  She laid aside the new adze he had purchased and took up the folded newspapers to read before the fire’s banked embers, humming lightly to herself. He had promised her before he left to find something more entertaining than the yellowed newspapers that were months out of date.

  Hungry for the news, her eyes scanned the sheet, but miraculously enough the Crystal Palace escaped unscathed from John Clum's editorial pen. This was because the Epitaph devoted four full columns on the front page to a shoot-out at Tombstone’s O.K. Corral.

  “Three Men Hurled into Eternity in the Duration of a Moment,” proclaimed the headline. As Dan had predicted, the Clantons, McLaury, and Claiborne had dueled against the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday for control of Tombstone, almost seven months earlier by the date of the newspaper, dated December of ’83. And the Earp faction had won, as Jessie would have guessed, remembering the stern, leonine man who had offered her a job.

  Reclining on the cushions, she thumbed over to another page, reading other news items until the name Godwin slid across the recesses of her brain. Her gaze darted back up a few lines to reread the paragraph.

  In conjunction with the birth of Mrs. Elizabeth Godwin's first great-grandchild. Franklin Godwin, she and Mr. Hugo Roget, the child’s maternal grandfather, have announced the formation of the Cristo Rey Consolidated Mining Company. Estimates for the company’s first week of production run as high as several hundred tons of silver bullion, which will be shipped weekly to the newly built stamp mill at Charleston. A welcome industry to southern Arizona!

  The paper fluttered to the floor like a fall leaf from Jessie’s lifeless hands. She stared unseeingly at the mandari
n-orange flames that bowed and leaped in the fireplace. How foolish she had been to think she could forget Brig. What she felt was not the deep gentle love she had for Taro—how could she after Brig's betrayal? And now Fanny had given him a child.

  There beat in Jessie's heart an enormous anger that combined with her years of bitterness. Yet the outrage was not really directed at Brig but at Elizabeth Godwin, who had taken Brig from her . . . who had taken Cristo Rey from her. The old woman sat in the Stronghold like a queen in her court while hundreds of her subjects danced attendance, while silver and gold bullion poured forth from her kingdom. Her kingdom!

  It’s my kingdom! Jessie’s tormented brain screamed. “It’s my kingdom,” her lips spoke aloud, softly but firmly. And it was true, she knew. It was more her kingdom than ever that of Elizabeth Godwin’s. At her mother’s knees Jessie had learned the intriguing history of Cristo Rey, though at five years of age it had not seemed of monumental importance to her. And though she had loved her Uncle Sherrod, she knew that Cristo Rey originally belonged to Dona Dominica and was intended for her son, Jessie’s father, before it had ever come into the Godwins’ keep.

  She picked up the newspaper now and fed it, sheet by sheet, into the greedy, licking flames. And as the flames destroyed the crackling paper, she swore she would destroy Elizabeth Godwin one day.

  For now it was enough to float in the refuge of Taro’s arms; to enjoy the simple pleasures—sitting on the footbridge in the late afternoon or performing the tasks that delighted him, preparing a completely Japanese meal, giving him a slow, luxurious bath, or even exchanging a few words of Japanese in her conversations with him.

  As the summer months slipped into fall, and the scrub oaks donned their coats of reds and browns, she often wondered that she did not become pregnant, and from there her thoughts veered to what would happen if she were. Would Taro give the child his name?

  She knew he loved her, but enough to marry her? He knew little of her background. She even suspected he at times found her uncivilized compared with those of his own race. And what if a child did come of their union? What kind of life could the child hope for—half Japanese, a quarter Spanish, and a quarter Anglo? It frightened her to the core when she considered what could await such a child—the Barrios Libres, the Hop Towns. Of what people like Elizabeth Godwin were capable of doing to such children.

  As winter blustered upon Taro's eyrie and the cold weather isolated her and Taro from outside contact, her thoughts dwelled more and more often on the injustices of the fates and on Elizabeth Godwin until her hatred for the old woman consumed her as the flame had the newspaper.

  Her preoccupation did not escape Taro. One evening as she soaked in her bath, he came up behind her and caught her head between his hands Cupping her face, he tilted it back to meet his gaze. “The bitterness in your heart will destroy no one but yourself, Lotus Woman. You must put what it is that eats at your heart like a cancer behind you.”

  She closed her eyes beneath the fierceness of his gaze. “You are wrong,” she countered. “My soul will know no rest until Elizabeth Godwin’s power is destroyed.”

  He sighed. Releasing her, he rose. He stood looking down at her with eyes that were narrow slits. “So that is it. Then do what you have to do to exorcise this bitterness. For you will never belong to me until you do.”

  CHAPTER 40

  In March, when the anemones, gentians, and violets suddenly unfolded on the slopes in a painting of riotous colors. Taro made his next trip into Tombstone. He brought back for Jessie a set of small men's clothing that she had pestered him for, saying, "This way I can help in the mine.”

  In addition, there was a short-barreled carbine in his pack. Knowing that he never carried a weapon, she looked at him inquiringly as she held the nickel-plated weapon. "You are often alone here,” he explained seriously. "And more and more men now prowl the hills for the silver.”

  Her mother’s smile curved her lips. "If I didn't know better, Taro Shima, I would think you cared for this lowly woman.”

  His smile matched hers. "It is only that I want to preserve your body to sell to some old Chinese man when I grow tired of you. I am certain I would get your weight in silver.”

  “That I shall never let you do—sell me.” she said, putting down the carbine. She moved until she stood against him. Her forefinger went up to press against the soft inner rim of his lower lip. “I plan to keep you so occupied that you never grow tired of me.”

  Still his arms did not slip around her. “Show me,” he ordered.

  Her fingertips worked at the buttons of his shirt. “I will show you that I am much better at entertaining than those silly geisha women you’re always talking about.” Her hands slid inside his shirt, and though his expression never changed, she was gratified to feel the twitch of the taut stomach muscles beneath her fingertips.

  A slow smile pirouetted on the ends of her mouth. She grasped his belt and tugged him over to the mat, pushing him down until he lay on his back. “I think it is time for the Chinese Rope Trick,” she said with feigned insouciance, her fingers playing with the buttons of his pants.

  Beneath the fringe of thick lashes she saw the flare of his pupils. “Where did you learn of such a thing?” he asked huskily.

  “The Crystal Palace’s ladies of the night,” she tossed off airily. “Then I did not understand this trick with the rope and knots.” Her lids drooped to veil her eyes and her lips parted seductively. “But now . . . maybe with your help, I can manage it.”

  He joined the act now, displaying only desultory interest. “We shall see,” he said. “It is an art that takes much practice.” He crossed his arms beneath his head. “But I would be willing to work with you. In time you may prove to be worth your weight in gold instead.”

  “I’m truly unworthy of your interest,” she bantered. “And am such a stupid pupil that I must ask you to show me the technique.”

  “Get the rope—the slender one—from the saddle pack,” he instructed thickly.

  When she returned, she knelt at his side and did as he told her, knotting the rope in increments. The sun had set now and there was only the candle’s flame to light the tawny-hued body of her beloved, to light the way for her hands as she performed the intimate task, to light the feverish concentration in her blushing, beautiful face.

  She gasped when he gasped, sharing his ecstasy as the slipping passage of each knot triggered another peak of pleasure for him. Then she knew she could wait no longer. Her body demanded its own release. “Taro, Taro,” she begged, “take me now. Now!”

  Jessie sifted through the newspapers Taro had brought back from Tombstone the day before. Some of the dates were more than three months old. but it made no difference. She was eager for any news. The Epitaph carried nothing about Cristo Rey or the Godwins. However, she did notice that one subject, the headlines varying somewhat, recurred in all the issues. “Benson- Globe Stage Robbed." Or “Wells Fargo Messenger Held Up.” Now she began reading more closely. Another one: “The messenger who was transporting boxes of payroll money to the Patagonia mine camp was waylaid by two masked highwaymen. Reward is being offered for . . .”

  It was the printed word “mine" that jumped from the page into Jessie's imagination. For more than thirty minutes she sat staring at that one column. A plan slowly began to evolve in her head. There were risks to it, but as she considered it, tested it in her mind, she decided the odds were in her favor.

  She knew the area between the Stronghold and Tombstone as well as Taro knew every darkened inch of the mine he explored. She visualized the road which the Cristo Rey ore wagons would take from the Whetstone mines—traveling south, skirting the northern stretches of the Canelo Hills, bypassing the Huachuca Mountains, it crossed the San Pedro plains eastward for the Dragoon Mountains and Charleston's stamp mill. The only road that could sustain that kind of heavy wagon traffic, it twisted mile upon mile through empty country with lava hills, arroyos, canyons, and mesquite thickets to provid
e hideouts.

  Taro, squatting on his haunches across the kotaku from her, made no interjection but slowly sipped the tea as she eagerly explained her plan to him. "I will simply see that no wagonload of ore reaches Charleston’s stamp mill. In six months’ time I calculate that Elizabeth Godwin—and Company—will be defunct. Cristo Rey can no longer survive without the mines to support the floundering cattle empire!”

  “For the first time there is the glow of the spirit in your eyes.”

  She blinked her surprise. “That's all you have to say?”

  “What would you have me say? No—that I don’t approve? I have no right over you—I cannot stop you.”

  “But how do you feel about my plan?” she persisted, leaning forward on the table. “I don’t want to know what is right or wrong. Because I no longer believe in a world of absolute black and white, Taro. I simply want to know how you feel.”

  He sat staring silently over the rim of his cup. At last he said, “I feel this is your karma I once spoke to you of.” He shrugged. Beneath the ebony tea robe his massive shoulders rolled with the movement. “It is something you have to do. Shi-ka-ta-ga-nai—it cannot be helped or changed.”

  Anxiously her gaze searched his. “I can come home to you when it’s over?”

  He reached across the table and took her hands, pulling her to her feet with him as he stood. “You will never be gone from me in thought.”

  He took her to his mat then, and they lay together throughout the night. There was no need for either of them to demonstrate the love that surged like some gigantic, magnetic force between them. Sometime near dawn the plaintive, dismal yip-yip of a coyote filtered up through the maze of gulches, and Jessie shivered. She clutched Taro to her. “I’m afraid of the future,” she whispered.

  He kissed her cold temples, his lips lingering, his warm breath stirring her hair. “There is no other woman for me, Lotus Woman. Our karmas are intertwined. Whatever your future,” he murmured, “I will wait to find you.”