The Outlaw

by JoAnn Ross

  It was the mention of her dream that caused recognition to come crashing down on him and Wolfe realized that this was the woman he'd dreamed about in his cell. Not prepared to share that information, he turned his mind to more mundane matters.

  "Are you hungry?"

  "Famished," she admitted. "I think I could eat a horse."

  "Hopefully, it will not come to that."

  Remembering that these were different times, she said quickly, "I was speaking figuratively."

  His lips quirked suspiciously. "I know. As was I."

  "Oh." Her lips curved. "Don't look now, Wolfe, but I think you almost made a joke."

  Enjoying the warmth of her dazzling smile too much for comfort, he merely grunted and turned away. Leaving her once again to follow him.

  It was a beautiful day. The lingering drops of morning dew on the lush greenery along the riverbank captured the sunlight, breaking it into rainbows that swirled in the blades of the grass and the bright spring leaves of the trees.

  He made a pot of coffee on the still-glowing embers of the previous night's fire. Noel drank a mug of the strong dark brew and watched him restore the sharp edge of a bone-handled knife with swift strokes of the whetstone he'd taken from his saddlebag. His hands were long and dark, his movements graceful and sure.

  A not uncomfortable silence settled over them and for a time, there was only the rasp of stone on metal, and the flutter of birds in the tree branches overhead.

  He tested the blade with his thumb. Satisfied, he cut a pair of twigs from a nearby willow and sharpened the ends to a point.

  Then, using rocks as stepping-stones, he made his way to the center of the river, where he stood, watching the fish darting in and out among the rocks, breaking the surface with a silvery flare, then vanishing with a flip of their fins.

  Every muscle in his body was taut with concentration, every atom of his attention was directed down into the flowing water. Noel watched him lift the handmade spear, watched it descend on a swift stroke, then emerge with a pan-size trout. The scales of the fish glistened like quicksilver in the morning sun.

  "That was wonderful," she said, not as surprised as she might have been only yesterday. Although the biography in the Rogues Across Time book had stressed his life spent in the white world, she realized that, having witnessed his morning prayer, he was still very much a Navajo, attuned to the land, accustomed to living with it on its terms.

  "It is not so difficult." He mentally thanked the fish for giving its life then returned to the riverbank.

  "I couldn't do it."

  "You are not Navajo."

  From his tone, Noel got the distinct impression that Wolfe was reminding her, yet again, of the differences between them. "No," she agreed mildly. "I'm not."

  After cleaning the fish, he laced the fillets onto the twigs and held the slabs of pink flesh over the glowing coals until they turned white and the edges charred black. They ate the fish right off the sticks, and Noel, accustomed to the finest of European cuisine, could not remember when she'd enjoyed a meal more.

  "That was delicious," she said happily.

  He watched her lick her fingers and once more felt an annoying tug deep in his groin. He wanted her, dammit. He wanted to lose himself in her soft feminine warmth, wanted to kiss her mouth, her breasts, that warm honeyed place between her legs. He wanted to push her down on his bedroll and take her hard and fast, and when the ride was over, he wanted to do it again.

  Which was precisely the problem, Wolfe reminded himself. One time with this woman would not be enough. He'd want more. And the wanting would make him weak. And vulnerable. Although he'd never considered himself a remotely cautious man, neither was he a fool. Making love with the princess Noel was a risk he dared not take.

  "Although the idea may be difficult to accept for those who embrace the reservation system, my people were capable of feeding themselves long before they ever saw a white man."

  The sun was warm, her stomach was filled, and although she knew, on some distant level, that she should be worried about the posse that was bound to be following them, not to mention concerned about her uncertain future, at the moment, Noel felt too good to get into an argument.

  "Of course you were." She leaned back against the rocks and enjoyed the sight of the sun-gilded river polishing its rocks. "Paradise must look a great deal like this," she murmured as much to herself as to Wolfe.

  "It is good land," he agreed. "Too good, some would say, for a bunch of damn savages."

  "You're not a savage."

  "That's not what the papers say. Everyone knows I massacred those settlers. Which is why they want to hang me."

  "You didn't do it."

  "You're so sure of that?"

  "Yes." Refusing to let him intimidate her with that cold stare, she glared back at him. "I'd bet my life on it."

  "Did you ever think," he suggested grimly as he stood up and walked over to where he'd tethered the horses, "that's precisely what you're doing?"

  Frustrated, Noel refused to dignify the vague threat with an answer.

  Instead she concentrated on her surroundings. Accustomed to her tidy, landlocked home, the vast, seemingly endless landscape they were riding through took Noel's breath away. The dramatic, towering red-sandstone sculptures made her feel as if they were crossing a mystical land born from dreams rather than reality.

  "It's so open," she breathed during a brief pause for a drink of water to cut the dust. She handed back the canteen he'd refilled from the river. "It's as if we're on another planet."

  He glanced around the hauntingly lonely landscape. "Sometimes, if you listen intently enough, you can hear the spirits walking."

  Wolfe knew that such a remark would only add to his image as a savage. How could she understand that no matter how far he roamed, this place between the four sacred mountains would always represent Shu'kayah, his home. He was irrevocably bound to it—physically and emotionally.

  Although anywhere else she may have found his claim of spirits unbelievably fanciful, Noel understood what he was saying perfectly. Although this may be the loneliest place on the planet, she had the feeling they were not alone. Not wanting to try to explain what she couldn't understand, herself, she continued to drink in the moving view.

  "That's an interesting shape," she murmured, pointing at one tall spire standing alone in the red earth.

  "That's Spider Rock. Navajos believe that it was Spider Woman who lives atop the rock, who first taught the Dineh how to weave. In the beginning, the women weavers always left a hole in the center of the blanket—"

  "Like a web."

  He nodded. "Exactly. Unfortunately, the white traders refused to buy these blankets, which presented a problem, because if the tribute to her is denied, Spider Woman will weave webs in the head of the weaver."

  "Cobwebs in the brain," Noel murmured. "I think I've had that a few times, myself."

  Wolfe smiled. "So have I."

  This time, the look they exchanged was one of shared pleasure, without any sensual overtones. It crossed Wolfe's mind that as foolhardy as it was to want this woman, to actually like her and enjoy her company could ultimately prove even more dangerous.

  "So what did they do?" she asked. "To satisfy Spider Woman, and still be able to sell their blankets?"

  "Oh." He shrugged off the discomforting feeling. "Most weavers still leave a spirit outlet in the design." His expression hardened as he thought of all the concessions that had been made to satisfy others who could not begin to understand the complexity of his people's belief system.

  His people had never wanted to make the white men like them. So why, Wolfe had asked himself again and again, did the Americans seem so anxious to change the Dineh? To make them like them. It shouldn't have to be that way, he considered. There was plenty of room for all.

  But the whites had wanted more and more land. They found metals and they wanted to mine them. They found coal and they wanted to mine it. If Indians happened t
o be living there, the white man's solution was merely to move them somewhere else, never minding that it was their land. Their copper. Their coal.

  The damn whites were like maggots on a dead coyote. Every day there were more and more maggots and less and less coyote. Until finally the day came when there was nothing left for the maggots to eat and the coyote was just bones.

  "We're wasting time," he said abruptly. Kicking his mare's flanks, he began riding again.

  Something had happened. The brief, easygoing mood was gone, replaced by that edgy anger she'd come to expect. Looking at his grim expression and hard eyes, Noel found him almost the model of the cruel savage his detractors wanted others to believe him to be.

  Knowing better, she held her tongue yet again and continued on.

  The sun was setting as they reached Canyon de Chelly, making the red sandstone glow ruby and gold. Viewed from the rim of the gorge, the green cornfields, orchards, horses and hogans on the canyon floor below seemed like a child's toys.

  "It's the most spectacular thing I've ever seen." Noel was awestruck by the bird's-eye view. "Do people actually live in those?" she asked, her gaze settling on the multistoried stone dwellings tucked into alcoves on the towering cliffs. The remarkable stone buildings were, in their own way, as breathtaking as any palaces built by her European ancestors.

  "Not for about seven hundred years." Once again, Wolfe found himself reluctantly enjoying the awe on her face. It matched his own feelings. A person could not live surrounded by so much living history and not feel connected to the people who had once lived between these great pink cliffs now claimed by the Dineh.

  "The cliff dwellings were built by people we call the Anasazi," he said. "It's a Navajo word meaning the ancient ones. They lived here, in Canyon de Chelly, for about nine hundred years, until disappearing sometime in the thirteenth century."

  "Where did they go?"

  "There are several theories. Until the good people of Whiskey River decided to hang me, I was planning to write a book about one of the possibilities."

  "You will write it," Noel said with absolute conviction. Looking down at the stone city again, she repeated the name of the canyon, pronouncing it as he had, Canyon de shay.

  "It means, where the water comes out of the rock. Even in the driest of years, when the rest of our land is suffering drought, the springs flow in this canyon. That was, undoubtedly, the appeal to the Basketmakers, who were the first to arrive here before the birth of Christ."

  "And to think that we Europeans smugly think America is a young country," she murmured.

  "White European America is still in its fledgling stage. What too many historians chose to overlook is that there were indigenous people living here long before the first Pilgrim came ashore at Plymouth Rock."

  And although the government had allowed his people to return to Dinetah, they were still not free. It was not right, Wolfe thought furiously, that the Dineh were unable to go wherever they wanted, to hunt, to raid or just to ride out onto the vastness of the high desert to converse with the gods. And to seek the comforting solitude that could be found beneath the wide sky.

  "That's why you write your stories," she guessed. "To provide a balance to the historians."

  He was uncomfortable with her understanding his motives so well. He'd learned early in life that the secret of survival was to keep everyone at arm's length, to hold them far enough away that they couldn't reach you. Couldn't touch you in the places that mattered most.

  "I hate to disappoint you, Princess, but my reasons for writing are not all that noble. The truth is that my books have earned me a great deal of money and access to a world I never would have experienced if I'd stayed here in Canyon de Chelly and dedicated my life to growing corn and herding sheep."

  "It may have earned you wealth. But I think you still feel like an outsider in that world."

  Storm clouds moved across his face and darkened his indigo eyes. "It was once taboo to go beyond the four sacred mountains. It was believed that outside the land created by the Holy Ones, happiness is impossible."

  He rubbed the back of his neck where his muscles were twisting themselves into painful knots. This was not exactly Wolfe's favorite subject. "There are also times when I feel like an outsider in my mother's world, as well," he said quietly, surprised and annoyed to hear himself admitting the secrets of his heart. "But at least I know that my clan will always be here for me."

  It was something she understood. Perfectly. Her smile bloomed like the wild blue lupine beneath the soft spring mother rains. "I feel the same way about my family."

  "Back in Montacroix."

  She knew he still didn't quite believe her. "Yes."

  He gave her another long frustrated look. Then, muttering a curse, dug his heels against his horse's flanks and began descending the twisting narrow trail to the canyon floor.

  Their arrival garnered immediate attention. Dogs began a furious barking and people poured out of the beehive hogans. Children came running up to them, laughing and clapping their hands. Women, dad in velveteen blouses and full calico skirts followed, their expressions guarded as they viewed the obvious outsider Wolfe had brought into their midst. Bringing up the rear were the men. Although not as tall as Wolfe, they looked hard. Beneath the brims of their battered and sweat-stained felt Stetsons, their dark faces had been weathered to the consistency of boot leather.

  Wolfe reined in his horse. "It would be best if you waited until I explain our situation."

  Noel nodded her acquiescence, then watched as he dismounted and walked up to a woman she guessed to be in her mid-fifties. The mangy yellow dog waited with her.

  The woman's expression was as serious as Wolfe's as they exchanged words. Twice, something he'd said caused the woman's midnight eyes to flick inscrutably over Noel, then she returned her attention to Wolfe. Finally, her broad face split into a huge smile and Noel watched the tension drain from Wolfe's tense shoulders. His answering smile was warmer and more intimate than any he'd bestowed upon her.

  A man from the back of the crowd called out something. Wolfe answered, causing everyone to break into boisterous laughter. There were more questions. More answers.

  And still Noel waited.

  A lifetime of regal training, instilled in her from the cradle, kept her from squirming beneath the slanted looks and the comments she could not translate but knew were about her.

  Finally, just when her nerves were stretched to the point of screaming, Wolfe turned toward her as if suddenly remembering her presence.

  "It's not every day I bring a woman back with me from the outside," he said in explanation. And, she thought, in apology.

  "Especially a white woman wearing a prostitute's red dress," she suggested mildly.

  "There is that," Wolfe agreed. Although his tone was dry, rare laughter gleamed in his gaze.

  "Do you come home often?" From the exuberant welcome he'd received, she suspected he was not a frequent visitor.

  "Not as much as I'd like." Fame, Wolfe had discovered, had proven unreasonably time-consuming. "The last time was in February. When my brother was married."

  "Your brother? I thought you were an only child."

  "Being a matriarchal society, our maternal aunts are thought of as our second mothers, so we refer to the children of our mothers' sisters as our brothers and sisters."

  "What about the children of your father's sisters?"

  "They are thought of much as they are in your white world. As cousins. Children of a father's sister belong to his clan, while children of his brothers belong, of course, to the clan of their mother."

  "Of course," she murmured, thoroughly confused.

  He laughed as he helped her down from the back of the horse. "Now you know how the rest of the world feels when trying to unravel the intricacies of European royal intermarriages," he said. "Our language differentiates many more categories of relatives than white families because the Holy Ones prescribed ways of behaving toward relative
s of different classes."

  "As I said, what you might consider cousins, we believe to be sisters and brothers. And although familiarity is permitted during childhood, we are forbidden to marry within our own clan. Or that of our father. My clan is particularly conservative. The males are brought up to think of all female members of the clan as sisters."

  "Gracious." She thought about that for a moment, thought about how, until reading Wolfe's book, she'd thought of Native Americans as simple people. "It's all quite complex."

  "I suppose it is." He shrugged. "For an outsider."

  With that single word, he'd yet again reminded her— reminded himself—that whatever grew out of this un-deniable attraction they'd shared could not be permanently rooted.

  Knowing that he was right, Noel nevertheless found the idea more than a little depressing.

  Although his hands had encircled her waist as he'd lifted her down to the ground, Wolfe carefully avoided any further physical contact as he led her through the crowd of children, who could not have stared at her with more fascination if she'd suddenly ridden down from the sky on one of those enormous puffy white clouds and landed in their midst.

  He stopped before the woman Noel guessed to be his aunt.

  "Second Mother," he addressed her formally, "this is Noel Giraudeau. She is the female who shot the man who shot me."

  "So much trouble." The older woman surprised Noel by answering in English. Her eyes were friendly, but immeasurably sad. She reached into a skirt pocket and took out a small stone, which she held out to Noel. "Thank you for saving my son."

  "Tradition holds that First Man and First Woman decorated Tsoodzil—the mountain marking the southern border of the sacred land—with turquoise," Wolfe explained. "It is from Tsoodzil that we get our soft female rains. But when we were making the trek back to Dinetah from exile, the mountain became a symbol of our freedom. Because it was when they first saw it, our people knew they'd returned home."