Spiritpath

By Pat Patterson

When Arizona ranch owner, Adam Blake, falls in love with Priscilla WhiteCloud, sister of his Navajo foreman, the catalyst for the terrible consequences of their union is set in motion.
Amid the historical and political background of the American Southwest in the early to mid-1900's, SpiritPath paints a fascinating picture of the world of that time, encompassing events leading to World War1, the pursuit of the Mexican bandit, Pancho Villa, after his murderous raids on American soil, the horrendous conditions of the Mission directed Indian schools, the fledgling aeronautics industry, the 1929 Stock Market Crash, coinciding with the Government mandated Stock Reduction Plan, so devastating to the herding culture of the Navajo People.
Compelling love stories, interwoven with diverse yet profound values, both Anglo and Navajo, evolve as the children and grandchildren of Adam and Priscilla, seek resolutions to their personal conflicts and discover their individual paths to enduring love and spiritual harmony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 21, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469785066

Pat Patterson

SpiritPath is Pat's first novel. A California transplant, she now lives in the Rogue River area of Southern Oregon where she writes with her Golden Retriever wrapped around her feet and her cat competing for the keyboard.

Book preview

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Pat Patterson

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

ISBN: 0-595-21671-4

ISBN: 978-1-4697-8506-6 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

PART 2

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

PART 3

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

Epilogue

For John, who truly was the wind beneath my wings And for Alla, who pushed me off the cliff

Navajo legends teach that every minute of every day must be devoted to maintaining Harmony between the natural and the spirit worlds, striving for that delicate balance between Good and Evil, which is bisected by the narrow Path of Beauty. This Spirit Path also serves as an escape route for the soul, for the Navajo believes that if his way to freedom is blocked, the Spirit will be forever trapped and that person will surely go mad.

To Tuesday’s Kids: Alla, Dianne, Ella, Louise, Margaret, Mildred, Ruthie, and Zilpha, who heard the manuscript of SpiritPath far too many times but always listened with patient encouragement.

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

Sky Mesa Ranch

1909

With the southern boundaries of Sky Mesa Ranch finally left on the high ridge behind them, Adam Blake and his ranch foreman, ElmerRuns-With-Foxes, headed down the canyon towards the open desert and Whipple’s Trading Post, their passage marked by a roiling tunnel of dust.

The sun had cleared the ridge a scant hour earlier on this sparkling June morning, but the warming air foretold of the heated days ahead when the playful creek tumbling along beside them, would be reclaimed by the baking sand of the dry wash, its underground journey betrayed only by the whispering leaves of the tell-tale cottonwoods.

But now those newly minted leaves shimmered like golden green coins flung by the breeze. Canyon wrens flickered through the tree tops. Mud swallows skimmed the dancing waters, tweezered through a haze of nattering insects.

Cloud towers boiled and billowed in the azure sky, their giant heights reducing the peaks of the tallest snow clad mountains to miniature meringues.

But Adam slouched in the wagon seat beside Elmer, oblivious to the glory and the grandeur of their immediate surroundings, his meandering thoughts tugging him ahead to the coming roundup, his mind’s eye conjuring up rivers of waving grass and wild flowers, his senses teased by remembered crispness of the upland air, fresh and scented as a peppermint stick.

Late winter snows had damaged several miles of Sky Mesa drift fence, their melting weight turning the high desert into a sea of mud, delaying not only this trip for barbed wire and other supplies, but the annual roundup itself when the animals would be counted, branded and culled for market, the remaining ‘seed’ cattle then herded up into the cooler mountain pastures for the summer.

Lost in his contemplative daydreams, he was at first unaware that Elmer had risen to stand in the wagon to peer squint-eyed towards the crenelated mountains in the distance.

But when Elmer grunted, She’s my sister, going ‘long there, Adam turned to look out over the shimmering expanse of the heated desert. Even so it was several moments before he could make out a solitary figure wavering against the horizon.

You know her? Adam asked, wondering whether Elmer was really related to the woman or simply referring to her in the general kinship term used by his people.

Yep. That’s be’s my real sister all right.

Where’d she come from? Adam asked. We passed the last bunch of cabins and hogans ten, twelve miles back.

In lieu of an answer, Elmer cracked the reins across the horse’s rump, startling the plodding animal into a lope. Within moments they drew alongside the woman who hearing their approach, had stepped just off the roadway to stand with her back to them.

Yah-t’hey, my sister, Elmer greeted.

She appeared to recognize his voice and turning, repeated the muffled greeting through her blanket, which she kept drawn over her face throughout the remainder of their conversation.

What do here? Elmer questioned and she answered in their native tongue.

Instinctively, Adam leaned forward, caught the gist of their conversation, understood the woman’s husband had gone off to the Post four days before with her wool, a couple of blankets and a rug to sell. He hadn’t come back and she was getting low on food.

Go to Post. See what happen that man, she finished.

Uummm,Elmer responded with a nod that included Adam.

We know what happens, he grumbled, his dark eyes glinting with ill concealed anger.

Get up, Sister. Get up here on wagons. We all going along to Post, Elmer invited.

Her man be’s one mean cuss, Elmer volunteered, waiting for his sister to hitch her long velvet skirts aside and clamber aboard the tailgate, but making no attempt to help her.

Adam turned to glance over his shoulder to make sure the woman was safely settled then asked, Does your sister have a name,?

Her calling name be’s ‘Priscilla,’Elmer muttered. Her husband drinks too much. Beats sister. No damn good, that one.

When they arrived at the Trading Post and the woman finally let her blanket fall, Adam was startled by her beauty.

Couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen, he thought, mesmerized by her black fringed, slightly almond shaped eyes which were now luminous with unshed tears as she heard the trader telling how her husband, Victor WalkingHorse, had been there early in the week.

And when the Trader, Ian Whipple, added that Victor had insisted on hard cash money for her wool and blankets, instead of bartering for food and supplies as was usual, she caught her lower lip in teeth so white they seemed translucent.

But Ian wasn’t through.

Her husband, he said, had returned the following afternoon, drunk and belligerent, saying he’d been cheated and needed more money to take home to his wife.

I tossed him out on his keister. Told him to stay the hell away from here if he couldn’t behave.

Ask ‘bout lin, she whispered to her brother.

Horse? the trader answered, Yeah, he had a horse all right enough. Had a wagon too, but can’t say which way he took off when I kicked him out. Sorry, missus.

Adam stepped forward. Although he’d been unable to interpret every nuance of their undulating speech, there was no need for Elmer to translate.

Give her anything she needs, Ian. Put it on my tab.

As crimson flames of the dying sun flickered into glowing embers, the desert shrouded into purple shadows of evening. Adam, alert to the uneasy glances of Elmer and his sister, and anxiously aware of their concern for those spirits who travel abroad after the hour of darkness, snapped the reins in a mollifying gesture urging the horse to a speedier pace.

Finally at his sister’s hogan, Elmer made quick work of unloading the wagon, but once inside did not venture back out, leaving the care and feeding of the horse to Adam.

Without comment, Elmer’s sister lit the fire, ground some of the newly purchased supply of coffee beans, slapped rounds of fry bread against her palms and heated a kettle of mutton stew laced with tomatoes and peppers, which before today’s trip to the Post had been the last morsel of food in the hogan.

As she moved about, making preparations for their meal, Adam watched surreptitiously. It was unlikely she would commit the rudeness of looking directly at him, but still, he was a guest in her home and it would be an unacceptable intrusion if their eyes chanced to meet.

And so peering through lowered lids and the screen of Elmer’s pipe smoke, Adam watched her movements, fluid with the quiet grace and suppleness of youth. Although he felt she was not beautiful in the classic sense, she exuded an earthy warmth and he saw hints of a comfortable mellowing to come.

The intricate coils of her hair, held in place by twin combs of silver and turquoise, were blue-black wings anchored at the nape of her neck and fashioned into a chongo, the traditional style of her people.

This woman’s eyebrows, unlike his wife Clarissa’s—so fastidiously sculpted and pruned—were heavy dark arches. But high cheekbones gave her face a finely chiseled appearance and her darkly fringed eyes had almost lost their brooding fearfulness.

Her lips, natural imitations of Clarissa’s ruby tinted bows, curved at each corner as though tugged there by a secret smile. Somewhere he had read a description of such lips as ‘inviting kisses’ but even as the thought crossed his mind he shook himself and thrust it aside.

Their meal finished, Adam watched Priscilla struggle to pry open a tin of peaches with a time blunted skinning knife and after watching four ineffective thuds of her tiny palm against the sturdy horn handle of her knife, Adam waited for her brother to offer his help. But Elmer sat impassively waiting to be served. Unable to withstand the mental image of the twisting blade lacerating her wrist, Adam, careful to observe the prohibition of direct eye contact, held out his hand for the battered can.

But as her fingertips feathered against his, an arcing shock of electricity leapt between them. In that startled instant he looked and saw himself reflected in her eyes and all resolve to keep his thoughts under control were abandoned.

Later, as he and Elmer lit their pipes for a silent smoke, she went to the men’s side of the room and shook out several thick sheepskin pads for their beds.

The sheepskins arranged to her liking she walked back to her side of the hogan and removed several strands of hee-shee, pierced shells of abalone, oyster and coral, and the heavy squash blossom necklace of turquoise and coin silver, from around her neck. As she stretched to hang the necklaces on a peg above her sleeping mat, Adam, mesmerized by the sight of her, now openly watched the firelight dancing in her hair, the scintillating shadows fluttering over her face and body, delicately highlighting her small bosom beneath the purple satin of her blouse.

She knelt and turned towards an upturned crate which served as her dressing table and took up a stiff bristled brush made of bound corn-husk fibre. A piece of broken mirror hung on the peeled pole above the table and in the second before her tumbling hair curtained her face from view, he saw, in the glass, her flickering glance in his direction. And watching, Adam could not help but wonder at the man who would voluntarily relinquish the pleasure of knowing such a woman.

The next morning, rising with the daylight, Adam and Elmer headed back to the Sky Mesa ranch lands, the exposing glare of the morning sun somewhat cooling Adam’s fevered thoughts of the night before. Still, smarting with twinges of a guilty conscience, castigating himself for his unseemly fascination with Elmer’s sister, seeking some sort of refuge, some defense for his roving eye, he pulled his hat brim low over his face, and followed his thoughts, searching for a point in time when things had begun to go so wrong with Clarissa.

Never, in all his twenty two years had there been any woman for him but Clarissa.

He had loved her, the beautiful girl next door, for longer than he could remember.

That she was two years older than he made no difference, not to him and not to their mothers, Margaret and Lydia, who had spent many happy hours hoping for a future wedding day and ‘happy ever after’ lives of their children, Adam and Clarissa.

In those days Clarissa took his side in arguments with the neighborhood kids. Her scathing tongue reduced the other children to sniveling babies and she was not above hurling rocks or snowballs, depending upon the time of the year, to send even the most devout bully scurrying for shelter.

Until she turned sixteen.

Even now, Adam could recall the delicious turmoil of Clarissa’s sixteenth year.

He was fourteen then and had been both bewildered and fascinated at the way her eyes could change with her mood, as if by magic, from sunshine blue to murky green, and then to storm grey slate all in a space of a few moments.

That was the spring her pinafore protected dark blue or light brown ‘play’ dresses gave way to prim collared, starched and pleated shirtwaists with sleeves half again as wide as her entire torso. Leg-o-Muttons she called the sleeves, which she patted and plumped while he tried counting to see if there really were thirty buttons going from each wrist to her elbows.

That was the spring the familiar fat braids, which he’d so long resisted tugging upon, were transformed into curls and ringlets whose honeyed highlights glinted with such intensity even the shadows were lustrous.

In those days, as she swung down the walk or up the stairs, there was a lilt to her step, a tilt of her hip which caused him to spend hours envisioning the soft white calves beneath the swish and sway of her newly lengthened hems.

And that was the spring when the others—tall boys, short boys, boys self consciously massaging the new fuzz on cheeks and lips, boys with pimply skin, boys on bicycles and even one arriving in rackety motorcar tooting a bulbous horn—began to cluster around Clarissa’s front walk and veranda, talking loudly among themselves, competing against each other in pushing and shoving matches. Those on bicycles sped back and forth, feet perched precariously on the handlebars, hands nonchalantly clasped behind their heads.

During that entire summer as he pushed the lawnmower relentlessly over the grass between the two yards, reducing the scruffy patches to dust and dirt, or hunkered behind the laurel hedge, picking at imaginary weeds, he watched and listened, desperate to hear the murmuring voices coming from Clarissa’s backyard gazebo, cursing the impenetrable whine of her talking machine.

This was just after he had spent his entire sixteenth birthday gift money on a leather bound volume of poetry, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—romantically decadent passages of purple prose he read, curled cross-legged beneath his window sill. With a red pencil he’d marked verse after verse with entwined hearts bearing his and Clarissa’s names, Clarissa and Adam Blake, Mr. and Mrs. Adam Blake, Clarissa Blake…

Then with the terrible thought that his mother, cleaning his room, might come upon the book and scatter his shameful secret to the winds, or at least as far as the house next door, he wrapped the volume in an old shirt and hid it beneath his mattress.

That was the summer he’d lost track of the hours spent standing behind his curtained window, surreptitiously watching Clarissa’s silhouetted movements across her drawn shade. He spent delicious nights buried beneath the plump down blankets of his solitary bed, warmed to the point of combustion by visions of the two of them snuggled beneath the lacy frosting of her coverlet which was so tantalizingly visible through her open bedroom windows during the daylight hours.

But then, during her last year at Barton’s Bridge Normal School, Miss Simms, the English teacher, had urged Clarissa to leave Barton’s Bridge, enroll in business college.

This is a new world, my dear. Things are changing for women, Miss Simms encouraged.

And so that fall, in her eighteenth year, Clarissa caught the train for Portland, Oregon.

Adam took to his bed, furious with himself for being such a coward, for being afraid to come right out and tell her in so many words how much he loved her, that he would always love her. But it was too late. She was gone. And once she became accustomed to the sophisticated life, hobnobbing with those BUSINESS COLLEGE men, she never again would be impressed with peach-fuzzed boys on bicycles.

But what difference did it make? he’d mourned. By the time he could afford a bicycle, she’d be driving a Stutz Bearcat.

He smiled now, remembering those tumultuous days. But the terrible fact of his mother’s death had brought Clarissa back into his life. Still, he wondered, if she’d not come to Arizona for his mother’s funeral, would she have sought him out, chosen to marry him? Not for the first time he flinched from the question that had been a nuisance in his mind for months now. But it wasn’t his imagination that after that first honeymoon week of almost frenzied ardor, Clarissa had only endured his husbandly approaches, and certainly never again initiated their lovemaking.

And much as he adored her, he’d waited considerate weeks beyond the accepted span of time after Tyler’s birth, choosing to let her establish the resumption of their marital relations. But as the weeks dissolved into months, all her loving attentions were lavished on the baby. If she wasn’t nursing, and couldn’t be disturbed, she was napping, taking advantage of the baby’s sleeping habits. And in their bed, during the night, when he slid a tentative hand in invitation over the silken mound of her thigh, she feigned sleep or moved quickly to the far side of the bed with an impatient sigh. On the few occasions she did submit to his amorous attentions, he—baffled by her tepid lack of response—sighed and turned away with a sense of puzzled dismay, eventually falling into disquieting sleep.

An involuntary frown creased his brow and for the second time that morning, he shied from a distressing thought.

He could understand her fear of another pregnancy. She had so very nearly died delivering Tyler.

But there were ways to prevent conception. The Indians had, since time began, used herbs and rituals which allowed them to deliver only wanted children. Clarissa could talk with Rosalia. And it was after all nineteen-o-nine, not exactly the Dark Ages. Even he could name a way or two of preventing a pregnancy.

No. There was something else, some other reason for Clarissa’s refusal to make love with him.

Tyler was her only interest. There was no denying she was a good mother. Almost too good a mother. And to his way of thinking, most times too overprotective in her concern for the boy. Does she feel that Tyler is all she has?

But Tyler was sixteen months old now and Clarissa must realize that it was past time to resume a normal marriage.

Yes, by God, he had been too undemanding. And he was a fool to allow her fear of pregnancy to be used as an excuse to deny him her body and her bed any longer.

Another thought nudged him. He pushed it away. It niggled and nudged again, forcing him to examine the notion of the one other thing Clarissa seemed to take such solace in. There was no doubt she was drinking more than was good for her.

Nearly every night when he and his father, Jonah, finally called it a day and ‘headed for the barn’, Clarissa was already several drinks ahead of them, not waiting to share the nightly ritual of toasting the day just done. Well, he’d have to be more aware, try to get a handle on that, even if it meant speaking to Rosalia about keeping tabs on the emptied bottles and reporting back to him.

But Clarissa had after all, left behind the glamour and excitement of the big city of Portland, to live in the sometimes stifling placidity of this high desert country of Arizona.

And with Rosalia taking care of the house and cooking, there really wasn’t much to occupy her, to motivate her.

But if he was careful not to press, perhaps actually courted her…

For the first time he realized he had never done that, courted Clarissa.

No. It was she who in the beginning had approached him with the persistent invitation to renew their old friendship. And it was certainly she who, that first time—his first time—had tutored him, guided him through the wondrous lessons of lovemaking, playing upon his pent up desires with such captivating skill.

She was, he remembered, capable of intense passion, breathtaking ardor.

His heart thundered, his breath caught in his throat with remembering.

By golly. That might be it. Clarissa needed to be wooed, to be shown again how much he cared, how important her happiness was to him.

He shoved his hat back on his head and nudged Elmer in the ribs.

Hey, Elmer, crack ol’ Jake across his buckskin ass! We’re never gonna get home at this rate.

Clarissa, pleading another migraine did not come to the dining room for supper. Adam, endured what seemed an interminable hour of small talk with his father, followed by a ‘horsey back ride’ with Tyler’s little legs a-straddle his shoulders, around the parlor, down the back hall, through the kitchen and finally into Tyler’s ‘bunkhouse’, where Rosalia waited with a nightshirt that smelled of sage and sunshine. He kissed the boy, excused himself and went through the door into his bedroom.

Clarissa lay prone upon her rumpled bed, one slender wrist across her eyes, and genuinely worried about her, he tiptoed across the carpeted floor and knelt beside her bed.

Sitting motionless, he marveled as though for the first time, at the absolute perfection of her, the satiny contours of her pale cheeks, the honey blond skin only a shade or two darker than her flaxen hair.

Are you feeling any better? He whispered as she stirred and opened her eyes. Can I get you anything?

No. Not right now. Well, maybe. Maybe a brandy?

Did he imagine it or had her voice taken on a devious, wheedling quality?

He rose and lifted the stopper from the etched crystal decanter on her bedside table. And realized what had marred his first impression of her coolly detached perfection.

The raw fruity odor coming from the already half empty decanter was the same as the aura hovering over her apple colored lips.

He hesitated, wondering how to phrase the question, wondering how to ask how much she’d already drunk. Had the decanter been full when she’d begun?

Clarissa?

Uummmm?

I’ll bet you haven’t eaten much all day. Wouldn’t you like me to bring you some supper now?

She rose on one elbow.

No. I couldn’t eat anything now. Just bring me anoth….a drink please.

Are you sure you want another one right now?

If I didn’t wan’ one, I wuddn’a asked.

Do you really think this will help your headache? Don’t you think you’ve had enough?

What are you saying? She struggled to sit upright. Are you implying that I’ve had too much to drink? That I’m some sort of a lush?

No, darling. Not at all. I simply wonder if a brandy right now is going to help your headache.

In one billowing motion, she tossed the light coverlet aside and swung her feet to the floor.

Never mind! I’ll get it myself! she snapped.

She seemed not to notice that she’d slurred the last word of her stinging retort and Adam decided not to comment that her myself had come out m’shelf.

Stay put. I’ve already got yours poured and just decided to join you in a nightcap.

Seemingly mollified, she eased back against her cushions and reached with a languorous hand to receive his peace offering.

They talked quietly for a time, discussed Tyler, the ranch, his father, the possibility of her parents coming from Idaho for a visit.

It was almost like old times, Adam reflected, as without comment, he refilled their glasses. Maybe he’d been wrong about her drinking. Maybe he’d jumped to conclusions. Maybe it was his own preoccupation with the ranch which was more to blame for their cooling relations.

Yes, if this soul search was to be entirely honest, he’d have to admit the truth, that he’d been almost as much to blame as she was for letting their relationship drift into these becalmed waters.

Most nights he’d been so pooped after getting up before dawn, spending eighteen hours in the saddle or working around the ranch, trying to do more than his share so as to relieve his father’s burden, he hadn’t been much in the courting mood himself, as tonight’s ugly little scene seemed to confirm.

And then, not quite understanding why, but anxious to dispel once and for all any foolish notions he might be harboring for Elmer’s sister, Adam felt compelled to tell Clarissa about the previous days adventure, wondering as he did so whether or not she even realized he had spent the night away from Sky Mesa.

But Clarissa, in unusual interest, asked the girl’s name.

Adam coughed.

What?

Her name. What’s Elmer’s sister’s name?

He buried his nose in the wide mouthed brandy glass, pretending to inhale the heady fumes, stalling for time, waiting for his breathing to stabilize, convinced beyond any doubt that he could not speak Priscilla’s name without betraying his clandestine thoughts.

But Clarissa was waiting.

He had to pull himself together, gain some sense of control. Her name? he hedged. Golly, I guess I just thought of her as Elmer’s sister. And hating himself for being unable to look into Clarissa’s eyes, he added, I guess I just wasn’t interested enough to ask.

As soon as the lie was out of his mouth Adam, stabbed by guilt, renewed his contrite determination to make amends to Clarissa.

How’s your headache? He reached to stroke her forehead.

Uummmm. Better. That feels good, she whispered.

Slowly his hand went to the gilded hair, held in convoluted whorls of order by her numerous hairpins. One by one, with deliberate slowness he pulled the pins then buried his face in the pale rippling waterfall, whispering almost forgotten words of love against her fragile cheek.

But as the brandy wore thin, comprehension dawned and Clarissa struggled against him.

Adam! No! she ordered, anger turning her eyes to cold blue stones.

He groaned. Clarissa. It’s been over two years. I love you. You’re my wife.

She struggled up pushing him away. Adam, don’t. I mean it. Leave me alone.

His patience stretched to the breaking point, frayed by his heated imaginings of the last few hours and the life of celibacy Clarissa had forced upon him, finally snapped.

Not caring if he hurt her he grabbed both her wrists in his hands and thrust her backwards on her bed.

Damn it, Clarissa! I’ve waited long enough. I’m not a monk! And I’m not waiting one minute longer.

Her breathing quickened, became shallow gasps, and as she struggled against him his passion grew stronger.

Still holding her wrists prisoner in one hand, he captured her jaw firmly in the other and brought his lips down cruelly upon hers. He tasted blood but neither knew nor cared whether it was his or hers. He clutched a handful of her gown intending to rip it from her body.

But at that exact moment she slumped beneath him, arms no longer rigid against him, head drooping to one side, seeming to melt into the mattress beneath them.

He arched away from her, looked into her face and saw that her eyes although still open, had gone as blank and sightless as a china doll’s.

His stomach knotted with despair.

Damn her! Damn her! Once again she had retreated from him, withdrawn into some private refuge, taken her self to an inner world, a universe he had never been invited to enter.

The next day she ordered Rosalia to move Tyler’s things into her bedroom, giving the excuse that his summer cold made him restless and uneasy in his sleep and she wanted to be close at hand if he should need her.

Mr. Blake, she said, will take the spare room, and Adam, without further comment, moved his belongings across the tiny sitting room and into what had been until that day, the guest room.

Adam never again invaded Clarissa’s bedroom.

Not even to kiss Tyler goodnight.

CHAPTER 2

His daylight hours during the next few weeks on the open range were filled to overflowing with little time for anything but the immediate tasks of riding, herding and branding.

But at night, head pillowed on his arms, bunked in one of the line camp cabins or stretched out atop his bedroll, Adam stared into the campfire, the dancing dark light kindling secret longings. And as he lay dreaming with eyes wide open, fired visions of jet fringed eyes and raven-winged hair coupled with images of dusky lips pressed against his own.

And as the nightly images of Elmer’s sister continued to pique his senses, he became increasingly impatient to learn more about her and found himself, even during the daylight hours, mentally rehearsing carefully phrased questions that would reveal answers to the mystery of Priscilla without exposing his own illicit interest.

Adam respected Elmer’s disinclination to discuss family members and family matters, well aware of his people’s traditional taboo which forbids revealing anything considered personal information to anyone rude enough to inquire. The Navajo fears above all else, doing anything which might attract the terrible attentions of those evil ones bent on harm—both to the one spoken of and to the one incautious enough to divulge such information. And knowing this, Adam realized Elmer’s aversion went far beyond mere reluctance to invade another’s privacy. Yes, he’d have to tread with a light step to get anything meaningful from his foreman.

And then one afternoon, as they rode horse-belly high, through a meadow of snake grass, Elmer dismounted.

That sister of mine likes this for dye colors, he said, stuffing handfuls of the weed in his woven saddlebag. Can’t get down on mesa.

Adam seized on what finally appeared to be a natural chance to talk about Priscilla without arousing the astute Navajo’s suspicions.

Are you worried about her now, your sister? Afraid her husband might come back and hurt her?

No. She’s going ‘long with our cousins to their summer camp place. It lies far down inside the rock canyon. That fellow never be able to find her there.

Adam got off his horse and squatted in the stunted shade of a pinon pine then unscrewed the cap of his canvas water bottle while Elmer continued to wad and stuff the meadow grasses into his saddlebags.

So for now Prisc…your sister is safe.

Pretty safes for now, Elmer agreed. But Enemy Way Sing coming some day soon. Some day after next shearing moon. That be when this one worry. That be when that man most likely coming back. He might drink too much. That one gets pretty mean, all right.

Adam wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve.

Excuse me, Elmer, if I seem to be prying. And you don’t need to answer if you don’t want to. But I can’t help but wonder…how did your sister get tangled up with a man like that Victor Walking Horse?

Elmer stopped his grass gathering and came to hunker down alongside Adam. But he remained silent for so long a time Adam began to fear he had offended his friend and was mentally rehearsing an apology when Elmer began to speak.

This one’s people not wait for what you belagaana fellows call ‘love’. Diné know one woman good as next. A woman who is good weaver, good worker, good mother, makes good wife. Also, our women see one man good as next man. If he proves himself a good herder, good trader, they see he make a good husband.

Adam nodded wondering why it was this all made sense somehow, as Elmer continued.

That marriage of my sister was all settled long ago when our uncle talked with that Victor’s uncle.

Elmer gazed into the distance and Adam barely breathed, afraid to call attention to his presence, afraid Elmer would stop speaking. My sister has goats, and sheep and horses. Too many animals to take back and forth each day for water and grass. She’s just a young girl. Needs help with those flocks. She agrees to marry Victor. For a time everything goes pretty good.

Elmer’s eyes looked back in time and again Adam waited quietly for him to continue.

"Our children are taught to walk in Beauty. They are brought ‘long this path by grandmothers, by uncles. Navajo insult say ‘that one acts like gots no relatives.’ We tell our children all things must be done in harmony. They must not do things hurtful to body, hurtful to mind.

But sometimes someone fall from Path of Beauty. That’s what happened with that Victor. He starts sleeping with bad women’s too many times. He gets crazy water from no good white mans, lets flocks stray into loco weeds, lets wolves and coyotes coming to sheep. My sister gets pretty mad all right. Tells me to have talk with husband. But then he takes her horse and rides off. He’s gone two, three moons before he coming back. He tells my sister he is all sorry. After that, my sister says, everything goes ‘long pretty good for a time. But then he starts up again. And every time my sister tells me how he treats her, he throws her down again. She pretty scared all right. He one mean cuss, that Victor. I tell my sister, put that man’s saddle outside door. Be through with that mean cuss.

Elmer stopped speaking and took a long hard drink from his own water bottle and Adam, who never in all his life had known his foreman to speak more than two or three sentences at one sitting, was now even more reluctant to interrupt the older man, but his reference to a saddle was something new to him and he wanted to learn more.

Saddle? he prompted.

Yep. Dinétah man head of family. But woman boss of hogan. If that woman does not wish to be married with him no more, that woman does not want husbands stuff inside. So she puts his saddle, guns, whatever, outside. Everybody sees this. Everybody tells. In this way everybody knows that man is no longer a good husband.

Apparently finished speaking, Elmer rose and walked towards the grazing horses. Adam reluctant to have the conversation end, rose with a heavy sigh and followed him.

He made himself wait until they had mounted and trotted several paces down the trail headed back towards the camp before capturing Elmer’s attention with a casual, You mentioned something earlier about an Enemy Way ceremony?

Yep. That plenty good times then. The crops are all planted. The flocks are all sheared. The lamb babies are born. Everybody pretty happy, I tell you. That is time to see old friends before time to work the harvest comes.

Is that the celebration that ends with the Squaw dance? Adam asked.

Yep. Our people mostly call that dance ‘Girls Dance.’ That be’s a good time for those girls…Elmer turned to face Adam with a broad wink…and their mothers. That be’s time those mothers begin looking over possible husbands for their girls.

Are white people ever let in on the dancing? Adam hoped his question would show only passing interest.

Yep. Sometimes. If that white man gots ‘nuff money to pay for dancing with those girls. Takes money you know. That’s how it works. Wanna dance, gotta pay those girls. They like seeing which girl gets most fellows to pay for dancing.

Adam tipped his head just enough to shield his face from Elmer’s scrutiny.

Sounds fair to me. But, well…if you’re really worried about your sister’s husband making trouble…would you like some company? At the ceremony, I mean.

Company? Elmer’s usually husky voice lifted in a twinkling lilt.

Adam shrugged. Should have known better than to try and outsmart one of the smartest men he’d ever known. Still, in final attempt at nonchalance, he persisted.

Well, yes. After all, if you think there might be trouble, two heads are better than one.

Most times, mebbe that being true, Elmer agreed.

But Adam didn’t miss the wry smile as the old Navajo nudged his little mare into an easy trot.

And Adam waited for another four interminable weeks wondering if his foreman had seen through his thinly disguised offer of ‘company’ and would invite him to the celebration.

It was the end of the second day when the ritual Enemy Way Ceremonies, held for those of the People who had been living and working among the whites in town, and forbidden to outsiders, were completed. Then the festivities gave way to the purely social.

Adam, sensing the suspicious caution of these otherwise outwardly emotionless people against the Anglo outsider, tried unobtrusively to ease himself to stand in the second row of the crowd, circled around by some two dozen ‘sway singing’ men. His command of their language was not so good that he could literally translate the quips and jibes exchanged between the dancers and the onlookers, but he could tell by the jabbing elbows and deep throated chuckles coming from Elmer and the others, both men and women, the content of the jokes was characteristically ribald.

Adam understood the worth of this good-natured camaraderie, an emotional release, a time for playful relaxation before the backbreaking work of the harvest was upon them.

But although he stood in motionless silence, a sudden breathless anticipation overtook him as he searched the crowd for sight of Priscilla’s face. Had he exaggerated her attractions out of all proportion? Would he even be able to recognize her again? After all, two and one half months had gone by since…

And then he saw her. Standing between Rosalia and another woman. And at the exact moment of recognition, her eyes met his and he knew she’d seen him first, been studying him. She turned quickly away then, but not before he saw the flush that darkened her smooth cheek.

The hypnotic rhythm of the drums signaled the prelude to the Squaw dance and caught up in the excited anticipation of the crowd his heart raced.

Would she ask him to dance?

His mouth went dry.

Was the dance really only for the unmarried girls?

Too late to ask Elmer. But he did remember enough of their customs to realize it would be serious breach of etiquette for him to approach her there on the woman’s side of the circle. But could she…would she dare cross over and ask him?

He glanced in her direction again, but she was gone.

Then feeling the slightest nudge at his elbow he turned and there she stood beside him. Wordlessly, she took his hand and lead him into the shuffling circle of dancers, guiding him with sparkling eyes and a small half smile through the alternating step, slide, shuffle and glide of the dance.

Later, much later, they joined Elmer and Rosalia in a robust meal of pit roasted goat ribs, fluffy fry bread and seemingly endless mugs of strong black coffee, then wandered off to stand alone together in the crowd of animated spectators, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, aware of nothing but the small charged space between their almost but not quite touching bodies.

Then, from across the fire, several voices rumbled in protest and Adam sensed Priscilla stiffen beside him. But as he turned towards her she melted into the crowd.

On his left, Elmer too had straightened then leaned to peer through the flames.

What is it? Adam asked. Where is she going?

In the mirroring light of the fire Adam saw Elmer’s jaw go hard and tense.

That’s her husband, there. That no good one. Comes only for making troubles, you bet.

Adam followed Elmer’s hard gaze and saw a thick set, heavy framed young man, rocking back and forth on his heels, thumbs hooked into his belt. He wore no shirt, only a doeskin vest adorned with silver conchos and as he pushed his way forward, several necklaces and chains of silver and turquoise hanging about his chest, reflected the glittering flames before him.

Yah-t’hey! The fellow’s rude voice telegraphed his unsteady belligerence. Yah-t’hey, cousins. Who has seen this one’s wife? He raised a green bottle to his lips and took a long swallow, threw the bottle down to shatter on the hard packed earth and shouted, This one goes away. Comes back. Wife gone from hogan!

Most of the onlookers turned away in obvious discomfort at witnessing such shameful behavior, but two men put restraining hands out and said something in words too softly spoken to carry across the distance.

Victor Walking Horse slapped their hands away and with a loud oath, spun on his heel, again elbowing his way through the crowd which closed behind him as silently as rippling sand obliterating an intruding footprint.

Adam started to follow, but Rosalia stopped him.

No. she whispered. Stay. Seeking troubles, that one. Better he not sees thee here tonight. Better turn ‘self away from fire glows.

Reluctantly Adam obeyed, realizing she was in her polite way reminding him that he was here only on invitation and better for all concerned if he did not become involved in what was, after all, a family matter.

So for another anxious half hour, he waited until Elmer returned saying only that his sister had ‘gone on home’ with her husband.

The raucous festivities of that evening continued on but Adam, Rosalia and Elmer sat in morose silence in Elmer’s wagon, waiting only for daylight to streak the eastern sky so they might safely travel without having to worry about the chindees, those evil spirits of the darkness bent on causing trouble for anyone foolish enough to venture out alone at night.

Several hours later, Adam mounted his horse and followed the buckboard across the desert. But when they approached the crossroads, instead of proceeding straight ahead to the beginning acres of Sky Mesa, they turned without discussion and headed in the direction of Priscilla’s home camp.

For the first time in his life Adam felt a sense of foreboding.

And as soon as he could separate the humped sod rooftop of her hogan from the desert floor, he gouged his horse in the ribs and led the way towards the barely visible line of the brush fence corral that marked Priscilla’s camp.

They found her, lying bruised and nearly incoherent, on her bloodied sleeping mat. Both eyes were swollen shut and her lips were crusted with blood, dried black. The fingers of her left hand were swollen like great purple sausages and her right arm, dislocated at the shoulder, dangled at a useless and unnatural angle.

Rosalia, howling her anguish, went immediately to her medicine bag while Adam and Elmer wrenched the arm back into the socket and bound it in a sling.

The next day, while Elmer rode out to the hogan of a cousin of the extended family arranging for his sister’s flocks to he herded with his until she returned, Rosalia and Adam wrapped her in her sheepskin blanket and lay her in the wagon bed which Rosalia padded with a heavy quilt, to make the journey back to Sky Mesa as comfortable for her as was possible.

In the next few days of her recuperation there, Adam found himself inventing reasons to go down to Elmer’s cabin, and although he sensed the Navajo couple saw through his thinly veiled requests for advice or consultation, he could not help himself. And on more than one occasion, knowing that Elmer was occupied down at the barn or supervising some of the other men, and Rosalia was busy at the main house, his compulsion to seek Priscilla out was overwhelming.

In her second week, Adam started on his repetitious stroll down the sandy lane towards Elmer’s house but was interrupted by a movement in the garden. He stopped and saw Priscilla herself, cutting away the deadened vines from the squash and pumpkin plants.

Mustering a semblance of nonchalance he called, ‘Afternoon, ma’am. She straightened and nodded.

Do you think you’re up to all this activity? he asked, opening the garden gate.

Oh, yes. My sister makes good medicine. This one cannot stay long time inside. My sister busy inside house. This one tries to help little bit in garden.

Well, nothing strenuous, you hear?

Even as he spoke she disentangled and lifted a large pumpkin from the ground.

Hey, let me do that, Adam said, leaping forward to take the heavy load from her.

For the second time their fingers brushed and for the second time he saw her startled glance and heard the sharp intake of breath.

Sorry, he managed. It was impossible to say more with her soft dark eyes upon him like that.

And this time there was something else. It was almost as though her eyes were speaking for her and startled by his own sensual desire, he lowered his gaze lest she read his thoughts.

Wanting desperately to stay, he muttered something about seeing to the stock, thrust his hands in his pockets and left the garden. It wasn’t until he was halfway to the main house he realized he was walking in the opposite direction from the barns. With a sheepish glance over his shoulder he turned and caught Priscilla’s smile just before she ducked her head and busied herself with the vines.

In the days that followed Adam deliberately organized his time around the ranch so as to ‘just happen by’ Elmer’s cabin during the hours her chores would most likely call her out of doors. He delighted in her quiet serenity in spite of her predicament and each passing hour spent in her unpretentious company enhanced the realization that from that spring day of their first encounter she had piqued his senses.

With little effort on Adam’s part, these chance encounters soon became deliberate occurrences, and as he delved into her world Adam became more and more impressed with the wisdom of the ways of the Diné.

One day he complimented her on her ability to speak English, saying she was so much better than he was at speaking the Navajo language.

She confessed that she had gone for a time, to the Mission School and learned to speak some of their words.

She offered then to teach him the language of the Diné and only with valiant effort managed to maintain her composure as he practiced the rollicking roll of tongue against teeth, the elongated vowel sounds, which made up the chant-like speech patterns of the Athabascan language.

But, you see, the language of my people is much simpler than yours, she explained. We have no need for so many English words, she told him and they began a gentle argument over the need to differentiate gender with such qualifying pronouns as ‘he or she’."

But how does anyone know whether you’re speaking of a man or a woman? Adam wondered.

Perhaps we are not so easily confused, she said, smiling into her hand. We say this one or that one and everyone knows what is meant.

Well, what about you? Adam asked.

Her hand flew to her chest. This one? she asked with a quizzical look. I have just explained.

No. Not ‘this one,’ he said laughing. "I mean, what is your word for you?

Priscilla, she answered, the corners of her mouth dimpling with the effort not to smile.

Her merriment finally contained, she went on to explain, In the Mission School we learned to say ‘you’ when speaking to the Anglos. But our people see it as disrespectful to demand the attention of someone by speaking directly in that manner. If there is no other way, we say ‘thee.’

Once he gathered his courage and asked why her people were so adamantly reluctant to do anything to elevate themselves above the rest of the crowd.

Well, she’d answered, they say one who calls attention to himself is pretty likely to be noticed by those Yei-i. Those Holy Ones are jealous ones, you know. Those ones can do good and evil both at same time. Often those spirits try bringing someone back down from that High-Place-In-The-Head.

One day she commented that she wished she’d learned to write the English language.

But I thought you learned in school, Adam said.

She hesitated for a brief moment then with lowered eyes and soft voice, told how it was in those times when, at the Mission School, she’d been given no choice but to speak ‘Anglo.’

You see, my folks were threatened with jail if they did not send their children to the Mission School. Once we were there, we were not allowed to speak our Navajo language or we would be beaten. I myself was made to wear a sign on my back saying I would not speak the ‘heathen language’.

Adam frowned and shook his head. That’s terrible.

Yes. It was bad. But do you not know it is still forbidden to speak anything but the white way even now, at the Mission Schools?

I didn’t go to school here, Adam answered, and I guess I never thought about it one way or another. I suppose the idea is to help the Indian people learn to compete, learn to exist in the white man’s world, but to force someone to abandon his native language is horrible.

Priscilla studied her folded hands and without looking up said, My people say it goes beyond just wanting us to ‘be like you’. My people say the Anglo government is determined to wipe out our entire culture. They say the white men in Washington won’t be happy until all the Indian people are dead and forgotten.

Adam averted his gaze, unable to refute her disturbing judgment. Her statements, he knew, contained more than a grain of truth, and he would not further offend her sensibilities by offering pointless words of comfort and reassurance.

Then when I came out of school, Priscilla continued, I returned here to my home place and had to learn my own language again. The old ones were pretty mad that I had forgotten my own language, let me tell you. And from that time, I used no more of the English and I never did learn to write it past the third grade.

While listening to Priscilla’s disturbing remarks, Adam cast about in his mind to find a way to make up to her for her appalling childhood experiences. And now, hearing her voice a desire to learn to write English, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to invite her to go with him the next trip to the Trading Post.

We can pick out a couple of notebooks and whatever else old Whipple might have on hand in the way of school supplies.

Although Rosalia had kept a discreet distance whenever he appeared, that trip marked the first time they had been truly alone together.

They rode out in the pink haze of that morning beneath a cloud layered sky of strawberry and gold, and without examining his decision, Adam turned at the crossroads and chose the long way leading to the Trading Post.

As they skirted the whorled puddings of red sandstone, cut across the rabbit-brush decorated plateau, and finally turned to ride through blazing slopes of autumn fired sycamore and aspen, Adam wondered how it was that everything he looked at today stood out with such remarkable clarity.

Today the very air was magical, shimmering in the scented breeze, the bark of the aspens whiter than he’d ever noticed, every leaf of every tree danced and beckoned, the evergreens never so green against the far blue mountains, which he noticed for the first time, were already draped with scarves of snow.

And as exhilarated as he was with his heightened awareness of his surroundings, he was even more elated by her presence, and every few seconds refreshed his image of her with sidelong glances.

But his surreptitious glimpses kept colliding with those she cast at him until, giving in to the jostling of their eyes and bodies they simultaneously laughed aloud, for no good reason except the shared exuberance at being together.

When they came to the stacked grotesqueries of Ringing Bluffs, Adam stopped the wagon and cupping his hands to his mouth, called their names then joined in her laughter as the melodious ricochet…Priscillaaaaa….Aaaaaddaaaammm… bounced back on the warming air.

At the half way point they stopped at the cottonwood shaded oasis of the windmill to let the horse drink and fill their own canteens.

The only sounds were the whooshing thump of the mill blades in the scented breeze and the strident call of some high flying crows.

Adam turned to her in the dappled shade, saw the blue black sparks of fire coming from her hair, lifted a finger to stroke a stray tendril. Then as he traced the rose dusk skin from her temple to her mouth, a tiny smile, as intimate as a kiss, softened her lips.

He took her face in both his hands and probing her dark eyes, saw his own compelling desire smoldering there.

Oh, God, Priscilla.

She lifted her hands and drew his from her face.

We must not, she whispered. I have husband. You have wife.

He hesitated for the barest of moments sorting through the words he must find to make her see that this was not just an afternoon’s dalliance. She must be made to understand how deeply his feelings went, that he saw his future inextricably interwoven with hers.

Priscilla, he began slowly, although it seems to me you’re well rid of him, I can’t speak for your feelings about your husband. If you feel you owe him something, if you want to go back to the reservation and wait for him, I’ll take you home.

He put both hands on her arms and turned her to face him. "But, Priscilla, my dear Priscilla, you must believe this. My wife and I no longer share a marriage. We haven’t been together more than one or two times since our little boy was born. Do you understand what I’m saying? There is something…some thing that troubles her. I do not understand myself. She will not discuss it. But, Priscilla, Mrs. Blake no longer looks upon me as her husband. And I no longer think of her as my wife.