“About Runner?” Leonida gasped out, finishing his sentence. She dropped the cloth into the water and went to Sage. She knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his cheek. “Darling, could she have been coming here to tell us that our son has met with a mishap? She didn’t get the chance to say anything before she fainted.” Leonida buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Lord, don’t let it be so,” she murmured. “If anything should happen to Runner. . . .”
“Mother? Father?” Runner said as he came into the hogan, as unkempt and as drawn as Stephanie had been before her collapse.
Leonida jumped to her feet and ran to Runner, embracing him tightly. “Thank the Lord,” she cried. “I thought something had happened to you.”
Runner was looking past her, over her shoulder. He stiffened when his gaze fell upon Stephanie. Although he was angry at her, and hurt by her deceits, an alarm seemed to sound inside him as he saw her lying there so still and pale. Her clothes and her hair looked as though they had gone through a fierce battle.
Yet he had to hold himself at bay. Adam’s words were running through his mind, over and over again. This woman was a liar. She was deceitful. She was a schemer. He could not allow himself to care about her at all.
Yet there she was. She had beaten him there, only because he had stopped long enough to commune with the Great Unseen Power before returning home. Otherwise, he had driven himself to get back to the sanctity of his hogan and the peace he found within its walls.
“What is she doing here?” he finally asked, easing from his mother’s arms.
“I’m not sure,” Leonida said, giving Sage a troubled look. He had not yet turned his face to Runner. He stared unblinkingly into the fire as it was taking hold, casting a golden, warm light on his handsome copper face.
“What has happened to her?” Runner asked, going to stand over Stephanie. His heart bled as he gazed down at her. Helpless and pitiful, she looked so innocent. No matter what he knew about her, it was hard not to bend to his knees and draw her next to him, to hold, to coddle.
But again Adam’s harsh words burned even more strongly in his mind and he only held himself stiffly over her.
Leonida came to Runner and slipped an arm through his. “She had just arrived, then fainted after she dismounted her horse,” she murmured. She looked up at Runner. “Darling, you look as though you may have traveled the same road as she. I haven’t seen you unshaven since you were a child. Are you aware of the stubble on your face? And your hair—it is windblown. And your clothes are filthy. Where have you been? Surely you weren’t gone this long looking for Thunder Hawk.”
“I have traveled as far as Canyon
de Chelley and back again,” Runner said in a dull, monotone voice. “That is also the path of Stephanie’s journey.”
Sage gave Runner a stiff look over his shoulder, then rose slowly to his feet. “She went with her camera to the sacred place of our ancestors?” he said, glowering down at Stephanie.
“Yes,” Runner said, nodding. “That is where I found her and Adam.”
“You ordered them away, my son?” Sage said, eyeing Runner speculatively.
“Yes.” Runner said. “I also broke Stephanie’s camera and the film plates.”
Sage smiled, well pleased. “You did well, my son,” he said, patting Runner’s back.
“Then this is why she came to our village?” Leonida said, bending to her knees beside Stephanie again, smoothing the cool, damp cloth across her brow. “Because she was angry with you? This was what was driving her so hard? I don’t understand. Surely she told you what she thought about what you did while you both were at the canyon. Why did she have to come here? To tell you again?”
“There were other things that were said besides talk of photography and cameras,” Runner said, walking away. He slipped his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor. He grabbed up a towel and started toward the door. “I am going to the river. I plan to bathe and to shave. If she awakens, tell her to leave. I wish not to have council with her, ever again.”
Sage smiled and nodded.
Leonida frowned and watched Runner walk away.
Then Leonida looked over at Sage. “There is much here that has not yet been sorted out between this woman and our son,” she said.
The voices awakened Stephanie. She stirred and blinked her eyes, then rose up on an elbow and looked blankly around her. “Where am I?” she murmured, then jolted with alarm when Sage stepped into view.
Her gaze caught Leonida stooping over her, a cloth in her one hand, her eyes showing mixed emotions in their depths.
“How did I get here?” Stephanie said, looking guardedly from Leonida to Sage.
“You fainted,” Leonida said, dropping the cloth back in the basin. She moved to her feet and carried the basin outside. She stopped and took a nervous breath. She was torn with how to treat Stephanie, yet still wished for things to work out between Runner and Stephanie. She went back inside and knelt again at the bedside.
“I’m going to bring you some food, and then you will have the strength to leave,” she said. “And I believe you should, Stephanie. Runner is very angry at you. I doubt he would speak to you if you stayed.”
“Then he is here?” Stephanie said, easing her legs over the side of the bed. Weakness seized her. She fell back down on the bed, panting.
“I’ll be back soon with some stew,” Leonida said, then left.