Wild Splendor

She laughed softly and gazed over at Sage. “Now if it were midday, who could enjoy any of this?” she said. “There are always snakes to fear when the sun is high in the sky.” She hugged herself with her arms and shuddered. “If there is anything that I detest, it’s snakes.”

Sage stared at her for a moment in silence, unnerving her, for suddenly his dark eyes seemed lit with fire. She relaxed when he began talking, friendly as before. She had thought that she had said something that had irritated him, yet was unable to touch on exactly what it might be.

“The Navaho have stories full of poetry and miracles about such things as you speak of tonight,” Sage said, looking away from her. He began picking up pebbles, tossing them one by one into the creek. “The stories are told by the elders of the Navaho villages in the wintertime when the snakes are asleep.”

He moved a hand to her cheek. “The desert country is full of snakes, poisonous and otherwise,” he said softly. “But to the Navaho, snakes are the guardians of sacred lore and will punish those who treat it lightly.”

Leonida’s eyes widened and she swallowed hard.

“I did not know . . .” she murmured, strongly aware of his hand on her cheek, the heat of his flesh against hers. Feelings foreign to her began warming her through and through. “I’m sorry. I never meant to speak so unkindly of snakes. It’s just that long ago, when I was a child, I was bitten by a rattler. I . . . almost died. A preacher was even brought to my bedside. He said many prayers to God before I began to recover.” She was torn with feelings when he drew his hand away and again began tossing pebbles into the water. “I imagine you have a Great Spirit that you pray to?”

“There are many spirits that we pray to, not just one,” Sage explained. “Their names are Changing Woman, Sun, First Man and First Woman, Hero Twins, Monster Slayer, Born of Woman, and White Shell Woman.”

Leonida’s head swam as she tried to remember all of the names that he was giving her. She was quickly learning one of the main differences between her culture and Sage’s, and knew that this was only the beginning.

“The primary purpose for Navaho ceremonials, or ‘sings,’ is to keep man in harmony with himself and the universe,” Sage continued.

He laughed softly. “I see that what I have said confuses you,” he said, moving to an erect sitting position. He wanted to reach out and take her hand yet refrained, afraid that it might frighten or offend her.

In due time, he kept telling himself, in due time he would know the taste of her lips and the touch of her flesh. For now, words were enough, at least until she knew that she could trust him, that he wasn’t a “savage.”

“Yes, I am confused,” she said matter-of-factly. “Yet I understand that there are many differences between your customs and mine, and I accept that.”

“Not only customs,” Sage said, his voice drawn. He rose to his feet and offered Leonida a hand, which she took and stood up beside him.

Her heart pounded when he kept her hand in his as they began walking slowly beside the creek, then headed back toward her horse.

“Sage’s people see that white men are beginning to understand they did not mean to harm the Navaho,” he said. “The whites have their own ideas of law, and they carry them out just as carefully as the Navaho. The two ways are different and cannot keep clashing. It is good to think that warring is a thing of the past, an ugly past filled with hatred and bigotry.”

Leonida stiffened and did not offer a response. She knew that if she said anything now, it would come out all wrong. She did not want to be the one to bear sad tidings, knowing that he would find out soon enough. There was to be a meeting tomorrow at the fort, and he would be one of the many Indian chiefs in attendance.

There he would surely learn early enough the fate of his people.

“As you know, the language of the Navaho is not the only language used by my people today,” Sage said as he stopped beside her horse and began smoothing his hand over its sleek brown mane. “Sage’s English is clear enough, is it not? It was learned from trading with white people and also from Kit Carson, with whom Sage has shared many smokes many times in the past.”

He turned to Leonida, pleased to be talking of his association with Kit

Carson, not knowing that very man was planning a future for Sage’s people that would drastically change his feelings for the “pathfinder.”

“Kit Carson has been known to me for many moons now,” he said, proudly squaring his shoulders. “Sage has watched Kit Carson lasso a wild horse and throw his rope with the sure aim of an arrow. Kit Carson was an agent for the Utes a few moons ago, and because he so well cared for them, they gave him the name ‘Father Kit.’”

He turned from Leonida and stared into the distance, thinking of tomorrow’s meeting, when he would be clasping hands of friendship once again with Kit. Carson. He turned smiling eyes down at Leonida again.

“When the sun sits high in the sky tomorrow, Sage and many other Indian leaders will speak of peace and harmony again with Kit Carson and the leaders at the fort,” he said thickly. “We shall share many smokes. It will be a good time. Sage will then return to his home in the mountains content.”

His eyes became shadowed as he leaned down closer to Leonida. “There will be one thing missing in my happiness,” he said, gently touching her cheek with his callused fingers.

Leonida’s heart seemed scarcely to be beating as she gazed up at him, his lips so close, his eyes so filled with something quite unfamiliar to her, yet seeming to reflect deep feelings for her. “What is that?” she asked, her voice breaking as she was forced to swallow quickly. Her motions were becoming overwhelmed with a delicious sort of languor.

“There is no one woman that I can call mine in my life,” he said. “Without a woman, a man is not complete.”

He leaned so close that his breath was warm on Leonida’s lips. “The man you have chosen. Does your heart agree to this choice?” he asked in barely a whisper, yet it echoed over and over again within her, for she could tell that he was feeling much more than what he was saying.

And so was she.

She knew that it was useless to allow her feelings to go any further than this, for tomorrow he would hate all white people, her included.

“I don’t know how to answer your question,” she said, seemingly swallowed whole by her thunderous heartbeats.