Sage nodded stiffly, then watched with a deep love for her as she went to the small boy and lifted him gently into her arms. It was at this moment that he knew that he had been right to choose her to be his future wife. There, standing before him, was how she would be in the future as she would hold their child with such compassion and tenderness.
Humming a lullaby, Leonida cradled Trevor in her arms and slowly rocked him back and forth. When he managed a smile, then lay his cheek back against her bosom, she knew that he was going to be all right.
“Leonida, thank you for helping,” Carole said, eyeing Trevor with wavering eyes. “I’m so weak. I—I just couldn’t lift him.”
Carole looked over at Sage bitterly. “That Indian will pay,” she hissed. “Once Kit Carson finds out what he’s done, he’ll come and shoot him. Or better yet, hang him. He deserves no pity, that one.”
A deep sadness overwhelmed Leonida, torn between how she should feel about Sage and how she actually did feel. Had he, in truth, been responsible for more than this one raid? Did he have placed in a sacred place in his hogan many white men’s scalps, perhaps even those of women and children . . . ?
She closed her eyes to such a horrendous thought and began following Sage. Trevor lay limply in her arms and fell into a sound sleep. When they reached the shade of cottonwood trees and the splash of a waterfall as it careened down the walls of a high butte, everyone ran to the river and fell to their knees, splashing water into their mouths and onto their faces.
Leonida moved carefully to the water’s edge with Trevor. Carole took the child from her arms and lay him down beneath a tree. After she ripped a portion of her skirt away, she soaked it, then began bathing her son’s face and squeezing water over his tiny lips.
Leonida was not aware of Sage behind her until he placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn with a start. “Eat the meat of the cattail,” he said, handing her a cattail spike that had been stripped of its tightly packed outer flowers. “This will quench your thirst.” He held a yucca plant in his other hand, as well as a leather pouch of food. “Once your thirst is quenched, you can feed on other offerings that I give you.”
“No, thank you,” Leonida said stiffly, pretending that which she did not feel. “I will drink what everyone else drinks, and if they aren’t given food, nor will I eat.”
At almost the same moment, her eyes widened as she watched Sage’s warriors mingle with the women and children, sharing food from their leather pouches. The dried wild seeds, some jerked beef meat mixed with tallow, and the fruit of the yucca were consumed quickly, followed by deeper gulps of water.
Sage walked away from Leonida with his offering of food. “You can rest for a while and then we will move onward,” he said, looking from woman to woman, then from child to child. “We will not stop again until we are safely within the folds of the mountain.”
Leonida was deeply touched by Sage’s generosity. Everyone’s needs were being seen to, and even the warriors seemed to have relaxed. They were more like Leonida had first seen them at the fort, standing outside their tents with their wares to trade. They did not seem like renegades at all, except that she had seen them shoot to kill and force those taken from the stagecoach into captivity.
Her stomach’s sudden growling, so loud that surely even the fish in the stream heard it, made Leonida forget everything but her hunger and her thirst. She eyed the pouch of food in Sage’s hand, and the fruit of the yucca, which looked like a short, fat banana. Her throat was so parched that she could hardly swallow. She glanced over at the stream, then went quickly to the water. Kneeling down beside it, she began scooping large handfuls of water up to her lips, and the water trickled down the back of her throat so quickly that she began to choke and gag.
Embarrassed, she rose to her feet and cleared her throat one more time. When Sage came to her with a concerned look on his face, she turned her eyes away, not wanting him to sense her feelings for him.
“You are being foolish,” Sage said. He forced the pouch of food into her hand and then the fruit of the yucca. “I will share my food with you. You eat. Now. You have heard me say that we will not stop again until we are in the mountains. Only moments ago you had strength enough for both you and the child. Later, after much more travel, you will see that because you did not eat when told to, you will have to depend on someone else’s strength, as did the child yours.”
He leaned down, closer to her face. “I would be more than glad to lend you a helping hand should you need it,” he said softly. “But would you accept it as readily as the child accepted help from you? I doubt it. Your trust in me is gone. Is it not?”
“How could I trust you now, after what you did?” Leonida said, eyeing the pouch hungrily. She looked slowly up at Sage. “You injured the soldiers. Isn’t that reason enough not to trust you?”
“Did you not notice that none of the soldiers were mortally wounded?” Sage said stiffly. “The aim of Sage and his warriors is accurate. Had I wanted dead soldiers, they would be dead. I chose not to kill, only to maim.”
Leonida’s mouth opened in a gasp; now she realized that it was true. None of the soldiers had been killed.
Sage continued before she could offer a response. “And you know that I would never hurt you,” he said. “Trust me, Leonida. What I have done is the only way for the Navaho. My people’s future is dim because of Kit Carson and the other white leaders. They would not listen to reason peacefully. I was forced into using means other than that which my father taught me. He was a peaceful Navaho. So was I until today. This is the first time Sage has ever lifted a firearm against the white pony soldiers. I hope it will be the last.”
“How can you expect it to be the last time, when you know that the soldiers are even now hunting for you?” Leonida asked. “Sage, no matter what you say, I cannot condone what you have done today.”
Sage took her by an elbow and urged her to sit beside the stream. “In time, you will follow my reasoning for everything,” he said. He nodded toward the food pouch. “Open. Let us share equally.”
She didn’t have to be told again. Her stomach ached so terribly, she opened the pouch and broke the long strip of jerked deer meat in two and handed half to Sage. Between bites of tasteless deer meat and dried, wild seeds, she enjoyed the sweetness of the fat fruit of the yucca.
Sage ate along with her, his mind on what lay ahead. “It is important to reach my stronghold before word has spread too far of what my warriors and I have done,” he said suddenly. “Once we are there, no one can find Sage and his people, or his captives. It is well hidden from the soldiers. Only a few neighboring Indians with whom the Navaho trade even know where it is located.”
“It will take you quite a long time to get there if you continue forcing the women and children to travel on foot,” Leonida said guardedly. “Especially if they have to travel the narrow paths of the mountainsides.”
As she took her last bite of food, she gave Sage a half glance, hoping that
what she had said had planted an idea in his head. The government had always given the officers’ families more than adequate housing, clothing, and food to satisfy them. This had made them weak.
“You are right,” Sage said, nodding. “The captives will now all travel on horseback with my warriors.”
Leonida was stunned that he had agreed to her suggestion. A warm feeling swam through her: Sage was changing back into the gentle, caring person that she had known at first. It would be so easy to forget everything but the good about him.
“Once we are safely at my stronghold I will send a scout to Fort Defiance with word of the ambush and my intentions,” Sage said, gently taking the empty pouch from Leonida and folding it in fourths.