Wild Splendor

She could not help but wonder how close Kit Carson might be to finding Sage’s stronghold. And what Harold’s rage at finding her taken captive might lead him to do? Then there was the welfare of the rest of the captives, even though they had been given shelter and food enough to make them comfortable. She only wished that they could be set free soon and returned to their loved ones.

Sighing heavily, Leonida picked up Trevor’s empty bowl and her own, which was still half full, and started to go outside to wash them in the basin just outside the door. She stopped in midstep and stared as Pure Blossom came into the hogan, her arms loaded down with clothes. At one glance Leonida saw that these were much different than the ones she had been given before. These were made of doeskin, so pure white they resembled the fluffy soft clouds one could see in the sky on sweet mornings of spring in San Francisco. Her eyes widened as she discovered also that the beadwork on the clothes was brilliantly pretty in design.

“It is good that you have eaten already,” Pure Blossom said, going to Leonida, smiling up at her from her awkwardly twisted stance. “You must prepare for the ceremony. You must prepare Trevor. It is a special day, Leonida. There will be much laughter and gaiety.”

“T

here will?” Leonida asked. She lay the bowls beside the fire again, then accepted the soft clothes as Pure Blossom laid them across her outstretched arms. “Why is there to be a celebration? I am sure your people are worrying about too much now to celebrate anything.”

“When their chief marries, there is cause to forget troubles, at least for that day of the ceremony,” Pure Blossom said, smiling broadly.

Leonida’s eyes widened and she felt the rush of heat to her cheeks. “Marries?” she gasped, stunned. “Sage? He is going to marry . . . ?”

“Beautiful Leonida,” Pure Blossom said, nodding eagerly. “He is marrying you. Did he not tell you? He is preparing for the celebration even now. He is even showing Trevor how to decorate his pony. Then Trevor will come to the hogan and get dressed in his Navaho attire. No more will he wear the clothes of a little white boy.”

Leonida’s head was spinning. Sage had left early to prepare for their marriage ceremony.

Soon they would become man and wife.

Pure Blossom laid Trevor’s Indian attire across Leonida’s arms. Leonida stared down at the briefness of the garment, recognizing it to be a breechclout.

She looked quickly up again, wonder in her eyes at the thought of Trevor wearing such a garment, especially when there were still other white children in the village who might poke fun at him.

“I don’t know,” she murmured, again staring at the scant garment. “Trevor might not want to wear the breechclout.”

“For Sage, he must,” Pure Blossom said softly. She placed a gentle hand on Leonida’s shoulder. “Do not worry about what others might think or do. Think only of Sage and what pleases him. That is also how Trevor must react to his new attire.”

Leonida silently nodded. She watched Pure Blossom turn and walk shakily away, the frail maiden seeming even weaker today, yet filled with no less spirit and sweetness than before. Whatever was slowly draining her of life did not seem to weigh heavily on her heart. She seemed to be accepting it, as she had always accepted the fate of being different in appearance from everyone else.

“Uke-he,” Leonida said quickly before Pure Blossom left the hogan.

The maiden stopped and smiled back at Leonida, then went on outside.

She lay Trevor’s breechclout aside, staring at it doubtfully only a moment longer, and then she knelt on the mats and spread out her white doeskin dress, entranced by its loveliness. The edges of the long sleeves and the hem of the skirt were fringed. The beads were soft pinks, blues, and turquoises, shaped like flowers. The new moccasins that Pure Blossom had brought with the dress were beaded to match, and a beaded headband was also there to be worn at her brow. She would not only be marrying a Navaho today, she would in a sense become one herself.

“It is lovely enough?”

Sage’s voice behind her sent a thrill through Leonida’s veins. She could not move to her feet quickly enough. She went to him and flung herself into his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked excitedly. She gazed up at him, marveling anew at his handsomeness. “Darling, you knew last night that we were going to be married today and you did not tell me. Why?”

“I saw no need,” he said, slipping his fingers through her hair. “Is it not best this way? Is not the surprise worth everything?”

Leonida giggled, then hugged him tightly as she lay her cheek against his bare chest. “Yes, I believe so,” she said, closing her eyes. “Oh, darling, I do love you so much.”

“Our path of happiness will no longer be beset with ambushes. We will be married, and it will be in a beautiful way,” Sage said, lovingly stroking her back. “The gods will marry us.”

He framed her face between his hands and lowered his lips to hers. He gave her a kiss of reverence, of forever.

Chapter 16

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach.

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

The sun was down. The streaming, wavering flames of torches stuck in the ground in the midst of the village made a golden glow in the blue dusk. The beat of a lone drum and several rattles resounded in the air, supplying the music for the various dances being displayed for those who participated in the marriage celebration.

Feeling like a princess in a storybook, dressed so beautifully in her Indian dress and so filled with love for Sage that she ached with the heady sweetness of it, Leonida sat on a soft pelt spread on a platform with her beloved, amid Sage’s people.