Wild Splendor

Sage continued rocking Pure Blossom back and forth in his arms. He knew this was not the time or place to discuss the issues with Kit Carson, but since it had already begun, so be it. What he had to say would not take long. It had just been important to say it in the presence of his people so they would know the terms of the agreement that he hoped to achieve with Kit Carson.

“There will be no hangings,” Sage said quietly, yet with feeling. “Not even will my people place a noose around your neck. You will not be harmed at all. You will be released along with the white captives if you promise to return to Fort Defiance and tell them that you see it best not to interfere any further in our lives, so that the Navaho can ride free along land that has been theirs since before the white people even knew it existed. Promise that you will see to it that my people—even those that you have now as captives—will not be herded to a reservation.”

“You know that you are asking the impossible of me,” Kit said, sighing heavily. “I have no final say in these matters. I take my orders from the Great White Chief in Washington, who dictates all things to the white people, even Kit Carson.”

“You are wrong,” Sage grumbled. “The Great White Chief values your word, as well as your life. If you speak for the Navaho favorably, he will listen.”

“Only if he wishes to,” Kit said solemnly. “When it comes to Indians, scarcely does he ever favor them over the comforts of the white settlers.”

When Pure Blossom began chanting and talking out of her head, Sage felt guilty for having argued in her presence. He glared at Kit, then walked away from him, Leonida at his side.

“I never thought that it might be prairie fever,” Leonida said, gazing at Pure Blossom, whose face was beet-red. “Until today she scarcely had a fever. Now? It came on her so quickly.”

Sage took Pure Blossom to her blankets, laid her on one and wrapped her in another one.

He turned to Leonida and took her hands in his. “Our medicine man must sing over my sister,” he said thickly. “But first a house of bent saplings and leaves must be built quickly for her, to keep her out of the weather.”

He put a hand on Leonida’s cheek, reveling as always in the softness of her flesh. “At the same time I will see that you have a house of your own,” he said. “We may be here for some time. I cannot leave this place while Pure Blossom is this ill.”

Leonida swallowed hard, for Kit C

arson’s words that Pure Blossom would not be recovering had burned into her heart. This would be her final resting place.

She glanced down at Runner, who once again kept vigil at Pure Blossom’s side. It gave her a queasy feeling to think that he might come down with the same dreaded disease, yet she felt confident that he wouldn’t. He had been around Pure Blossom both night and day for as long as she had been ill, and neither he nor anyone else of the village showed signs of contracting the disease.

Leonida watched Sage ordering his men to build the houses, then watched him as he took Kit Carson aside and began discussing again about the fate of his people.

She peered into the deepening shadows of night, hoping that no one had followed Sage and Kit to this camp of Navaho.

Chapter 26

Like outcast spirits, who wait,

And see, through Heaven’s gate,

Angels within it.

—THACKERAY

Pure Blossom’s wigwam had been put together quickly. A fire now burned in the fire pit in the center of the dwelling, and smoke spiraled upward and spread outward like dancing, swaying ghosts.

Pure Blossom lay unconscious on thick pallets beside the fire. Leonida and Sage sat on opposite sides of her, awaiting the arrival of the medicine man, the “singer.”

Sage had already paid him many horses to conduct the ceremony. He had spent a great deal of time learning what to do, so he had to be paid well.

Outside, everyone stood around a nearby fire, warding off the chill of the night with blankets snuggled around their shoulders. Sage had dispensed with worrying that a fire might attract enemies, and a great fire leapt toward the sky.

The Navaho’s enemies were many, but their worst enemy at present might be the prairie fever. Fires were needed not only for warmth, but for cooking nourishing food. Sage’s people needed both the fires and the warm food to keep them healthy during the long nights of plummeting temperatures. And Sage would go no farther than this valley now that his sister had worsened.

Leonida placed another cool, damp cloth on Pure Blossom’s brow in an effort to get her temperature down. She was glad that Runner was fast asleep in the wigwam built for her and Sage. Now that it was suspected that Pure Blossom had prairie fever, everyone who had come in contact with her had a chance of coming down with the awful disease. It seemed to strike those whose resistance was low, and Leonida hoped that no one else in the village, except perhaps those who were old and ailing already, would contract it. It seemed now that all along, when Pure Blossom’s health had been clearly failing, she had been coming down with prairie fever. Her worsening health had not been caused by her disabilities. After some time, she became so weak that it was much easier for the fever to claim her in its fiery intensity.

Suddenly the air was filled with the pulsing beats of a drum. Leonida turned quickly around, and her gaze fell on an elderly man who wore a long, flowing robe without any beads or design. His hair, drawn back from his face, hung in one long, gray braid down his straight back. Although his face was furrowed with wrinkles, he was a handsome Navaho, his dark eyes gentle and kind as he gazed back at Leonida. She did not know his name, but everyone referred to him only as the singer.

As he came farther into the wigwam, Leonida took the damp cloth from Pure Blossom’s brow and went to the other side of the structure. The singer stood over Pure Blossom, looking sadly down at her. Slowly he moved to his knees beside the pallet of furs, his bone-thin hands drawing the blankets down away from her, exposing her thin, fever-racked, naked body to his wizened eyes.

Scarcely breathing, Leonida watched the medicine man put himself in what seemed to be a trance as his hands trembled over Pure Blossom’s body.

Outside, the drum pulsed into the night, many women singing along with it.