Wild Whispers

And recks not right or wrong?

—R. W. RAYMOND

Fort Defiance, Arizona

June 1863

She looked out at the cliffs, painted with red and purplish brown and luminous shadows. It was a country that changed with the positions of the sun, a land of narrow canyons, great mesas, and unending sand. Deep-green pinyons and juniper bushes dotted the distant, arid hills.

Her straw bonnet shielding her face from the hot rays of the sun, Leonida Branson strolled arm in arm with her fiancé, General Harold Porter, before the many colorful tents that had been erected in the shadows of the high walls of Fort Defiance. A band of Navaho had come down from the mountains and pitched their tents to trade with the soldiers and their wives at the fort. With their skillful geometric weavings the Navaho bartered for the white man’s knives with which to shear their sheep. They also wanted red silk handkerchiefs to wear around their heads, silver ornaments for their horses, and silver buttons for themselves.

Many Pittsburgh wagons brought to the fort by those skilled in trading with various Indian tribes were sitting a short distance from the tents. Beneath their carefully stretched canvas tops were bolts of brightly colored calico, beads, ribbons, and lace.

With her delicate white-gloved hand Leonida swept the skirt of her blue silk dress up away from the dusty sand, yet she was scarcely aware of it. She was too taken by the beautiful displays of all sorts of jewelry and handwoven woolens ranging from small mats to blankets, rugs, and tapestries that lay spread on the ground before the tents, their Navaho owners proudly standing beside them.

Leonida smiled at the lovely Navaho women as she moved from tent to tent, searching for one in particular. Harold had told Leonida that this young woman’s skills at making blankets had gained her a reputation that reached far and wide.

Harold’s left arm was even now heavily laden with special yarns to give to the talented lady, in hopes that she would weave a lovely blanket from it to be one of his many wedding gifts for Leonida.

Leonida glanced over at Harold, who today had abandoned his usual uniform to impress upon her that he was more than just a soldier. He wore high-buffed black boots, a pair of dark breeches, and a white shirt that was ruffled at the sleeves and throat, with a sparkling diamond stic

kpin in the folds of his satin ascot.

Nearing forty, Harold was handsome, with golden, wavy hair, and eyes almost as golden, and a complexion unmarred by the hot sun of Arizona, or by a hard life in general. His had been a life handed to him on a silver platter, or so it seemed to Leonida, and his brash, arrogant personality bespoke of his having been spoiled as a child.

Wanting to find excuses for him because she had promised to marry him, she wanted to blame Harold’s shortcomings on having been an only child. But she knew that was not a valid excuse for his arrogance. She was an only child, and she did not see herself as spoiled. She always looked at everyone as her equal, even the poorest people who begged for food on the street corners of San Francisco, where she had lived with her mother after her father left them. Leonida even went out of her way to help the needy, by handing out food and clothes to them from time to time, as well as sometimes finding them decent housing and paying for it from the allowance that both her mother and her father gave her.

This had all come to an instant halt when her mother died and Leonida was forced to live with her father at his military establishments.

A wave of sadness descended on her as she was catapulted back in time to another death. Her father’s.

He had been dead for only four months, and the pain was still sharp. His death had seemed to imprison her in a trap from which she had not yet escaped: this engagement to Harold.

She had agreed to marry him only because her father had wanted it so badly. He had seen many possibilities in Harold, both as a military officer and eventually as a civilian. Harold had the money to make Leonida comfortable for the rest of her life.

Her father had wanted to make sure that his daughter was well cared for when he was no longer around, but Leonida knew that if he could see how Harold’s arrogance, especially toward the Indians, had worsened, he surely would not have expected her to marry him. Since Harold had taken over her father’s post at Fort Defiance, she could hardly stand being around him at all.

The chances of traveling back to San Francisco during this time of warring between the states seemed an impossible wish that could not be fulfilled. She had to bide her time until it was safe for her to travel alone.

“My dear, there she is,” Harold said in his languid way. He nodded toward a tent where many blankets and other items were spread on the ground. “That’s Pure Blossom. Many army officers like to have her blankets because they are so tightly woven they are practically waterproof.” He smiled down at Leonida. “But my reasons for getting one for you is not so much for durability as for the loveliness of the blankets.” He pointed at Pure Blossom and frowned. “I imagine that’s all she’s good at. Look at her, all bent up and out of shape and as frail as a dove. I imagine she spends her days weaving and dreaming of what life could be for her if she weren’t so downright disgusting and pitiful-looking.”

Leonida paled and her jaw went slack as she gazed up at him, aghast at his scorn for this unfortunate little Indian woman whose back was hunched, and whose fingers were gnarled with some sort of wasting-away disease.

“That’s a horrible thing to say,” she gasped. “Harold, have some compassion. It isn’t her fault that nature has been cruel to her. Besides, she obviously possesses a sort of beauty. Just look at her face. There is such a serene innocence in her smile.”

Leonida turned away from Harold and tried to forget his unfeeling remarks as they stepped into the shadows of the huge tent, where Pure Blossom stood over her beloved blankets and jewelry, her eyes filled with pride as she looked up at Leonida.

Leonida smiled warmly in return, her gaze sweeping over the Indian woman’s beautiful clothes, jewelry, and hair. She had beautiful black hair that hung nearly to the ground and teeth so white that surely they outshone the stars at night. Pure Blossom wore thick strings of turquoise and coral around her neck, over a bright-blue velveteen blouse. Her skirt was of bright calico, very long and full, and she wore moccasins with silver buttons.

“For trade?” she said in halting English as she gestured toward her wares. “Lovely? They please beautiful lady? You take?”

Pure Blossom’s gaze fell upon the yarn across Harold’s arm, and her eyes brightened. “You trade for the pretty yarn?” she asked anxiously.

Leonida only half heard Harold explain that the bright-colored Saxony and Zephyr yarns had been shipped from the East, and that he had not come to trade with her at all. Instead he was willing to pay her well to make a special blanket for his future bride.

Leonida’s gaze had been arrested by a Navaho warrior who had stepped from the tent and now stood protectively at Pure Blossom’s side, his muscular copper arms folded across his powerful chest.

Both his handsomeness and his intense dark eyes, which locked with hers, made Leonida’s heartbeat quicken and caused a strange, mushy warmth at the pit of her stomach.