Wild Splendor

His fingers were warm on her body, arousing her.

Oh, how he wanted her.

Oh, how he was missing her.

As he stepped up to the four-foot-high conical sweat lodge, many of his warriors were already assembling around it. He nodded to them, his mind now back where it belonged, on what was right for his people as a whole instead of just himself, a man who hungered for a woman.

Sage shed his clothes while Spotted Feather built a fire close to the sweat lodge and began heating stones in it. Sage had seen to it that the hut was made large enough to seat as many men as were required for warring, and each of them bent down and entered after he had stripped himself.

Wedged together in a wide circle inside the low, pitch-dark enclosure, the warriors sat with their legs crossed and their heads lowered. They were silent as Spotted Feather began shoveling hot coals into the lodge.

After enough rocks were piled in the center of the floor, Spotted Feather set a huge wooden vessel of water inside, removed all of his clothes, then crawled into the hut and sat down beside Sage.

Slowly and methodically, Spotted Feather began splashing water from the container onto the hot rocks. A wave of intense heat wafted around the inside of the hut, striking the warriors’ bodies, causing them to sweat profusely. Some who got too hot sank their heads lower, between their legs.

“Han-e-ga! Han-e-ga! ” rang out among the men each time water splashed on the rocks, meaning “good.”

Then Sage began singing softly, Naye-e sin, the War Song. After the song was finished, the men would put special war feathers in their hair. Ornamented with turquoise, the war feathers were never seen by women or children. Each of the warriors believed that if a woman or a child saw his war feathers, it might cause him to behave like a woman or a child in battle. For Sage and his men, such behavior would bring disgrace to the god Nayenezrani, who had given them the War Song and the rituals surrounding it.

After singing and taking the sweat bath, they left the lodge and dived into the river to cleanse themselves, then banded together as they dressed in their finest warring gear. They put on war shirts made of the thickest buckskin obtainable. Since Sage was their chief and the wealthiest of them all, he used four thicknesses of buckskin, glued together with sticky gum from leaves of the prickly pear cactus.

Each of the warriors fortified himself by eating dried yucca, which would give him energy, and then they all mounted. They made a fine sight on their beautiful horses, the men wrapped in striped blankets belted at the waist, with the silver buttons on their tight breeches gleaming in the sun. Their brightly painted lances bristled fiercely at their sides, and many of the men carried bows and arrows and rifles as well.

Sage felt displaced. Never had he expected to have to go against the white pony soldiers for any reason. Especially not now, for he did not want to think that Leonida might be harmed. At this moment in time, her heart was pure toward the Navaho. But how would she feel once she discovered that he was capable of abducting innocent women and children? He despaired to himself.

He sighed heavily, knowing that he must restrain himself from ever thinking about her again or caring what she thought about anything.

She was now as much his enemy as Kit Carson was.

Chapter 7

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

After a full night in the stagecoach, having stopped only long enough at daybreak for everyone to see to their personal needs in the privacy of the bushes, and for everyone to partake of a quick meal of cold beans and beef jerky, Leonida was now squeezed back inside, among the whining children, long tired of hearing stories, and their mothers, who had ran out of ways to please them.

It was midday, the sun was pouring down from the sky in a beating heat, the worst of it seemingly trapped inside the stagecoach.

Leonida fanned herself with one hand as perspiration trickled down her face. She drew her drawstring blouse partially away from her chest, where perspiration was beading up in the valley of her breasts. As she held the blouse away from her skin, she blew down the front of it, receiving at least a moment’s relief.

Feeling lucky to be sitting beside a window, Leonida leaned her face over close to it, flinching when the driver of the stagecoach drew back his whip and uncoiled it, snapping it like a fusillade of rifle fire.

Chains clanked. Axles groaned. The horses strained in their harnesses as the stagecoach moved along on its way in a great cloud of dust. The driver whistled softly through his teeth while the military escorts kept a steady pace beside, in front of, and behind the stagecoach.

Trying to ignore the complaining children, Leonida settled herself as comfortably as possible against the back of the seat again. Once again fanning herself with her hand, she closed her eyes and became lost in thought. Always her thoughts returned to Sage. It gave her an empty feeling at the pit of her stomach to realize that she would never see him again.

Leonida recalled something her father had said long ago before they had moved to Fort Defiance, that among all Indian tribes, the Navaho were the most difficult to control. After arriving at Fort Defiance, though, he had come to understand that the Navaho, except for a few renegades, were a gentle, caring people who kept to themselves, leaving the whites alone.

She bit her lower lip as she thought of her father and how he would have handled this situation. If he had been alive, there would have been more bargaining with the Navaho, instead of just giving them an ultimatum. Even Harold and Kit Carson understood the dangers, or they wouldn’t have sent the women and children of the fort to find temporary shelter and safety elsewhere.

As the stagecoach rounded a clump of thorn bushes in a flurry of dust, pitching Leonida forward, her eyes flew open wildly. She grabbed for the door and steadied herself. Then she gasped when she heard the sudden shrieks of Indians and gunfire approaching the stagecoach from behind.

Leonida’s heartbeat quickened at the thought of an Indian massacre. Panic had seized the women and children, and they screamed and clutched at one another. Leonida turned from them and leaned her head out of the window just in time to see a long Indian lance pierce the arm of one of the soldiers, and she watched as gunfire felled others.

The Indians came into