Dust Devil (18 page)

Perhaps it was the strain of the two of them living together, but not as man and wife, or maybe it was the tension that flared between them now, but suddenly
she felt panicky laughter bubbling in her throat. Now her hands clamped over her mouth, as the laughter threatened to spill out, and she moved to put the firepit between her and him.

The buckskins slid to the floor.
His body was beautiful. He was tall and sinewy and lean with the physical fitness of a man who lived off the land. Bands of muscles laddered his stomach.  Her hands dropped from her mouth in open awe, but there was still the smile of laughter on her lips.

Lario saw it, and the faintest smile twitched at the comer of his mouth. "The doe has no fear of the hunter?” he asked and moved toward her.

"No, it’s — ” Then she started to laugh in spite of her determination not to. She turned and ran around the mound of blanket that wrapped their child. "No, Lario!” she tried to cry out as he took up the chase, but the fits of laughter choked her and tears sprang to her eyes.

He
grabbed her about the waist and swung her up into his arms. "You must be taught the proper respect for the man. It is time you learned to act like a Navajo woman.”

She
kicked her legs and flailed her arms, all the time laughing helplessly — only to stop short as his teeth tugged at one ear lobe. The slight prick of pain darted shivers throughout her. She ceased her struggling now but went rigid in expectation.

"And it is time you learned to better speak the Navajo tongue.” His lips brushed her forehead as he sat her on his own pallet of robes and blankets. "
Tah
,” he said softly, while his lips once more brushed her temple. "Say it—
tah
, temple.” He knelt beside her, gathering her close.

"Tah,”
She murmured as excitement streaked through her like lightning.

He
lifted her hand, "’
la
— finger.”

"’
la
,” she repeated obediently.

His brown fingers touched her stomach. "
Co s
—belly.”

Her
stomach fluttered like hundreds of hummingbird wings. She was achingly aware of his nudity and the warm hardness of his body. She had only to drop her gaze... "
Cos
.”

He touched her breast, and she felt the scorching of his touch through her velveteen blouse, "
Be
.”

"
Be
” She lifted her eyes to meet his smoldering gaze. Her hand crept out, and her fingers rested tremulously on his penis.

With triumphant pleasure, she saw him
shudder, but his gaze never relinquished hers. "
Zeh
,” he told her.

A w
hite-hot flame of desire leaped to life within her. Why not? she thought wildly. What difference if he does not love me? I’ll be leaving soon — going back to Cambria.

The revulsion of the thought of Stephen dissolved her last reserve, and she leaned forward, hesitantly brushing her lips across those of Lario
’s. She did not know what he would do . . . if he would be affronted by the Anglo form of foreplay as she sensed he had been that first time they came together or if he would be disgusted by her wantonness. But she could not help herself.

He
drew away, and she saw in his eyes the memory of the first time, knew that he had not forgotten that night of shared love, "
Lih
,” He whispered, as he drew her down beside him, and she thrilled to the Navajo endearment.

He leaned over her, his black hair partially obscuring his
faint, cool smile  It was devoid of mockery and unsettling.  His fingers slipped loose the buttons of her blouse even as his lips closed over her own. She realized it was a special offering, like no ordinary kiss between lovers. But her amazement at this special gift was drowned out by the maelstrom of passion his kiss incited. She forgot all else, forgot that it would be Adala he would be taking to bed as his wife, forgot that she would be returning to an empty life with Stephen.

* * * * *

Lario sat in the large ceremonial hogan that had been erected to the north of the brush corral. The hogan represented the universe. Across from him, Manuelito drew on a cigarette made of a poor-grade Mexican tobacco and wrapped in corn husks. The smoke curled upward through the conical hole in the hogan’s roof. "The
ga'han
, the mountain spirits,” he told the younger man, "will be pleased with your union with Adala.”

Lario
’s hand continued its smooth stroking of his knife, sharpening it against the water stone, but his eyes narrowed as if watching the smoke’s spiraling path. He said nothing . . . for what could he say? Outside could be heard the steady beat of the cottonwood drum and the clacking of the tortoiseshell rattlers. He knew at that moment Adala was being painted white to represent the Changing Woman. The puberty ceremony had lasted five days with feasting, during which time he had not seen her. That night a small brush fire would be lit around the interior of the corral, and pollen, representing growth and vitality, would be thrown in the four directions, followed by four painted dancers with masks and elaborate headdresses.

And tomorrow
. . . tomorrow, he thought, Adala would be ready for marriage. But it was not Adala’s soft deer-eyes he thought of but blue-green eyes that enchanted like the sacred turquoise stone. And at that he thought of making a squash blossom necklace for her, using the precious turquoise throughout his silver design. He could see in the eye of his craftsman’s mind the beauty of his design and counted the hours of work it might take.

His straight dark brows came together in a frown. To even think about her, Turquoise Woman, was asking for anger from the Enemy Gods. She was not one of them, not of the
Dine’e
.

He had kept her with him too long, using their daughter to hold her. And he had finally violated his resolution to
leave her untouched. But sleeping in the same hogan with her, hearing her soft, even breathing . . . returning home to her vitality after days of blood and death (it was the only way he could rid himself of her—to throw himself into battle) . . . he was as possessed by her as
Yusn
, the Giver-of-Life, possessed the body.

He wondered if the
ga'han
were truly satisfied with his pending marriage to Adala. Guayo cast calf-eyes at Adala and thought no one noticed. And though Lario knew it was he Adala adored, he wondered if it was not the adoration reserved for an older brother.

Through the haze of smoke that filled the hogan
he felt the older man’s eyes on him and looked up. "Your heart does not beat for Adala,” Manuelito said.

"She is as my sister,
shee-kizzen
."

"And the Anglo woman?”

His lips formed a dry smile. "Your eyes, Manuelito, are like those of the eagle.” He put down his knife, then said, "Her heart longs for her home and her boy child.”

And maybe for Grant Raffin? At one time he would have thought so. But those past few weeks when she had welcomed him freely into her arms
. . . he was no longer so sure.

CHAPTER 20

Lario stopped only long enough at his mother’s hogan to find Guayo. His mother’s and Toysei’s eyes widened in surprise that he had deserted the ceremonial hogan. His grandfather Maspha only glanced up and returned to his sandpainting.  The despondent Guayo sat cleaning his rifle, not even bothering to look up.

"Guayo,” he said, "the six pintos outside the ceremonial hogan—they are yours. To give for Adala.” Confusion clouded the youngest brother’s face. "I know the love you bear her,” Lario explained. "It is time you courted her.”

"But, Lario,” Toysei began, "what—”

"Silence, granddaughter,” Maspha said. He continued to sprinkle the sand, his bony fingers moving the grains of the painting about, and said, "In good time everything will be known.”

The mother nodded her gray-white head, saying nothing as was her custom. But her watery eyes were thoughtful as she trained her gaze on the beaded moccasins she stitched. One summer day as she had sat beneath the ramada working on her loom she had seen the Anglo woman bearing a load of firewood strapped to her back. And she had seen her eldest son Hasteen lighten the woman’s load, something that would have shamed any other Navajo man. Packing wood was a woman’s work.

The old woman shook her head as she added another bead to her string of sinew. She could see no good that could come out of this love
. . . but then that was wrong, for there was the special child, Sin-they. Sin-they was as no other child, a dancing flame to warm the heart.

Guayo rose. Like most Navajo men he was only of medium height, and his head barely reached Lario’s shoulder. "Your words are not clear to me, brother.”

"It is another my heart yearns for,” Lario said and left before his family could detain him with further questions.

Hasteen
— where was he? Even now was he with Rosemary? Courting her? But there were still three days left until the new moon, and Rosemary had said she would wait.

Lario loped down the incline and up the next rise to the hogan that stood alone at the bottom of the bluff, away from the other hogans. At the time he had not given thought to why he had picked that spot for the hogan, but now he knew. He had isolated the three of them
— Rosemary, Sin-they, and himself — from the others. They belonged neither with the Navajo, nor the Anglo. Was there a place for the three of them?

And what if Rosemary would have no part of what he wanted? What if already she had accepted Hasteen?

He hesitated outside the curtained doorway. The March wind howled like the coyotes that closed in on the rancheria at nightfall, but he could not force himself to go inside just yet. The sound of Hasteen’s voice did not reach his ears, but there came the exuberant, joyful laughter of his daughter. He pulled aside the curtain. Before him Rosemary, her back to him, and Sin-they sat opposite one another, horsehide playing cards held in their hands. Rosemary laid one card on the dirt-packed earth, and Sin-they threw another on top with a triumphant whoop.

As if she sensed another presence, Rosemary’s back stiffened. Her head turned slowly. "Lario,” she whispered.

Sin-they bounded to her feet and threw her tiny arms around one of his leather-encased legs. Playfully he jerked one of her copper braids before going to take her place across from Rosemary. The child settled herself in his lap, content to feel his broad chest behind her.

He
did not know how to begin, and Rosemary’s lips grew taut at his silence.  She broke it with a breathless, “There’s still three days left . . . has the the singer already performed the ceremony . . . no, you’ve come to tell me to leave, that’s it, isn’t it?”

"No. 1 want you to stay.”

She sprang to her feet. Sudden tears filled her eyes. "I’ve been putting it off . . . leaving.  But I can’t stay here! Not with you and she . . . together!” She turned her back to him, and he knew it was so he would not see the tears fall.

He
set Sin-they aside and rose, coming to stand behind Rosemary. He turned her around, his hands clasping her shoulders. His lips kissed away the tears, and one forefinger stole up to gently rub the smallpox pit that rode high on her left cheek. "I want no other woman to share the hogan. 1 want you, Turquoise Woman.”

Her
lips quivering, she shook her head slightly, as if she wasn’t sure she understood him correctly. But she had to see the truth in the depths of his eyes, the love shining there. “You may never tell me you loved me but this is enough,” she whispered rawly. "There is no other place for me but where you are, Lario.”

"Me a woman, too!” Sin-they squeaked and squirmed between the closely pressed bodies of her parents. "Me stay here, too!”

They laughed and drew her up into their arms. his nose burrowed into his daughter’s rosy, plump cheek. "You and your mother, then, will be the only two — ” He broke off, staring at something beyond Rosemary’s shoulder.

She turned to find Hasteen in the doorway. His eyes blazed like the fires of a war dance. He whirled, and the curtain swung closed as if he had never been there.

* * * * *

"
Josho
!" Rosemary cursed beneath her breath as she thumped the batten down on the weft of her loom with grim determination. Four times more in the next ten minutes she struggled with her stubborn warp, then swore in English, but somehow the English no longer yielded quite the satisfaction of a good Navajo curse.

The monotonous weaving of the blanket was sheer torture for her. She often wondered why she bothered but knew she did it for Lario. So with her natural Irish stubbornness she gritted her teeth and forced her full concentration on the
pattern which seemed to escape her with a leprechaun’s resourcefulness. Her spine and her arms grew numb. At last, just before noon, she finished the weaving, carefully leaving a break in her pattern for the Navajo’s evil spirits to escape. She cut the pitiful blanket from the loom and held it from her, squinting at it. It was a hopeless mess.