A Man Without a Haven

by Beverly Bird

  “My truck’s still in Shiprock. We can bring that back to get the others later,” Shadow decided. “It’s just not practical to worry about them now. Besides, where are you going to stay tonight? Neither one of us is in any condition to hike down and get your tent. So sleep under a roof for one night and—”

  And what? she wondered, choking off suddenly. What then?

  “Yes, sir, Sergeant,” Mac muttered.

  “Get used to it,” Jericho drawled, closing the discussion. The helicopter was landing. Whether it was chindis or benevolent spirits who dwelled here, he still didn’t feel comfortable among them. He made a beeline for the chopper.

  * * *

  Catherine called Ellen to bring supplies from the clinic. By eight-thirty, Mac’s bruised tendons were bandaged, Shadow’s collarbone was set and Jericho wore a shocking white bridge over his nose.

  By nine-thirty, Martin and Madeline had returned.

  By ten, Uncle Ernie reappeared and other clan relatives wandered in and out. Shadow’s discovery was the most exciting thing to happen in this corner of the Res since Catherine had isolated the Mystery Disease—and some said the wolfman—that had been systematically killing the People. Nobody intended to miss any of the details.

  Voices tangled, rose and fell, and occasionally there was a burst of laughter. Jericho sat on the sofa with Catherine nestled beneath his left arm and his son against his chest, looking around at the small house almost dazedly. Once, little more than a year ago, this place had been his haven, a single empty room where he had dwelled with his own ghosts. He could scarcely remember now when it had been that quiet here.

  His gaze swept to Mac Tshongely, who had found a seat at the kitchenette counter. The man looked vaguely alarmed and a little overwhelmed. Jericho thought he understood. It wasn’t easy to come face-to-face with raw emotions you never expected to feel again, for someone you never expected to feel them for. He knew. He had been there. His arm tightened around his wife, and he thought of going over there to commiserate with the man. But in the end he didn’t get up. For starters, he hated the way his voice sounded with his nose all packed with gauze, and as he watched, his sister went to sit beside Mac anyway. Better to let them sift through all this themselves.

  “Are you all right?” Shadow asked Mac quietly.

  His gaze finally left all the people to swivel to her. “Sure,” he said guardedly.

  “You look like you’re about ready to run for your life.”

  “I was thinking that I can’t remember the last time I’ve been in a room with so many people.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “It feels like a pair of new jeans.” Shadow thought he almost smiled.

  “Jeans break in,” she pointed out.

  “Eventually.”

  “It’s only for one night.” And then what? she wondered, her heart thumping.

  One night, he thought. And where would he sleep the next time the sun fell? It wasn’t anything that had ever concerned him before. Whenever dark had come, he had settled wherever he happened to be at the time. Alone. Now he wondered how he would make sure she was with him. Now the prospect of being alone seemed intolerable, but Diamond Eddie had trashed all his neat, contrived excuses.

  “Who is that guy?” he asked her suddenly, needing to change the subject. “How are you related to him?”

  Shadow followed his gaze to Uncle Ernie. The shaman was wandering about the living room now, waving his bird fetishes and chanting quietly, restoring everything, all of them, to hozro again.

  “By clan.”

  “Does that mean there aren’t any actual blood ties?” he asked her.

  Shadow flashed a grin. “Why? Does that worry you?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “It’s hard to say. I don’t really know. Clans are lineage things that started centuries upon centuries ago, to give some structure to groups of the People living together. We’re born to those our mothers belong to, born for the ones our fathers belong to.”

  “You said something about it being incest to get involved with someone who’s related to you that way.”

  “It is.” Something inside her stiffened. Suddenly she wondered what his clan affiliation was. His mother had been part Navajo.

  Once again, he seemed to read her mind. “Is there one about talking funny?” he asked. “That seems to ring something in my memory. Maybe that was what she was.”

  Shadow breathed again. “The Slow Talking Diné.” She shook her head. “We’re Towering Rock.”

  He was watching her closely. “It really matters to you.”

  She tried to shrug—unsuccessfully. “It’s a taboo. If you break too many of them, you end up like Diamond Eddie.”

  “Yet you didn’t think about it before.”

  She hadn’t. It shook her more than anything else had yet. She wondered if he could understand the magnitude of what she had done.

  “You made me too hungry to think about it,” she said simply.

  He looked at her face, at the wonder there, and felt something hot pool inside him. If they had been alone, he would have known just what to do next. He would have touched her, would have shown her that he was glad that had happened. But they weren’t alone, so he was left with only words. He opened his mouth and closed it again. He cleared his throat and tried once more.

  “Why did you go back to the canyon?” she asked suddenly. “I thought you’d be halfway down the Baja by now.”

  A coarse, short laugh escaped him. Halfway? He had driven its entire length twice in four days. Because of her. Running from her, chasing after her. But he didn’t know how to tell her that either.

  “I—”

  Suddenly Madeline barged in on them. “So where are you from?” she asked.

  Shadow felt her heart sink hard at the interruption. Mac’s look was a little wild as he glanced at her mother. Nowhere, he thought, but he doubted if that was what she wanted to hear.

  “Everywhere,” Shadow responded quietly. “He’s an archaeologist. He moves around a lot.”

  “Moves around?” It wasn’t something Madeline could comprehend. “Where do you go when you’re not moving?” she demanded. “Do you have kin? Where are they?” She looked at her daughter. “Is he Navajo?”

  Shadow sighed. “And Hopi and Anglo.”

  “What’s your clan?”

  Shadow answered for him again. For once, he was glad that she took charge. “Slow Talking.”

  Madeline harrumphed. “They live all the way west. Near the Hopi Mesas. Are you going to take her away from us?”

  Mac was definitely looking like a hunted animal now, and there was no way she could answer that one for him. She felt her own sense of panic climb up in her throat. Are you?

  “Mom, you’re just assuming...” Then her gaze flew gratefully to her brother as he approached.

  “I hate to break up the party,” Jericho interrupted, “but I’ve got a week-old son who needs to sleep and a wife who’s too stubborn to admit she’s tired.” He looked between Shadow and Mac noncommittally, without his eyes really resting on either of them. “Ryan’s still staying in with us, so his room’s empty. There’s a futon in there and some blankets. You’re welcome to them.”

  Mac risked a glance at Madeline. “What about everyone else?” he asked warily.

  Madeline finally turned away. “We’re going home. It’s just down the bottom of the mountain. Martin!”

  Shadow saw that Ellen was looking for her purse. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said neutrally to Catherine.

  Another burst of conversation rang out. There was a brief escalating argument about Catherine going back to work so soon. Catherine won with a valid point about the Snugli carrier that would keep Ryan comfortably nestled against her chest while she saw patients. Even Shadow felt slightly overwhelmed by the time the place cleared out—except for Uncle Ernie. But even he had finally put away his birds.

  “What about him?” Mac asked. “Shouldn’t he have the
bedroom?” He knew enough about family to respect his elders, but Jericho only shrugged.

  “He’ll sleep on the roof.”

  Shadow looked to see Mac’s jaw drop. She squirmed a little uncomfortably on her chair, only wondering what he could possibly think of all this.

  “Uncle, are you okay?” Jericho called after the shaman.

  “I am well, thank you,” the old man answered.

  “Need anything up there?”

  “No. Hozro is restored. I will have the stars.”

  Jericho nodded, satisfied. “Then I’m going to bed.”

  He left them, disappearing through one of the doors at the back of the room. Ernie slipped outside. The silence they left in their wake was absolute.

  Shadow fought the urge to shiver. She wondered what Jericho—what any of them—would think if they knew she wasn’t even sleeping with Mac, at least not in any literal sense. They had assumed so much. She risked a glance at him.

  “You can have the bedroom. I’ve always just crashed out here on the sofa.”

  Mac nodded but didn’t move off his chair.

  “Don’t worry about them,” she said awkwardly. “They...get something in their heads, see what they think they’re seeing, and then they just run with it.”

  “So you come by it honestly.”

  Shadow flushed. “I guess.”

  She stood quickly. “I’ll just check the bathroom and make sure there are clean towels and stuff in there for you.” She couldn’t imagine Catherine overlooking such a thing, but it was a handy excuse. She took two steps when Mac’s voice stopped her.

  “Shadow.”

  She paused and looked back at him.

  “What’s your last name?”

  She was startled. After everything, it seemed so impossible that he didn’t know something that fundamental. “Bedonie.”

  He nodded. She started to move again, then his next question rattled her all over again.

  “Why were you coming to the Baja?”

  “Because it just didn’t make any sense not to ever see you again.”

  She hated the answer as soon as it came out of her mouth. It was so much more than that, yet for the first time in her life she felt tentative, uncertain, afraid to take a single step forward. Everything that laid out there in front of her was uncharted ground. And she didn’t know yet why he had gone back to the canyon. And this mattered so very, very much. Now, when they were finally alone and could talk about it, she felt utterly and completely lost.

  His next words threw her even more.

  “On the Hopi Mesas, when two people get married, they just...sleep together. You wake up one morning and Sallie’s over there in Joe’s place, or vice versa. And that’s that.”

  She swallowed carefully. What was he saying? She wanted to ask, and found herself saying instead, “We Navajo have always thought you guys had an overly simplistic way of doing things.”

  He laughed roughly. “I guess so. Those ties don’t really bind. That’s how my parents got together. Or so they say.”

  She nodded carefully. He finally got up off his chair.

  “Don’t worry about the towels. I’m too wrung out right now to worry about a shower, and the sound of the water would probably keep everyone awake anyway. I’ll catch one in the morning.”

  He went to Ryan’s bedroom. Her heart skipped a beat, then plummeted.

  He closed the door behind him.

  She closed her eyes.

  The silence stretched out. Finally she moved slowly back to the sofa. She took the throw pillows scattered at the back and piled them at one end for her head, then she laid down.

  Above her, the faint stirrings and thumps of Uncle Ernie sounded from the roof. She thought she heard Jericho snore distantly through his own closed door. Familiar sounds of life, as it should be, as it always had been. She tried to let them lull her, but her eyes remained wide and fast on Ryan’s closed door.

  Suddenly it opened again. Her heart leapt, cramming hard into her throat. Mac stood there, a murky silhouette in the thin light from the window behind him. She sat up quickly.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered. “Is Uncle Ernie keeping you awake?”

  He looked up at the ceiling. Then she thought she saw him shake his head.

  “It’s a double futon,” he said finally. His voice sounded hoarse. “Room enough for two, but I’m only one. Why don’t you come on in here?”

  As soon as he got the words out, he breathed again. They weren’t so hard after all.

  Chapter 19

  Shadow floated to him. Later she would have no real memory of getting up from the sofa, of her feet moving. She still felt hesitant and uncertain, but then she stood beside him. She laid her palm flush against his chest and breathed again. As always, that felt right.

  “I’m here,” she said quietly.

  He caught her hand in his own. She turned her face up to his with every expectation that his mouth would find hers, that he would fill her with fierce, strong loving again. That had been their most common ground from the first. It was when he allowed her close, when he didn’t try to shut her out, and she was sure that that was what he wanted now. But he only pulled her into Ryan’s room and shut the door behind her.

  He went back to the futon and dropped down there with a little sound of pain because of his legs. Shadow remained by the door, staring at him.

  “Well?” he said finally. “Are you going to stand there all night?”

  Her heart plummeted, leapt, danced. “What do you want me to do?” she asked uncertainly, not entirely willing to believe.

  There was a long silence. “Come here,” he said from the darkness. She heard him pat the futon beside him.

  She took a few steps closer. He caught her good arm and pulled her down. Then he gathered her against his chest, tugging the blankets over them. She thought she heard him sigh, but her heart was thudding in her ears and she couldn’t be sure.

  Shadow laid rigid, aware of every inch of her body that was pressed close to his. Her back was tight against his stomach and chest and, as always, she could feel the warmth of him through the clothing she wore. Hard to believe she had once considered his skin to be as cool as the canyon rocks at night.

  She was afraid to move. Then she felt his warm breath at her nape. She groaned and rolled over into his arms.

  It didn’t mean anything, he thought as he finally kissed her again. He swept the warm recesses of her mouth with his tongue and told himself that they weren’t on the Mesas, and that he fully believed what he had told her. Hopi ties didn’t bind. He just needed her close now after the nightmare of the past few days. He needed to feel her, smell her, know she was safe.

  That was all. It was nothing more. But in his heart he didn’t believe that any more than he believed he was truly bone tired and wanted nothing other than to sleep.

  Her hands slid up his back and she pressed herself into him. He felt himself harden again.

  “Just sleep?” she whispered.

  He made an inarticulate sound, which was supposed to be agreement but could have left the door open for discussion. Somehow he found his hands under her T-shirt, sliding up, covering her breasts, cupping them. Without really intending to, he sought her nipples with his thumbs and felt a shudder go through her. Her hand slid down to his hardness.

  “It seems a shame to waste this,” she whispered. Especially since she still didn’t know when—or if—she would be able to touch him, love him, hold him again. Nothing had really been settled between them. No matter what her family thought, they had come back together by chance.

  But there would be time to think of that later.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” he answered after a moment, lifting his mouth from hers.

  “It wouldn’t be very practical. Waste not, want not.”

  “I agree.”

  He moved a hand down to her leg, catching it to pull it over his hip, to open a path for himself. Then he slid into her again effortl
essly, completely.

  Her warmth closed over him and he went still for a moment, just feeling. Finally, he was home again.

  * * *

  Shadow woke in the morning feeling disoriented, half expecting to find the canyon walls looming up around her, the new sun blazing over its rim. But there was only a single shaft of light coming in from the baby’s bedroom window behind her. It did little to illuminate the shadowy room.

  Mac was gone.

  Her heart squeezed hard and she touched a hand to the bare futon where he had lain. Had sleeping together proved too much for him after all? She got to her knees, groping around for her clothing. Then she went still, cocking her head.

  A burst of laughter came from the living room. Mac’s? Whatever had happened, he wasn’t prowling around like a hunted animal this time.

  She dressed quickly and hurried out there. Her gaze swept about. The first thing she noticed was that the clock over the kitchen sink read ten-thirty. Ten-thirty? She hadn’t slept this late in years.

  The second thing she noticed was that Mac and Jericho were on the sofa, sprawled side by side, their feet up on the coffee table. Glasses and plates littered it, along with the remnants of what once must have been a fairly substantial pile of sandwiches. The volume on the television was turned low, presumably in an effort to keep from waking her. They looked her way, then back at the television again.

  The Dodgers were playing the Rockies.

  “He should have retired years ago,” Mac muttered as a close-up of the pitcher flashed on the screen.

  “No way,” Jericho argued. “You’ve got to think of things like leadership and experience. That team needs all of it they can get.”

  The pitcher walked the batter and he jogged to first base. Mac threw Jericho a smug look.

  “They need wins more and they’re not going to get them that way.”

  Shadow cleared her throat. “Good morning,” she ventured.

  “Shh,” they said together.

  She moved into the kitchenette without taking her eyes off Mac. He looked so...relaxed. At ease. Almost... lazy. He had taken that one day off in the canyon, she remembered, but there had been an intensity about that. This was different.