Indian Affairs (historical romance)

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Indian Affairs (historical romance) Page 7

by Parris Afton Bonds


  Peg waited until her choking spasm passed. “Yet you will learn that love can overcome all the hurt of years gone by. It is accomplished over time by those vital juices of the other, who loves you enough to work upon this creation in patient agony. Tony loves me just so. You will also learn that nothing happens in Taos but miracles.”

  Alessandra doubted if she and Brendon could ever fashion such depth of love with their meager, superficial life tools. She didn’t know if she even believed in the power of such love. Lust, yes. Remembering the purpose of her visit, she said, “Jeremy and Jose brought back the mail from the post office. I have a letter from my husband. Thought I’d walk to the plaza and telegraph him to contact Bursum about investigating the Indian Commissioner. Burke, isn’t it?”

  A knowing smile softened Peg’s square face. “While you’re at it, you might walk a little farther to the Taos Pueblo. It’s only a couple of miles more, just past an old penitente morada. The Indian village is well worth seeing before your time is over here.”

  A curious twist of phrasing. Alessandra shivered. “I’m really not interested in Pre-Columbian culture.” A mistake, this coupling with a blanket Indian. She would not make that mistake again. Bert might have forfeited Paris for Taos, but not she. How foolish she would be, to diminish her goals and sights to settle upon such a backward culture.

  She hadn’t mentioned it to Peg, but Brendon had written of possibly visiting soon. Alessandra didn’t want him coming. Didn’t want to share the mystery and magnificence of northern New Mexico that was hers, didn’t want to listen to his analytical mind spoil it for her and her plans to resurrect her painting career. And, of course, most of all, didn’t want him discovering Jeremy.

  * * * * *

  Where the plaza’s wooden sidewalks ended, just past the Thriftway store and the Studebaker garage, stood the telephone office. Alessandra handed the operator the handwritten message and, once it was coded into its syncopated tap-tap-tap telegram, paid him.

  Feeling relief that she had kept Brendon and her father at bay for a while, at least, she loathed returning just yet to the Los Gallos hacienda and its inhabitants’ snippy bantering.

  The magic of the plaza stayed her steps. An unevenness of glass windows gave the plaza an artistic quality. Sensual, deep shadows hid walled patios. Flat roofs of shops had been turned into eye-dazzling gardens. Fantastically patterned rugs draped doorways like veils guarding mysteries.

  A few doors from Gusdorf’s Mercantile, miners down from the hills carried their gleanings of copper, gold, silver and their cherished visions to the Assayer’s Office. The pungent aroma of strong, rich coffee drifted from La Puerta del Sol Café’s courtyard, where early strollers still lingered. Across the way, a man wearing a homburg toted a framed painting toward El Rincon Trading Post.

  Have I stumbled on remnants of forgotten humanity? A Shangri la, indeed. The free-spirited people choosing to live here worked to regain the lost sensuality and magic of childhood.

  Vague discontent dogged her. She decided to accept Peg’s suggestion to visit the Pueblo. Or was it the call of the wildness of her own heart?

  The two-mile walk took her past a cemetery with pretty blue and white crosses. The spring morning was bright, the air like radiant ether. Dr. Jung had poetically termed the phenomena “the dance of atoms.”

  Cornfields with green stalks and lavender gray cottonwoods that always announced the presence of water lined the dusty path to a rackety bridge. From its opposite end, a young Indian boy drove a herd of bleating sheep.

  She paused, coughing from the stir of dust. Shivering in agitation she crossed the bridge. How ridiculous, to walk to some Indian hovels as if I’m on a pilgrimage.

  Nevertheless, she continued toward the Taos Indian Pueblo. She was on a pilgrimage. To find the self she had hoped to be. To live fully, so that not one single part of herself was dormant, unused, unexplored with her last breath.

  Andrew Dasburg had told her the reservation once contained over three hundred thousand acres, with Blue Lake as its sacred center. Now less than 95,000 acres remained. Originally Taos Pueblo contained 20,000 inhabitants. Now fewer than 400, maybe 500 souls remained. But worse, for the Taos Indians, the BIA was seeking to take Blue Lake from them.

  Set against its purple mountain backdrop, the graceful lines of the Pueblo loomed as perhaps the most beautiful site she had ever seen. Two five-story high, rose-washed buildings flanked either side of the Rio Pueblo, rushing down from its Blue Lake source in the purple mountains behind. At the Pueblo’s entrance, St. Jerome’s Chapel, an old Catholic mission church, publicized Christian intrusion centuries before.

  The Pueblo compartments tiered in recessed pyramid fashion, were surrounded by remnants of an adobe wall. Doorways and windows painted a turquoise blue looked out upon its sun-drenched plaza. Long pole ladders scaled from one tawny story to another and, at the plaza’s opposite end, more ladders descended into round buildings set within the earth. Pale blue smoke idled upward from chimneys. They village had a sun-bleached cleanliness about it, its people a glowing aliveness.

  In the morning light, the pueblo plaza was busy with Indians astride unshod ponies still shaggy with winter coats, chickens squawking, children playing hoop and pole. Shawl-wrapped old women, snowy white moccasins thickly encasing their legs, sweet-smelling baked bread in beehive-shaped adobe ovens. Younger women spread chile peppers, fruits, and meats atop wooden drying racks.

  Startled, Alessandra realized she was the only white woman in the Pueblo. She turned to make a retreat but was diverted by thudding drums. Instead of working their fields, a group of men sat in the plaza, beating on drums, singing in strange notes utterly alien to her and yet as familiar as a dream or memory.

  Thump, thump, thump. The incessant, insistent sound vibrated in her ears, her blood.

  “Drum is Great Spirit’s favorite instrument,” a male voice said behind her. “That’s why we all are given a heartbeat.”

  She turned to find Man standing close. His incredible dark good looks stole her breath. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said in a formal voice reserved for diplomatic receptions, and all the while hers was beating louder than the drums and her blood singing in her ears louder than the group of men.

  “We walk.”

  Her breasts rose, then fell. “Well, I really didn’t come to . . .”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Her mouth closed. Helpless before the truth, she only nodded.

  “I waited. You came,” he said, his arrogance evident in his intense gaze. Flipping his blanket over his shoulder like a toga, he strolled away, toward one of the river’s two log footbridges connecting the Pueblo’s north and south houses.

  My God, he expects me to follow.

  She stared at his broad back. “It’s not what you think,” she called. “I mean — ”

  He pivoted. His head canted. Beneath the mantle of his blanket, annoyance etched his brow. She caught up with him. Above the commotion in the plaza, his voice was low, commanding, but still she heard each distinct word. “What for you not speak words of your heart?” His fist thumped his chest. Then hers. “Your words?”

  His jab forced her to shift a half step back to maintain her balance. His bluntness arrested her. She blinked, trying to find her composure. This was not the infinitely patient, mild mannered spiritual leader she had projected. Nor the ardent lover who had stormed her defenses and laid waste her artificiality to ignite her female’s embers in a fierce and unquenchable blaze.

  “All right,” she said after a moment. When I figure out exactly what it is I want . . . Is it the freedom offered by the morning’s escape – or the diversion offered by this extraordinary man? Diversion? He was right, why did she not speak her truth?

  “All right. My heart feels . . . an eagerness, that’s it. An eagerness to live. Really live, as few people seem to do any longer.” To explore and experience whatever came her way. Whatever she drew to her. “I . . . right now I want to be with yo
u.”

  He gave her a knowing smile that at once she resented. “That is all?”

  “That is all you will allow me,” she said tartly.

  He grimaced, nodded once. “Anything more is not good for your health, Alessandra.” His smile was wicked. “And that would not please me.”

  “What about pleasing me?” God, how she hated being the supplicant!

  Consternation narrowed his eyes. Quickly they roamed her face. “What you want is not always good for you. Come. We walk,” he commanded. He set out toward the mountain on a narrow path leading away from the entrance into the Pueblo. Ahead, veils of wine, mauve, and violet misted the sacred mountain. Along the path, living colors of bistre, orchid and gold glowed like illusory fireflies.

  “Why is it that everything seems to pulsate here?” she asked. “Because of the altitude perhaps?”

  He walked on. Surely, he had heard her. She caught up with him. His moccasined feet seemed to glide, as if defying gravity, while her steps were planted, weighted.

  She refused to let him ignore her. “All the doors and windows in your village are painted turquoise. Is that, as Tony says, to ward off evil spirits?”

  He continued walking in his lithe pace, not slowing as he shrugged the white sheet from his head and shoulders and wrapped it about his waist. He was lightly clothed in a loose white shirt open at the bronzed throat and white cotton trousers slit up the sides to reveal white moccasins fastened at the sides with silver buttons.

  How old is he? His brown skin, smooth of all facial hair, made his age difficult to judge, as did his still black thick braids, but she would have guessed by the faint squint lines fanning from his eyes that he was somewhere in his late thirties to early-forties.

  Finally she caught up, working to match his stride. His stately gait set her apart from him. She glanced askance at him. “Henri tells me . . . a legend has been spread that your people . . . threw vast quantities of gold and silver . . . into your Blue Lake to keep Spanish prospectors . . . from mining the area,” she panted, trying to be conversational, but failing.

  On he walked with that innate habitual ease. The path flowed up hills, skirted boulders, divided clumps of fragrant gray sage and chamisa, yellow-flowered after a snowy winter.

  “You know, I find you quite . . . remarkable, far more intelligent than . . . most educated men.”

  He saw through her childish ploy and smiled.

  She couldn’t leave it at that. No, she had to continue to make a fool of herself. “The German scientist, Max Planck . . . for all his knowledge about light and its energy . . . he doesn’t have your people’s understanding . . . about its mystery.” Why did she feel the need to goad him?

  He continued walking, his pace even, natural, effortless, his steps uplifting rather than down-planting.

  She gave up trying to have a civilized discussion with him. Lips tightened, she focused on her own stride, and left him behind. Magpies and bluebirds sang nature’s sensual song. Fields of lavender columbines and cobalt-blue lupines sloped away from the path. Poppies flamed everywhere. Spring had finally exploded its natural juices upon the high desert.

  After a while, the muscles in her legs, atrophied from minimal use, grew tired. Her breath came in short puffs. She pretended she was once again sauntering down Champs Elysé, idly perusing shop windows. The image failed. Paris with its artificiality held no interest for her now. No, she wanted to paint the Southwest. And . . . and, yes, she wanted to paint Man. Could she capture the paradox of his dominating majesty, his commanding sensuality, and both his old-soul maturity and his childlike manner?

  She stumbled but caught herself. Blinking with the thought, she realized the path he had chosen dipped back down in a circular fashion to come up behind her adobe rental. Slowing her now faltering run, she waited on her guide, her lover. No, he had let her know quite inflexibly that was not to happen again. He drew even with her and gave her his grave attention. That sculpted face had been cast in noble bronze with a strong bladed nose and generous mouth. It gifted her with a benevolent, contemptuous smile. “You have lost your rhythm. Walk too fast. Talk too fast.”

  The hair at her nape bristled at his baiting. “Well, you walk too slow and talk too slow.”

  “And you see too fast. Look.” He surprised her by dropping to one knee.

  She followed the gesture of his brown fingers toward a solitary plant, but oh, so exquisite. A slender stalk with grass-like leaves, it had pushed through the cracked ground. The flower’s three cream-colored petals were tipped with purple.

  “What kind of flower is it?”

  “Lily. Mariposa, Spanish for butterfly.”

  She glanced at his dark face. “You speak Spanish as well?”

  He smiled supremely. At that moment, his beauty squeezed her heart. “Better than English I learned at the government Go-Away School.” He nodded toward the plant. “Maybe she will bloom. Maybe not. When no rain comes, she must wait long, dry years for rain to waken her.”

  For all his stilted English, he spoke with lovely poetic imagery. No wonder Henri felt a kinship with this Indian. And no wonder she was drawn ineluctably to him. He had stamped her as his, bonded her forever to him, though he might be unaware of the consequences of his torrid lovemaking.

  Abruptly, he rose. His head dipped near her jaw line, and her heart slammed against her ribcage, making breathing difficult. Would he make the first move this time? Would he enfold her against the steel wall of his chest and kiss her? She heard him inhale. “Hmmm, you smell like lily. His eyes looked down into hers with clearly designed challenge. “To find mariposa lily is considered by Mexicans to be chiripoda, stroke of good luck. Maybe, like lily you wait. Wait too long. Fear keeps you waiting . . . and you die without ever seeing sunlight or tasting rain.”

  In the chasm of silence, she gaped at his insight. “I’m not afraid. Not of you.” She realized for the first time she trusted a man. This man. Man of the beautiful face.

  “You should be.” He shrugged, and for the first time she detected a heaviness in his manner. “We walk again one day. Maybe not.”

  She stared after him, her mouth still open. His easy dismissal of her affronted her ego. Had he found her inept in lovemaking? Did the young maiden to whom he was affianced know some kind of erotic ploys she didn’t? Then she smiled and, finally, laughed. Really laughed. A long, pealing laugh

  Well, Man, you have at least succeeded in doing something no one else has for a long time. Made me laugh. Perhaps you do have the power to heal me of this consumption. But can you heal me of this wanting of you?

  * * * * *

  “A turquoise floor!” Jeremy grunted, swiping the paintbrush haphazardly across the pine boards of his bedroom. “Whoever heard of a turquoise floor?”

  “Tony assures me this color of blue is good luck.” On hands and knees, she backed a little farther into room that was to be her studio, barely large enough for a couple of easels. But spectacular light from the high windows made it perfect for fine art techniques. “Keeps the evil away, didn’t you know?”

  Tony had come to personally oversee the adobe’s finishing touches, including the turquoise paint on the door and around the windows.

  Jeremy rolled his eyes. “You’re loony, Mom.”

  She flicked him a crooked grin. “That’s ‘Oh Great One’ to you, kiddo.”

  “Why are you painting our house like the Indians’?” he asked, scooting backward as he slapped the brush back and forth. “Besides, they can’t even speak good English.”

  “And you can?” She dipped her brush in the paint can.

  “Well, at least,” he said earnestly, “I know when something is a she or a he. Sometimes they’ll call a girl thing ‘he’ or a boy thing ‘she.’”

  She sat back on her heels, wiping a turquoise speckled hand on her baggy, denim Levi’s. “Tony says that’s because they believe to call something by its real name is to take its power.”

  Jeremy glanced over at her, his br
ush motionless. “That’s no baloney?”

  “No baloney. You know, sort of like in the Bible, when God gave Adam the power to name the animals of the earth.”

  He shoved the hair back from his eyes and grinned. “Like how Grandma O’Quinn used to call my guinea pig ‘varmint’?”

  “That was because you were always letting your pet get loose in her bedroom . . . and you are now wearing turquoise lipstick, kiddo. Better go get a rag and wipe off that paint or tomorrow the kids will be calling you names you won’t like any better than you did varmint.”

  He stood up. “It was the way Grandma O’Quinn’s mouth worked when she said the word, Mom. Like, she didn’t . . . .” He halted, stared past her, then giggled.

  Bewildered, she glanced at the sea of turquoise around them. They had painted themselves into a corner. She started laughing, too. Laughed so hard she was coughing and couldn’t get her breath.

  “Mom!” His eyes widened, full of a child’s fear, “Are - are you like those people who come here to die?”

  She gasped, fighting for control. “Of course, not,” she said after a moment. “It’s the . . . “ she broke off, coughing again, “ . . . it’s the paint fumes. I’ll be all right.”

  But when . . . if ever? And when am I going to tell my son the truth?

  That night, in bed, she realized her reluctance to tell him she was dying was akin to the Indian reluctance to use a thing’s real name. Naming it would be giving Death its power.

  She closed her eyes. Her lashes lay damp against her cheeks. But the tears could not dampen the fire burning hot at her core. Death, I’ll fight you every inch of the way for my life. I want to live, really live, before you finally win, you bastard!

  Chapter Five

  Henri added more wood to the new Findlay cook stove firebox, then thrust his hands in the pockets of his green sweater, leaned against the kitchen doorjamb and watched Alessandra cook. The cook stove was small, but at least she had one. All the little adobe lacked was a kerosene-run generator. For now, candle light substituted for electric light.

 

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