Wind Song

by Bonds, Parris Afton

  His voice held the same deep resonance as Cody’s, and his features were stamped with the same virile power, though he must have been at least in his seventies.

  Cody and Abbie sat in the back seat, and Deborah wedged Robert between her and her husband. When the older woman wasn’t filling Cody in on Cambria’s operations or telling Abbie some of Cambria’s history, she was talking to Robert with the low intonations of the Navajo language that continued to baffle Abbie. Sometimes the boy would nod in response to Deborah’s questions, but he never spoke. Yet, Abbie noticed that the few times Chase Strawhand addressed him, the boy replied—tersely but respectfully.

  In the back seat Cody stretched out his long legs diagonally. His fingers absently stroked Abbie’s nape where the clasp bound her hair while he chatted with his parents. At his touch a pleasant shiver raced up her spine. She felt like a dormant seed that would sprout to life when the conditions were just right. He had the power to make her completely aware of herself as a woman, and that was the problem. She didn’t know which she dreaded more, which would kill her first: her sickness or his cure.

  It was much later by the time they crossed the bend in the Pecos and drove up before the main house. “Cambria’s castle,” Cody said wryly.

  All the house lights seemed to blaze against the night and the isolation, illuminating the heavy earthen wall exterior with its spiraling turrets, dormer windows and wide balustraded verandas. Looking out the Blazer’s window, Abbie could sense a strength about the house that had nothing to do with its solid structure. Rather, it possessed a strength of character, like Cody and Chase and Deborah.

  Abbie followed Deborah up the wide staircase that was banked with polished mahogany railings. Behind her Cody muttered, “Did I ever tell you what a delightful ass you have, Abbie?”

  She flashed him a withering look and glanced at Robert, relieved that the boy didn’t fully understand English. But how could he miss the lustful gleam in Cody’s eyes?

  Deborah turned into a wing of the house that was flanked with doorways. “I’m putting Robert in the room connecting with yours, Abbie,” she said, with a sly twinkle in her dark eyes for her stepson.

  Cody set Abbie’s suitcase down next to the rosewood dresser. His gaze actually seemed to caress Abbie as they stood before the others. “I think Abbie knows that a mere bedroom door wouldn’t stop me, Deborah.”

  “Just as determined as his father,” Deborah sighed.

  Cody was determined though he made not the slightest effort even to kiss Abbie. This only disconcerted her more. She was beginning to realize that his seduction of her would be through her senses, rather than from an initial outright taking of her. That she could say no to, but how could she say no to the way the fever-bright pinpoints of fire in his eyes burned unashamedly over her face at the breakfast table, or the way his eyes scorched her breasts when his gaze happened to linger on her in the midst of a conversation with Chase?

  His legs touching hers under the table, their thighs brushing when they rode horseback with Robert over Cambria’s purple escarpments and low, rolling valleys, his fingers rubbing her sensitive palm as he taught her and a taciturn Robert how to lasso with a rope—these could not be ignored or wished away.

  She found herself watching the carved line of his lips, found herself wanting to delineate that line with her index finger, found herself badly wanting him to kiss her. By the end of that first day, even the fine hairs on her arms were so sensitized that they were like tiny antennae, picking up the erotic signals that Cody was transmitting.

  Christmas dinner that evening was an intimate affair with only two of the servants from Cambria’s rancheria to wait on the elegantly set table. Robert sat sullenly, but Abbie sensed that it was his ignorance of the myriad dining utensils that had prompted his moodiness. Deborah, who had taken Robert down to the rancheria that day to meet the children, was ahead of her. She ordered a Mexican youth dressed in a white cotton camisa and calzones to remove all the dinnerware but the knife and fork. After that Robert pushed the roasted wild turkey and com- bread and squash dressing around his plate with his knife and surreptitiously ate when he thought the others were busy talking.

  “Our young friend here,” Cody said to his father, “is an example of a child caught between two worlds. All the education the federal government provides often fails to bridge the gap— because you still have human emotions to deal with, emotions that can’t be programmed.”

  The wine in Abbie’s glass sloshed perilously near the crystal rim. She tensed, sensing that Cody’s statement was partially directed toward her, also.

  Chase, his black eyes set off by his thick iron- gray hair, replied in sparing but intense words. “Our legislation has accomplished a lot, son, but as far as the progress on behalf of the Indian”— his broad shoulders, still unstooped by time, shrugged—“our people’s superstitions and determination to hold to their anachronistic way of life have held them back more than any discrimination on the part of the Anglo.”

  Abbie could understand why Chase Strawhand had made such an excellent politician and governor. He had neatly addressed the stated issue and ignored the controversial unspoken subtext of the remark.

  Deborah smoothly broke the tension, saying in a light voice that subtly chided them, “Enough of politics, Chase and Cody.”

  She turned to Abbie. “I’m sure Cody didn’t tell you that the president gave a box Cody had made-—done in silver and inlaid with malachite and lapis lazuli—to the queen of Denmark.”

  Cody, casually dressed in a bark-colored sweater and chamois jacket, eyed his stepmother with mild reproval. Without the bandana knotted about his forehead he looked to be a product of Anglo civilization, but Abbie knew that he was more. Only a deceptive veneer of Western culture overlay the fierce, primitive passion of his Indian ancestors. “What my modest stepmother didn’t tell you,” he said, “is that her paintings have received recognition from the National Indian Arts Exhibition, among others, and that two are currently on exhibition in a prominent Fifth Avenue gallery.”

  Abbie remembered the paintings in Cody’s house—they were his stepmother’s. She felt as if she were gradually discovering the pieces to the puzzle of Cody Strawhand. She reflected on the cultures that he had been exposed to. He must have spent some of his time at Cambria. He must have become accustomed to the Sevres porcelain, Remington bronzes, Chippendale antiques—as well as both the stimulation of Santa Fe political life and the austerity of reservation life.

  Each piece of the puzzle only increased her desire to know more, yet she doubted the wisdom of fitting the pieces together. The full picture might be too alluring for her to resist. She should never have agreed to come to Cambria.

  She told herself that again the next day when Cody took her through the old stone millhouse, said to be haunted by starcrossed lovers.

  * * * * *

  Cambria’s millhouse rose dark and mysterious against the blustery December sky. A musty smell of long disuse enveloped Cody when he led Abbie into the dim but welcoming warmth of the building. Nevertheless, Abbie pulled her suede jacket more closely about her.

  “No need to be afraid of ghosts,” he said as he ushered her past the giant stone roller and the empty cornmeal bins.

  “I’m not,” she hedged. “I just don’t want to disturb them.”

  Still, she didn’t remove her hand when he took it and pulled her up the narrow stairwell. His spurs clinked hollowly on the wooden steps. “The story goes that my great-uncle supposedly hung himself from the mill’s rafters when his father prevented him from marrying the woman he loved.”

  “A charming story,” she said dryly.

  From beneath his Stetson’s brim, he watched as she looked uneasily around her at the paraphernalia of rotten saddles, greasy blankets and worn hides and sheepskins. “But quite true. There are men who will go to any extremes for the women they want.”

  Insouciantly she brushed the dust off her hands on the back of her denim jea
ns, but he could see the pulse in her throat beating like a jackhammer. “What’s on the third floor?”

  He grasped her wrists and pulled her hands against his sheepskin coat. “Abbie . . . you’re shilly-shallying like a nervous filly. There’s nothing to be frightened of. Not ghosts . . . not me.”

  “I’m ...” Her eyes moved about the room’s dark corners, looking anywhere but at Cody’s face until his hands anchored themselves at either side of her head and drew her mouth up to his. His lips played lightly over hers.

  “Abbie, I want to make love to you. Don’t shake your head. Sex is something that can be profoundly soul-changing, if you let it.”

  “It’s just that . . .”

  His lips stilled hers. The gentle kiss explained what he felt his words would not. He pulled away, his eyes searching deep into hers for any glimmer of resistance. He found none, but neither did he find that answering need he wanted of her. There was simply no flicker of response. He was a man trained to infinite patience; living close to nature as a child had taught him that much. He was accustomed to waiting for the wary approach of the rainbow trout, the sight of the stag before his rifle, and he would wait for her.

  His fingers found her hair clasp and loosened it to fan her hair in a mantle of royal gold about her shoulders. Under his intent regard her lids dropped. “Abbie,” he whispered, his arms easing her down onto the mound of furry sheepskins, “forget all your past worries and fears. Today is different; you are different; I am different.”

  His lips sought the hollow below her ear. Her pulse beat furiously there, aswell. When his fingers slipped beneath her coat to undo her western shirt’s tiny pearl snaps, she caught them. “Cody . . . it’s been so long. I . . . with Brad . . . I . . . I’m afraid.”

  He kissed away the ridiculous tears that overflowed her tightly squeezed lids. His fingers released her bra’s clasp and freed her breasts. Lids closed, Abbie tilted her face to the dark rafters far above, giving him access to her throat . . . and below. His lips slipped down to enclose the soft nipples. Cody . . what you did before—that one miraculous moment—that was entirely different from what you want now.”

  He lifted is head. “What I want,” he rusked. “And do you not want this, too? Do you have to courage to admit it?

  “What if . . . “ she took a shallow, gulping breath, “ . . . if it’s not all that you’re anticipating?”

  He found himself chuckling. “I hope it’s not, because I would have cardiac arrest right here and join the other ghosts.”

  Even though his hands found delight in gently cupping the weight of her breasts, he deserted them long enough to unzip her jeans, yanking them down over her ankles. Sometime later, her bra, her panties, her boots—his Stetson, spurs, sheepskin jacket—were strewn about the two of them like a fortress . . . and he was quite near to losing himself in giving her a tongue bath. Her mouth, shoulders, navel, palms, fingers— even the soles of her feet. He was carpeting her body with flowers of kisses. Her nipples peaked in responsive rapture.

  “Abbie, you have a beautiful body.” His tongue traced the path of one stretch mark.

  “I carried twins,” she whispered, her shortened breaths betraying her gradually building excitement. “I tried all the creams to make the marks disappear . . . after a while I gave up ... I just didn’t care anymore.”

  His tongue flicked a line of kisses down the bow of her ribs, and she quivered uncontrollably, before his lips returned to her face. “It would have been a shame had you succeeded, Abbie.” His body half-covered hers; his forefinger stroked the indentation in her lower lip while he talked in a low, quiet voice, hoping to gentle her as he would a nervous horse

  “The Navajo make a kachina doll out of a cottonwood tree with a knife and a rasp. These kachinas represent supernatural powers. The doll is covered with a light coating of kaolin, a white clay, and left that way for some time. A young girl is like that doll. It is only when the face’s characteristics are painted that the doll assumes mystical powers. The same with a woman; only when life has painted her character does the woman achieve the full powers of her femininity.”

  Could his words touchd her in a way that his kisses and hands might not, deep within? The tension which seemed to have bound her for so long ebbed with the renewal of his kisses and her responding ones. Her legs slackened in languorous abandon as his mouth resumed its tender roaming. His lips softly penned a line of love up the inside of her thigh, ending with the barest brush across the mound of crisp hair that curled against his lips. Her fingers entwined themselves in his thick hair.

  “I would mark you as mine, if I could,” he said in a husky voice before his mouth reclaimed the soft area of her inner thigh in a kiss au cannibale, which he knew would leave a bruise. She gasped and buckled, but rewarded him by clasping his head between her hands and drawing him to her. His lips merely brushed her folds with velvety, tantalizing kisses, until her responsive creaminess communicated that she was indeed ready, and then his tongue parted her for deeper strokes.

  Oh, God, can I not get enough of her?!

  “Cody . . . hurry, please ... I want you.”

  He moved up over her, sliding into her with an ease that evidently surprised her, because she sighed out a long drawn, “Ohhhhh.”

  His long hair tickled her eyelids, and she opened her eyes . He held her gaze fast while his body—barely restrained by his determination conquer her civilized inhibitions—moved in slow, rhythmic strokes. He began to talk to her, something he suspected her husband had never bothered to do.

  “This month of waiting for you, Abbie . . . I vacillated back and forth. Sometimes I was so angry at your Anglo’s cool aloofness that I wildly contemplated coming to your apartment and taking you in reckless abandon . . . shocking you into some feeling. And at other times . . . remembering the wariness in your eyes ... I thought only of holding you through the night ... of comforting you . . . telling you everything would be all right.”

  His strokes of love gradually accelerated and still he talked, whispering fantasies of what he would do to her the next time, of all the magical, mystical and marvelous delights of lovemaking. All at once she was gripping his forearms, her fingernails digging into his flesh. Like that night of the wind song, he focused on bringing her to that intense mind-blowing pleasure where she gave up her everything to him. Pinning her beneath him, barely moving, as he coaxed the full measure of the moment from her suddenly rigid body. It happened. Several violent spasms convulsed her; then her body collapsed like a rag doll. He gathered her to him and rocked her. His low voice crooned gentle words in a crazy mixture of Navajo, English and Spanish.

  Soft tears gathered in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, too ashamed to look up at him. “Nothing . . . nothing like this has ever ... I didn’t think it was possible for me. . . .”

  “Shhh, it’s all right, Abbie.”

  He knew that too often the Anglo male in his race against time for achievement, for progress, for recognition, grew accustomed to haste and sacrificed those precious moments of anticipation for that fleeting second of finality. He was careful not to move within her. He didn’t want to spoil her lassitude as he stroked her hair, pulling waves of it over her shoulder to tickle her highly sensitized nipples.

  Through the thicket of her damp lashes she shyly gazed at him. Her lips issued a frustrated sigh. “I’ve never felt so inept at words.”

  “Talk to me,” he coaxed.

  “To discover . . . the stranger in my body is as shocking as . . .as finding a stranger in my bed.”

  He smiled. “The stranger is unmasked—and the stranger is you, isn’t it?”

  That’s too deep to think about right now. She stirred sensuously beneath him. “Cody . . . you—you haven’t . . . uhhh . . .”

  He chuckled. “It’s our turn together now, my love.”

  Languidly, she arched her hips against his jutting flesh, and he smiled. The mill’s ghosts were at last put to rest.

  * * *
* *

  He had liberated her from all her past inadequacies, from all the failures that Brad had subtly attributed to her. Suddenly she was a glutton for sensual experience. The mere way Cody’s eyes made unabashed love to her across the dinner table that night set her off all over again.

  If Chase or Deborah noticed the sensual communication that flowed between their son and Abbie at dinner, they said nothing. Robert, she was certain, did notice. With a child’s fine sense of perception, he felt the tenuous change, the new shading, in her relationship with Cody. His eyes flickered from Cody to her several times before he shuttered his expression.

  She puzzled over the boy’s continued hostility later that night as she bathed, and she puzzled over her new self. Her whole body was now full of mysteriously secret places ... the tip of her tongue, the cushion of her fingertip, the hollows behind her knees. In the warm, scented bathwater she considered those places, finding an infinite responsive pleasure in her body. Why had she always found giving herself an orgasm more a dutiful release of tension than a slow and gentle exploration into her own sensual delight?

  Yet she was almost afraid to face Cody the next day, afraid she might see the condemnation that she would have received from Brad had she demonstrated such a liberated response to his lovemaking by going down on him so rapaciously, swallowingly so greedily, as she later had Cody. At breakfast she found no condemnation in Cody’s dark, enigmatic eyes, but she did detect a reservation within those depths, as if he were awaiting something further.

  After breakfast his father asked him to deliver a bale of barbed wire to Wild Cat Camp, one of the three ranch houses on Cambria. Cody took her and Robert with him in the ranch’s pickup. The pickup bounced and jolted over unmarked land carpeted with winter grass toward a destination known only to Cody. No trees indicated boundaries, no hillocks or draws hinted at direction. Yet the emptiness of the land offered a freedom that appealed to Abbie. The men and women who had conquered this rough, unyielding land had to have been strong.