Dust Devil

by Bonds, Parris Afton

  Stephen with Magdalena. My God, the girl was only ten or eleven! No wonder so many children came and went in the Castle, both boys and girls. She recalled the strange look she had often caught in the children’s eyes. She had thought it merely the aloof attitude of Mexican and Indian children... but it had been the haunted look of fear and confusion. Why had she been so blind to what was going on in her own home?

  She opened her eyes to find Lario standing above her, watching. "You knew?” she asked.

  He hunkered down and spread another blanket over her. "It gets cold at night this high up.”

  "You knew!” she accused this time.

  "Should I have told you, Senora — that your husband likes children?”

  "Why — why do they stay?”

  He shrugged. "Hunger. Shelter. Their parents owe money. There are many reasons.”

  Lario rose before she could ask more and went to kneel at the fire. When he returned to squat before her, he had a bowl in his hands. Wordlessly he spoon-fed her as if she were a child. The mutton was delicious. When she finished the last bite, he stood up. "I will stay the night in my mother’s lodge,” he said as he crossed to the jarra and filled a gourd with water. "You will be safe here.”

  "You aren’t going to take me back?”

  He knelt at her side and offered her the gourd, saying, "That is for you to decide, Senora.”

  Over the gourd’s rim her eyes challenged him. "And if I don’t want to go back—what will you tell my husband?”

  He smiled. A tantalizing smile that stopped her breath in her throat. "That the Senora could not be found.”

  She tossed beneath the blankets throughout the night. There was the rattle of the wind like sleet upon the dead leaves of the tree-branch roof to keep her company, to echo her rattled thoughts. At last, exhaustion drained her and she slept a deep, dreamless coma in the bed of her childhood enemy.

  When morning came, Toysei was at the hogan’s door with a bowl of corn mush for Rosemary’s breakfast. Behind Toysei Adala hung back like a shy doe. The girl had delicate brown skin with soft, brown, long-lashed eyes. "Lario is in the mountains with his brothers,” Toysei said without preamble. "He will return tonight.” Then the two young women were gone.

  The dust storm grew worse that day, yet a surge of restlessness agitated Rosemary into escaping the hogan where she was plagued by Lario’s unseen presence. The sight of his possessions—an anvil to one side of the doorway, his bedroll on the other, the leather vest on the wall peg—distracted her from the decision she must make.

  Muffled in the Indian blanket which she kept drawn up over her mouth and nose, She left the hogan to walk under the aged, wind-distorted cottonwoods. She followed the wagon-rutted path that led downward to the plateau rather than upward where she might encounter Lario or his brothers. Her bruised and cut feet, which she discovered had been anointed during the night with some kind of healing balm, were still tender, and she winced all too often when not careful where she stepped.

  Just where would she go? She could return to Ireland. Stephen’s gift, her golden earrings, would buy her passage back there. She could never return to her aunt’s dominion, but perhaps she could support herself as a tutor or governess.

  But what about Jamie? She knew she could not give him up... and she knew Stephen would never let her leave with the baby. But did she really want to leave? She had come to love the land. The wildness of it. Cambria! Its exotic beauty. Its dangerous nature. She sensed Ireland would be boring after life in the New Mexico Territory.

  And yet she could never let Stephen touch her again. The very sight of those freckled hands would repulse her now. To even be in the same room with him would be revolting to her. But to look forward to a life that stretched on in emptiness . . . she could find no answer.

  The air, shimmering with the turbid pink light of the storm, was a moving tapestry of sand. The longer she walked, the greater blew the sand and wind. She lifted her face to its blast, as if the sand would cleanse away the shame and horror of the day before.

  Eventually the storm’s intensity grew so great that it was impossible for her to see where she walked. The thought that any moment she might wander from the trail and plunge into some gashed canyon snapped her out of her cataleptic state. She halted and, like a bat without the aid of sight, tried to sense something solid near her to protect her from the wind’s blast — a boulder, a gully, a ridge.

  The sand stung her face and clogged the air so that breathing was now a real effort. Panic pricked her. She whirled about, uncertain now of which direction she had come. It was nigh impossible to stand erect. When the wind whipped the blanket from her, she crouched and shielded her nearly nude body from the sand’s blinding onslaught.

  Suddenly she was engulfed in blackness and lifted, to be thrown roughly across something hard that knocked the breath from her. Stunned, some seconds passed before she realized she was wrapped once more in a scratchy blanket and slung across the saddle of a mule or horse. She struggled, and a hand swatted her behind. "Dulce!”

  She recognized Lario’s soft, low voice and stiffened indignantly.

  At last the animal came to a halt, and she felt herself lifted again and deposited on the hard ground. She fought her way out of the blanket to see the rocky ledge that protruded above her and on both sides, forming a shallow cave. Not two yards away Lario tied his chestnut stallion to a growth of juniper that hedged the sheer walls.

  He turned to her. Impatience crowded in upon his normally uninflected voice. "You are a fool!” he said, and Rosemary knew he was not only talking about her folly in leaving the hogan. She had willfully closed her eyes to the truth about the kind of man Stephen was. But pride kept her from acknowledging to Lario that greed for the house, the land — for Cambria — had brought her to this. "How did you find me?” she asked, averting her eyes from his angry, penetrating glare.

  In the small rock-walled enclosure he sat next to her but not touching, his ankles crossed. "Adala told me what direction you had taken. My horse kept me on the path.”

  For a while the two of them, isolated as if they were in a ship’s cabin on the ocean with the great waves crashing about it, listened to the wind’s shriek. But his dispassionate silence began to unnerve her. Her emotions already had been strained to raveled threads. She hugged her knees, silently telling herself she was skittish merely because she did not like the man with her. It was only natural she should feel that way about him after losing her family to Indian revolutionists. What mattered the continent . . . an Indian was an Indian. True, Lario was cleaner than most Indians she had come in contact with and perhaps better educated; but nevertheless, he thought like an Indian — and that was enough to make her abhor his presence.

  The silence became so intense that it seemed louder than the wind that raged outside, and at last she snapped. “You judge me a fool. But what are you, turning a blind eye to my husband . . . to, to that monster that is devouring Indian children!”

  “The children do not stay.”

  In a stunning moment of revelation she understood then what he did not say, that he spirited them away. That explained why Navajo children were rarely seen working at the Castle.

  “The question is . . . will you?”

  "The pretty girl with your sister — Adala — are you two to marry?”

  He did not appear perplexed by her abrupt subject switch and replied calmly, "It is so arranged by our parents.”

  Rosemary recognized that whatever questions she asked of Lario, she would learn little from his answers and would have to be content with what he wished her to know. Doubtless, he disliked her as much as she did him; that he, incredible as it seemed to her, possibly felt she was beneath his disdain. And at that, she smiled, relaxing her emotional defense ever so slightly.

  "How long will it last — the sandstorm?” she asked.

  Only the narrowing of his lids alerted her that he was at once on guard against the almost pleasant, conversational tone of he
r voice. "By morning it should blow itself out.” He rolled to his stomach, stretching out as far as the confining space would allow, and rested his forehead on his arms. His shirtsleeve muffled his voice. "You will need to rest. We will leave early for Cambria.”

  "What makes you think I have decided to return?”

  "Because you are a practical woman, Senora — or else you would not have come so far for a man you did not know.”

  "You mean because love was not involved? Then are you not also a practical person?” she challenged. "Marrying because your parents made an arrangement — instead of marrying for love?”

  His dark gaze swung up to hers, its arrow thrust pinning her where she sat. "And what makes you think I am not?”

  "Well, I thought — ” Rosemary tore her gaze from his and fixed her eyes on the red-pink bleakness without. "I’m sorry — I did not mean to become personal.”

  "Why, Senora? Are you afraid of becoming too personal with the lowly Indian?” he derided. "Give the animals a few scraps, and you’ve done your good deed!”

  "That’s not true!”

  “Oh? I have watched you descend from the Castle, a basket of fruit or knitted clothing on your arm to give out like the padre giving blessings to us heathens.”

  And he had hated her for it, she realized, hated her for her impersonal charity. When he laid his forehead on his crossed arms to sleep, she was caught short at the sense of rejection she felt.

  As the night approached and grew colder, she huddled within his blanket, shivering. She knew he must be as cold or colder. Yet she hesitated in awakening him. Had fear and conditioning made her truly the hard and impersonal woman he had described? Had it prejudiced her so harshly? I have, indeed, been a fool.

  Softly she crawled to him and stretched out beside his long frame, spreading the blanket over both of them. But the cold of the rock beneath continued to seep through her tattered gown to chill her.

  Then he startled her by turning over and drawing her into the warm cocoon of his arms. At her conditioned resistance he said, "I will not hurt you, Senora.” Then, "I wondered when the cold would overcome your fear.”

  She heard the maddening amusement in his voice. "I am not afraid,” she began but broke off her angry flow of words. "Aye, you’re right, Lario,” she said more slowly. In the night’s darkness, where his all-knowing eyes were hidden from her, her admission was made easier. "I am afraid of you, and I don’t know why . . . because you have been nothing but courteous.”

  His voice was muffled in her hair. "Maybe you are afraid, Senora . . . of being a woman.”

  Her breath caught, and Lario continued softly, "I would do nothing that you did not want . . . for then I would find no pleasure.”

  Pleasure. The word taunted her. Did such a word exist in the realm of the woman’s sexuality? Even the word "sexuality” was taboo in a woman’s vocabulary, and she shuddered at the forbidden, nebulous thoughts her mind entertained. I must try to sleep, she told herself.

  But the steady, strong beat of Lario’s heart against her cheek, the enveloping warmth that acted as a narcotic, the masculine smell of leather and wood smoke . . . and him — these assaulted her senses. Her breath quickened. Her stomach knotted as if she had been running. She felt lightheaded, yet she knew she could not ignore the pleasurable sensations that prickled her skin.

  Shame at her desire washed over her, and she was glad that Lario could not see the furious blush that made her uncomfortably warm. Still, as the seconds raced by, she could not suppress the yearning that waxed ever stronger, burning into her groin like a branding iron. She was painfully aware of Lario as a man in every separate nerve of her body. Her body rigidified, stiff as an icicle and as brittle, so that she thought she would surely shatter.

  Lario’s fingers came up to cup her chin and tilt it upward, and she quivered violently at his touch. Her heart beat heavily, like a canary’s throat. "You are curious?” In the dimness lights danced mockingly in his eyes.

  Feeling as shy as the virgin she had once been, Rosemary nodded. She did not know what to expect, whether he would kiss her first or take her immediately, purging her of this terrible urgency that gripped her.

  But he did neither. He drew her close to him, so that the two of them molded, and pressed her head into the hollow of his neck. Slowly, gently, his free hand caressed the smooth indentation of her backbone. The blanket fell away. He whispered something against her ear that was not Spanish, and she trembled at the implied sensuousness. His warm, sure hands stroked the length of her hair, her shoulders, her arms, even the palms of her hands as if every particle of her were as precious as the white man’s gold. And gradually she felt the bow-string tautness ease from her.

  The wind howled about them, drowning out everything but the desire that crescendoed between them. Then Lario pulled away from Rosemary, and she at once felt bereft. "If you want to change your mind, you must do it now.” His voice was husky, almost angry.

  How could she think, she wondered feverishly, when he was so close to her? His charismatic presence completely consumed her. His beautiful long-lashed eyes, the harsh planes of his face, the gentle-firm lips, and the wondrously hard, lean body. Once more she could only nod in response.

  One hand came up to touch her breast, brushing it as lightly as a feather; the other explored her curves and hollows through the thick yellow, tattered gown. When his fingers began to loose its buttons and hooks, Rosemary shivered with the dread of past experience. "Lario,” she whispered and knew she was stalling, "kiss me . . . please.”

  He stiffened. His whisper stirred the tendrils at her temples. “The touching of the lips, the invasion of the mouth, it is a custom of the Anglo.”

  “You’ve never tried it?” she asked wonderingly.

  “My last year at the Mormon missionary’s school, the year I was fourteen, the daughter of a wealthy hidalgo initiated me into the rites of manhood. I had been both frightened and excited, but most of all I felt . . . ,” he paused, as if searching for the right word, “I had not at all liked the Spanish girl’s lizard-like tongue.”

  Her low chuckle brought a smile to his lips. “I asked myself what I am doing with this haughty Anglo woman.”

  “Yes,” she mused. “This . . . ” she raised a finger to trace his lower lip and was gratified with the rusk of his indrawn breath, “ . . . this can only invite trouble.”

  “Not only are you not of the Dine’e,” he growled, “but you belong to Rhodes, my enemy.”

  “And yet you want me?”

  “From that first meeting on the boardwalk in San Antonio, when the sun set fire to your hair, and your catlike, turquoise eyes flashed at me with both contempt and fear.”

  “As yours did of me,” she challenged in a whisper.

  “Yes. There have been other women, both of the Dine’e and the Spanish, and yet there is a difference that I cannot deny . . . cannot even explain. And it is not because you are different, because you are white. I only know I want you.”

  Before she could even absorb the pleasure his admission gave her, he added brutally, “Later, I will purify myself, cleanse myself of you, in the sweat lodge. But for now . . . .”

  “Damn you, Lario!” she said and framed his head between her hands. Gently her lips brushed his and hovered like butterfly wings. He stilled. More firmly, she slanted her mouth against his and was rewarded with the slightest parting of his lips. Carefully, her arms went up to encircle his muscle-tensed neck and even more carefully did she allow the tip of her tongue to trace the bow of his upper lift, to find that indentation of his fuller, lower lip.

  Abruptly, he took command. Rolling half way over her, he plunged his tongue into her mouth, searching ravaging, possessing. Her skin was afire, her body tingling and aching, and he returned his kiss, her tongue answering, responding, giving. Her legs intertwined with his in a desperate message.

  His mouth deserted hers to kiss her hair and eyelids, the smallpox mark on her cheek, and the pulse that beat i
n the hollow of her throat. Oh, God, she ached for something so demanding and inescapable and knew not what.

  Then he eased her arms from around his neck, even as he continued to kiss her, and she felt the nightgown, the last wall of her defense slip from her. His lips touched her nipples, his tongue teasing them to peaks, and Rosemary shook under the gentleness of his passion and the deliberation of his love-making. When his fingers slipped down to caress the silken skin of her inner thighs, she tensed.

  "No, carina,” he said softly.

  "Lario.. .’’she moaned. And she felt the hardness of him as he moved up over her body completely. Although he only partially entered her, waiting for her to adjust, she tensed and tightened in anticipated fear. He was larger than Stephen. Much larger

  Lario lowered his forehead so that it touched hers. “Don’t fight me,” he husked. “I will wait until you want me enough to open wider for me.”

  With him, she was learning, there was nothing to fear. Her thighs dropped apart, and he carefully sank deeper. Withdrew slowly and sank himself into her again. Instinctively she fitted her movements to the slow measured cadence of his. They moved together — inexorably — toward a point that seemed to span a lifetime, and as the unbearable pleasure surged through her she wanted it to last forever and clutched at sweat-sheened shoulders as orgasmic tremors wracked her body and all too quickly receded.

  And she realized there was, indeed, something she had to fear with Lario. The loss of him.

  CHAPTER 12

  Lario leaned from the saddle to draw the young woman up before him. He saw the compressed lips that only that morning had willingly offered him their warmth. Was she once again reverting to the grand lady of Cambria?

  Mentally he shrugged. It was no more than he had expected. He had played the part of the stag for her. And yet he had to admit she had surprised him through the duration of the one night. There had been no false reserve that he had encountered among some of the women of the Dine’e, nor the dignified facade that had masked the wantonness of the Spanish women who, he surmised, had been intrigued by his race.