When still there was no sudden snap of a door swung open, Chase, never losing the rhythm of his pace, slanted a glance to his right at the roadster that moved along with him. He recognized the sleek lines of the 1937 silver Mercedes Benz, having seen it in the Capitol parking lot several times. And when the husky voice asked, "Want a ride, Mr. Strawhand?” he knew the driver’s identity.
He halted. His eyes pierced the darkness, making out the pale iridescent beauty of Christina Raffin. He put a foot on the running board. A sleek woman for a sleek car. What was she doing out that late alone? "Is this 'do a good turn for an Indian’ night?”
She laughed. "Don’t try to frighten me with your Indian scowl, Mr. Strawhand. The Indian Wars ended with Geronimo’s capture. Besides, I don’t frighten easily.”
His gaze was clamped on Christina’s knees, where the dahlia-blue crepe dress had ridden up to expose the long legs encased in silk hosiery. He could well imagine the pale flesh beneath that molded all the way along the thigh bone, and the blood began to roar in his ears. Nothing but a humping buck, he thought. He did not know if he trusted himself to get in the car. Never before had he needed to bother about restraining his impulsive libido, but obviously Christina Raffin knew nothing about rape. She was an emancipated female, career and all.
Chase groaned inwardly and swung open the door, hoping the darkness concealed the bulge in his pants. "Once in a While” drifted up from the car’s radio. Christina reached over and flicked it off, and Chase caught the subtle scent of her L’Aimant perfume.
"You’re either very trusting or very stupid,” he said.
"I never trust any man . . . or I wouldn’t be where I am now. Look behind us — the Chevrolet —the men in it work for my father. I learned at a very early age, Mr. Strawhand, just how much power my father’s money will buy. And I like the knowledge. Knowledge is power, isn’t that what they say? Want a cigarette?”
“They also say power corrupts.” He took the cigarette and noticed by the passing light of a street lamp that the cigarette had been especially made for her. The paper bore her name and her scent of perfume. He wanted badly to shake her self-confidence. When he inclined his head to light up the cigarette, he said, his face close to hers, "A man who has something to lose would be damned stupid to upset Senator Raffin. But I have nothing to lose. And that, Miss Raffin, is power.”
He saw her pale eyes flare before the shadowed lids narrowed and noted the way her breasts rose slightly in agitation, and he felt the taste of pleasure that he had managed to disconcert her, however briefly.
She inhaled on the cigarette and blew a slow stream of smoke before replying. "We’ve never been formally introduced, but as we both seem to know the other’s name, it would be silly to pretend ignorance. I’ve noticed you up at the Capitol. Someone told me you work for AID.”
He slumped back in the seat, enjoying the ride in the luxury car. "I’m impressed you took the time to find out,” he said idly.
"Don’t be. I make it my business to know everyone and everything in Santa Fe. It makes me a more effective lobbyist.” She softened her statement with a smile, saying, "There might be a time when I’d want your support, Mr. Strawhand.”
He knew the last thing she thought she would need from him was political support, since the Indian did not have the franchise. "That’s a bunch of sheep manure. Miss Raffin. Why not admit I’m different from your fancy dudes that tiptoe through the Capitol?”
Christina laughed, and he liked the unpretentious sound of her laughter. But she wrinkled her nose then, as if smelling something distasteful. "That you are — a diversion, my magnificent Indian. Tell me, did your family raise sheep?”
The hackles on his neck rose. She had bested him. "No, they scalped and murdered the pale-skinned intruders. You can let me out here.”
Christina slammed on the brakes. "Leave the window down,” she said sweetly when he opened the door. "The fresh air will clean the car.”
Two more months passed, and it was the week before Christmas when next he saw Christina. The senate had been working late, and he had decided to attend the session rather than take the train to Albuquerque. He was half afraid testimony regarding the Conservancy Act would be presented, and either he or Will should be there. As it turned out his effort was worthless — worthless, he thought, unless he counted the sight of Christina Raffin’s long legs encased in Du Pont’s new nylon hosiery.
From the rear row he had watched her enter the room, stop here and there to exchange a few words and smiles with those attending the session, and had watched every male in the room caress her with a covetous glance. She never gave any indication she noticed him though she did wink pertly at Masters who was chairing the session before she took a seat one row away from him.
But later, after the session was over, with the people beginning to disperse, and Chase headed toward the Capitol lobby and outdoors, Christina caught up with him. "You’re taking more than a casual interest in politics, aren’t you?” she asked breathlessly as they descended the multitude of steps.
Light snow fell about them, and her long golden lashes glistened with the melting flakes. She looked ravishing with her silver hair draped over the red-gold fox fur coat wrapped about her. He let the air build in his lungs before replying. "Nope, just don't want the bill to get through. Not at $105 an acre.”
She stopped him, placing a hand on his arm. It was like the feverish heat of a sudden cold rocketing through him, but she did not seem to notice his reaction. The last of the stragglers passed the two of them by, and they were left alone beneath the Capitol’s spotlights. "Chase, you know I’m lobbying for the Labor Union. They want this bill to pass. It’ll mean more jobs — and ultimately more revenue for the State.”
"And less money for the dumb Indian’s pocket.”
"You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
"But that’s what you and your kind intend, isn’t it?”
"Chase, give up on this. Let the Indian Bureau take care of its own.”
"I’m one of its own — and I don’t like the way they took care of me.”
Christina moved closer. "Then let me help,” she said softly. "My father could get you a job with the Legislative Council that pays more than AID does.”
"Don’t think so, Christina.” It was the first time he had used her given name aloud, and he liked the sound of it on his lips. "Then I’d be passing the buck.”
She smiled at his pun. "Maybe you’ll change your mind. I — I’d offer you a ride home tonight, but I’ve another appointment to keep.”
He looked past her to Masters coming toward them. The man frowned but offered his hand as Christina introduced them. Chase watched the two of them disappear into the night, feeling that old bitterness eating at his gut. Christina was a white woman, his age-old enemy.
So, why did he want her?
* * * * *
Deborah took another sip of the steaming Chinese tea to ward off the September chill which seeped into Roger Zamazloski’s studio despite the fire that blazed in the corner fireplace. Her gaze scanned the headlines that basically had not changed since June when Germany occupied Paris and Italy declared war on the Allies.
But for a change it was not the world crises that interested Deborah, and she thumbed through the pages until she found the large photo of the lovely young lady in the daring strapless evening gown on the front page of the society section. European Exile Courts Our Christina read the large type, and beneath, the story gossiped of Prince Serge Kaminsky who had jilted the New York "celebutante,” as Elsa Maxwell had dubbed her — Brenda Frazier — for the Princess of Santa Fe Society, Christina Raffin.
Even the black and white photo could not obscure the woman’s vibrant beauty —t he creamy skin and the pale shade of eyes set off by the vivid lipstick she had made the rage in Santa Fe—"Hothouse Red.”
The week before, another picture of her had dominated the Santa Fean. Raffins Host Bete Noire Ball had read the caption beneath the picture of Christina an
d her distinguished father standing at the head of the receiving line. The "pet hate” ball had been held in the Raffin Victorian mansion for the opening of the new legislative session, and half the politicians had shown up with short-clipped mustaches and khaki uniforms in imitation of Germany’s Adolph Hitler. At close second was the glasses and cigarette holder of Roosevelt with the imitators arriving in everything from wheelchairs to crutches and canes.
But it was the tall man photographed dancing with Christina in a smaller photo on the same page that had caught Deborah’s attention. It was Chase dressed in the letter-sweater attire of the popular radio and comic-strip figure, the All-American Boy, Jack Armstrong. She had had to smile at Chase’s audacious mockery of the Anglo superhero type despite the funny feeling she had in her stomach at seeing him holding the lovely woman who was dressed as the gun moll, Bonnie Parker.
A sister’s jealousy, she told herself. Being from the same clan, though he shared only half her Navajo blood, made her want the best for him.
The door’s tiny bell tinkled as Roger Zamazloski entered his studio and shut the door. The short, balding man shed his raccoon coat and rubbed his hands and blew on them. "I moved here from Boston for the sunshine. Where did it go?”
She put away the newspaper and rose to pour her employer a cup of tea. "Come back in three months,” she said, laughing. "That’s when the Navajo’s Changing Woman brings the spring and your sunshine.”
Roger took the cup of tea and sat down at a large table littered with brown wrapping paper and string, and papers ready for filing. He was a middle-aged man with graceful gestures who, Deborah decided long ago, was neither straight nor homosexual like some of the artists and writers who inhabited Camino del Monte Sol. To her way of thinking he was neuter, with no sexual preference. After the first months of working for him, his odd feminine gestures no longer bothered her, for she actually enjoyed his witty personality and his sincere friendship and his encouraging interest in her work.
"Are you still hoping one day to have your own one-woman art exhibition?” he asked her now between sips of tea.
Deborah paused in stacking the filing papers to one side of the table. Roger was watching her with an intensity that disconcerted her. "One day,” she answered carefully. "When my paintings have gained greater acceptance by the critics.”
Roger reached in his pocket and fished out a telegram. "It’s from CBS,” he said, handing it to her.
She looked from Roger to the yellow piece of paper addressed to him.
NEED CORRESPONDENT TO PHOTOGRAPH WAR PROGRESS IN EUROPE STOP ARE YOU INTERESTED STOP REPLY BY JANUARY FIRST STOP.
"I’ve no interest in giving up my practice,” Roger said. "It’s taken me too long to get it established.”
"I don’t blame you,” she said, handing him back the telegram. "Still, it’d be exciting to cover something of that magnitude.”
"I was hoping you’d feel that way. I thought I’d recommend you.”
"Me?” she squeaked.
"Why not? The first female photographer to cover the war would be quite a coup.”
Deborah sat down in a daze. "But I know very little about photography.”
Roger uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. Excitement danced in his young-old eyes. "I’ve watched you crop my photos. You have a photographer’s sense of the unusual—and an artist’s eye for the essentials.”
"I — I don’t know. Santa Fe’s the biggest town I’ve ever been in. It’s difficult to imagine moving to Europe — being on my own.”
"If nothing else, think of the great publicity your Navajo Indians would receive. It’d show the nation that the Indian is no longer the primitive savage the Tom Mix movies make him — or her,” he said, smiling, "out to be.”
She thought of the photo she had seen on the society page that morning. And then there was the young Indian sculptor she had recently met, Greg Red Bird. Did she really want to leave? "I’d have to think about it, Roger.”
"I was hoping you’d at least give it a chance. They’ve given me – you’ve got until the first of the year to decide.”
CHAPTER 45
It was as if the boring hum of conversation did not exist, as if the hired musicians had taken a break from the evening’s entertainment, as if there were not another man in the room but Chase Strawhand . . . at least, thought Christina, as far as every woman in the Palace Hotel’s Grand Ballroom was concerned.
He stood in the wide, open doorway, magnificently virile in spite of the civilized trappings of the black tuxedo, which she was certain he had rented, and every woman present came alert — like bitches in heat, she thought.
Evelyn Addison, the Mayor’s wife, patted her sausage curls. A senator’s wife, Wanda Greiner, smoothed over her fat-padded hips the tight red sequined dress that flared at her knees. It seemed that every female gaze swiveled like magnets toward Chase Strawhand.
And I’m no better, she told herself. After almost two years of studied politeness toward him, of suffering Kaminsky’s tiresome courtship, of involving herself so deeply in her work that she fell in bed at night like a zombie, she still could not get Chase out of her system. Seeing him at the Capitol or at an occasional party was not enough. She wanted him. She wanted him to make love to her so that things like lacquered nails and permanent waves and the next committee meeting would be driven from her mind. She wanted him to be the first, for in spite of her image as the worldly wise and sophisticated young socialite and businesswoman, she was still inexperienced in lovemaking.
It was not only that the eligible men acted either awkward or exceedingly polite in her presence, as did Philip Masters, who she knew was only biding his time. It was also the host of feelings left over from childhood . . . the years of listening to her parents argue, her mother’s desertion of her father and herself for a man more her age, and her father’s coldness and reluctance to demonstrate affection. The whole idea of love and its ensuing sex act was something she had not wanted to ever get involved in and had settled for the challenge of a career in a man’s world.
Then she had seen Chase Strawhand, felt the intense heat of his gaze that first day in the Capitol cafeteria. And after that, each time they were thrown together she was surprised at the lack of control over her body, over the way her nipples hardened and her lower regions ached with frustrating desire.
From across the room Chase’s gaze met hers and locked. She shivered with his infuriatingly lazy grin . . . and the secret message his eyes held. Suddenly she was tired of listening to Governor McDonald’s praise of the Democratic re-election campaign and his opinion on the war in Europe and Roosevelt’s recall of the arms embargo and what it meant at home. She wanted only one thing.
"Excuse me, Fred,” she said to her Princeton escort. "I need to repair my make-up.”
As she made her way past the tables toward the door she nodded here and there at the party’s workers who had earned their ticket to the New Year’s Inaugural Ball. Impatience to reach Chase before he was swallowed up by a gaggle of socialites made her short with the sycophants who sought to detain her.
"Hello, Chase,” she said quietly, ignoring Margaret Maxwell, the prominent patron of the arts and founder of the Maxwell Galleries. The bleached blond, with a half-empty champagne glass in one hand, was seductively tracing the folds of Chase’s red cummerbund with the forefinger of her free hand while she talked about what the Democratic Party could do for AID.
"Hello, Christina,” he said. "I take it I owe you a thanks for the invitation?”
She turned to the woman who blinked with surprise at the interruption. "Isn’t that your husband over there on the dance floor, Marge? I think he’s motioning for you to join him in the Conga Line.”
When the woman had departed in a huff, Christina said, "I thought you might enjoy the New Year’s party.” The way his inky-black eyes watched her — it made her nervous. And the way his raking gaze moved leisurely down the plunge of her cleavage, she wondered if he even noticed the $7
50 frothy lilac gown from John-Frederics. "I didn’t think you would come,” she blurted. Then, "You’re bored, aren’t you?”
Chase slanted a brow. "Aren’t you?”
She surveyed the crowded room. Wasn’t this what she had worked for — the power so long denied the woman in politics? She looked back to Chase, tilting her head up in spite of her five feet ten inches. "Good Lord, yes — and I’m just realizing it!”
"Come on,” he said, taking her wrist. "We’re missing a better party.”
The band was playing a swing rendition of Glen Miller’s “Blueberry Hill,” and from the corner of her eye she could see Fred making his way toward her. Wordlessly she nodded her head at Chase.
He took her glass and handed it to a passing waiter in purple livery. "Let’s go.”
* * * * *
Chase did not need to take his eyes off the winding Cerro Gordo Road to see the exhilaration that shone in Christina’s eyes each time the flare from her cigarette lit up the elegant bones of her face. A woman of power and wealth and beauty. A dangerous combination. He would be a fool to let himself get involved with her. He imagined she would be like the female species of the whip vignaroon scorpion that inhabited the New Mexico alkaline flats — cohabitating with her mate, then stinging him to death. If the mate let her.
His lips flattened out in a dry smile as the realization occurred to him that he was looking forward to a duel with this woman. He felt her eyes on him, and he glanced at her.
"Where are we going?” she asked.
"I told you. A party. Of sorts. We’re going to an Enemyway Chant — a squaw dance.”
She laughed, a tinkling brittle mockery. "Are you going to make a squaw out of me?”
"I think that would be difficult. We won't be seeing what the ordinary tourists see. We’ve a special invitation to the medicine hogan.”
"What’s going to happen there?”
"That’s where the Native American Church meets.”
"A church meeting!” her eyes narrowed. "You dragged me away from the party of the year to attend a church meeting?”
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