A Rainbow in Paradise

by Susan Aylworth

  Eden shuddered. You're getting weird, girl, she chided herself. She made an effort to shake off the eerie sense of destiny that hung about them in the cab of the truck.

  "Your grandmother?" she asked aloud. "Shouldn't we call ahead to let her know we're coming?"

  "Can't," he answered. "She doesn't have a phone, but I expect she'll know anyway."

  "How?" Eden squinted, skeptical. "Does she practice some kind of second sight?"

  He snorted. "Hardly. But you've heard of the grapevine. I've been on the rez all day. By now, word has probably gotten back to her that I'm near."

  "Logan, I really don't like dropping in on people at dinnertime...."

  "You're thinking like a belagaana,'' he said, taking her hand. "Things are different here."

  "I can't help thinking that way. I am a belagaana, and, to be truthful, that's part of the reason I'm nervous about dropping in. I doubt if your grandmother will think much of me."

  "Eden..." Logan paused, understanding her implications and suspecting—no, knowing—she was right. "I promise if she's not comfortable, with both of us, we won't stay." He hesitated, then licked his lips. How could he explain to her the sudden need to bring together these two women, both so important to him? How could he share the needs he felt, when he didn't understand them himself?

  Eden saw the look in his eyes and acknowledged the truth: she and Logan Redhorse were walking a path that had already been charted for them, a path they needed to follow. How can that be? she asked herself in wonder. He has his promises to his children. Yet beneath the questions lay the assurance that sensible or not, her conviction was true.

  Prying her eyes away from the man she loved, she turned her gaze to the roadway. They had been traveling for some time now, and their road had become little more than a path, leading them away from the paved road to a smaller, graveled road, then a rutted trail barely wide enough for a single vehicle. "Are we nearing your grandmother's home?" she asked.

  "We should be there soon," he answered, coaxing the truck up over a rise and down the other side. They were in a depression that might once have been a water course. On the hill at the other side, now almost a silhouette against the red-and-orange glow of the western sky, sat a small rancheria, its single-width mobile home and eight-sided hogan surrounded by simple corrals and outbuildings. "There," he said. "This is where I grew up."

  Eden's belagaana eyes saw the poverty, the isolation. The desert child within her saw instead how the small earth-covered home blended into its surroundings, noticed the magnificence of the sunset, thrilled at the simple beauty of the earth and sky. "It looks like a happy place for a boy," she decided aloud. "I'll bet you spent your days chasing lizards and making patterns in the sand."

  "And gathering wood and going for water. There's a small stream on the far side of that hill." With a wry grin, he added, "My grandmother didn't believe in wasting available labor. She usually kept me pretty busy."

  "But you loved her for it," Eden answered. "Your admiration is obvious whenever you speak of her."

  "She was my whole family," he said simply. "She was everything to me." He stopped the truck in the dooryard and together they waited to be acknowledged.

  Eden breathed deeply, trying to calm the fluttering of her stomach. Everything she had heard about Logan's grandmother made her sound like an imposing woman indeed, and one not likely to welcome the presence of a belagaana, especially a woman brought here by her treasured and very Dineh grandson. She was still steeling herself to the idea of the coming meeting when a tiny, rounded woman, her long hair white with age and wrapped in a bun, came to the trailer’s front door and motioned them forward.

  Eden looked to Logan, who smiled and squeezed her hand in reassurance, and then she opened the door of the pickup, curiosity almost overcoming her fear.

  * * * * *

  I should have known it would be like this. I did know it. I just felt I had to come here, anyway. Logan sat on the rugs that covered the floor of his grandmother's hogan, listening as the old woman kept up a steady stream of Navajo, all of it filled with condemnation for Eden's people and, both directly and by implication, for Eden herself.

  "Why did you bring her here?" the old woman was saying now. "You know better than to bring a belagaana here. Don't you remember what happened to your father when he took up with a belagaana woman? How can you even think of bringing such a woman to my home after what that one did to you?" Ella Begay Redhorse, known in an earlier time as Left-Handed Woman, barely stopped to catch her breath as she unleashed an invective of angry, pain-filled words, all of them tying Eden to "that one" who had been his mother.

  Logan looked warily at Eden, wondering how much she was aware of. Though the words were foreign to her, it would have been difficult to mistake his grandmother's tone and the disgusted, sidelong glances she kept turning to the lovely woman he had brought here, largely against her will.

  Just as Logan had predicted, his grandmother had heard earlier that day of Logan's arrival on the reservation with a woman at his side. The man from whom he and Eden had purchased their lunch had spoken with a friend who was on his way to the feed store in Chinle, who had happened to mention it to one of the clerks there, and thus the story had been passed from one person to another until a neighbor had stopped by the Redhorse hogan to bring a letter from the general store and, after reading and translating the letter for the old woman, had mentioned in passing the news about Logan and the woman. She had prepared extra beans and fry bread, and had added a dish of fresh green beans and yellow squash, fried up in a little bacon fat, in case her grandson found his way home that day. Apparently, that was not all she had prepared.

  “I did not take the trouble to raise you in the Dineh way just to have you give yourself up to the belagaana," she went on, apparently not the least concerned whether Eden understood her or not. "You have been taught to be one of us, one of the People. I can't imagine why you would choose to behave so foolishly.”

  " 'Ama-sani," Logan addressed her in Navajo, determined to try to calm the old woman, or at least to postpone her angry tirade until Eden would not have to be subjected to it. "This woman is a friend of my friend. I have brought her here to learn something of how our people live."

  "You have brought her here to laugh at us," his grandmother answered, firmly setting her jaw, her look and her tone slicing at Eden even while she offered more food with her hands. "You may not see her laughing, but she will return to her friends among the Surface-of-the-Earth People laughing behind her hand at the things she has seen here today, and at the foolish man who brought her to see it. She will go away from Dinehtah with nothing but harsh words for a simple, lovesick fool and a weak old woman."

  "It is not like that, grandmother," Logan answered, still speaking in his native tongue—the only tongue the old woman allowed herself to hear. "I am not lovesick for this woman." At least, I hope I'm not.

  "Bah!" His grandmother interrupted with scorn in her voice. "You cannot tell me this lie. I have eyes, haven't I? They may be dim, but they see the look of the lovesick young. What about your obligations to your people, you foolish young one? Do you not remember that you are born of the Dineh, and that it is among your own people that you will find your companion?"

  "I remember, Grandmother," Logan answered, casting Eden a look of abject apology. "I have not forgotten all you taught me."

  "I should hope you have not," his grandmother answered. Without excusing herself, she stood and left them, clearing away their plates though neither Logan nor Eden had finished eating.

  "Ask if I can help with cleanup," Eden whispered softly. Logan could tell from her expression that she was working hard to be both brave and civil, despite the ordeal his grandmother was putting them through.

  "I don't believe that would be wise," he whispered in answer. "I think we'd better go."

  Eden nodded—Logan thought she looked enormously relieved—and he rose and went to where his grandmother worked beside a small wo
od-burning stove, touching her shoulder in a gesture of affection. "I thank you for preparing our food, Grandmother," he said. "And I am glad you are looking well."

  "Go," Ella Redhorse answered, barely meeting his eyes. "Take your belagaana woman home so she can start her laughing."

  "I will visit you again soon," Logan said, trying to hide his feelings. He couldn't help feeling bemused by his grandmother's vision of how Eden must see them all. It certainly didn't square with the Eden he was coming to know. Clearly his grandmother's view of the belagaana had colored her relationships with any and all of them, not allowing her to see individuals for who they were.

  But I can't condemn her too harshly, he thought guiltily. I was like that, too, until I met Chris. As he thought about it now, he was surprised how much his views had changed in the days since he had come to know Chris McAllister. Chris had helped him to learn to trust the belagaana, at least some of the time, and it was Chris's mother, Kate McAllister, then later the pretty red-haired veterinarian who had now become Chris's wife, who had taught him that some belagaana women could be trusted as well.

  With a silent thanks to his friend, he said good-bye to his grandmother and took Eden's arm, preparing to lead her away, but Eden was not quite ready to leave. "Goodbye, Mrs. Redhorse," she said with a slight bow of her head and a studied, finishing-school politeness. "Thank you for a lovely dinner."

  "Tell that silly creature I will not let her speak to me," Ella Redhorse answered in her native tongue, casting Eden a look so foul that Logan knew she couldn't possibly miss its intention.

  "She says you're welcome," Logan said to Eden.

  Eden flashed her eyes in a look that left no doubt as to just how much she believed that, and Logan had to fight the urge to smile. He was also fighting the impulse to tell his grandmother just how ill-mannered she was being. Only the assurance that she would blame his comments on Eden's influence kept him from speaking.

  Eden, too, kept her peace. Logan had started the pickup and was turning it onto the rutted trail when Eden leaned toward him with a look of patient amusement. "You're frowning again," she observed, gently touching the furrowed space between his eyebrows.

  It may have been the simple release from the tension he felt, but Logan smiled. Then he laughed aloud, barely able to contain his relief and delight. "You are a good person, Eden Grant. It's not everyone who can bear my grandmother's scorn with such patience."

  "I didn't want to be patient," Eden answered honestly, looking back over her shoulder to assure herself the Redhorse hogan was no longer in sight. "But I know she is just trying to protect someone she loves very much. That's a motive I can understand, Logan. She doesn't want to see you hurt."

  Her eyes shone with a depth of understanding and suddenly, Logan felt a need to come clean. "You know she didn't say 'you're welcome' there at the end," he confided.

  Eden answered wryly, "I gathered that. She didn't have a good word to say about me from the time we arrived. In fact, I had the feeling she'd been rehearsing all day."

  "I suspect you're right."

  "She's wrong about one thing, though," Eden continued. "I won't be laughing behind my hand at you when I go back among my friends this evening."

  "What?" Logan's mouth dropped open. He swerved off the rutted trail, then brought the truck to a stop and set the brake. "How did you know that?" he demanded. "I thought you didn't speak Navajo."

  Eden seemed nonplused. "Oh, I don't," she answered airily. "I doubt I ever could. Aside from yah-ta-hey and a few native place names, I don't have a word of Navajo, and it’s way too difficult to learn. Sorry."

  "Then how—?"

  "It wasn't difficult to catch her drift, Logan. If looks could kill, I'd be nothing more than a chindi by now." Logan couldn't help noticing that she had used the Navajo word for "ghost."

  "But that isn't the same as—"

  "Maybe not," Eden answered, anticipating the question even before he had finished it. “But when she put her hand over her mouth and started miming the way a scornful woman sometimes laughs at others, I understood her well enough, Navajo or no Navajo."

  "I see," Logan said. He could remember that his grandmother had indeed mimed that action, so the answer made some sense, but he also remembered the way Eden had spoken to the rattlesnake just a few hours before. He wondered if she "just knew" Ella Redhorse the same way she had "just known" the snake was female, and of peaceful intention. The bitter thought crossed his mind that his grandmother might not be as easily charmed as a rattlesnake.

  "It's been a long day," he said, confused more by his thoughts than by anything that had happened. "Come on. Let's get you home."

  Chapter Eight

  "I'll be right back with them extra tiles, ma'am."

  "Okay, thanks." Eden held the door while the man from the tile store pulled his work kit through.

  It was Thursday morning and he had already come once this week, but until today he hadn't carried what he needed to measure the broken tiles she had asked him to replace. Now that he finally had the correct measurements, he said he felt certain his store had those tiles in stock, but he was going to have to go pick up more of them before he could do the job.

  Eden sighed as she watched him go. This was just another in a long series of frustrations. She'd spent three busy days on the house since she'd last seen or heard from Logan. After that last horrid scene with his grandmother, she sometimes wondered if she'd ever hear from him again, yet it certainly didn't fit the description of the Logan Redhorse she thought she knew for him to simply abandon her—no visit, no phone call, nothing. So she'd waited and hoped for his call, throwing all her energies into the house.

  She'd finished the two smaller bedrooms on Tuesday. On Wednesday the plumber had come to do repairs in the hall bath and on the leaky faucets on the back porch. Eden had spent much of the day in the front yard, and now had that space in pretty good shape. This morning she had painted the hall bathroom. This afternoon, while the tile man worked, she intended to do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen, getting ready to paint tomorrow. That would leave her with just the master bedroom and bath and some basic cleanup in the backyard. She guessed that by Wednesday next week, Thursday at the latest, she'd be out of excuses for hanging around Rainbow Rock.

  "If you're going to see me again, Logan Redhorse, you'd better hurry," she whispered into the quiet of her kitchen.

  Just then, the front doorbell rang. Eden checked her watch: thirty-six minutes since the tile guy had left. That should be just about long enough for him to pick up the missing tiles and get back, she calculated. She was more than a little surprised when she opened the door to find Logan waiting there.

  "Hi," she said, wishing she could think of something clever.

  "Hi," he said. "Busy?"

  "Well, yeah. The guy from the tile store is due back any second, and I've been working in the kitchen—"

  "You look great." His face held that admiring expression she'd seen a few times; it almost took her breath away.

  She gulped. "Thanks."

  "I was hoping maybe you could get away. There are some people I'd like you to meet."

  Eden immediately reached to smooth her hair. "I'm not in any shape to meet people—"

  "Horsefeathers. Like I said, you look great."

  "But really, I—"

  "And the tile guy is here now, so you don't need to wait for him. Come on, Eden. Come with me."

  He was right. Eden saw the truck from the tile store pull up behind Logan's and the man get out, walking toward her. She opened her mouth to protest, but couldn't think of any reason why she shouldn't go with Logan. She'd just been commenting to herself on the shortness of the time they had left together, just warning him—however distantly—that if he wanted to see her before she'd left, he'd better hurry it up. Well, he's here now, isn't he? she asked herself, and grabbed her purse. She mumbled quick instructions to the tile man and let Logan offer her a hand as she stepped up into the passenger side of his
truck.

  "Who are we going to meet?" Eden asked.

  "My family," Logan answered. "That is, my father and his wife, Esther. My sister, Celia, is here, too."

  Eden stared, wide-eyed. "You have a sister?"

  "Remember last Monday when we went to my grandmother's? She had a letter that morning, brought over by a neighbor."

  "I remember," Eden answered. I remember almost every awful minute of our visit with your grandmother.

  "The letter was from my dad. It turns out it's time for Celia's kinaalda—that is, her coming-of-age ceremony—and they want to have it at my grandmother's home. They're in Holbrook to pick up some supplies on their way out to begin setting up for it."

  "Oh." Eden didn't know what to say as she prepared to meet the rest of Logan's kin. I can only hope this goes better than the last meeting with Logan's relatives, she thought. Aloud, she said, "I'm still amazed you have a sister."

  "I expect you'd call her a half-sister," he said as he pulled the truck in next to a battered, older version of itself outside the Kachina Cafe. "Here we are. They're inside having lunch."

  "Great," Eden answered, wishing she felt the least bit of enthusiasm. Not waiting for Logan to come around to her side, Eden opened her own door and swung her legs out. She stiffened her backbone and pasted a pleasant expression on her face as she took Logan's hand and walked beside him, stretching her stride to keep up.

  She spotted the Redhorse party as they stepped into the room. Apparently the Redhorses spotted them as quickly.

  "Yah-ta-hey." The man who stood to greet them was an older version of Logan—shorter and leaner, to be sure, and a little darker in his complexion, his hair coarse and black instead of Logan's wavy sable. Still, there was no mistaking the resemblance of father and son. They had the same high, prominent cheekbones, the same wide faces and long, patrician noses. Their mouths had the same shape, though she noticed now that Logan's lips were a little fuller. Even their brows were the same—high, wide, and clear—and each of them had a tiny, wayward lock that fell forward regardless of its owner's efforts to comb it back. Eden had never given much thought to what Logan's father must look like, but had she thought about it, she suspected her imagination would have conjured this very man.