“Stand back,” Randolf commanded Ben. “I’ll hand my wife down.”
Harmony gasped at the cut. Her gaze flew to Ben’s face. His brows lowered and his skin darkened, but he retreated several paces. Silently, he watched the man help his wife to the ground.
Edna murmured anxiously, lowering her voice but not so much that both Harmony and Ben couldn’t hear. “Is that an Indian, Randolf? Why, I can’t believe...”
“Don’t let him bother you, my dear,” Wilkerson reassured his wife. “Won’t let the dirty savage near you.”
At a loss, Harmony sighed inaudibly. Dismayed by the Wilkersons’ attitude, she knew that, unfortunately, such bias still bit deeply into many white minds—even now, long after most tribes had been herded onto reservations.
The Kawaiisu were a peaceful people and had coexisted amiably with the white valley ranchers for many years. But the Wilkersons couldn’t know that, Harmony reasoned.
Ben glared daggers at Harmony, his dark eyes snapping condemnation, his mouth drawn tight and hard. Fierce anger emanated from every line of his stiff frame. She blinked. What did he expect her to do?
About to make a protest, Harmony saw Randolf flip the horse’s reins to Ben. Then suddenly she had her hands full ushering the chattering, complaining woman and the grim man up the steps and into the house. Inside, she belatedly realized she’d forgotten to thank Ben.
* * *
TWO INTERMINABLE DAYS passed while Harmony entertained the Wilkersons—inside the house. Nothing she could do would persuade them to tour the property, take the air or even recline on the veranda.
She was forced to allow Ben to manage things on his own, but she didn’t worry much. She had complete confidence in his ability—she simply wanted to be helping.
She served the guests tea and scones Cook had specially baked. She saw to it baths were drawn. She played the piano—Bach and Mozart. But mostly she listened to Edna talk...and talk...and talk. Randolf occupied himself with a careful reading of a year-old issue of National Geographic.
In the late afternoon of the second day, Harmony wearily sipped her fourth cup of tea and politely nodded at the proper times. They were seated in the parlor, a small room decorated with thick area rugs, several striped settees and oaken sideboards. A comfortable room, though seldom used, Harmony had always liked it. Until now. Today it felt stuffy and claustrophobic. Outside, she could tell it was a real scorcher. But there would be the ever-present breeze soughing through the valley. She gazed longingly out the window at the sunlit meadow.
Edna had serious and set views on the proper upbringing of young ladies. Having no children of her own, she considered her childless state a uniquely wonderful platform from which to objectively judge how others should raise them. Now, she reached over and patted Harmony’s knee, bringing her back to the room with a jolt.
“Of course it’s obvious that Josie has done an exemplary job of teaching you beautiful manners. What a lovely young lady you’ve turned out to be—not at all like those rather fast girls you see now in society—with their modern ideas.”
“Well,” Harmony answered awkwardly. “Thank you.”
“So circumspect and genteel,” Edna continued approvingly. “I’m certain you’ll catch the eye of a nice young man in your valley here.”
Harmony murmured agreement, feeling it prudent not to mention she’d already received—and rejected—offers from most of the affluent ranchers’ sons in the area.
“Of course you’re so removed—here in the country—from sophisticated city life. Why, you can’t have heard about the doings of that horrid Alice Paul and those silly suffragettes.” Edna shuddered delicately. “Marching on Washington, indeed! Can you imagine what poor President Wilson must think? It’s no wonder he continues to reject their appeals. Women voting,” she scoffed. “Owning property.”
Harmony frowned at the mention of her idol, Alice Paul. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for forbearance; she knew that all people were not so modernistic in their views about women’s rights.
“Stupid, empty-headed notions,” Randolf agreed with his wife, not looking up from his close perusal of a pair of half-naked African women staring at him from the pages of the magazine.
“I don’t know what I’d do without my Randolf,” she went on, dreamy-eyed. “Why, he takes care of everything. A woman shouldn’t have to worry about business and money and such. Isn’t that right, dear?”
“Yes, dear,” Randolf replied without removing his attention from the magazine. Suddenly he glanced up. “Say, who’s running the ranch while William’s gone?”
“A very good foreman,” Harmony replied. In light of Edna’s comments she refrained from mentioning she was actually managing the ranch.
“Point him out to me,” Randolf demanded, tossing aside the magazine and rising. He hitched his pants up over his gaunt frame importantly. “Best make sure the man’s doing his work and not slacking off. William would want me checking up, I’m sure.”
“Oh!” Harmony cried, “That won’t be necessary. Ben is a fine, extremely competent foreman. Don’t let it concern you.” A picture of Randolf discovering that the ranch manager was the “dirty savage” burst into her mind.
“I’m sure he’s competent,” Randolf agreed. “I’ll just keep him on his toes.” He patted her shoulder and clumped determinedly out the front door.
Harmony sat frozen, unable to think of a way to stop him. After he’d left, she endured yet more of
Edna’s moralizing. Grimly she waited for the explosion.
When ten interminable minutes passed and her nails had dug furrows into her palms, Randolf returned. “Asked around—a cowboy said this Ben was out checking stock.” He rubbed his lean chin. “I suppose that’s good.”
“He’s very thorough,” Harmony said, glad of the reprieve. She seized a nearby plate of baked goods. “Can I interest you in another of Cook’s ginger snaps?”
Disaster averted, if only temporarily, Harmony watched with sinking heart as Randolf resumed his seat and magazine and Edna launched into yet another lecture on the evils of “fast” young women and the merits of good schooling, demure manners and ladylike behavior.
After being shut in for forty-eight hours, Harmony could bear it no longer. Abruptly she stood, startling the woman, for once, into silence. “I’m sorry, but I’ve enjoyed your conversation so much that I completely forgot a very important duty my father assigned me. I must...um...check the hay supply.”
“What’s that?” Randolf interjected. “Hay supply?”
“Oh, I mean the...uh, reseeding for the burned fields. Our foreman is having several pastures cleared. I’ll just be an hour or so. Please rest and refresh yourselves. I’ll look forward to seeing you both at supper. Cook is preparing a delicious meal of garden vegetables and chicken stew.”
With that, she escaped to her room, pulled on her split skirt and crept down the back stairs. Glorious sunshine spilled over her face and Harmony relished it. But it was hot. At the barn, no one was around save a saddled horse standing three-legged at the hitch rail. It was Ben’s big bay gelding. Eyes half-closed, the bay swished away flies with a languid black tail. Ignoring it, Harmony caught up her paint pony and heaved a saddle onto its back.
“Come on, Apache,” she whispered into the mare’s alert ear. “We’re going to escape—at least for a while.” With that, she mounted and headed along the meadow trail at a circumspect trot.
Once out of view of the house, she tore the pins from her hair and kicked her pony into a headlong gallop. After her confinement inside the house, it felt marvelous and wonderfully unconstrained. The wind blew through her hair, which streamed behind her like a banner. White-blossomed buckeye trees flew past. Scents of spicy sage mingled with the pleasant odor of sun-heated earth. The acrid smoke was almost gone. She laughed with sheer joy.
After a mile, she drew up and let Apache blow. With one hand, she loosened the tiny pearlized buttons at her throat and held the edges of
her blouse open to let the breeze cool her. For the first time in two days she felt as if she could draw a deep breath. The clarity of the mountain air filled her lungs and she sighed, at last relaxing.
Sun beat upon her uncovered head, but she didn’t mind. Already the shadows were lengthening and the afternoon winds were dying down. Within an hour or so it would cool.
It took only twenty minutes of riding to reach her favorite bend in the creek. Willows swayed gracefully over the clear gurgling water. It splashed onto a rich emerald profusion of lilies, reeds and lupine. Groupings of boulders framed the alcovelike area and, as she slid off her mount, Harmony smiled.
Now, more than ever, she needed these private jaunts. Enduring Edna Wilkerson’s endless monologues would try a saint. Harmony wondered if, after several weeks of Edna’s company, she would maintain her sanity. To prevent herself from running screaming into the night she promised herself frequent rides.
A good horsewoman, she waited until it was safe for her mare to drink—so that she wouldn’t colic—then led the horse forward. After Apache drank, Harmony took a stake rope from her saddle and picketed the mare on a patch of grass. Knowing what was expected of her, the mare began happily cropping.
Harmony sank down on the bank and removed her half boots and stockings. She dipped her toes into the cold water and wriggled them like tiny fish. Water gently rushed over her ankles.
Head back, she lay on the grass and breathed slowly. The only sounds were the rustle of willows and the chatter of squirrels. After a few minutes the sun became uncomfortable. She stood and stripped down to her drawers. Glancing around, she resolved to keep an eye on Apache for signs of anyone approaching.
Nude to her waist, she felt deliciously wicked and free. At the center, the slow-moving creek’s depth was perhaps only four feet. Harmony sank up to her shoulders and sighed in pleasure. Nothing could be more luxurious than the rush of cool water gliding over sun-warmed skin.
She closed her eyes and savored the sensation.
When she opened them again, not ten feet away at water’s edge, Ben Panau reclined. Next to her clothes.
Harmony gasped.
Ben grinned.
Solicitously he tipped his hat. “Afternoon.”
“What are you doing here?” Beneath the water she crossed her arms over her breasts. The sting of embarrassment brought a furious flush rushing to her face. “Go away. Now.”
“Naw,” he said lazily, leaning back. “We’re gonna have us a little talk.” Reaching out, he fingered the pearlized buttons of her blouse, neatly folded on the grass beside him.
She swallowed at the implied threat. He would not allow her her clothing until she complied. His callused hands looked alien and rough touching her feminine things. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“I want an explanation,” he said, his grin fading. “I want to know why you’re catering to those people.”
“The Wilkersons are my mother’s cousins,” she spat. “As hostess in her absence, I have to entertain them. Now, go away.”
He eyed her, his gaze going over the tops of her gleaming shoulders—all that was visible above the water. “Uh-huh. Well, was I you, I’d throw ’em right out.”
“Of course you would,” she replied in withering tones. “You don’t know anything about social customs.”
When his face darkened, she wished the words back. Now was not the time to insult him. Nor did she wish to hurt his feelings. He’d always been good to her. It wasn’t his fault he’d had no cultural education.
“You never used to be so prissy,” he observed. “Nor so concerned about what others thought. Why, when we were kids—”
“We were just that, Ben, kids. Now, we both have adult responsibilities—”
“Do you think I’m a dirty savage?” he cut in.
Startled, she frowned. “Of course not.”
“Then why didn’t you dispute it?”
She let out a frustrated breath. “People are entitled to their own opinions, Ben. Whether you think they’re right or wrong.”
“Sure, and if you don’t speak up, pretty soon it starts looking like you agree with them.” Idly, he picked at a slim reed and began to chew it. “You like those folks, Harmony?”
Again, she was surprised. She groped for an answer. “I have no opinion one way or another. They’re family, and they deserve to be treated with respect.”
She saw her mistake the moment she made it.
He jumped on her statement. “Don’t I deserve respect?”
“You do,” she agreed. “Haven’t I always given it to you?”
Slowly, he nodded. “It’s something I’ve always liked about you.” His gaze lowered, and she could tell he was searching beneath the water’s cover for a glimpse of her nudity. She sank lower, tightened her hands on her bare breasts. As long as she stayed submerged, he wouldn’t be able to see a thing, she assured herself. But the sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains. Surrounded by their height, the land would quickly fall into dusk and darkness. And it could get very cool in those shadows.
Under her palms, Harmony felt her nipples pucker. The water was already beginning to chill her.
“Ben,” she enunciated clearly, “please go away. I’m getting cold.”
He made no move. “Not yet. We’ve got more to talk about.”
“Certainly,” she placated. “And we will.” Fixing him with her most imperious daughter-of-the-
powerful-rancher stare—the one that never failed to gain results—she informed him, “Right now, I need to get dressed, if you don’t mind.”
“I mind,” he replied, and his casual disregard of her glare told her that the man who sat so relaxed before her might not be so easy to manage.
A current of cooler water eddied about her legs and she shivered. Ben Panau was behaving in a ridiculous, embarrassing, thoroughly outrageous fashion. And it was terribly unsettling.
By holding her hostage beneath the safety of the water, Ben had complete command over her.
Never had she experienced such loss of control; no man had ever dared what Ben Panau dared.
Perhaps it was the cold seeping into her veins. Maybe it was the sheer outlandishness of the situation. But her brain wouldn’t function properly. For one of the few times in her life, she couldn’t imagine what to do.
“You ever think about me, Harmony?” Ben asked softly. “You ever...notice me...watch me?”
Harmony swallowed. “What—what do you mean?”
His gaze roamed her face. “I notice you. Watch you. You’re not the kid I used to rescue all the time, are you? You’re all grown up now. A woman.”
“Yes,” she agreed cautiously.
“A man marks such changes in a female. For a long time now, I’ve noticed such in you.” Again his gaze dipped to search the water beneath her shoulders.
Harmony drew a breath. “You’re not going to let me get out, are you? You’re going to humiliate me—make me get my clothes while you watch, because I didn’t defend you in front of the Wilkersons.” The notion so mortified her that tears sprang to her eyes. She’d never revealed her body to any man. At least not intentionally.
Something in his eyes flickered. He shifted position and spit out the reed. In an instant, she knew she’d hit upon his intention.
“Damn you, Ben!” The rush of anger dried her tears. Proudly she lifted her chin. “I won’t get out. I’ll stay here until dark. You won’t see a thing.”
He shrugged and squinted into the sky at the faint circle of moon already visible. “Full moon tonight.”
She blinked. A full moon was almost as good as a lantern. He would see everything.
She began to curse, using epithets she’d heard out of the toughest cowhands, the scruffiest laborers. Having grown up on a ranch, she’d been exposed to much of the earthier side of men.
Instead of being insulted, Ben began to smile. His amusement fueled her anger. She stepped up the curses until he was grinning broadly, t
hen howling with mirth.
“Miz Harmony,” he drawled when his guffaws finally wound down, “I surely do admire a woman who can curse.”
“Get out!” she screeched. “Go away.”
“Maybe I will. If you apologize.”
Her breath coming in furious gasps now, she felt murderous. She’d have liked to hang him from the highest cottonwood. She’d have liked to see him bound and dragged over barbed wire. She’d have liked to shoot him through the eyes. “Apologize? For what? I’ve done nothing to you.”
“I would defend you, Harmony, from any breath of an insult. I’d never let anyone speak against you.”
She didn’t know how to react to his statement. The sun sank lower still, hesitating at its perch on the horizon, until Harmony felt the temperature drop further. She began to shudder with cold...and guilt. She saw now that this was a battle of wills—a war from which would emerge one victor, and one vanquished.
She tamped down the guilt she didn’t want to feel.
She would conquer.
On the bank, Ben negligently crossed his long legs. He lifted her blouse and then did a strange thing. He brought the garment to his face and inhaled.
His dark lashes drifting closed, Harmony could see him savoring the scent—her scent—as if it were the most fragrant delicacy, the most heavenly treasure.
His gesture stunned and bewildered her. Some of her anger faded and a new shudder passed through her. She was honest enough to admit that it had nothing to do with the cold. “Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t?” he echoed. He lowered her blouse, and his gaze sharpened, sliced into the deepest part of her. “How? How can I stop smelling your sweet scent, stop listening to your voice, stop looking at your body?” He shook his head, not expecting her to answer.
“Please,” she whispered, not knowing why. Her body was racked with great shudders now, the blood freezing in her veins. Soon, she knew, she would faint from the cold. The will to win the battle waned by degrees as the temperature dropped. “Won’t you allow me some dignity?”
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