They placed everything inside one of the knapsacks from the boat so that Nathan could carry it on his back. He holstered his six-shooter and retrieved his new rifle. Once ready, they climbed onto the ledge before them, scrambling over the cliff and finding a semblance of a trail. The sun shone overhead and blue sky filled the narrow roof of their world. The creek flowed with a gentle noise, but soon the way became steep and less clear. They crossed the light blue water repeatedly as they sought the best route, forced to scale rugged sections of rock.
Focused on pushing forward, Emma slowly became aware of a deeper understanding of the land. It was as if she could feel the terrain vibrating around her, pulsating with an energy that soon permeated her human body. The shrubs, the bushes, and the trees sprouting near the water source filled her with a sense of aliveness. The flowing movement of the creek washed through her, and for one brief moment she held up a hand to see if water dripped from her fingertips. There were birds, lizards, snakes, squirrels, rabbits, mice, beetles, spiders, ants—so much activity that it caused her to stumble from overload. She glanced all around, but no critters were visible. Still, she could feel each and every one of them.
Out of curiosity, she reached a hand to the canyon wall, ever present in its proximity. A low, constant thrumming reverberated against her palm. Amazement filled her as she wondered what this place was. Or was it simply that she paid attention?
A light wind blew, fluttering the leaves on the trees. Craning her neck, their dance caught her attention and she was held spellbound by the soothing influence of the exchange between air and matter.
After several miles of the most strenuous hike they’d undertaken yet, they came upon a set of small falls, four in all. A cascading downpour of white frothy water emptied into terraces of pools.
“Since it’s almost dark, I think we’re gonna have to make camp here.” Nathan peeled the knapsack from his back and set it under a tree.
Emma silently agreed, exhausted. But despite the intensity of the hike from the Colorado River, alertness infused her, fed by her connection to the conduits of earth and sky.
“Do you want to go farther?” he asked as she sat down beside him.
“Yes, I think so.” She removed her hat and lay back on the grassy ground, looking at the bits and pieces of twilight sky peeking between tree limbs. Nathan lay beside her and soon she relaxed, her limbs all but melting into the soil beneath her. She gently touched Nathan’s hand, then rolled her head away from him. In the distance, beyond their rest spot, in the shade of several trees and the canyon wall, she saw a giant bird. Blinking, she was sure it was an apparition. No bird could be that big. It flapped its wings and moved toward her. She smiled. It was a giant sparrow, and it seemed to beckon her forward.
Rising to her feet, she walked to the bird. Tentatively, she held her hand out. In a flurry he flapped his wings again. She backed away as he took flight, climbing higher and higher until he disappeared from sight.
Emma awoke beside Nathan, her hand still in his. She sat up and looked in the near darkness to the place where the bird had been but it was empty. Nathan stirred beside her.
“We must’ve fallen asleep.” He sat up. “Stay here. I’m going to scout the perimeter and make sure we’re alone.”
She rose to her feet and he gave her a quick kiss then headed around the tree, disappearing. They were safe here, in the shadow of the sparrow and the playland of the elements, but she didn’t have a chance to tell Nathan before he left her.
* * *
Nathan allowed a fire. They sat beside it, still near the tree.
“Tell me the scariest thing that ever happened to you as a child,” Emma said.
Nathan thought for a moment. “I had a friend named Marty Rumsfeld when I was about six or seven. One day we were playing outside—we lived on the outskirts of St. Louis and there was plenty of room to mess around—and he got mad because I accidentally hit him in the face with a ball. So he grabbed a knife from his pocket and threw it at me.”
“Were you alright?”
He laughed. “Yeah. I ran and it clipped me in the shoulder. I think I still have a scar.”
“Did your ma fix it with her healing?”
“She said some prayers,” he replied derisively, “then doused it with whiskey. It hurt like hell.”
“So you think it was the alcohol that healed it?”
“Yeah.”
“But you think it was the prayers that made it hurt,” she teased.
He smiled. “Maybe.” He poked a stick at the fire. “Now you tell me your scariest childhood incident.”
Seriousness settled over her. “Besides the death of my folks?”
“Sorry, Em. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know. Well, one day in San Francisco, shortly after I’d moved there, I was with my aunt down by the docks. I ran off to look at the big wooden boats. I’d never seen anything like them. I leaned too far and fell in the water.”
“Jesus. How’d you manage to survive it?”
“The water was really cold, and I’d fallen quite far between the dock and the ship. I knew if I didn’t drown then I’d probably be crushed by the boat. But then I saw something in the water. It was a seal. It swam up to me and poked me with its nose.” She laughed a little. “I was terrified, and was practically choking to death on the water. The seal nudged me again so I grabbed onto it and it pulled me away so fast I could hardly hold on. Then, I was out in the open and men were yelling. Someone jumped into the water and saved me. My aunt was hysterical.”
“What happened to the seal?”
“He disappeared. Later, when I told my aunt about it, she was certain that it couldn’t have been true, that somehow I swam out into the open myself. But she was wrong.” She thought about the truth of that day. “I didn’t know how to swim.”
“Then why are we on a river?” he asked in surprise.
“I know how to now,” she said, a little exasperated.
“You were lucky.”
“This from the man who doesn’t believe in luck?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “No. Something else was at work that day. Somehow that seal knew that I needed help.”
“It’s easy to say that now.”
She gazed into the fire. She didn’t feel angry. She knew, in a way, that he was right. How did one know if something was really for certain?
“Why don’t you have faith in anything, Nathan?”
“I just have a hard time with making up stories as to why something is one way or the other. Why does God demand that men do things a certain way? Who decided that? It was men, not God.”
“Maybe. But maybe the men were guided to it.”
“By God?”
She shrugged and nodded.
“Then how does that explain some of the things I’ve seen,” he said. She knew he spoke of violence and bloodshed. “Human nature doesn’t allow for the presence of God.”
“Maybe that’s why humans need God more than ever,” she replied. “They need Him for the balance. Even the Indians pray to their own gods. Even they acknowledge the need for equilibrium with the realm of the invisible.”
“But what about some of their superstitions?” he asked. “The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice. That doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s true, but we’re all a product of what we’re taught. None of us can escape it.” But you can grow beyond it. She thought of her aunt’s Christian beliefs, beliefs Emma tried for years to claim as her own, but they failed to completely illuminate the workings of the world in which she inhabited.
“Did you ever spend any long periods of time with Indians?” she asked, knowing the answer was yes, but hoped he’d talk about it on his own.
“Yeah. I spent eighteen months with a tribe of Comanche in Texas, the Kotsotekas.”
“Were you a prisoner?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it difficult?” she asked.
He laughed a little, but she knew he was simply diff
using the trauma of the incident. “They kept me alive, I think, because they anticipated using me to barter for something in the future with the army, or with other tribes in the area. Otherwise, I think they would’ve killed me.”
“How’d you get caught?”
“Our regiment was ambushed. I couldn’t make it out. A lot of what happened in those early days was lost to me, but later…” He didn’t finish.
Emma laid a hand on his leg. She felt purpose drain from him. During his imprisonment he’d lost his will to live, knowing they’d never release him, knowing that integrating him into the tribe, as they often did with female captives and children, would never come to pass. A strong, independent male was too much of a threat. Eventually, they would end his life. But then hope had come to him in the form of a compassionate woman.
For a moment, Emma felt jealous. Had this woman been important to him? She'd saved his life. “I’m glad she helped you.” She removed her hand from him.
His gaze rested on her, but she couldn’t look at him. “Her name was Neyahcorá,” he said.
“What happened?”
“She convinced me to act simple. After a time, the warriors let me accompany them on hunting parties, thinking I was just an idiot. Each time, I deliberately got lost and took longer and longer to return to camp. One day, I didn’t return. The men didn’t follow, and I was able to make it to a white settlement.”
“Did you ever go back to find her?”
He paused. “Yes.”
Emma’s heart sank. He’d loved her. “Why aren’t you with her now?”
He turned to her. “I led the army back to the tribe, but it was a trap. She planned all along that I’d escape and do just that. Many men I knew were killed that day. If I’d been smarter, I might’ve noticed her deception sooner.”
He blamed himself. Emma didn’t know what to say. She knew what it was to feel responsible for others and then to stand by helplessly while they died, unable to stop it.
“I guess I’ve never had much faith in women telling the truth,” he said.
His distrust expanded into a circle, and at the center sat his ma.
She grasped his hand, trying to comfort him. “You know the truth about me.”
“I hope so, Em.”
* * *
She saw his energy, the fire he felt for her, and his inherent strength, clear and strong, a good clean energy. It drew her, it always had. She’d always sensed this in him. But just behind it was something else, something darker. She looked harder, because it kept sliding away. There was death and fear and betrayal, and a great suffering that Nathan carried within himself, a wound he hid well. Emma could see it, could feel it—
“What the hell are you doing?” Nathan withdrew, sitting naked beside her.
Emma tried to catch her breath. In the predawn light, he started making love to her. Now, she reeled from the broken psychic connection and the sudden physical removal of Nathan’s body from hers.
“Were you poking around in my head?” he asked, his words laced with anger.
“I—,” Emma put a hand to her temple. What had she done? “I don’t know.”
“Stay the hell out of my mind.” He grabbed his clothing and began to dress.
Lying naked on the ground, Emma suddenly felt cold and vulnerable. She rolled to her side and sat up, fumbling with her shirt and trousers.
Nathan sat with his back to her.
Emma wasn’t sure why she did it, or how exactly she accomplished it, but she knew she'd overstepped herself. She quickly dressed.
“I’m sorry, Nathan. I’m not sure what happened.” She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “I just wanted to be closer to you. I needed more than to make love with you.” Maybe it had been all that talk of his lost Comanche love. She’d felt desperate to seal herself to him in a meaningful, long-lasting way.
“I could feel you pushing around in there.” He turned and looked at her. “Don’t do it again.”
She had seen and felt the suffering he carried inside himself. It was a dark force that he’d managed to manacle and repress in some way, but it was a dangerous thing and Emma feared for him if it ever broke free. Maybe she could help him to release it. But how? This was all new territory for her. And he’d never let her back in anyhow. She would lose him if she ever tried again, and she didn’t want to lose him. She wanted him to love her.
A sudden commotion drew their attention. An animal came crashing through the shrubs. Emma screamed and fell back as a sheep with big curling horns on each side of its head barely missed her. Men followed behind. Nathan grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. He snatched the knapsack, his gun protruding from it, and they slid down the embankment near the creek for cover.
Out of sight, they waited.
“Are they trying to kill it?” she whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Nathan replied. “They don’t have any weapons.”
“They’re chasing it for fun?”
Nathan shrugged.
The sound of whooping started as a faint echo, then grew louder as the men seemed to circle around and come nearer to them again.
“Don’t move.” Nathan climbed upward to peek over the embankment.
A bighorn sheep sprang from nowhere, headed right for them. Emma screamed and threw her hands up as the animal hurtled forward. It leaped over them and landed in the water, struggled to the other side of the creek, and headed back up the canyon. Soon the Indians returned, running and laughing. They were all short, of medium build, and young looking.
Another ram bolted toward them.
Emma watched in horror as one of the men was hit hard and fell into the water. Instinct told her he would drown. She fled her hiding place.
“Emma, no!” Nathan’s low tone was filled with urgency.
She climbed the embankment and ran to a pool in the creek some fifteen yards away, thinking only of the man in the water. The melee closed around her, and she was knocked to the ground. One of the other Indians looked at her, startled by her presence. She pointed to the water then scrambled to her feet and jumped. She swam hard to reach the man floating face down.
Nathan yelled in the background but she couldn’t make it out.
She reached the unconscious Indian, pushed him over so his face was exposed to air, and dragged him to the shoreline. Her feet slipped on the slick rock beneath. The commotion swarmed around her.
The men helped pull their comrade from the water. One yanked her onto the ground. The others rolled the motionless man over and struck between his shoulder blades several times until he started to cough and spit up water. They spoke to one another, but Emma didn’t understand the language.
One of the Indians stood behind Nathan and kept pushing him forward. Clearly wary, they treated them as a threat. She wiped water from her eyes.
As the coughing young man sat up and regained his bearings, he listened to his friends then looked directly at Emma. He nodded and made a hand gesture. While she didn’t know exactly what it meant, it wasn’t hard to miss the look of gratitude in his eyes. He gestured toward Nathan and the other Indian released his hold on him. But Emma knew that Nathan tolerated the treatment. These young men had no weapons; Nathan could have easily overpowered them.
The man she saved stood and spoke in his Indian dialect with his friends.
“Do any of you speak English?” Emma asked.
They all looked at her. Blank stares met her inquiry. Well, that answered that question.
The Indians signaled for her and Nathan to follow.
She glanced at Nathan, silently questioning if they should. He gave a slight nod then retrieved their gear. When the young Indians caught sight of the rifle protruding from Nathan’s bag, they exchanged words and pointed. Emma paused for a moment, holding her breath. Would this cause a problem?
Nathan stood before them, holding his ground. The boys nervously laughed and jostled one another, then moved quickly up toward the canyon. The last one turne
d and beckoned them forward. Nathan proceeded and Emma followed, smiling to herself. She didn’t speak their language—had no idea what they were saying—but she sensed the boys were a little awestruck by Nathan’s presence. Watching his broad-shouldered backside, his ease of movement and his command of the terrain, she felt awestruck as well. He was of the land, had been living in union with it for many years, and it drew her like a creature starved for water in the desert. His solidness made her feel grounded, especially when her gift snatched her away to other places, maybe even other times.
She hoped he would forgive her earlier psychic intrusion. But how did one know where the boundaries lay with a lover? Especially when she didn’t even know her own boundaries.
Chapter Nineteen
Nathan wondered why the Indian boys had come so far down the canyon since it was a hell of a hike back. They climbed on rocks and rugged faces—many times with no clear trail—and often they were in the creek itself, slogging back and forth across it. Although small in stature, the Indians moved with an agility that spoke of familiarity with the area. In addition, they had youth on their side. Nathan thought they all must be eighteen or nineteen years old. Maybe that was why Emma didn’t complain; she was about their age. And so they continued for what he estimated was several miles until they came upon a magnificent waterfall emptying into a large aquamarine travertine pool.
Emma came beside him as he stopped to view the spectacle.
“This is the most beautiful place we’ve come across, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice breathless.
“Did you know this was here?” he asked, unable to take his eyes from the lush oasis before them. The strength of the waterfall vibrated through him, the heartbeat of the earth itself. The power in this place was palpable.
She nodded.
He glanced at her, perspiration glistening on her face. “I can see why you kept going,” he said. “I never would’ve thought something like this could be here.”
“It’s even better in person.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry about earlier. I’ll try not to do that again. You’re my…first. I’m not always sure how this is supposed to work.”
The Sparrow Page 17