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She wrenched herself free and placed her hands on her hips. “Now, isn’t that a pity?” she said, her voice taunting. “You have to suffer a mite of humiliation while the Indians are going to have to lose all of their dignity.”
“Damn it, Leonida, what you know about Indians could be put in the palm of your hand,” he argued. “Just because you’ve been protected here at the fort and haven’t seen what the Indians can do, you stand up for them? Or has that handsome Navaho chief turned your head, making you behave so unlike yourself tonight?”
“What justifies you and those men in there making decisions for the Navaho that will take their pride, dignity, and their freedom away?” Leonida said, her voice breaking. “You know you’re wrong, Harold.”
“It is the only way to stop the marauding,” he said, his voice calmer. “Reservation life is not as bad as you think. The Indians are given a decent life—”
Leonida did not give him a chance to finish his sentence. “If you agree to this unfair treatment of the Navaho, I won’t marry you,” she said icily. “I’ll return to San Francisco. I’ve friends there. I’ll live among them and be much happier than living here with the likes of you.”
“I don’t like being threatened,” he growled, glaring at her.
“It is not a threat,” she said, glaring back at him. “It’s a fact, Harold. A damn fact.”
His eyes wavered. He ran his fingers nervously through his hair. “You’re being foolish,” he said thickly. “Your future is with me. My God, woman, I am offering you a life of leisure. You can’t turn your back on it.”
A hint of smugness crossed his face. “And besides,” he said, laughing sarcastically, “you can’t travel anywhere. The country is being torn apart by war.”
“Harold, the war between us could—” she began stiffly. Then her tone softened. “Harold, how can you ask that Navaho woman to make that blanket for me as a wedding gift in one breath, and then with your next, condemn her and her people to a reservation?”
She did not wait for any more of his excuses. She opened the door and stormed out of the house into a moonless night.
Her heart beating furiously, relieved that Harold had not followed her, Leonida saw a saddled horse reined to a nearby hitching post. She knew the horse was Harold’s, a large, very swift black mare. And that was what she needed now. A horse that would carry her far from the men who were planning the Navahos’ fate. She would ride until she was exhausted, and then perhaps she could return to bed and sleep.
Not caring that traveling on horseback would ruin her beautiful dress, Leonida swung herself into the saddle. Ignoring the warning shouts of the sentries, she rode through the wide gate of the fort. At this moment she hated the sight of blue-coated soldiers.
Tears streamed from her eyes when she thought of her father and how handsome he had been in his uniform, and how he had ruled with such gentleness and caring toward the Indians. Surely he would turn over in his grave tonight if he knew what Kit Carson and the others were planning.
With the night air brushing her face in a warm caress, Leonida urged the black steed to a trot, occasionally broken by a short lope. She rode past the spot where the tents had been and onward toward the river, sad at the thought that she might never see Sage again. She flinched at the notion that he might be seized on his way back to the mountains and forced toward New Mexico, where he would live penned up like an animal.
When Leonida saw a fire throwing light into the sky up ahead, her fingers tightened involuntarily on the horse’s reins, causing the horse to jerk sidewise. Then she reined her mount to a halt. This fire could mean many things. It could indicate white travelers, marauders, or . . . where Sage’s tribe had stopped for the night before heading on toward the mountains.
The thought of Sage made her heartbeat quicken and her knees weaken strangely. She slid out of the saddle and walked the horse slowly toward the fire, where junipers and pines began thickening on all sides of her.
Suddenly something rustled to her right. She did not have time to think before Sage stepped out in front of her, his hands quickly taking her reins.
Time stood still. Leonida’s heart did not seem to beat, nor was she aware of breathing. She was numb to everything but Sage’s dark, penetrating eyes gazing into hers. At this moment she did not know whether to be afraid or entranced.
Chapter 3
I ne’er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet!
—JOHN CLARE
“You have come to the camp of the Navaho,” Sage said, his voice flat. “Why have you? What have you to say that you did not say while the white man was making decisions for you?”
Leonida blushed and lowered her eyes, embarrassed by how it must have looked when Harold had treated her so crudely in front of the Navaho people. Surely Sage thought that Harold made all of her decisions for her.
She wanted to spill out an explanation, to make herself look better in the eyes of this handsome Indian chief, but she felt that it was best left unspoken, at least for now.
“The white woman has the courage to ride unescorted beneath the stars, yet does not find her voice to answer Sage?” he prodded, reaching out a hand to touch her arm ever so gently.
His voice, the way it changed from flatness to soft caring, made Leonida’s insides melt, as well as her reserve. “I answer to no one,” she blurted. “Today it might have appeared that I do. But in truth, since my parents’ deaths, I have made all of the choices in my life. Perhaps they are not always the best, yet still I allow no one to speak for me.”
“But today you did?” he persisted, in his mind’s eye seeing her humiliation when the white man had taken the necklace from her.
Leonida straightened her back and swallowed hard. “Today?” she murmured. “It all happened so quickly, I did not have time to think clearly.”
