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Sage understood her feelings. The goodness in her caused her to react this way over his needless death. He took her hands and drew her to him and gently hugged her.
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p; “If you must cry, cry,” he said softly. “It might be best to wash this man from your heart and mind forever. Then fill your thoughts with something more pleasant.” He placed a hand over her tummy. “Has our child kicked much today?”
His question brought Leonida back to her senses. Tears for Harold were not necessary. She should be relieved that he was no longer a threat to her family, her future, and Sage’s people.
Leonida pulled Sage’s head down, pressing his ear gently against her stomach. “Listen through the fabric of my skirt, darling,” she murmured. “Can you hear the strange noises as I am feeling them? That’s our child, Sage. Our child! It is as real now as it will be when we hold him in our arms.”
Sage listened, then rose, his eyes shining. “Him?” he said, laughing softly. “Do you realize you referred to our child as boy child?”
Leonida giggled. She twined her arms around Sage’s neck and brought his mouth toward her lips. “So I did,” she whispered, kissing him sweetly.
Chapter 34
We loved with a love that was more than love.
—EDGAR ALLAN POE
Five Years Later
Leonida was sitting inside her hogan, finishing a woven basket with finely split yucca leaves. She held one leaf in her teeth as she looped another around the rim. Fresh green leaves provided the design against a background of sun-bleached white ones. She had learned the art of making lovely baskets to perfection. This was a diamond-patterned creation, perhaps her loveliest yet.
Pausing, she gazed over at her two sons—Runner and Thunder Hawk, touched by how ten-year-old Runner took such pains teaching Thunder Hawk how to read and write, having himself honed these skills from Leonida’s teachings. She had no books. Everything that she and Runner were using as tools for teaching was either of sand, paints, or beadwork. Runner was painting numbers on stretched canvas at present, and Thunder Hawk’s wide dark eyes took it all in.
Sage came into the dwelling after having council with his warriors. He sat down beside Leonida and also gazed at his sons, pride swelling within him. Runner had never been jealous that his little brother was Navaho like his father, perhaps because Runner looked Navaho in many ways himself now.
Sage reached for Leonida and drew her to his side. Together they looked over at their bright-eyed daughter, who was strapped to a hard-back cradleboard. She had been propped against the wall of the hogan, where she could look around while Leonida was hard at work.
“Pure Blossom is learning today also?” Sage said, laughing softly. “Look how she looks at you. She has been watching you make your basket. She will be as skilled as you, my wife, when she matures enough to use her fingers.”
“She’s been the sweetest thing today,” Leonida said, laying her basketwork aside. She went to the cradleboard and began untying the thongs that held her daughter in place. When Pure Blossom was free, Leonida scooped her up and held her out for Sage.
Sage took his daughter, who was dressed in a fringed doeskin gown. “Is she not even more beautiful than the stars?” he exclaimed, smiling broadly.
Leonida stroked the eight-month-old baby’s hair, thick and black already. “Yes, she is ever so beautiful,” she murmured. “I’m so glad that she has Navaho features. It is only right that she does since she bears your sister’s name.”
“My sister would have received much joy from the children,” Sage said solemnly, gazing from child to child. “She so loved children. She was such a child at heart herself. So innocent. So lovable. She never seemed to be aware of her afflictions. She accepted them without question.”
“You still miss her, don’t you?” Leonida said, taking Pure Blossom back as Sage handed the child to her.
“As you also miss her,” Sage said, smiling over at Leonida.
The baby began fussing, and it quickly turned into full-blown crying. Leonida rocked her back and forth in her arms. She gave Sage a glance. “Darling, take the boys out for awhile, while I feed Pure Blossom.”
Sage gathered his sons up into his strong arms, and even though Runner was much too big, carried them outside on his shoulders, leaving Leonida and Pure Blossom alone, to relish these moments as mother and daughter.
Leonida pulled her drawstring blouse down from her shoulders, releasing her milk-filled breasts. Laying Pure Blossom in the crook of her left arm, resting her child’s tiny head there, she lifted her breast and placed the nipple inside Pure Blossom’s tiny mouth. She watched her child taking nourishment. Pure Blossom’s tiny hands kneaded the breast, and all the while the baby made soft, contented noises as she looked trustingly up at Leonida.
With her free hand, Leonida played with Pure Blossom’s dark hair, trying to curl its ends, laughing when she found, as before, how impossible it was to do anything with her daughter’s stiff, dark locks. It was made for braiding. And that was as it should be, since her daughter had all of her father’s features.
Gazing into the baby’s dark eyes, fringed by thick lashes, she could see her beloved husband’s eyes. No one could look at the high cheekbones and the lovely smooth, copper skin and deny whose child she was. She was her father, except in the delicate lines of her face, and the tiny, perfectly shaped lips and her delicately pretty nose.
Leonida ran her finger over the bridge of her daughter’s nose. “Just perhaps you have one of my features,” she whispered, smiling.
Becoming tense, Leonida shifted her attention from her daughter when she heard the sound of horses outside the hogan. She gazed at the door, wondering who had just arrived. She doubted that she would ever relax when she heard someone arriving at the stronghold.
She tried to force her thoughts back to her daughter, but she could not help but glance toward the door. She would hear someone talking, and then Sage responding, yet no matter how hard she listened, she couldn’t hear what they were saying!
