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Tomorrow, they would remember. Tomorrow, they would hold their heads in shame.
“No,” Runner said, leading the braves to their tethered horses. “You will go home. You will sleep. Tomorrow you will attend school. If your head is not cleared enough to study, you will go to school, anyhow. When others see that you suffer because of your careless behavior tonight, it will discourage them from setting the same bad example for those who are younger.”
One at a time, he helped the braves on their horses. He fit the reins into their hands and made sure they were sitting squarely enough on the saddle, then smacked their horses’ rumps and watched them ride away.
“God damn you all to hell,” Adam said as he came up behind Runner and grabbed him by the arm. He forced him around, so that their eyes were level. “Look at me, Runner. I’ve got a black eye. I might even have a tooth missing. And it’s all because of you. I should’ve known better than think that you could behave like a normal human being in a bar. You’re no better than the other savage heathens you live with.”
A slow rage was building within Runner. He forced himself not to react to Adam’s words, for he knew that once he unleashed his feelings, Adam would have more than a black eye and possible loose tooth to rave on about.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Adam taunted, his voice building in strength. “Runner, you don’t think like a white man. You haven’t since you joined forces with the Navaho. And you’re not even a shifty, sneakin’ half-breed. You’re white. Why can’t you act like it?”
Runner’s lips moved in a wry, bitter smile. But still he said nothing. He decided to walk away from Adam. He had seen and heard enough to know that the past was just that.
Gone. Forgotten. Dead.
He could not see anything in Adam that even resembled the young boy of so long ago.
This was the last time that Runner would try to make a measure of peace with Adam. It was impossible. Adam was no better than Damon Stout. They belonged together.
“You are walking away from me?” Adam shouted, stamping toward Runner. “How dare you! I’m not through talking to you. You lousy Indian lover. And you’d better prepare yourself into accepting that Stephanie won’t be seein’ you again. You stupid fool. You don’t even know when you’ve been suckered. Stephanie bedded up with you only to use you. She doesn’t love you. She has pretended, but only to help me achieve my goals. How’s that for a sister’s loyalty?”
A grave shadow came over Runner’s face. He turned a livid gaze and cold eyes to Adam.
Adam started laughing so hard that he didn’t know what hit him when Runner clobbered him in the mouth with a fist. Runner hit Adam over and over again. Their struggling bodies thudded to the ground.
Adam reached begging hands up to Runner. “Stop,” he said, his voice filled with pain, blood drooling from his mouth and lips.
Runner fell over Adam and straddled him. He held Adam’s wrists to the ground. “Tell me the truth,” he said from between clenched teeth. “Tell me that you lied about Stephanie.”
His eyes almost swollen closed, Adam rolled his head back and forth. “I . . . didn’t . . . lie,” he said, scarcely audible, the lie there so easy since his hate and resentment for Runner now ran so deep.
Runner stared down at Adam for a moment longer, then rose limply to his feet. He left Adam all bloodied up in the road and staggered away, his heart bleeding. He had totally trusted a woman who in truth had only used him. He was not sure if he could live with the knowledge.
His eyes dark and somber with thought, he rode tiredly out of Gallup.
Stephanie fell onto her knees beside the mound of freshly turned dirt. She had picked flowers from some cactuses. “What can I say?” she whispered, laying the flowers on Sharon’s grave. “I only knew you a short while, yet my grieving is no less than had I known you a lifetime.” She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of a hand. “It is all so tragic. How could it have been allowed to happen?”
She rearranged the flowers. “I’m so sorry about Jimmy,” she whispered. “I promise that I will never forget him. Perhaps our paths will cross again some day. If they do, I shall tell him about a mother who died valiantly for her son.”
The sound of footsteps drawing close caused Stephanie’s heart to leap. She turned quick eyes around and bolted to her feet when she found Damon Stout there, his eyes gaunt as he stared down at the grave.
“You’re mighty kind to see to her in this way,” Damon said, his voice breaking. “It was my responsibility. But I let her down long ago.”
“Get away from here,” Stephanie said, walking over to him. “Your sister wouldn’t want you near her grave. I shan’t allow it.”
“I’m goin’,” Damon said, looking sheepishly at the ground. Then he looked quickly up at Stephanie. “But I want you to know that I never wanted this for my sister.”
“It’s a bit late to be thinking that, wouldn’t you say?” Stephanie said bitterly, placing her hands on her hips.
“You don’t know the whole story,” Damon said, his eyes trying to meet Stephanie’s.
“I know enough,” Stephanie said. She nodded toward Damon’s horse, which he had left tethered down below. “Now go. I can’t allow you to contaminate your sister’s grave.”
“She was no angel before I turned her out of the house,” Damon insisted. “She was a thief for as long as I can remember. “When she was eight, she was caught stealin’ from a neighbor’s house. She just went in and helped herself to the neighbor’s expensive, fancy jewelry. When she came and lived with me after our parents died out East, she began stealin’ me blind. I had no choice but to send her packin’. It’s cost three quarters of my life buildin’ up enough money for me to have a ranch. I wasn’t goin’ to allow my sister to ruin it all.”
Stephanie listened raptly. She was finding herself sympathizing with Damon. The story that he was telling didn’t sound practiced enough not to be true. She doubted he ever opened up his life, or his heart, to anyone.
She glanced down at the grave, realizing that she didn’t know the woman for whom she was grieving. But no matter what Sharon had done while she was alive, she didn’t deserve to die such a violent death or be forced to live the life she had been living. Especially since she had a child to care for.
