A Rainbow in Paradise (12 page)

Logan shrugged. "It was no big deal," he
said. "I promised to come one afternoon next week, too. A group of
us will be moving the rest of Cretia's things in while she and Max
are honeymooning. They'll be putting her little place on the market
right after they get back."

"Again, that's very nice of you."

Again he shrugged. "No big deal."

Eden asked about Logan's early acquaintance
with the McAllister family, and how he had come to know Max, and he
talked about the years since he had roomed with Chris at ASU and
the couple of times this summer when he had helped Max move a heavy
engine or set up chairs for Chris and Sarah's wedding. Mention of
that wedding seemed to make them both a bit shy and thoughtful.

For Logan, the memories were exaggerated when
the same violist that had played for Chris and Sarah's wedding took
her place on the deck that now served as a dais, next to the bower
Max had constructed of redwood lattice. Apparently she had done her
tuning inside, for she lifted her viola to her chin, struck the bow
to the strings, and began playing a delicate melody.

For the next several minutes, the citizens of
Rainbow Rock filed in, taking places on either side of the wide
aisle. Both Cretia's family and the McAllisters were so widely
known, there seemed little point in separating people according to
"groom's party" or "bride's party." People sat where they felt most
comfortable, the rows filling from back to front.

At a few minutes past ten, the violist struck
a chord and paused, and a hush fell over the assembly. As she began
a different, slightly slower, melody, Reverend Phelps entered from
the house, taking his place beneath the bower. Max Carmody followed
him, looking poised and happy in a dark dress suit and crisp white
shirt. Then the music changed again, the "Wedding March," and
everyone rose to honor the bride.

Logan turned to look over his shoulder,
expecting to see Cretia. Instead he saw Cretia's teenaged daughter,
Lydia, walking side by side with Max's daughter, Marcie. They wore
matching dresses in a soft pink-purple shade and moved a bit
awkwardly, as though they weren't quite sure what was expected of
them. Still they were effervescent with an eagerness and excitement
that practically bubbled over, spilling out into the audience. It
was clear how they felt about this union, as if it was their own
idea. Logan wondered if perhaps it was.

He watched the teens making their way up the
aisle and was immediately struck by a memory so vivid, it nearly
knocked his breath away: Eden entering from the front door onto the
porch of the McAllister home, resplendent in billows of storm cloud
purple-blue, her midnight hair tumbling down her back in a tangle
of curls that begged to be touched. As long as he lived, no matter
what separate directions their lives might take, he knew he would
always remember Eden as she had looked on that day. He would hold
that image forever in his mind and heart, keeping it as a vision of
paradise.

Feeling almost inexpressibly tender toward
her, he turned and put his arm around Eden. Her wide, summer-blue
eyes read his expression and seemed to recognize where his thoughts
had turned. She snuggled, allowing him to draw her closer as they
watched the girls move past them. Then it was time for Cretia to
enter the aisle, her slim figure draped in ivory bridal satin,
escorted on the arm of her eleven-year-old son, Danny.

"She's lovely, isn't she?" Eden whispered,
and Logan nodded.

She was lovely, as lovely as any bride he'd
ever seen. Still, if he surveyed the room, he'd have to call her a
close second to the woman who now stood snuggled at his side. Even
now, wearing a simple dress in a rich, royal blue with a short hem
to emphasize her elegant legs; even with her hair swept back and
held in simple combs; even without adequate rest for the last few
days—thanks, in part, to him, Eden was still the most beautiful
woman in all of northern Arizona, the most beautiful woman he had
ever seen. He turned his eyes from the bride and watched Eden
instead, gazing at her with a reverence felt deep in the recesses
of his soul.

* * * * *

They're married now
. Eden heard the
thought in her head as the reverend pronounced Max and Cretia
husband and wife and invited them to seal their vows with a kiss.
They're married, as couples who love each other and want to be
together ought to be married, as Logan and I could be married, if
only...

But there seemed little point in "if only."
What stood between Logan Redhorse and herself was fixed and
unchangeable, a vow she could not ask him to rescind. To take back
that vow would mean dishonoring his family backward through
generations of ancestors, and forward through generations of
descendants yet to come.

So why did I have to fall in love with
him
? As she thought it, she realized it was true. You've done
it, haven't you, Eden? After all these years of distancing yourself
from men, of fearing them because of the hurt you've seen your
father cause your mother, or Sarah's first husband cause her, after
all the times you've warned yourself not to fall for a man who
didn't want you, you've gone and done it. Why did you have to pick
the one man you knew could not commit to you?

Briefly she wondered if maybe that was part
of Logan's allure, if maybe, deep within, her own fear of
commitment was so great, she could not feel free to care for any
man who could make a commitment to her
.
If that's true,
you'd better find yourself a good therapist and start
keeping regular appointments, honey, because you're going to be
a lonely, unfulfilled old lady.
The very thought made her
shudder.

Logan noticed. "Are you all right?" he
whispered as the reverend presented "Max and Lucretia Carmody" and
the audience applauded and cheered the newlyweds.

She nodded. "Um-hm," she answered weakly, but
she didn't feel all right. She felt desperate, despairing, and a
little afraid of tomorrow. The day was coming soon when she'd have
little excuse to keep her in Rainbow Rock any longer. She would get
in her little car then and drive away, leaving Logan to find the
woman who would be a suitable mother for his future generations.
She shivered, as if with a sudden chill.

* * * * *

"So that's Massacre Cave." Eden sat beside
Logan in the cab of the pickup, staring at the small opening
partway up the cliffside, her voice hushed with the uneasy
reverence usually reserved for cemeteries or funerals. "It seems so
small from here."

"The opening is small," he agreed, "but the
cave opens up just inside the mouth and stretches back for some
distance—or so I'm told."

"You've never been inside?"

"Never." Eden could almost see the shudder
pass through him. "The Dineh avoid places of death."

"Of course. I didn't think." Eden remembered
hearing stories of how traditional Navajos were repulsed by contact
with the dead, even to the extent of destroying a hogan when
someone died there. She suppressed a sigh of disappointment as she
realized she would not be visiting the cave—at least, not
today.

They had come up right after the wedding,
taking just long enough for Eden to change her clothes and grab a
few things for the desert. Throughout their drive they had chatted
about the wedding, the few people both of them knew, the softening
weather autumn had brought them. Eden had tried not to fall into
the despair that had struck so forcefully this morning, when she
realized she loved a man who could never make a commitment to her,
who would never honor her with a vow like the one Max had made to
Lucretia. Now, as she looked up at the clear evidence of the
violence that had befallen Logan's people here in an earlier time,
she felt the sadness closing in, towering around her like the walls
of the desert canyon, the canyon named for the Dineh dead.

"Was this part of Kit Carson's work also?"
she asked.

"Oh, no. The bodies of the massacred ones had
long since turned to dust before Carson. That's why this stretch of
Canyon de Chelly was known as
Caňon del Muerto
even before
he came."

"Then who—?"

"This assault was conducted by a commander in
the Spanish militia, a man named Antonio Narbona."

"Narbona? But wasn't that the name of one of
the Navajo head men who fought the Army later?"

"You're right, it was." Again he was looking
at her with respectful surprise. "Apparently he was named for the
enemy who had done so much damage against the People. Though the
Dineh hated him, they respected his ability as a warrior and wanted
their son to carry that same fierceness."

Eden felt a chill ripple down her spine. She
hated to think of a people so steeped in war that they named their
children for enemy warriors. "How long ago did this happen?" she
asked.

"It was in 1805," Logan answered. "Narbona
brought his command against the Dineh and rampaged through the
homeland, overcoming the People with superior firepower until he
had driven large numbers into the canyon. A group split away from
the main arroyo and took refuge here with their wives and children,
finally making their last stand inside that cave." He nodded toward
the entrance they were both watching. "Narbona knew they had few
weapons, mostly bows and arrows, so he simply lined his men up in
rows, far enough from the cave to be out of bow range, but near
enough to fire into the mouth of the cave. Then they just started
firing and kept on firing until the screaming stopped."

"Oh. That’s horrid." Eden swallowed hard,
choking down her response. The image was vivid, much too vivid. She
feared her stomach would rebel. "How many...?" She paused, pale,
unable to finish.

"Over three hundred," Logan answered, his
tone flat. "Men, women, children, infants, elderly. No one knows
for sure, since no one inside the cave lived to tell of it."

"I can't... Oh, Logan." Eden moved closer,
needing to give and receive comfort against the horror of that
ancient slaughter. "And the bodies were just left there?"

"Given the revulsion the People feel in the
presence of one death, a site where more than three hundred of
their own had died was considered a supremely evil place. No one of
the Dineh has approached the canyon's mouth since."

"It's awful," Eden answered, suddenly
overdosed on the horror. Her stomach tightened and her eyes glazed
with tears, yet her voice remained steady as she asked, “Logan, why
did you bring me here?"

His brow furrowed. "You said you wanted to
see it."

"I know." She shook her head. "I shouldn't
have asked. I'd been thinking as we drove up of our last drive into
the canyon. My head is full of the sad part of the history of your
people. I'm beginning to wonder if you had an ulterior motive in
showing me all of this."

"Motive? Eden, I don't—"

“Are you trying to teach me some lesson about
the way my people treated yours? Is that what this is all about?"
She looked so hurt, so genuinely sad.

"It's not... I didn't..." He sighed. Then he
asked himself,
Was there some reason why I felt so compelled to
bring her here?
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Eden," he said,
remembering that he'd said it before, that he seemed to say it too
often.

"But you did mean to drive me away." It
wasn't a question. It wasn't an accusation, either. She spoke it as
fact.

Logan felt condemned. "Look, Eden, I—"

"When you called and said we shouldn't see
each other, I agreed. I didn't understand, but I had felt your
wariness around me and I didn't wish to make you
uncomfortable."

"Eden..." He tried to touch her, but she
pulled away.

"Please. Let me say this."

He drew back, waiting. He could see the
glitter of unshed tears in the corners of her eyes and he felt her
sorrow as she struggled to speak honestly. "When you came to see me
after you said you didn't want to see me, I welcomed you, though I
didn't understand what you were thinking. When you told me about
the commitment you had made to your children, I tried to
understand, though I still couldn't see why you would keep coming
back to me, when you knew you would never make a commitment."

She caught her breath sharply, and he
realized she was on the verge of sobbing. "I don't understand you,
Logan. I don't know what you expect of me. Sometimes I feel so
close to you—as if I know your heart, as if I've always known you."
Her voice was little more than a whisper now, and this time it was
her courage that awed him. "Other times you cut me off so that I
can't know or understand you, no matter how much I might want
to."

"Eden—"

"Sometimes you hold me with such
tenderness...." He knew; he remembered. "Other times you push me
away, reminding me I'm not worthy to be the mother of your
children."

Her words stabbed like knives.
Oh kind
heavens! Is that what I really said to her? Is that how she heard
it?
"Please, Eden—"

"Logan, there's something powerful between
us, something like I've never known before that draws us together
whether we like it or not." He smiled wryly then. So he hadn't been
the only one to be drawn reluctantly into the vortex of that power.
"But I think the forces that are pulling us apart are even
stronger. You have your promises to your generations and I have
feelings and memories of my own to protect."

"Eden, I—"

"Logan, I want to go home."

He sat looking at her, sure he could not have
heard her correctly.

"Eden—"

"Please, Logan." He heard the shakiness in
her voice. The armor that protected her bravery was cracking.
"Please, take me home. Now."

"All right," he said, helpless to know what
else to say. He started the truck and set it toward Rainbow Rock.
"Eden?" he asked after a moment.