A Rainbow in Paradise (14 page)

"Sounds good." Eden nodded agreement.

* * * * *

"So if your people aren't Shoshonean or
descendants of the Anasazi, who are your relatives? And how did
your people come to be here?" Eden asked. They were wandering among
the ruins, examining the evidence of the Anasazi's advanced
building techniques.

"Anthropologists tell us we're Athabascan,"
Logan answered, "most closely related to the Tlingit people of the
northwest."

"The people who make those beautiful Chilkat
blankets," she said.

"Right, and the totems. I'm told that Navajo
and Tlingit are enough alike that speakers of the two can talk to
each other—at least a little."

"Like the romance languages? Spanish and
Italian?"

"I suppose so," he answered. He dazzled her
with a smile. "I've never tried it myself."

Eden answered his grin and then turned her
eyes upward. "Some of these dwellings seem to go up several
stories," she observed, looking skyward at the remnants of the logs
that had marked the floor of an upper story, the ceiling of the
lower one.

"Five stories here." Logan pointed upward,
counting the levels.

"Amazing," Eden said. The day, together with
the days before it, was exhausting her capacity for wonder. If the
natural beauties of the canyon and the ruins of the ancient Anasazi
weren't enough, there was one very modern local feature who was
making quite an impact of his own. She feared her heart would
remember it for a long time to come. "How large was this community,
Logan?"

"Hard to say, probably a few hundred people.
More than eighty rooms have been charted. Some may have been simply
for storage or ceremonial purposes, but others could have housed
large families. Something around three hundred is probably a
reasonable guess."

"Amazing," she said again.

Eden looked up at one towering wall and tried
to picture White House as it once had been—busy, bustling, teeming
with life. For a moment, the present ruins faded and she could
almost see the pueblo as it was then, could almost hear the mothers
calling to their children, could almost feel in her own legs the
strain of the long climb up log ladders to an upper-story room, or
the peace of settling down for sleep at the end of a long, wearying
day. This place had been home to generations of people who had
never seen grocery stores or video recorders or electricity, had
never known the tyranny of clocks, but who had lived and died
here—happy and fulfilled in their own way of life. She sighed.

"You okay?" Logan asked.

"Um-hm," she answered, nodding. "It's just
that... I don't know. It almost sounds silly."

"What's silly?"

Eden hesitated. "It's just that... I've
always been so grateful for all my modern conveniences, and felt so
sorry for people who didn't have all that I've had. Now, today..."
She paused. "It's the first time I've ever wondered if maybe I
missed something by not being born here, in an earlier time." She
looked up and flushed. "See? I told you it was silly."

"Not at all." He gently cupped her shoulders,
turning her toward him. "It's not silly, Eden. It shows the depth
of your spirit."

"You think so?"

"I am sure." Emotions played across his face,
and though she couldn't decipher everything, she saw tenderness
there.

"Does it surprise you that I can feel the
peace here?"

"Frankly, yes. At least a little."

Eden nodded. "That's okay. It surprises me,
too."

Logan responded by drawing her close, one arm
about her shoulders. "There is peace here, isn't there?" he
answered, holding her warmly.

"Yes. I think I know why the Anasazi came
here, and why your ancestors loved this place."

"For peace," Logan agreed. "For solace of
spirit." He alone knew how deeply he struggled with the words, how
deeply troubled he found his own spirit. He had promised himself he
would let Eden go, would give her up as a willing sacrifice to
honor the vows he had made. He alone knew what a desperate
sacrifice that would be.

Face it, Redhorse. You love her.
He
gulped, afraid to acknowledge the truth.
You love her and
there's nothing you can do about it.
"Let's look around a
little," he said aloud, hoping to shake the odd feeling that had
just come over him, but even as they moved forward, he knew it was
true. He had known better than to tempt himself with Eden's
company. Now, so quickly, he was in love with a totally unsuitable
woman. Letting her go would break his heart.

"Look, there's a bit of pottery," Eden said,
reaching to pick up a shard that must once have been part of a
water jug. As they continued to walk about the ruins, Eden
commented from time to time on things she noticed. What Logan
noticed was the character of the things Eden saw—small things that
suggested the day-to-day lives of the people who had lived here. He
watched and listened, fascinated by her insight, her openness.
Until he met Eden, he had never imagined that a
belagaana
could exhibit this kind of warmth and vision about a people so
alien to her own. What touched him most was the way she saw
them—not as alien, but simply as people, not so different from
herself and those she loved.

Loved
. Logan was awash in emotion,
startled by the depth of his feelings. He had never questioned the
attraction he felt; that had been obvious to them both from the
moment they first met. Though the raw power of it was new to him,
the emotion was primal and familiar. He had been attracted to
beautiful women before. What startled him was how quickly the rest
had come, unbidden and unwanted—the admiration of her intelligence
and warmth and essential goodness, the respect for her mind and
heart. What startled him even more—scared him, frankly—was the
tenderness he often felt when he was near her, the desire to hold
her close, to protect her from harm or fear, to share with
her....

You love her, Redhorse
. He cut off the
thought. "Are you ready to go now?"

"Okay, if we must." Eden turned to him with a
beaming smile that almost took his breath away and made his heart
do funny little flip-flops in his chest.

You're really in deep, aren't you?
he
cautioned himself as they walked toward the truck.
You've blown
it, buster. Falling in love wasn't part of the plan.
Watching
the gentle, entirely feminine way Eden moved in front of him, he
wished it could be.

"Oops." Eden's single word interrupted his
wayward thoughts as she stopped stock-still in front of him. He had
to catch himself to keep from plowing into her. Then he braced them
both by taking hold of her shoulders.

"What's up?"

"We have company," she said, gesturing to the
trail ahead.

They were on the steep hillside with only
this narrow trail to lead them to the valley floor. Given the
nature of the "company" Eden had spotted, it looked like they might
be delayed a while. Across their path lay a large rattlesnake,
stretched out to most of its four- to five-foot length. Apparently
it had been making its way across the trail. Now it turned its
pointed head toward them and sat poised with its neck raised,
flicking its tongue to taste the air.

"I'm glad you saw it now," Logan said.
"Instead of when we stepped on it, I mean." As he spoke, the snake
rattled a warning and he drew Eden back toward him.

"It's all right," she said softly, her voice
eerily calm. "We aren't close enough to be a real threat to her.
Besides, she doesn't mean to hurt us." Logan felt the movement as
the woman before him leaned slightly toward the snake. "Do you,
girl?" she asked, her voice a purr. "All you want is to go your own
way home, isn't that right?"

His mind a blur, Logan watched in awe as the
snake tasted the air again and dipped its head in a motion
peculiarly like a nod. Then, as he watched in wonder, it slowly
made its way off their path and out of sight. As it moved, he
checked all the signs his father and uncles had taught him to watch
for—the shape of its head, the size of its middle. There were no
sure ways of knowing—short of picking it up and examining parts of
its body that no living snake wanted a human to touch—but
indications suggested the creature was indeed female. He felt his
mouth go dry as he watched it apparently respond to Eden's
suggestion, clearing the way so they might move on.

"I think we can go now," Eden said in a
steady voice, as if she hadn't just been the source of some sort of
miracle.

Logan stared. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Eden had begun to walk along the
trail, already past the place where the snake had crossed, though
he noticed she carefully stepped over its path. From his memory, he
heard his grandmother's voice warning him never to step on the
trail of a rattlesnake, lest it follow him home. It was a tradition
of the Dineh, so how did Eden know it?

"How did you make that snake leave?" he said,
his voice filled with wonder.

Eden snorted. "Logan, I didn't
make
her do anything. She didn't want to hurt us. All she wanted to do
was go home. We were in her way, too, you know."

"How did you even know that snake was
female?"

She shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe it
wasn't."

He shook his head. Something had happened
here, and he wasn't settling for simple explanations. "You knew,"
he answered. "What I want to know is how."

She turned and looked him full in the face,
her eyes sparkling with mystery. "Logan, I was born in this desert
just as you were. This isn't the first time I've walked out on it,
and that isn't the first snake I've seen." She sighed, glancing
away, her eyes apparently fixed on something distant Logan could
not see. "Sometimes I feel in tune with it all," she said simply.
"Sometimes I just know." She smiled then, like some kind of desert
spirit—a
yei
, or one of the Holy People, come to bless or
curse his life—and waltzed down the trail.

As he watched her go, he was struck by a
thought so alien, he almost didn't believe he'd thought it, yet it
hit both his mind and heart with such power, he knew it was true:
Eden Grant was
belagaana
, but she was also a child of the
desert, a daughter of Dinehtah. The recognition shook him to his
very soul.

* * * * *

The shadows of the rabbit brush and creosote
were already lengthening as Logan turned his truck toward Rainbow
Rock, but the idea that had struck him as they left the White House
ruins was lengthening as well. Unable to get it out of his head, he
spoke it aloud. "We aren't too far from my grandmother's hogan.
I've been thinking about maybe dropping in on her."

Eden, who had been watching Logan since they
left the ruins, was aware that something about him, something
between them, had changed. She didn't know what it was, but
whatever had happened, it seemed to be drawing them forward,
propelling them in a new direction. An odd thought crossed her
mind: the feeling they were on a course that fate had somehow
charted for them, and their future, whatever it may be, lay down
this path.

Eden shuddered.
You're getting weird,
girl
, she chided herself. She made an effort to shake off the
eerie sense of destiny that hung about them in the cab of the
truck.

"Your grandmother?" she asked aloud.
"Shouldn't we call ahead to let her know we're coming?"

"Can't," he answered. "She doesn't have a
phone, but I expect she'll know anyway."

"How?" Eden squinted, skeptical. "Does she
practice some kind of second sight?"

He snorted. "Hardly. But you've heard of the
grapevine. I've been on the rez all day. By now, word has probably
gotten back to her that I'm near."

"Logan, I really don't like dropping in on
people at dinnertime...."

"You're thinking like a
belagaana
,''
he said, taking her hand. "Things are different here."

"I can't help thinking that way. I am a
belagaana
, and, to be truthful, that's part of the reason
I'm nervous about dropping in. I doubt if your grandmother will
think much of me."

"Eden..." Logan paused, understanding her
implications and suspecting—no, knowing—she was right. "I promise
if she's not comfortable, with
both
of us, we won't stay."
He hesitated, then licked his lips. How could he explain to her the
sudden need to bring together these two women, both so important to
him? How could he share the needs he felt, when he didn't
understand them himself?

Eden saw the look in his eyes and
acknowledged the truth: she and Logan Redhorse were walking a path
that had already been charted for them, a path they needed to
follow.
How can that be
? she asked herself in wonder.
He
has his promises to his children
. Yet beneath the questions lay
the assurance that sensible or not, her conviction was true.

Prying her eyes away from the man she loved,
she turned her gaze to the roadway. They had been traveling for
some time now, and their road had become little more than a path,
leading them away from the paved road to a smaller, graveled road,
then a rutted trail barely wide enough for a single vehicle. "Are
we nearing your grandmother's home?" she asked.

"We should be there soon," he answered,
coaxing the truck up over a rise and down the other side. They were
in a depression that might once have been a water course. On the
hill at the other side, now almost a silhouette against the
red-and-orange glow of the western sky, sat a small
rancheria
, its single-width mobile home and eight-sided
hogan surrounded by simple corrals and outbuildings. "There," he
said. "This is where I grew up."

Eden's
belagaana
eyes saw the poverty,
the isolation. The desert child within her saw instead how the
small earth-covered home blended into its surroundings, noticed the
magnificence of the sunset, thrilled at the simple beauty of the
earth and sky. "It looks like a happy place for a boy," she decided
aloud. "I'll bet you spent your days chasing lizards and making
patterns in the sand."