A Rainbow in Paradise Page 8

  “By then, Carson had discovered his earlier mistake. He began at one end of the canyon and worked his way through, torching everything as he went, and particularly targeting the peach orchards. He knew that if they were gone, the Dineh would have nothing to return to." Again he paused. Eden could hear the pain in his voice, as if he spoke from his own memory. "It's said that between January 15 and 17 of 1864, he burned more than eight thousand peach trees—"

  "All of them!"

  "—pretty much wiped out everything left in the canyon, and rounded up almost all the final holdouts, marching them all off to their prison camp in New Mexico."

  "That's what your people call the Long Walk, isn't it?"

  He nodded. "More than four hundred miles with little water and poor provisions, and when they got there, they found the Army's promises of food were well intentioned, but poorly provided. The Army was fighting a huge war in the East—"

  "You mean, the American Civil War?"

  "Right, and didn't have the means to support a war against the southern rebels and feed the Dineh, too. The People were starving in Bosque Redondo—as well as dying of cholera and smallpox and such. The Army records show that of the first party of four hundred to reach the camp, one hundred twenty-six died within the first week. It was a terrible time." Again his eyes seemed to drift to sights Eden could not see, almost as if he remembered them, though they had taken place more than a century before.

  Still moved by the horrible waste of that old war, Eden asked, "Logan?"

  "Hmm?"

  "If the people were all removed to eastern New Mexico, how do they come to be here now?"

  He smiled, another of those sardonic smiles that turned on himself. "Perhaps we have the Southern rebels to thank for that," he said. "It became too expensive to continue to support the Dineh in a prison camp. The early designers of the camp had planned on turning all the People into sharecroppers, but they hadn't counted on the sour water of the Rio Pecos. Every attempt at farming failed miserably, and the People depended heavily on stores sent from the East.

  Children and old people were dying of malnutrition and disease, infant mortality was close to one hundred percent, and the camps at Bosque Redondo were becoming an embarrassment to the War Department."

  "The War Department? I should have thought a civilian agency—"

  "You'd think so, wouldn't you? But early on, the BIA refused to have anything to do with the camps. Running the camp at Fort Sumner became the responsibility of the Army. As you might guess, they had their hands full elsewhere. In 1868, the head men of the Dineh negotiated a treaty and went home."

  "After all that, they just went home again?"

  "Um-hm." He nodded.

  "It seems like such a terrible loss." Eden shook her head, not wanting to picture it all.

  "Of course it was, more even than I've told you. But in the end, we became one of the few native groups to end up settled on our own homeland. Dinehtah, as it now shows up on reservation maps, is much smaller than our original homeland, but it's ours, and we still have the canyon. Our heart is here, and we were able to come back to it."

  Eden looked up at the distant canyon walls with new eyes, understanding better what this magical, mystical place had meant to the people who had once tended their orchards here—and to their descendants. She felt she understood Logan Redhorse better now as well.

  * * * * *

  "It's beautiful!" Eden looked at the intricate panoply of light and shadow, color and shade that spread before her, glorious in its intensity. "You just keep showing me such natural wonders..." They had come to a small hill near the wall of the canyon and Logan had driven up it, giving Eden more of a bird's-eye vantage point on the canyon's beauty.

  He flashed her one of those breathtaking smiles. "Have I told you today how beautiful you look?''

  If he had intended to embarrass and distract her, he was doing a bang-up job of it. She struggled for composure. "No, I don't believe you have, but you're welcome to, if you'd like."

  He laughed. "All right, I will," he said, but there was no humor in either his voice or expression when he spoke again. "You are beautiful, Eden Grant—as beautiful as your name, as beautiful as paradise." He slipped his arm around her, drawing her close.

  "Paradise," she whispered, breaking the gaze before the spell of it carried her away. She looked into the pristine beauty of the canyon. "I almost feel as if we're there."

  "We are," Logan answered matter-of-factly.

  She cocked an eyebrow. "We are?"

  "Or at least, it's close. You see, your people and mine have very different legends of paradise."

  He had slipped back into his storytelling mode, giving them both a break from the romantic intensity that had been building around them. Eden followed his lead, easing away as she asked, "How is that?"

  "Your stories," he said, his voice almost challenging. "They're all of paradise lost." He must have seen her skeptical expression, because he added, "Think about it. Adam and Eve had perfection in the Garden of Eden—you're named for it—and then they fell from grace and were cast out of paradise into the world, right?"

  "Right," she conceded. "They were cast into a dreary world full of thorns and thistles, a world where they earned their bread by the sweat of their brow. At least that's the story I was told."

  "That isn't the story Navajo children are told," he said, his eyes fixed upon the ruins. "Our children are told of worlds beneath this one where all creatures of the earth lived mixed together in an ignorant and sinful state, content to be both wicked and slothful until the spirit beings became so disgusted, they decided to sweep them away." He turned to face her, caught now in the rhythm of his story.

  "Windstorms and floods purged that first world until only the strongest and purest beings remained. They sought a way to leave their ruined world behind and finally climbed a sky ladder. Piercing the top of the sky, they climbed through and emerged into a better realm.

  "But they were wicked there, too," he continued, "and were punished again, world after world, until finally they emerged into the sunlight. They had found their paradise."

  He turned back to the canyon, gesturing toward it as he spoke. "The place of emergence is not far from here. It is shown to every Navajo boy and girl upon initiation into the tribe—and no," he added, "don't ask to see it. Even if I was sure I could find it, which I'm not, I can't take you there."

  "Because I'm belagaana," she said, making the explanation for him.

  "Because you are uninitiated," he clarified. "So you see," he said, finishing the tale, "our legends are of paradise found—and we found it here, in Dinehtah."

  She nodded soberly, letting the realization sink in. "That explains why your people are so attached to this place."

  "It explains more than that," he said. "Don't you see? Our old ones teach us to cherish this place of our emergence, to treat it with honor and dignity. But if your people believe they're in a dreary world full of thorns and thistles—"

  "—then they feel freer about abusing it," she finished for him, the full impact of his point settling in. “They care less about polluting the air and water or ravaging the topsoil."

  "Why should they not? They're looking for their paradise somewhere else."

  Eden let out a long sigh. "I never realized how much difference an attitude like that might make."

  "There is much power in the legends we tell our children," Logan said thoughtfully.

  Our children. Eden heard the words in a far different context than Logan had spoken them. The thought was too dangerous to consider. Instead she asked, "Do you plan to teach your children of the emergence?"

  He nodded. "I promised them I would."

  "You promised... your children?"

  "Um-hm." His look had grown serious, searching. "That was the commitment I spoke of, Eden."

  "A commitment to your children," she said, not understanding.

  He took her hands. "Do you know about my people?"

&
nbsp; "Do you mean about your mother?"

  Logan nodded. "That's part of what I mean. Among the Dineh, every individual is identified by his people. I told you that before. I am Logan Redhorse, born to the Tall House People, born for the Salt People."

  "I remember," she said. "Those are your clans, inherited from your grandmother."

  "Right," he said. "And I told you what my grandmother called my mother's people."

  "The Surface-of-the-Earth people," Eden began.

  "Yes, or the Paradise Lost People," Logan finished.

  "Paradise Lost," Eden repeated, understanding more than Logan had said. Logan's belagaana mother had certainly lost a paradise she would never know when she had sacrificed this fine son.

  "My grandmother has always been great with me," Logan said, his voice far away, "but there were times when I took a ribbing from people who knew I was claiming my father's kinship. One day—I guess I was about fifteen—I had been praying to be worthy of the kinship I claimed. I looked into the heavens and swore to my ancestors that I would never forget the heritage they had given me. Then I looked toward the future and promised my children that they wouldn't have to borrow their relatives as I had. I swore to them they would inherit an honorable heritage of their own from a mother who was a child of the desert, a daughter of Dinehtah."

  Eden nodded. "That's why you thought it better if we didn't see each other."

  "That's why." He turned her toward him, lifting her chin so she couldn't avoid his eyes. "I like you, Eden Grant. I think I like you too much, and I don't want to forget the promises I've made to my generations, both before and after."

  Eden's heart lurched. She understood now why there could be no future for her with Logan Redhorse, but the energy still buzzing about them told her it was too bad, too bad indeed. Feeling she must say something, she chose to respond to the surface of his comment. "You are lucky to know your generations."

  "You said that earlier, about the goats," he answered. Then, "Are you interested in genealogy?"

  Eden shrugged, deliberately distancing herself. "Only a little. I have records of my parents' parents and their parents, and then I've got a couple of the family lines back a little farther than that. That's part of the reason I never felt any personal guilt when Native American students I knew in college wanted to accuse me of killing the buffalo and driving their people onto reservations, just because my skin is pale."

  She gave him a careful, sidelong glance, but his expression betrayed nothing. She went on. "I know my father's family came to New England in the early eighteen-hundreds, after it was well settled, and my family stayed there until my dad left to come west in the nineteen sixties. None of them were involved in the westward expansion."

  "And your mother's?" he asked.

  "As for my mother's family..." Eden sighed. "There are other modern Americans who might have a case against me, since I'm told that some of my mother's ancestors were Georgia plantation owners who held slaves, but other family records show that a great-great-grandfather on my mother's side was a noteworthy abolitionist." She smiled, hoping to take the sting out of anything she might have said. "Somewhere along the line, I decided the only guilt I could handle was what I'd earned for myself. It didn't always make me popular in my American History classes."

  Logan's answering grin was wry. "I can understand that. Some modern descendants of the First Nations like to spread the guilt around."

  Eden spoke tentatively. "I was a little surprised when you seemed so angry with me because you thought I was claiming guilt over what happened to your people. Some of the native students I knew at school would have wanted me to assume all the guilt I could muster."

  Logan made a soft huffing sound, but his expression was gentle when he said, "I guess we each have our own ways of handling past injuries. Mine is to try to keep the belagaana out of my hair."

  Eden felt the sting. She suppressed any outward show of it, but Logan saw the expression that crossed her face. He blurted, "I didn't mean—"

  "It's all right, Logan. I understand."

  He took her hand then, and for a moment they stood looking down upon the canyon, then he stepped a little away from her, breaking the warm contact. "I'm sorry, Eden."

  "It's all right, Logan, really. I don't blame you if you want to keep my people out of your hair. Your people have certainly suffered enough at the hands of mine."

  "For you, Eden, I could choose to make an exception," Logan whispered.

  "I think you already have," Eden answered, quietly smiling. "Thank you for bringing me up here."

  "It has been my pleasure," he assured her, tenderly kissing her hair.

  Chapter Six

  "Pass the paint, please," Eden said, reaching behind her for the can she expected Logan to hand down to her from his stool.

  " 'Fraid you'll have to reach," he answered. Then, when Eden stood to take the can from him, he touched the tip of her nose with a wet-painted finger, smearing it in dusty rose.

  "Skunk," she growled at him. "You did that on purpose!"

  "You bet I did," he answered, "and you ought to see how cute you look."

  "Cute. Right."

  It was Wednesday, and they were working in the hallway, where they had been since early that morning. Logan had arrived shortly after sunup and had awakened Eden by tapping on her window until she couldn't ignore him any longer. He'd brought breakfast, picked up at a nearby fast-food stand, and more painting tools, as well as a half-gallon of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Had it not been for the juice, one of Eden's little weaknesses, she might have been less willing to forgive him another near-sleepless night. She seemed to have had a great deal of trouble sleeping since Logan started coming around.

  "The painting is going quickly," Logan observed.

  "Yes, thanks to you. So what do you have in mind for this weekend? It must be pretty special for you to put in all this extra effort helping me paint."

  "It is. Special, I mean. Really, it's a favor I have to ask."

  "A favor, huh?" Eden made an exaggerated grimace. "If it's such a big favor that you have to spend hours at hard labor before you dare ask it, it's probably either illegal or immoral."

  "Maybe just uncomfortable," Logan answered, "that is, depending on how you feel about weddings. I understand some people actually like them."

  Eden raised one eyebrow. "Weddings?"

  "That's right, but only one this weekend. That would be wedding. Singular."

  "Smart aleck. It's the Labor Day weekend, right? Who's getting married on Labor Day?''

  "Nobody. That is, no one I know." He reached to get a high spot where the dusty rose paint hadn't quite covered the dirty yellow beneath it. "This couple is going to be married on Saturday. You may even remember them. Max Carmody and Lucretia Sherwood?"

  She tried to recall. "Max. That's Meg McAllister's brother, right?"

  "Right. He and I kind of got to know each other this summer while he's been out here visiting with his sister."

  Eden's comment was wry. "Apparently he got to know somebody else as well."

  Logan grinned. "I think you could say that. Cretia works for Meg and her brother-in-law, Kurt. She did the cake for Chris and Sarah's wedding. Maybe you saw her there."

  Eden summoned a vague memory of a slim woman with dark hair who had put together the wedding cake in the yard of the McAllister family home, but all her memories of that day were vague—except those having to do with Logan. He and Sarah were the only people from that entire day she remembered clearly. "I think maybe I did," she answered. "Besides, Sarah mentioned they were getting married. Seems to be going around, doesn't it?"

  "Among certain groups, anyway."

  Eden blushed as she recalled Logan's commitment to his generations. There would be no fear of wedding-fever contagion in this quarter. "So, what time's the wedding?"

  "Saturday morning. They're being married on the deck of the new home they just bought for their family—that is, his daughter and her two kids. It's
here in Rainbow Rock, just the other side of the high school. Max invited me and suggested I bring a date. So, about that favor? Are you willing to sit through a wedding with me?"

  "Sure. I'd like that." If it's at all like the last wedding we shared together, I may not come away with my heart intact, but I guess I can handle that. At least, I hope I can. "Sure," she repeated, smiling.

  * * * * *

  "Beautiful day, isn't it?" Logan led Eden into the front rows of the folding chairs set up in the Carmody's new backyard. They were early. Few other guests had begun to arrive.

  "It is," Eden answered. "It's beautiful. They must have put in some serious effort to get the yard looking this good this quickly." She gazed around her, admiring the rich green lawn and blossoming shrubs and vines.

  "I know they worked hard at it," Logan answered. "I came over a couple of evenings myself to help them put new plants in. Max special-ordered a number of them, in order to get mature or nearly mature plants, and they rolled out sod for the whole back lawn."

  "Well, they did a great job," Eden repeated, "if I hadn't known this was all brand new, I'd have had trouble believing it. By the way, it was awfully nice of you to help here, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering the way you've been helping out at my place."

  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.