A Rainbow in Paradise Read online

  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.

  "Y-yes?" She was looking out the window. She was crying, trying to hide her tears.

  "Eden, I'm taking you home, as you asked, but may I say something, too? Will you listen?"

  She made an odd "umm" sound again that might have meant either yes or no. He decided to take it for assent and stopped the truck to make it easier to talk to her. She was crying steadily now—softly, almost soundlessly, her pain betrayed only by little gasps between her silent sobs. The sound almost broke his heart.

  "Eden? Oh, Eden." He moved into the middle of the seat beside her and drew her into his arms, fearing she might push him away, surprised when she allowed him to comfort her. "Shh, love, shh," he said, stroking her hair, rubbing her back. "I did want to show you something of where my people have come from, but there was no hidden agenda here—at least..." He paused, and his voice rang with honest introspection as he added, "At least none that I planned, none I was aware of. I certainly didn't mean to hurt you." He held her away from him, looking into her eyes. "You believe that, don't you, Eden? You believe that I've never meant to hurt you?"

  She didn't answer, but her eyes suggested she was willing to try.

  "Eden, sweetheart, I may not want to care about you, but I can't help myself, and I'd never forgive myself if I hurt you deliberately. Please, love, tell me you believe me."

  She burst into sobs, pressing her face into the crease of his shoulder. He sat holding her, soothing her, whispering sweet endearments he had never meant to say, but which came so naturally to his lips when he held paradise in his arms. Finally she calmed and he pressed her again for an answer. "Please, Eden, tell me you believe me."

  Her words tumbled out in a rush. "Oh, Logan, I want to believe you. So much."

  "Then that will have to do," he said, his heart relieved even while his mind insisted it wasn't enough. "Thank you, Eden. Thank you for that." He gathered her against his chest, holding her until her trembling ceased, holding her as if he would never let her go.

  * * * * *

  Eden was weary Sunday morning and slept in so late, she barely made it to church. She slipped into a pew beside a young family she thought she ought to know, and smiled in greeting just as the prelude concluded and Reverend Phelps stood to welcome everyone. Then what might have been chagrin or embarrassment changed to surprise as, during the first strains of the opening hymn, Logan Redhorse slid in beside her.

  "Good morning," she whispered over the congregation's somewhat discordant rendition of "O, Thou Rock of Our Salvation," wiggling over a little to make room for him at the end of the pew.

  "Ya-ta-hey," he answered, grinning that wide, warm smile that never failed to clutch somewhere around her middle. "Surprised to see me?"

  "Yes, I am." She couldn't help wondering if he had come here just to see her, or... Well, she couldn't guess what else would have brought him.

  "Surprised to see me in Rainbow Rock, or surprised to see me here?" Logan asked in a whisper, gesturing around them at the small but overfilled church.

  "Both, I guess."

  "You wore me out yesterday," he said, his eyes twinkling.

  "Well, I think there's some question about who wore out whom," she responded, still whispering.

  "Maybe, but either way, I decided I was too tired to drive home, so I crashed in Holbrook with friends. As for church..." He made again that small, yet sweeping gesture that seemed to encompass not just their surroundings, but the whole concept of church and religion. "It was a mentor of Reverend Phelps who baptized me out on the rez when I was in my teens. I always make a point of coming here if I'm in town on a Sunday."

  "Baptized y
ou?" The older couple in front of her turned to look and Eden realized she'd spoken louder than she had intended. She felt her face warm in embarrassment as she smiled an apology.

  The hymn ended just then and the reverend rose to pray. "We'll talk later," Logan mouthed as he placed the hymnal in the shelf in front of them.

  Eden could only nod an answer.

  As the service wore on, Logan took her hand and they sat together companionably, looking much like the young couple who sat just down the pew from them—together, smiling often at each other, holding hands—except, of course, that they were taking turns holding their baby and the mother had a toddler at her side. Eden couldn't help noticing both the similarities and differences, wondering...

  Well, she decided, I'm probably better off if I don't do too much wondering. Still, the knowledge that she and Logan shared a faith helped to overcome at least one major barrier to the possibilities that might lie before them. She barely heard the sermon about diversity and appreciating differences and how all human beings were children of the same divine creator.

  After the benediction, while the congregation was still milling around and filing out, Chris and Sarah approached them to ask if they'd like to come to the traditional McAllister family dinner and sing-along which they planned to host at their place that afternoon.

  Eden was about to answer when Logan said, "Can we take a rain check on that and come another day? Eden and I have plans."

  She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice as she told Sarah she'd love to come another time. "What plans?" she whispered as Chris and Sarah turned away.

  "Sorry," he said, and when he smiled like that, Eden felt certain she'd forgive him anything. "I hadn't had time to ask you about it. I brought a picnic lunch and I was hoping you'd join me."

  "Sounds fun," she answered, touched by his thoughtfulness. It was a few minutes later, when they were alone in the cab of Logan's pickup, that she asked, "You said you were baptized in your teens?"

  "Yep." He nodded, turning the truck toward the hills. "That was one of the first things I did to make my grandmother mad at me. She beat me with a willow switch until I thought I'd never sit down again."