Excerpts
From Sangre de Cristo:
She looked down, not knowing if she should say the thought in her mind, not knowing where this man and she were headed in their friendship journey. She did not want to ruin it, ruin the friendship. Perhaps she was not consciously thinking beyond that. She had always known she would marry a Navajo. Then she said, “Aaron, did you own any slaves. You were on the side that did, the South, right?”
From Sangre de Cristo:
Jóhonaá smiled a subtle warm smile, saying, “I understand; you fought for your homes.” But had they looked then they would have seen her sad eyes, and she hid the redness and tears that were forming, turned her head away and tried to clear them, blinking. And her eyes and mind then looked off in the distance to the southwest, to red Arizona, and they were also in the far away camp on the Pecos, and she looked up at the deep blue sky.
From Sangre de Cristo:
Sunny was not a ‘white-woman Indian.’ She was not a pretty Indian who attracted white men because she looked white. One sees them in many races, people who attract the attention of another race or ethnicity because they resemble that group. Caucasians in America in the Nineteenth Century were quite often particularly susceptible, demanding beauty in others on their terms and in their skin tone. Sunny was a noble expression of her race and its features and physical attributes that all came together just right in her person. There were many others, especially among the People, but she was the best example anyone in those lands at that time could remember. No, she did not look like or resemble a white girl, nor was she describable as glamorous, if that term was in common use then. She was ordinary; but, whenever she was around, people could neither take their eyes off of her nor ignore her company when it was offered.
From Sangre de Cristo:
Now a brief calm came over the tobacco and gun smoke filled room, and guns nearly drawn remained in holsters. Perhaps, as actions truly speak louder than words, many were unsure of just whom they were dealing with. Possibly, names and images of gun legends and known hard men were tumbling through many a mind that was searching for some recognition.
From Sangre de Cristo:
He had always told her to resist capture by them. He armed and trained her and told her to not be taken alive. Jóhonaá always carried his gifts: the training and a fine knife. The latter was no native implement, though those held quality. This was like his own, only smaller, and purchased from an old Mexican Army officer friend at a dear price. In spite of friendship it wasn't cheap. . . . “When there is no other choice,” he told her, “hurt them bad enough, and they will kill you to save themselves.”
From Sangre de Cristo:
Carefully timing her work to avoid the lightening flashes reflecting off of her blade, she placed the tip against her chest, a little above her right breast, and began turning the knife as if to drill.
From Sangre de Cristo:
He saw them ride down the trail. He saw them before, up on the ridge in the trees. They sat there on their mounts, hidden they thought, but on the slopes of the Blue Ridge in the darkness of dusk he had put down a deer when he was twelve. There were too many, about seven. It was times like these that he missed having the Henry with its rapid fire. It wouldn't even be necessary to hit anyone, just scare the hell out of ‘em. He let them come down. What could he do about it anyway? He wasn't sure... you can’t always tell the book by the cover, but he was concerned. “Rough types” he thought to himself. She was in the cornfield in front. He knew they would go straight to her.
From Sangre de Cristo:
The father paused thoughtfully and then went on, “If you choose not to be a priest, you can still serve these people, with your farming skills, your knowledge of animals,...so many ways. If you have a calling to teach about God, you can do that too. That does not require a padre. And you will be a lucky man. You have two women who may love you, and I think you care for them both in return.”
“Well, a priest can’t have a woman, and a normal man is only supposed to have one.”
From Sangre de Cristo:
As Israel had said to them, when the two young men left those many months ago, young people matured fast on the American frontier. It had been true since the first European stepped off of a wooden ship into the West Atlantic surf and true for Native American youth ages before that. A hard, rugged, beautiful land that molded and honed you or killed you, America made men and women out of children in a heartbeat.
Aaron wasn't brilliant; he was just growing up fast and, having a good brain, he was understanding better than some did the things that he saw. Across the spread of food from him that Autumn evening sat Jóhonaá, a similar youth from the native side of things who was every bit his equal. They both had just a bit more insight and farsightedness than most of their peers.
Excerpts
From Sangre de Cristo:
She looked down, not knowing if she should say the thought in her mind, not knowing where this man and she were headed in their friendship journey. She did not want to ruin it, ruin the friendship. Perhaps she was not consciously thinking beyond that. She had always known she would marry a Navajo. Then she said, “Aaron, did you own any slaves. You were on the side that did, the South, right?”
From Sangre de Cristo:
Jóhonaá smiled a subtle warm smile, saying, “I understand; you fought for your homes.” But had they looked then they would have seen her sad eyes, and she hid the redness and tears that were forming, turned her head away and tried to clear them, blinking. And her eyes and mind then looked off in the distance to the southwest, to red Arizona, and they were also in the far away camp on the Pecos, and she looked up at the deep blue sky.
From Sangre de Cristo:
Sunny was not a ‘white-woman Indian.’ She was not a pretty Indian who attracted white men because she looked white. One sees them in many races, people who attract the attention of another race or ethnicity because they resemble that group. Caucasians in America in the Nineteenth Century were quite often particularly susceptible, demanding beauty in others on their terms and in their skin tone. Sunny was a noble expression of her race and its features and physical attributes that all came together just right in her person. There were many others, especially among the People, but she was the best example anyone in those lands at that time could remember. No, she did not look like or resemble a white girl, nor was she describable as glamorous, if that term was in common use then. She was ordinary; but, whenever she was around, people could neither take their eyes off of her nor ignore her company when it was offered.
From Sangre de Cristo:
Now a brief calm came over the tobacco and gun smoke filled room, and guns nearly drawn remained in holsters. Perhaps, as actions truly speak louder than words, many were unsure of just whom they were dealing with. Possibly, names and images of gun legends and known hard men were tumbling through many a mind that was searching for some recognition.
From Sangre de Cristo:
He had always told her to resist capture by them. He armed and trained her and told her to not be taken alive. Jóhonaá always carried his gifts: the training and a fine knife. The latter was no native implement, though those held quality. This was like his own, only smaller, and purchased from an old Mexican Army officer friend at a dear price. In spite of friendship it wasn't cheap. . . . “When there is no other choice,” he told her, “hurt them bad enough, and they will kill you to save themselves.”
From Sangre de Cristo:
Carefully timing her work to avoid the lightening flashes reflecting off of her blade, she placed the tip against her chest, a little above her right breast, and began turning the knife as if to drill.
From Sangre de Cristo:
He saw them ride down the trail. He saw them before, up on the ridge in the trees. They sat there on their mounts, hidden they thought, but on the slopes of the Blue Ridge in the darkness of dusk he had put down a deer when he was twelve. There were too many, about seven. It was times like these that he missed having the Henry with its rapid fire. It wouldn't even be necessary to hit anyone, just scare the hell out of ‘em. He let them come down. What could he do about it anyway? He wasn't sure... you can’t always tell the book by the cover, but he was concerned. “Rough types” he thought to himself. She was in the cornfield in front. He knew they would go straight to her.
From Sangre de Cristo:
The father paused thoughtfully and then went on, “If you choose not to be a priest, you can still serve these people, with your farming skills, your knowledge of animals,...so many ways. If you have a calling to teach about God, you can do that too. That does not require a padre. And you will be a lucky man. You have two women who may love you, and I think you care for them both in return.”
“Well, a priest can’t have a woman, and a normal man is only supposed to have one.”
From Sangre de Cristo:
As Israel had said to them, when the two young men left those many months ago, young people matured fast on the American frontier. It had been true since the first European stepped off of a wooden ship into the West Atlantic surf and true for Native American youth ages before that. A hard, rugged, beautiful land that molded and honed you or killed you, America made men and women out of children in a heartbeat.
Aaron wasn't brilliant; he was just growing up fast and, having a good brain, he was understanding better than some did the things that he saw. Across the spread of food from him that Autumn evening sat Jóhonaá, a similar youth from the native side of things who was every bit his equal. They both had just a bit more insight and farsightedness than most of their peers.
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
Just before dozing off to sleep to the sound of the men’s muffled voices, Jóhonaá thought to herself that their mission had taken an ominous turn. She supposed that the talk of the two men was related to that and wondered if they spoke quietly to allow her to sleep or because they thought the things that they discussed would be too worrisome to her. They knew her; they knew she could take it. But men always try to protect their womenfolk from distress. It is just a natural thing.
Laying on her side in the bedroll, with her hands together under her head to form a sort of pillow and the voices of the men behind her, the young wife looked at the faintest glow of red on the Western horizon and thought of home, of the land of her Diné people. Circumstances were pulling her and Aaron and Josh away to the east, maybe to never return. This was a dangerous journey in a dangerous land. She knew that. It always had been a perilous life for the Diné. Now, the incident in El Paso magnified the threat of death in her mind.
Wondering silently now if she would ever see home again, ever watch the white flow of sheep down a sandy slope to water or smell the food over the fire in front of a hogan or run with her bare feet as when a child on the hot sand floor of the desert, the woman fell off to sleep staring at that almost imperceptible red glow at the world’s western edge.
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“Yuh know, thur’s been some talk. Thuh boys in thuh bunkhouse are sayin’ yur a real hero Sunny, sav’n’ Ellen an’ that other girl. Thur sayin’ a lot of us men couldn’ dun it any better than you, an’ you just a little thing . . . ‘scuse me. Some fellas say Aaron’s thuh luckiest fella all along the Brazos here, bein’ married tuh you . . . you bein’ so purty an all too.”
The woman’s face grew into a warm smile that she couldn’t stop or control and she replied, “Thank you, Dusty. Those are kind words.”
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
Days later, Dusty saw Sunny and watched intently. She was small, and her horse was as well; and he watched her cinch the saddle and otherwise prepare. “Damn,” he thought, “She might as well be a reglur cowboy in skirts.” He walked slowly toward her, and perhaps he saw the beauty. Some whites did, and some were blinded by their prejudice. It was a different look; it didn’t appeal to all. And color differences just stopped some right then and there. But he saw the person, the character. And he had heard enough now. He got the picture and understood the man’s affection for his spouse. Finally Dusty stood right next to her; and, sensing him, she turned around.
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
Dusty appeared to end all discussion on the matter, saying, “I know a coward when I see ‘im.”
“Weren’t no coward walked outa here; Aaron Jefferson’s the purest killer in five hundred miles uh this place.”
Eyes hiding surprise as much as possible looked around the room at each other as the cowboys digested that opinion. Momentarily one fellow inquired of Jeb, “You know ‘im?”
“Yep, I know im, the little Indian gal too.”
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“Take it Jóhonaá,” her husband said as he tossed the revolver on the bed.
She looked at him a bit inquisitively and seriously. She was going home. There had been no thought of a gun, but perhaps she knew the dangers.
“And dress . . . a bit more . . .”
“White? I’m not white,” said with a hint of ethnic pride. There was no problem there either; she knew that as well. Aaron loved her native side, her Indian nature. There had been issues about beliefs. He had thought her culture a bit superstitious, and perhaps he was right. But she had reminded him of how he threw salt over his shoulder when he spilled it and skipped the thirteenth step to the bell tower in the chapel when they went up to make sure it was clear of vermin, . . . or to kiss. The death of a Christian Navajo woman had been the crisis point, and she understood and accepted the Christian belief about the afterlife now. She was now Christian and understood better than many converts what that meant.
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
Josh spoke firmly, with conviction, “We could not a dun it alone; we went for help, Ellen.”
“Well, look at that, bein’ called out by a whore, an’ right here in front of everone. Must be mortifyin’ boys,” laughed a man stepping out from the group around Ellen. The man and woman stood near the bar. He put his arm around the girl’s waist, creating the impression with the three travelers that she was with him or was “his” in some way.
“You left us to die!” the ever more emotional girl almost screamed.
Just before dozing off to sleep to the sound of the men’s muffled voices, Jóhonaá thought to herself that their mission had taken an ominous turn. She supposed that the talk of the two men was related to that and wondered if they spoke quietly to allow her to sleep or because they thought the things that they discussed would be too worrisome to her. They knew her; they knew she could take it. But men always try to protect their womenfolk from distress. It is just a natural thing.
Laying on her side in the bedroll, with her hands together under her head to form a sort of pillow and the voices of the men behind her, the young wife looked at the faintest glow of red on the Western horizon and thought of home, of the land of her Diné people. Circumstances were pulling her and Aaron and Josh away to the east, maybe to never return. This was a dangerous journey in a dangerous land. She knew that. It always had been a perilous life for the Diné. Now, the incident in El Paso magnified the threat of death in her mind.
Wondering silently now if she would ever see home again, ever watch the white flow of sheep down a sandy slope to water or smell the food over the fire in front of a hogan or run with her bare feet as when a child on the hot sand floor of the desert, the woman fell off to sleep staring at that almost imperceptible red glow at the world’s western edge.
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“Yuh know, thur’s been some talk. Thuh boys in thuh bunkhouse are sayin’ yur a real hero Sunny, sav’n’ Ellen an’ that other girl. Thur sayin’ a lot of us men couldn’ dun it any better than you, an’ you just a little thing . . . ‘scuse me. Some fellas say Aaron’s thuh luckiest fella all along the Brazos here, bein’ married tuh you . . . you bein’ so purty an all too.”
The woman’s face grew into a warm smile that she couldn’t stop or control and she replied, “Thank you, Dusty. Those are kind words.”
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
Days later, Dusty saw Sunny and watched intently. She was small, and her horse was as well; and he watched her cinch the saddle and otherwise prepare. “Damn,” he thought, “She might as well be a reglur cowboy in skirts.” He walked slowly toward her, and perhaps he saw the beauty. Some whites did, and some were blinded by their prejudice. It was a different look; it didn’t appeal to all. And color differences just stopped some right then and there. But he saw the person, the character. And he had heard enough now. He got the picture and understood the man’s affection for his spouse. Finally Dusty stood right next to her; and, sensing him, she turned around.
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
Dusty appeared to end all discussion on the matter, saying, “I know a coward when I see ‘im.”
“Weren’t no coward walked outa here; Aaron Jefferson’s the purest killer in five hundred miles uh this place.”
Eyes hiding surprise as much as possible looked around the room at each other as the cowboys digested that opinion. Momentarily one fellow inquired of Jeb, “You know ‘im?”
“Yep, I know im, the little Indian gal too.”
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“Take it Jóhonaá,” her husband said as he tossed the revolver on the bed.
She looked at him a bit inquisitively and seriously. She was going home. There had been no thought of a gun, but perhaps she knew the dangers.
“And dress . . . a bit more . . .”
“White? I’m not white,” said with a hint of ethnic pride. There was no problem there either; she knew that as well. Aaron loved her native side, her Indian nature. There had been issues about beliefs. He had thought her culture a bit superstitious, and perhaps he was right. But she had reminded him of how he threw salt over his shoulder when he spilled it and skipped the thirteenth step to the bell tower in the chapel when they went up to make sure it was clear of vermin, . . . or to kiss. The death of a Christian Navajo woman had been the crisis point, and she understood and accepted the Christian belief about the afterlife now. She was now Christian and understood better than many converts what that meant.
from Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
Josh spoke firmly, with conviction, “We could not a dun it alone; we went for help, Ellen.”
“Well, look at that, bein’ called out by a whore, an’ right here in front of everone. Must be mortifyin’ boys,” laughed a man stepping out from the group around Ellen. The man and woman stood near the bar. He put his arm around the girl’s waist, creating the impression with the three travelers that she was with him or was “his” in some way.
“You left us to die!” the ever more emotional girl almost screamed.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
In the midafternoon of this particular day in May of 1871, the youngest and newest Navajo family member sat in a rocker with, perhaps most appropriately, a crisp tangy drink of lemonade, . . . the sour fruit being one of life’s metaphors, and all. On the small table sat the large pitcher and several glasses. Naadáá stared down the path at a figure on horseback approaching slowly, with a dog running alongside and a packhorse behind. She had a weapon nearby, Josh’s Colt Navy, so she was not afraid though the whole area around the house and barns was devoid of other human signs. As the rider came ever closer, she looked for David, but he was nowhere to be found. The educated cowhand had designated himself as guardian of the native women on this ranch, whenever he was not off somewhere else. Seemingly, at this moment, everyone was off somewhere else. Well, she was alone. That was that.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Jones went in and set on the bed. Well that was it then. He hadn’t known or expected this, not any of this: not Josh’s heroics and death, not Sunny’s ordeal, not the odyssey of the young woman being accused in the case he was investigating. Sunny had surprised him with her words moments ago, as she had three years ago when they met. But now he got it; he understood: Sunny had suffered her baptism under fire, had suffered dearly. She had seen the elephant. Her people had been pushed around by strangers in their own land, and now she had as well, personally. And she had fought back and won. He knew Sunny would be pushed no more. He knew that he would not leave here with Naadáá, not without a fight, not without someone being hurt severely. Were the probable lies of a slob of a soldier, barely worthy of the uniform, worth that . . . worth good peoples’ lives, worth his own life? John thought to himself, “There will be trouble here, violent trouble, and they will become fugitives.” And in his heart, he knew that the man accusing her was one of those soldiers who barely managed to stay out of trouble enough to remain in the uniform and thus continue to tarnish its meaning.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Within twenty yards of each other and far from their observing friends on the slight hill, it looked as if both horses were slowing a little and that this might be the closest Darling could get. So Aaron started to yell at the lead horse, calling his name. Old Blue finally slowed dramatically and came to a smooth gallop, and Aaron spurred Darlin’ ever so gently to get even with her old friend. Reaching over and grabbing Blue’s reins he brought both horses to a halt. This task completed, he nudged Darlin’ forward and started talking to Naadáá’s mount and rubbing Blue’s head, calling the horse by name. This familiarity was not lost on the young woman.
“You knew Josh?” the frightened girl said.
“He was my best friend in all the world.”
“You are Aaron?”
He nodded, with a slight look of emotion on his face, and she said, “Your friend was brave; he died for me.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
The two wives sat together on their cowboy ponies in silence on a gentle slope. They tensed inside themselves in their stoic way, and Dahiná was aching inside for love of the man from the same race that had beaten her down . . . tried to beat her down. But that was not him, not this good man she loved and who was willing to die to save her sister. Watching intently the women saw the two other cowboys, Jeb and Arlen, ride rapidly toward the impending burst of prairie violence. Almost simultaneously, the report from Aaron’s Henry and the boom of the Dragoon in Dusty’s hand, like cymbals, interrupted the drumming rhythm of the galloping horses. A deadly symphony of the plains was being performed in support of the actors who played their lives out on the widest of stages. A split second afterward, the Comanche let go the first arrow and nocked another. Then he winced backward slightly absorbing the ball from the powerful revolver at its extreme range of close to eighty yards.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
As he hoped against hope that he presented the slightest of targets, he pulled the trigger. And as the rifle fired and he chambered another and fired again, Dusty knew he was a dead man if he missed. Afraid to look, he buried his face in the cold snow and prairie grass and whispered goodbye to Dahiná. She had become all that mattered to him in this life and all he really wanted. He had done this for her. Maybe he could have got off another shot, but he wanted his last moment on this earth to be with her.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Suddenly, reacting instinctively but without abrupt movement, he took her hands . . . took the two, which were together, and held them clasped together in his. It wasn't romance; it was caring. She instinctually tried to withdraw them, but not forcefully; and he retained his hold, but not forcibly . . . and he looked into her tawny face and dark almond eyes, as she looked back, stoically hiding her surprise. It wasn't love . . . not yet anyway . . . it was caring. He felt the small, feminine hands, and he felt the slight roughness of a working woman of the land. It attracted him all the more. It had a certain sex appeal, as if to say, “These are the hands of a real woman, a woman of God’s fertile earth.”
“Miss, uh . . . I mean Dahiná, I'm so sorry . . . what you went through . . . I wish I coulda done somethin' to help. I wish I coulda been there. Then maybe all uh this, all you went through wouldn't uh happened. I didn’t know you then . . . didn’t know yur kind of folks.”
He found himself thinking about this woman as if she were his to protect, wishing he could go back and sweep away all the hell she had been through, wishing he had known her five years ago when the Navajo endured the Long Walk, and that he could have looked into some cavalry officer’s eyes and said, “Not this one, she’s my wife.” Perhaps he had seen it in the other mixed couple: that these pretty native farm women were a perfect match for the right Westerner if I fella could handle it, could handle the different cultural background.
She saw his sincerity, and she wasn't sure if this was romantic. But she was sure that it was caring. That part was sincere. And so she left her hands there in his. There was a tear in her eye that she couldn’t wipe away. He still held her hands. As the single tear started down her cheek, she wanted to cry for it all: for the People, for Naadáá in the mountains but safe now, for all she had seen and gone through, and for Jóhonaá’s suffering heroics. And she wanted to cry for Josh. She had barely known him, but he had died for her sister after all.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
The firing became hot and furious. Moments earlier, when they were just finishing coffee and preparing to saddle horses and hitch teams to the wagons, the attackers had hit them. She thought they were Jicarilla Apache. A later military investigation suggested that they were. Outnumbering the troopers two to one, the natives had less firepower, which included older firearms and bow and arrows. These accomplished mounted warriors were skilled with both types of weaponry, and this was a serious threat. Presumably, it would not end well, but she didn’t know that yet.
Only a half hour before, the little army caravan had awakened to eat and break camp. It was in the early, crisp chill of a gray and rose colored morning along the northern banks of the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. The interrupted beauty and stillness harkened a long day of struggle with death. And although on the open plains, the rapid clatter of gunfire soon filled the air with the acrid smell of gunsmoke, which would dominate the day as well.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
She pulled her two prized possessions from her luggage, as the right bag had been intelligently and logically retrieved from the wagon bed above her. They were odd treasures for a young woman, but these carried so much meaning for her. They were gifts from the man who died just for her, a young man who gave up a whole life that lay ahead of him for her. If he could do that for her, shouldn’t she be willing to do it for herself?
Checking the Colt, she realized it wasn’t loaded, as she had been uncomfortable with the thought of traveling in a bouncing wagon with a loaded revolver. Loads in its cylinder were looser than a cartridge. Loading it would be tedious now, so she grabbed the Spencer and the cloth bag she had put the cartridge box in. The latter contained ten tubes filled with the right number of seven cartridges in each to reload the firearm. Turning on her side while still lying down under the wagon, the girl slid the spring loaded magazine tube out of the carbine style rifle’s wooden stock and emptied a tube full of cartridges into the open hole as she had been taught by Jared and Ahigá. She then replaced the spring loaded magazine that would feed the bullets forward. Grabbing the Blakeslee Cartridge Box and dashing to the firing line, she dropped prone between two troopers. The carbine and the box were a bit heavy for her, but women were workers in those days, native or white; they had to be. Both troopers, on either side of the petite girl, looked briefly with surprise; and one said, “Yu’ll git kilt, Missy.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Naadáá withdrew the tube to check its load. She wanted to start the next attack with a full magazine. This was all new to her and she had lost count of her shots. She had loose cartridges as well as the Blakeslee tubes, and she was going to load by hand in case the carbine wasn’t yet empty. As she lay on her back and worked with it, a soldier grabbed the carbine from her, spilling the cartridges out of the hole, and looking at it said, “This is army. Where’d you git it, take it off a soldier you killed?”
“Return it; it was a gift.”
The girl was not a child, she was twenty-four and had been through many rough moments at the hands of these whites. She fought the childish tears and spoke up, “I am fighting with you. A brave man gave that to me. He died for me.”
“Sure, I’ll bet he did. Bet you had sumthin’ tuh do with thuh dyin’ too.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
The doctor thought that the letter the woman had placed on the table looked like the one he had sent. He wondered where Sunny Jefferson was and why this native woman was privy to his letter and free to talk about it. Finally, after a moment in which both simply sipped the warming drink quietly, he inquired, “Is Mrs. Jefferson going to join us soon? I have been told that she was the most involved in helping Ellen. Word got back home, by way of a cowboy who worked here, a George Dawkins, that she should not have survived if not for this woman who gave of herself to help Ellen heal.”
Realizing now the simple confusion going on in the man’s mind and that she had missed the clues when he walked onto the porch, Sunny replied, “We all helped with her healing, which I think is going well. The rescue involved my husband, our friend, and I; but of course, the initial rescue was achieved by the army four years ago. You see, she has endured multiple enslavements. As far as Sunny Jefferson is concerned, you have already met her. I apologize for not introducing myself. I am tired today and forgot my manners, I just assumed ...”
“. . . that I knew who I was talking to,” the man said with a slight smile and look of surprise.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
He only hoped now that he knew what to say to this girl. What did he know about native women? How did they think? What was important to them? What did they want to hear? In his youth he had thought that girls were so different that they couldn’t comprehend manly things: guns and tools and such things. Then the war taught him. He had found himself far from his native Virginia during the siege of Vicksburg, high on the bluffs above the Mississippi. There, in the caves that the people fled to, he saw women suffer, work, struggle, and die as good as any soldier. And he had a new perspective, a new respect. Well. This native woman had truly suffered. She was tough as well as pretty, much like her heroic cousin. . . . but what words would reach a girl who had been abused by white men and did not seem to be particularly forgiving about it?
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Dahiná stared straight in his eyes and made no further effort to pull away, as he continued, “You an’ me cain’t change it. It’s just history happenin’ . . . . our history, an’ we’re just caught in it. But if you’ll give me the job, I’ll make sure nothin’ more happens to you in all this mess between our people, yurs an’ mine.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
“I ain’t ashamed of you, Darlin’. Yur a proud woman of a good people. I ain’t gonna try to make you a white girl. When I said yur not an Indian to me, I mean it don’t matter, it don’t get in the way. But I think I see what Aaron sees: Yur strong, brave native girls of this land. It ain’t a bad thing ‘cept to the Indian haters, an’ I ain’t one of those. What you are has an appeal tuh me. Everything about you does.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
A very light snow now dusted the prairie, as each morning for weeks had revealed frost. Riding into the camp the women were unfazed by such conditions, a definite advantage for outdoorsmen like Aaron and Dusty. American frontier women, the delicate in appearance and the more hefty alike, could take what the land had to offer, and perhaps the native ones set the standard by which all the immigrants were judged. It had been and still was their land, after all.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
“Lt. Jones, she will speak with you. I know your law would demand it. But you must know that she would not without her say and mine. She is very frightened. The girl has been through so much, and you know that. Before these events in question, she had been through the trials of a lifetime, and you know that as well. These events were almost unsurvivable for a young woman who was abandoned by all that is decent in this world, by the men of both races who should have observed the chivalry of both our cultures and stood up and been men. She will talk to you, and I will be there.”
“You must know, Jóhonaá, that circumstances of her experience, of her version of if, may require that she go back with me. I’m on your side, her side . . . and on the side of truth and justice.”
“There is seldom justice for natives, lieutenant, and you know that also. Whatever she did was justice, a scared young woman alone like that? Whatever she did, John, was justified.”
From Sangre de Cristo:
"The two you killed would have... would have...they would have taken me too. I do not know for sure. I believe they would have attacked the women and killed any man who tried to stop them, even Jared. It would have been Sunny and me. They might have taken us with them.”
He saw the tears in her eyes and the fear, the trembling lower lip, and he knew how frightened the idea was to her, the idea that she might have become the ‘property’ of very bad men. It was a possible fate that always loomed just out of sight and the mind of frontier women, of any women on lonely stations, and he embraced her. And as she let the tension, held for several days, flow in tears, he knew she was right. She and Sunny, the prettiest ones, would have been ravaged there and kidnapped for continued service to Jake and his friend.
From Sangre de Cristo:
As Israel had said to them, when the two young men left those many months ago, young people matured fast on the American frontier. It had been true since the first European stepped off of a wooden ship into the West Atlantic surf and true for Native American youth ages before that. A hard, rugged, beautiful land that molded and honed you or killed you, America made men and women out of children in a heartbeat.
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
( If there were to be a controversial passage in this story, the one here below might be it. Some might take issue with Aaron's 'color' comment, as if he is objectifying women. But no man in literature is farther ahead of his time with respect to interracial romance and marriage than Aaron, who not only loves Sunny, but respects her and treats her as his equal, long before it was commonly done. He treats her male family members as his equals as well. Here (in the passage below) he is linguistically 'playing' with Dusty a bit to make a point. He wants to minimize the issue of color (race) by insinuating that it is no more of a 'big deal' (in a negative sense) than what flavor of candy one likes or his favorite whiskey. He is insinuating that color should be only a matter of personal preference rather than an issue of looking down on women of other races. If Dusty doesn't want a non-white wife, then that's fine. But Aaron is inferring that those women are still worthy. He suggests as well that Dusty may be surprised in romance and find an unexpected partner. Finally, he points out that the woman has an equal say in the matter too.)
I guess Dusty realized that he was seeing [true] love again, as he had before. Yet, when the New Mexican got up from his woman, the foreman couldn’t resist an inquisitive comment, perhaps more a question that a wise crack. “You’re awful affectionate with that Injun gal,” he stated to Aaron, who was readily prepared for such things.
So, Aaron looked at Dusty straight in the eye and smiled sort of a wry, knowingly serious smile, saying in reply, “She’s the love of my life, and she saved my life. Sunny almost died for me one night . . . willingly took that choice on a very dangerous night. A woman is a woman, Dusty. I guess you just have to decide which color you like, and sometimes the right girl might not be what you were lookin' for. Then you have to hope she likes you.” He slapped the cowboy on the shoulder in a friendly way and hobbled on to whatever chore he was heading to.
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
"I’m glad we came Jóhonaá. It has been hard, and who knows what dangers lay before us? But if you had not ask me to come and meet them on their return from the reservation, Dahiná would have met the worst of fates that any woman can. If we only save her, it has been worth it. If we all end up dead before it’s over, from a Christian duty sort of view, it will still have been worth it"
“Somber thoughts Aaron . . . sobering thoughts. You are saying that it is a victory if we fail and all die?”
“From a Christian view, it is the right thing to have tried, to risk it, to sacrifice, rather than to leave them to their fate. There is a balance. Perhaps if we had children now, our duty would be to them more than your cousins.”
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“But you cannot talk to the dead. I mean other than Christ, who is a god and not dead.”
“Jóhonaá, we talk to the saints every day.”
“But aren’t they little gods?”
“Oh no! We only have one God, Jóhonaá. Everyone only has one God, no matter what they think differently. The world only has one God.”
“Elaina, I see you pray to your Guadalupe, the woman.”
“It is talking, Sunny, conversation. That is a kind of prayer.”
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“‘Tom’ ? You know this man, this enemy, who would kill you both ? ! ”
“We hunt together now, in the mountains, the Sangre de Cristos.”
The other woman shook her head in thought responding finally, “This world is confusing and changing too fast for me, Jóhonaá.”
“I have learned, Dahiná, that we cannot do anything about the changes. The world always changes. We can only give up and be victims, crushed by the evil in the world, or we can struggle to find and live the good.”
From East and West from Texas :
Mr. Dickenson turned and called gently to his wife who was in the kitchen, “Laura Ann, fix these folks our best two rooms, one for the Jefferson couple an’ one for their companions.”
"We don’t want to put you out any, Mr. Dickenson,” offered Sunny. She meant because of her presence.
“Why of course not. We’re an Inn, ma’am. It is our business. But don’t you worry, our two best rooms are available and at no extra charge.”
Sunny saw the gleam in his eye and surmised that he was a cloistered and frustrated adventurer. He was happy with his lot, though in his youth he had surely longed to cross the next ridge and then the plains she now lived on . . . pushing on to the Rockies where she had once lived and hunted . . . and then to the desert of her birth and formation. He was a tavern keeper. Travelers came through, and he heard the stories. He longed to be Aaron: a man of daring adventure coming home now after several years with a loving, exotic native wife. Oh, the man loved his wife, but he had missed the sharp edge of life that the raw frontier of America had offered. Still he could get the occasional glimpse of it when interesting travelers passed through, and none more interesting than Jóhonaá of the Navajo had ever done that in Crossville, Tennessee. Suddenly Sunny felt so blessed, so blessed to have seen what she had seen and experienced all that she had. And she was only twenty-eight years old. She wasn’t done yet.
In the midafternoon of this particular day in May of 1871, the youngest and newest Navajo family member sat in a rocker with, perhaps most appropriately, a crisp tangy drink of lemonade, . . . the sour fruit being one of life’s metaphors, and all. On the small table sat the large pitcher and several glasses. Naadáá stared down the path at a figure on horseback approaching slowly, with a dog running alongside and a packhorse behind. She had a weapon nearby, Josh’s Colt Navy, so she was not afraid though the whole area around the house and barns was devoid of other human signs. As the rider came ever closer, she looked for David, but he was nowhere to be found. The educated cowhand had designated himself as guardian of the native women on this ranch, whenever he was not off somewhere else. Seemingly, at this moment, everyone was off somewhere else. Well, she was alone. That was that.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Jones went in and set on the bed. Well that was it then. He hadn’t known or expected this, not any of this: not Josh’s heroics and death, not Sunny’s ordeal, not the odyssey of the young woman being accused in the case he was investigating. Sunny had surprised him with her words moments ago, as she had three years ago when they met. But now he got it; he understood: Sunny had suffered her baptism under fire, had suffered dearly. She had seen the elephant. Her people had been pushed around by strangers in their own land, and now she had as well, personally. And she had fought back and won. He knew Sunny would be pushed no more. He knew that he would not leave here with Naadáá, not without a fight, not without someone being hurt severely. Were the probable lies of a slob of a soldier, barely worthy of the uniform, worth that . . . worth good peoples’ lives, worth his own life? John thought to himself, “There will be trouble here, violent trouble, and they will become fugitives.” And in his heart, he knew that the man accusing her was one of those soldiers who barely managed to stay out of trouble enough to remain in the uniform and thus continue to tarnish its meaning.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Within twenty yards of each other and far from their observing friends on the slight hill, it looked as if both horses were slowing a little and that this might be the closest Darling could get. So Aaron started to yell at the lead horse, calling his name. Old Blue finally slowed dramatically and came to a smooth gallop, and Aaron spurred Darlin’ ever so gently to get even with her old friend. Reaching over and grabbing Blue’s reins he brought both horses to a halt. This task completed, he nudged Darlin’ forward and started talking to Naadáá’s mount and rubbing Blue’s head, calling the horse by name. This familiarity was not lost on the young woman.
“You knew Josh?” the frightened girl said.
“He was my best friend in all the world.”
“You are Aaron?”
He nodded, with a slight look of emotion on his face, and she said, “Your friend was brave; he died for me.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
The two wives sat together on their cowboy ponies in silence on a gentle slope. They tensed inside themselves in their stoic way, and Dahiná was aching inside for love of the man from the same race that had beaten her down . . . tried to beat her down. But that was not him, not this good man she loved and who was willing to die to save her sister. Watching intently the women saw the two other cowboys, Jeb and Arlen, ride rapidly toward the impending burst of prairie violence. Almost simultaneously, the report from Aaron’s Henry and the boom of the Dragoon in Dusty’s hand, like cymbals, interrupted the drumming rhythm of the galloping horses. A deadly symphony of the plains was being performed in support of the actors who played their lives out on the widest of stages. A split second afterward, the Comanche let go the first arrow and nocked another. Then he winced backward slightly absorbing the ball from the powerful revolver at its extreme range of close to eighty yards.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
As he hoped against hope that he presented the slightest of targets, he pulled the trigger. And as the rifle fired and he chambered another and fired again, Dusty knew he was a dead man if he missed. Afraid to look, he buried his face in the cold snow and prairie grass and whispered goodbye to Dahiná. She had become all that mattered to him in this life and all he really wanted. He had done this for her. Maybe he could have got off another shot, but he wanted his last moment on this earth to be with her.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Suddenly, reacting instinctively but without abrupt movement, he took her hands . . . took the two, which were together, and held them clasped together in his. It wasn't romance; it was caring. She instinctually tried to withdraw them, but not forcefully; and he retained his hold, but not forcibly . . . and he looked into her tawny face and dark almond eyes, as she looked back, stoically hiding her surprise. It wasn't love . . . not yet anyway . . . it was caring. He felt the small, feminine hands, and he felt the slight roughness of a working woman of the land. It attracted him all the more. It had a certain sex appeal, as if to say, “These are the hands of a real woman, a woman of God’s fertile earth.”
“Miss, uh . . . I mean Dahiná, I'm so sorry . . . what you went through . . . I wish I coulda done somethin' to help. I wish I coulda been there. Then maybe all uh this, all you went through wouldn't uh happened. I didn’t know you then . . . didn’t know yur kind of folks.”
He found himself thinking about this woman as if she were his to protect, wishing he could go back and sweep away all the hell she had been through, wishing he had known her five years ago when the Navajo endured the Long Walk, and that he could have looked into some cavalry officer’s eyes and said, “Not this one, she’s my wife.” Perhaps he had seen it in the other mixed couple: that these pretty native farm women were a perfect match for the right Westerner if I fella could handle it, could handle the different cultural background.
She saw his sincerity, and she wasn't sure if this was romantic. But she was sure that it was caring. That part was sincere. And so she left her hands there in his. There was a tear in her eye that she couldn’t wipe away. He still held her hands. As the single tear started down her cheek, she wanted to cry for it all: for the People, for Naadáá in the mountains but safe now, for all she had seen and gone through, and for Jóhonaá’s suffering heroics. And she wanted to cry for Josh. She had barely known him, but he had died for her sister after all.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
The firing became hot and furious. Moments earlier, when they were just finishing coffee and preparing to saddle horses and hitch teams to the wagons, the attackers had hit them. She thought they were Jicarilla Apache. A later military investigation suggested that they were. Outnumbering the troopers two to one, the natives had less firepower, which included older firearms and bow and arrows. These accomplished mounted warriors were skilled with both types of weaponry, and this was a serious threat. Presumably, it would not end well, but she didn’t know that yet.
Only a half hour before, the little army caravan had awakened to eat and break camp. It was in the early, crisp chill of a gray and rose colored morning along the northern banks of the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. The interrupted beauty and stillness harkened a long day of struggle with death. And although on the open plains, the rapid clatter of gunfire soon filled the air with the acrid smell of gunsmoke, which would dominate the day as well.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
She pulled her two prized possessions from her luggage, as the right bag had been intelligently and logically retrieved from the wagon bed above her. They were odd treasures for a young woman, but these carried so much meaning for her. They were gifts from the man who died just for her, a young man who gave up a whole life that lay ahead of him for her. If he could do that for her, shouldn’t she be willing to do it for herself?
Checking the Colt, she realized it wasn’t loaded, as she had been uncomfortable with the thought of traveling in a bouncing wagon with a loaded revolver. Loads in its cylinder were looser than a cartridge. Loading it would be tedious now, so she grabbed the Spencer and the cloth bag she had put the cartridge box in. The latter contained ten tubes filled with the right number of seven cartridges in each to reload the firearm. Turning on her side while still lying down under the wagon, the girl slid the spring loaded magazine tube out of the carbine style rifle’s wooden stock and emptied a tube full of cartridges into the open hole as she had been taught by Jared and Ahigá. She then replaced the spring loaded magazine that would feed the bullets forward. Grabbing the Blakeslee Cartridge Box and dashing to the firing line, she dropped prone between two troopers. The carbine and the box were a bit heavy for her, but women were workers in those days, native or white; they had to be. Both troopers, on either side of the petite girl, looked briefly with surprise; and one said, “Yu’ll git kilt, Missy.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Naadáá withdrew the tube to check its load. She wanted to start the next attack with a full magazine. This was all new to her and she had lost count of her shots. She had loose cartridges as well as the Blakeslee tubes, and she was going to load by hand in case the carbine wasn’t yet empty. As she lay on her back and worked with it, a soldier grabbed the carbine from her, spilling the cartridges out of the hole, and looking at it said, “This is army. Where’d you git it, take it off a soldier you killed?”
“Return it; it was a gift.”
The girl was not a child, she was twenty-four and had been through many rough moments at the hands of these whites. She fought the childish tears and spoke up, “I am fighting with you. A brave man gave that to me. He died for me.”
“Sure, I’ll bet he did. Bet you had sumthin’ tuh do with thuh dyin’ too.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
The doctor thought that the letter the woman had placed on the table looked like the one he had sent. He wondered where Sunny Jefferson was and why this native woman was privy to his letter and free to talk about it. Finally, after a moment in which both simply sipped the warming drink quietly, he inquired, “Is Mrs. Jefferson going to join us soon? I have been told that she was the most involved in helping Ellen. Word got back home, by way of a cowboy who worked here, a George Dawkins, that she should not have survived if not for this woman who gave of herself to help Ellen heal.”
Realizing now the simple confusion going on in the man’s mind and that she had missed the clues when he walked onto the porch, Sunny replied, “We all helped with her healing, which I think is going well. The rescue involved my husband, our friend, and I; but of course, the initial rescue was achieved by the army four years ago. You see, she has endured multiple enslavements. As far as Sunny Jefferson is concerned, you have already met her. I apologize for not introducing myself. I am tired today and forgot my manners, I just assumed ...”
“. . . that I knew who I was talking to,” the man said with a slight smile and look of surprise.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
He only hoped now that he knew what to say to this girl. What did he know about native women? How did they think? What was important to them? What did they want to hear? In his youth he had thought that girls were so different that they couldn’t comprehend manly things: guns and tools and such things. Then the war taught him. He had found himself far from his native Virginia during the siege of Vicksburg, high on the bluffs above the Mississippi. There, in the caves that the people fled to, he saw women suffer, work, struggle, and die as good as any soldier. And he had a new perspective, a new respect. Well. This native woman had truly suffered. She was tough as well as pretty, much like her heroic cousin. . . . but what words would reach a girl who had been abused by white men and did not seem to be particularly forgiving about it?
from All the Scattered Pieces :
Dahiná stared straight in his eyes and made no further effort to pull away, as he continued, “You an’ me cain’t change it. It’s just history happenin’ . . . . our history, an’ we’re just caught in it. But if you’ll give me the job, I’ll make sure nothin’ more happens to you in all this mess between our people, yurs an’ mine.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
“I ain’t ashamed of you, Darlin’. Yur a proud woman of a good people. I ain’t gonna try to make you a white girl. When I said yur not an Indian to me, I mean it don’t matter, it don’t get in the way. But I think I see what Aaron sees: Yur strong, brave native girls of this land. It ain’t a bad thing ‘cept to the Indian haters, an’ I ain’t one of those. What you are has an appeal tuh me. Everything about you does.”
from All the Scattered Pieces :
A very light snow now dusted the prairie, as each morning for weeks had revealed frost. Riding into the camp the women were unfazed by such conditions, a definite advantage for outdoorsmen like Aaron and Dusty. American frontier women, the delicate in appearance and the more hefty alike, could take what the land had to offer, and perhaps the native ones set the standard by which all the immigrants were judged. It had been and still was their land, after all.
from All the Scattered Pieces :
“Lt. Jones, she will speak with you. I know your law would demand it. But you must know that she would not without her say and mine. She is very frightened. The girl has been through so much, and you know that. Before these events in question, she had been through the trials of a lifetime, and you know that as well. These events were almost unsurvivable for a young woman who was abandoned by all that is decent in this world, by the men of both races who should have observed the chivalry of both our cultures and stood up and been men. She will talk to you, and I will be there.”
“You must know, Jóhonaá, that circumstances of her experience, of her version of if, may require that she go back with me. I’m on your side, her side . . . and on the side of truth and justice.”
“There is seldom justice for natives, lieutenant, and you know that also. Whatever she did was justice, a scared young woman alone like that? Whatever she did, John, was justified.”
From Sangre de Cristo:
"The two you killed would have... would have...they would have taken me too. I do not know for sure. I believe they would have attacked the women and killed any man who tried to stop them, even Jared. It would have been Sunny and me. They might have taken us with them.”
He saw the tears in her eyes and the fear, the trembling lower lip, and he knew how frightened the idea was to her, the idea that she might have become the ‘property’ of very bad men. It was a possible fate that always loomed just out of sight and the mind of frontier women, of any women on lonely stations, and he embraced her. And as she let the tension, held for several days, flow in tears, he knew she was right. She and Sunny, the prettiest ones, would have been ravaged there and kidnapped for continued service to Jake and his friend.
From Sangre de Cristo:
As Israel had said to them, when the two young men left those many months ago, young people matured fast on the American frontier. It had been true since the first European stepped off of a wooden ship into the West Atlantic surf and true for Native American youth ages before that. A hard, rugged, beautiful land that molded and honed you or killed you, America made men and women out of children in a heartbeat.
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
( If there were to be a controversial passage in this story, the one here below might be it. Some might take issue with Aaron's 'color' comment, as if he is objectifying women. But no man in literature is farther ahead of his time with respect to interracial romance and marriage than Aaron, who not only loves Sunny, but respects her and treats her as his equal, long before it was commonly done. He treats her male family members as his equals as well. Here (in the passage below) he is linguistically 'playing' with Dusty a bit to make a point. He wants to minimize the issue of color (race) by insinuating that it is no more of a 'big deal' (in a negative sense) than what flavor of candy one likes or his favorite whiskey. He is insinuating that color should be only a matter of personal preference rather than an issue of looking down on women of other races. If Dusty doesn't want a non-white wife, then that's fine. But Aaron is inferring that those women are still worthy. He suggests as well that Dusty may be surprised in romance and find an unexpected partner. Finally, he points out that the woman has an equal say in the matter too.)
I guess Dusty realized that he was seeing [true] love again, as he had before. Yet, when the New Mexican got up from his woman, the foreman couldn’t resist an inquisitive comment, perhaps more a question that a wise crack. “You’re awful affectionate with that Injun gal,” he stated to Aaron, who was readily prepared for such things.
So, Aaron looked at Dusty straight in the eye and smiled sort of a wry, knowingly serious smile, saying in reply, “She’s the love of my life, and she saved my life. Sunny almost died for me one night . . . willingly took that choice on a very dangerous night. A woman is a woman, Dusty. I guess you just have to decide which color you like, and sometimes the right girl might not be what you were lookin' for. Then you have to hope she likes you.” He slapped the cowboy on the shoulder in a friendly way and hobbled on to whatever chore he was heading to.
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
"I’m glad we came Jóhonaá. It has been hard, and who knows what dangers lay before us? But if you had not ask me to come and meet them on their return from the reservation, Dahiná would have met the worst of fates that any woman can. If we only save her, it has been worth it. If we all end up dead before it’s over, from a Christian duty sort of view, it will still have been worth it"
“Somber thoughts Aaron . . . sobering thoughts. You are saying that it is a victory if we fail and all die?”
“From a Christian view, it is the right thing to have tried, to risk it, to sacrifice, rather than to leave them to their fate. There is a balance. Perhaps if we had children now, our duty would be to them more than your cousins.”
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“But you cannot talk to the dead. I mean other than Christ, who is a god and not dead.”
“Jóhonaá, we talk to the saints every day.”
“But aren’t they little gods?”
“Oh no! We only have one God, Jóhonaá. Everyone only has one God, no matter what they think differently. The world only has one God.”
“Elaina, I see you pray to your Guadalupe, the woman.”
“It is talking, Sunny, conversation. That is a kind of prayer.”
From Rio de los Brazos de Dios:
“‘Tom’ ? You know this man, this enemy, who would kill you both ? ! ”
“We hunt together now, in the mountains, the Sangre de Cristos.”
The other woman shook her head in thought responding finally, “This world is confusing and changing too fast for me, Jóhonaá.”
“I have learned, Dahiná, that we cannot do anything about the changes. The world always changes. We can only give up and be victims, crushed by the evil in the world, or we can struggle to find and live the good.”
From East and West from Texas :
Mr. Dickenson turned and called gently to his wife who was in the kitchen, “Laura Ann, fix these folks our best two rooms, one for the Jefferson couple an’ one for their companions.”
"We don’t want to put you out any, Mr. Dickenson,” offered Sunny. She meant because of her presence.
“Why of course not. We’re an Inn, ma’am. It is our business. But don’t you worry, our two best rooms are available and at no extra charge.”
Sunny saw the gleam in his eye and surmised that he was a cloistered and frustrated adventurer. He was happy with his lot, though in his youth he had surely longed to cross the next ridge and then the plains she now lived on . . . pushing on to the Rockies where she had once lived and hunted . . . and then to the desert of her birth and formation. He was a tavern keeper. Travelers came through, and he heard the stories. He longed to be Aaron: a man of daring adventure coming home now after several years with a loving, exotic native wife. Oh, the man loved his wife, but he had missed the sharp edge of life that the raw frontier of America had offered. Still he could get the occasional glimpse of it when interesting travelers passed through, and none more interesting than Jóhonaá of the Navajo had ever done that in Crossville, Tennessee. Suddenly Sunny felt so blessed, so blessed to have seen what she had seen and experienced all that she had. And she was only twenty-eight years old. She wasn’t done yet.