acquiescence. But there was one small victory yet to win, one last thing she could still do for poor old Sally, and this time, she vowed, no one was going to stop her.
Lifting her chin in defiance, she began unbuttoning the front of her long, hooded cloak. A birthday gift from Phillip’s family, the cloak had been woven in France from the finest blue merino wool and had likely cost a small fortune. Even now, the lush fabric caressed her fingers as she worked the buttons through their satin-bound holes. The wind was numbing in its chill. But she would be at the fort within the hour, Miranda reminded herself. And she could always buy another cloak, just as warm if not as elegant.
She waited for the soldiers to protest, but none of them spoke as she released the last button and slid the cloak off one shoulder. By now they probably thought she was as crazy as old Sally. Well, let them think whatever they wished. She would do the right thing, the moral thing, and the whole contemptuous lot of them could go to blazes.
The icy wind struck, penetrating to Miranda’s bones as the cloak slipped free of her body. She gasped with the sudden shock of it, then forcefully brought her reaction under control. This was no time to show weakness, she lectured herself. If old Sally could endure the cold, so could she.
Clenching her jaw against the urge to shiver, she turned back to the old woman, opened the cloak and wrapped it around the ravaged body. The garment was far too large for the tiny Navajo crone. Its elegant folds pooled around her where she squatted on her bony haunches, the lining already gathering dust. In no time at all the beautiful cloak would be filthy. But at least Sally would be warm. Heaven willing, she would survive the cold night with its blowing wind and snow, and many more nights to come.
“And just what do you think you’re doing?”
The voice was not loud, but its deep resonance, coming from behind and above her, made Miranda gasp. She turned so sharply that she lost her balance and stumbled to one side, wrenching her ankle. She caught herself against a jutting boulder, just managing to avoid an all-out sprawl.
“I asked you what you thought you were doing.” The voice was laced with a fury so cold that it made the raw wind seem as gentle as a southern breeze. Still clinging to the rock, Miranda looked up to see a tall, mounted figure, starkly outlined against a sky that had deepened to the color of flowing blood.
The man was not a soldier—that much was clear at once. He was hatless and swathed in a long, fringed poncho that swirled around him in the stinging wind. Only when his horse snorted and turned, the new angle flooding his features with crimson light, did Miranda see the high, jutting cheekbones, the obsidian eyes, the long raven hair, bound with string into a knot at the back of his head. Only then did she realize he was Navajo.
And for all his angry tone, he had just spoken to her in very passable English.
“This woman was hungry and freezing!” She shouted above the wind in response to his question. “I did what any decent soul would do. I gave her something to eat and something to keep her warm.”
“And tomorrow she’ll be out here begging again!” he snapped. “She and a half dozen others who’ve seen what you gave her. Begging is not the way of my people! We may be poor, but we take care of our own!”
“So I see!” Miranda pushed herself fully erect, seething with indignation. “Is this how you take care of your helpless old people? By sending them out in the winter to starve or freeze?”
“My mother’s sister is not well. She wandered away from camp and I came looking for her.” He seemed somewhat taken aback by Miranda’s outburst, but only for an instant. Then his chiseled face darkened as he swung off his horse, seized the cloak and jerked it none too gently from around the old woman’s frail body.
“No!” Now it was Miranda’s turn to be indignant. “I gave her that cloak to save her life! You’ve no right to take it from her!”
The man’s thin upper lip curled in a grimace of contempt, showing a flash of white, even teeth. “You,” he snarled, dangling the garment from his long, brown fingers. “Teachers, missionaries, dogooders of every damned kind! You’re as bad as the army—no, worse! They only kill our bodies! You kill our spirits, our traditions, our pride!” The wind caught the cloak, swirling it high just before he flung it into the dust at Miranda’s feet.
“Pride?” She made no move to bend and pick it up, even though the cold was cutting like a knife through the thin serge of her suit jacket. “Will pride keep an old woman from freezing? Will pride keep a young child with an empty belly from crying in the night?”
For the space of a long, tense breath he glared at her. Then, without a word, he reached up and worked the opening of his own thick woolen poncho over his head. Bending down from his imposing six-foot height, he wrapped the poncho around the old woman’s shivering body. When he spoke to her in Navajo his voice was low, almost melodious. Miranda found herself straining her ears to catch the odd, birdlike tones of a language she was hearing for the first time. But he spoke only a few phrases. Then he lifted his head and glared at her with hate-filled eyes.
“We take care of our own,” he said in an icy voice, “and we would rather steal than beg. We don’t need your kind here. Get in that wagon and go back to where you came from, bilagáana woman! If you want to help us, write to your president in Washington and tell him to let the Diné go home to their own land!”
Miranda’s attention had been fixed on the old woman and the tall Navajo. She did not realize, until the first one spoke, that two of the outriders had dismounted and come up behind her.
“I’d watch my mouth if I was you, Ahkeah,” one of the men drawled. “This here ain’t no Bible-thumpin’ missionary lady. This is the major’s own daughter, come to pay her pa a visit.”
The revelation seemed to make no difference to the man the soldier had called Ahkeah. He stood his ground, the wind whipping his faded cotton tunic against his lean, hard body. Only by chance did Miranda notice that his hand had moved to rest protectively on old Sally’s humped shoulders.
“I say this uppity Injun ought to apologize to Miz Howell here and now.” The second outrider gripped his rifle, his swaggering stance challenging the unarmed Navajo to defy him. “Go ahead, Ahkeah, we’re all waitin’.”
Tension hung dark and leaden on the wintry air. In the wagon, the corporal slipped his rifle bolt into fully cocked position. The faint click splintered the icy silence, but no one else moved. Even the mules seemed to be watching, waiting, their white breath steaming from their distended nostrils.
Miranda had forgotten the cold wind that knifed through her clothing. She had almost forgotten to breathe. Her eyes were on Ahkeah. He had stepped in front of the old woman, shielding her with his body as he faced the soldiers. Under different circumstances his size and strength would have been more than a match for any two of them. But here and now the odds were nine against one, and all the cavalrymen were armed.
The Navajo’s flinty eyes narrowed like a puma’s as he measured his enemies. The man was proud, but no fool, Miranda surmised. He would choose his battles, and this was neither the time nor the place to take a stand. His throat rippled lightly as he swallowed, then spoke.
“My apologies, Miss Howell.” His voice dripped contempt. “In the future, kindly save your charity for those who appreciate it. Please enjoy your visit to this fair country.”
Without another word he turned a defiant back on the soldiers, and, shepherding the old woman before him, strode toward his emaciated horse.
“Not so fast!” the first outrider snapped. “If that was an apology, I’m the king of France, you smart-mouthed redskin bastard. Come on back here and say it like you mean it, or somebody’s gonna be pickin’ lead out of your backside!”
Ahkeah turned only when the second man cocked his rifle. His eyes glittered like black ice in the twilight. “I’m unarmed and here under treaty,” he said, his cold, flat voice implying that any soldier’s firing on a defenseless Navajo would raise a cry that would be heard all the way to Washington.
“Piss