Desert Hearts (31 page)

And then Michael shifted his body just a little, not withdrawing, but giving himself enough room to stroke her and she knew that she would not go hungry tonight, as she had so many nights with Thomas and never even known it. His fingers were like his cock, circling slowly and then quickly. But he was still in her. She pushed herself back into the mattress and up and up as though he were pushing her higher and higher. Which he was, until she was so high that all she could do was come down, down, into his arms, flowing over him as he had flowed into her.

She heard sounds she had never heard before and realized they were her own cries, involuntary and wordless. She clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder, dying of pleasure and embarrassment. Dear God, whatever would he say, whatever would he think of her? Her husband dead only a few months and here she was totally abandoned, opening her deepest desire to Michael when she had never done it with Thomas. She started to cry, from the release of it and the confusion of it, very softly, trying to stop, but unable.

“There, there,” murmured Michael.

Elizabeth wanted to say…what? Thank you, I’m sorry, I’ll never do that again, I’ve died from pleasure, I am so ashamed…. But all that came out was “Oh, Thomas….”

She could feel Michael pull back, although it was not physical distance that came between them. He took a deep breath and said, “Sure and ye would miss him now, when ye’re feeling what ye must have only felt with him.”

She wanted to say, No, that isn’t it at all, I never felt like this with Thomas. I was just thinking how sad it was we never had this. And how good it is that you and I have this, especially since we don’t have love. But he didn’t give her a chance. He pulled her close and they spooned together, his chin resting on the top of her head. But for all that you couldn’t have fit a feather between them, Elizabeth knew that the distance between them was greater than when they had begun to make love.

The next morning, Michael awoke first. He was lying on his back and Elizabeth was on his chest, her head cradled by his right hand. He stroked her hair gently and felt himself getting hard.

Día
, what was he to do? She had been so wonderfully responsive last night and then that crying out for her dead husband. He couldn’t put her through that again. Or himself, he added honestly. He had taken her in love, but he couldn’t tell her that. Someday, perhaps, but not now, when she was so newly widowed. And he didn’t want her remembering Woolcott, God forgive him. He wanted her thinking only of himself.

And yerself better relax, boyo, because ye won’t be doin’ anything this morning. Or any time soon, unless she wants it too.

It took a few minutes, but by the time Elizabeth stirred, he was limp again. Or almost.

She moved her fingers slowly through the black curly hair on his chest and when she lifted her head to look at him, he could see her expression shift from puzzled wonder to recognition. He wondered how long it would take for her to get used to waking up to him and not Thomas Woolcott.

“Good morning,
muirneach
,” he whispered.

“Good morning, Michael. Have you been awake long?”

“Oh, I’ve been lying here thinking for a few minutes. I’m wondering something, Elizabeth.”

“Yes?”

“I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be better to wait a wee while before….” Hm, he didn’t have the words for it. “Em, before being like husband and wife as we were last night. I’m thinking maybe when you are ready and not missing Thomas so much, ye can let me know.” He paused and then pushed on. “What I’m tryin’ to say is I won’t be bothering ye until ye want me to.”

“I see, Michael.” She hesitated. “Perhaps you are right.” Oh God, she was so ashamed of herself. She had been afraid he would think her completely abandoned, but it was even worse. He thought her lost in memories of her husband’s lovemaking. And here she was, her hand resting on his flat belly, wanting to slide it down to his thigh and then up again, wanting to feel him lift under her fingers. What if she said, I want you now? He would think her utterly unfeeling, which was what she must be. How could she be wanting him so when Thomas was only gone a short time?

Michael had never been so grateful for reveille in his life when the bugle sounded a minute later.

“Don’t get up, then, Elizabeth. I’ll get meself a cup of coffee.”

“No, I always got up for Thomas,” she said without thinking and then stopped. “I am sorry, Michael,” she whispered.

“Don’t be, Elizabeth. ‘Tis only natural for you to be remembering. We’ll work out our own ways, but for today, why don’t you rest a little longer.”

He was dressed and gone quickly and Elizabeth lay there until she heard him clatter down the front steps. Then she pulled her wrapper around her and went into the kitchen to let Orion in. At least that was a familiar ritual, something constant in her life, she thought as the dog gave her his usual ecstatic greeting.

“You can’t fool me, dog. You just want to be fed,” she told him as she did every morning. She put down a bowl of scraps and then warmed a biscuit for herself.

After breakfast, she didn’t take the time to wash the dishes, for it was the morning of the Grays’ departure and she wanted to help Mrs. Gray with last-minute packing and have some time to say a private good-bye.

“I hope your first night in your new home was a…comfortable one.” The colonel’s wife gave Elizabeth a teasing glance and the younger woman blushed and then busied herself with folding kid gloves and silk scarves into tissue paper.

“I know I shouldn’t be meddling, Elizabeth, but I care about you and I like Sergeant Burke. You did not feel physically repulsed by him, I hope?”

Elizabeth gave a short laugh. “On the contrary,” she admitted. “He is a very attractive man and that is the problem.”

“Surely not a problem, my dear?”

“Not in the…emotion of the moment, no…but I felt so disloyal to Thomas….”

“Of course you would,” said Mrs. Gray as she continued to place the tissue-wrapped packets in the top drawer of her trunk. “Thomas has only been gone a short time and if you experienced certain feelings with Sergeant Burke you had had with Thomas, well, then….”

“But I didn’t.”

“Yet you found him attractive?” said Mrs. Gray in a puzzled voice.

“No, no, I mean I didn’t with Thomas. Feel the same.” Elizabeth was twisting a pair of gloves into a knot and Mrs. Gray gently removed them, sat down on the bed, and pulled Elizabeth down next to her.

“So you desire your new husband in a way you didn’t Thomas Woolcott?”

Elizabeth nodded. “I feel so ashamed.”

“Nonsense, my dear. It is natural that Sergeant Burke should awaken these feelings in you.”

“But I loved Thomas.”

“Of course you did. And sometimes, when we are lucky, love and desire go hand in hand. The colonel and I have been lucky that way. But it is not disloyal to Thomas to feel differently about Michael Burke.”

“But Thomas was so loving to me, so good, and I couldn’t give him this,” protested Elizabeth.

Mrs. Gray patted her hands. “Yes, he took care of you very well, my dear. And you were grateful and gave him your love in return. And were an affectionate wife, I am sure?”

Elizabeth nodded and whispered, “But that was all I was.”

“Well, perhaps that was all Thomas Woolcott wanted. And perhaps,” she added gently, “he did not know how to awaken your desire.”

“He was a wonderful husband,” Elizabeth started to say, and then remembered the nights that Thomas would roll over and leave her there, wanting something. Something Michael had known exactly how to give her.

“It is hard when someone has gone, to remember what he was lacking. Thomas may not have been looking for a passionate response from you, but I would think Sergeant Burke is very different.”

“I thought so last night, but this morning he told me that he would not…uh, initiate anything. He didn’t want to rush me, and he feared he had last night because I cried for Thomas afterward.”

“A sweet, chivalrous response, my dear,” said Mrs. Gray with a smile. “A bit foolish, but then he is young,” she added, getting up. “So you will wait, of course. I can see that. Well, perhaps it will give you both time to get to know one another better.”

Elizabeth stood up and Mrs. Gray’s tone became more serious. “But you’d better not wait too long, Elizabeth. The new commandant, Colonel Chavez, is a New Mexican. He and Christopher Carson are not going to give the Navajo much time. Your husband will soon be very busy and quite possibly in danger. Things are different in the army, Elizabeth, you know that. In civilian life, you would have had a year of mourning and perhaps a year of courting. But you are not a civilian, and you don’t have that kind of time,” she said, closing her trunk. “There, I’m ready.”

“Oh, Janet, I don’t know what I’ll do without you,” Elizabeth cried.

The colonel’s wife opened her arms, “I will miss you too, dear. You have been like a daughter to me.”

When they separated, the colonel’s wife dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief and then gently patted Elizabeth’s cheeks dry. “I’ve been crying off and on all morning, so this is all wet and almost useless.” She laughed! “I hate leaving,” she added fiercely. “Charles has worked so hard and Carleton is out to ruin everything.”

“What do you think will happen?”

“They want this country, my dear, and. they are going to get it. In all my time with the army, I have yet to see a tribe keep their land. The Navajo will end up at Bosque Redondo.”

All of a sudden, Elizabeth’s troubles seemed quite small. What were her problems compared with what was happening around her? She had not been able to imagine going back East when Thomas died, for the red rock country had claimed her. And she was only a newcomer to this land. What must it feel like to be Antonio or Serena? How could they even think of leaving?

“Do you think some will try to stay?”

Mrs. Gray nodded. “I am sure Manuelito will never give in.”

“He’ll fight?”

“And be overcome. I am glad, at least, that if we couldn’t stop it, we won’t be a part of it.”

* * * *

The post band played “Garry Owen” softly as the colonel bade good-bye to his troops and officers, and then a more rousing rendition of the “The Girl I Left Behind Me” as he and his wife rode through the gates.

“Sure, and they are happy enough to use an Irish tune and Irish men for their killing, aren’t they, Mahoney.”

“Mahoney, sir,” said the boy with a grin.

“But ‘No Irish need apply’ when a man is looking for work,” Michael continued bitterly.

Mahoney looked over at Michael curiously. He had never heard his sergeant be anything but spit-and-polish army.

“Are you disappointed that the colonel has been transferred. Sergeant Burke?”

“He is a man who acts humanely, whatever his orders, Corporal. And he is a career soldier. Our new commanding officer, Colonel Chavez, is only from the New Mexico Volunteers and so are the troops he is bringing. All any of them is interested in is removing the Navajo from their land.”

“But this is all United States land now, Sergeant,” said Mahoney. It was a statement, not an argument.

“And isn’t that just what the English were saying when they came to Ireland, lad? Pushing us all off the land we had lived on for centuries. When a people have been in a place for so long, when the very dirt and air and water of it are in your cells, then you belong to the land, not the land to you.” Michael looked over at Mahoney, who looked like he was trying to understand. “Ah, you were born in the great city of New York and you don’t know what I am talking about, do ye? All I know, lad,” said Michael, more calmly, “is I have been doing this too long.”

* * * *

It was his first night coming home to Elizabeth after a day of regular duty and only his second in a real house and not the barracks. The lamps were lit, the stove was hot, and Elizabeth had prepared a delicious meal, if the smells coming from the kitchen were to be trusted.

“ ‘Tis lovely,” said Michael as he scraped his boots and hung up his coat.

“Is that you, Michael?” Elizabeth called from the kitchen.

He almost answered “Yes, my love” but caught himself just in time. “ ‘Tis indeed.”

Elizabeth emerged carrying a bowl of stew and a plate of homemade bread.

“Let me just wash up, Elizabeth,” he said, thinking how lovely she looked, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the kitchen stove.

When he came back, hands clean and hair slicked back, she was sitting at the table.

“How was your day, Elizabeth,” he asked politely as he sat down.

“I helped Mrs. Gray finish her packing, Michael. I will miss her,” she added, her eyes filling up.

“She was a great friend to you, I know. And we will all miss the two of them.”

“I think underneath her sadness, she was almost glad to be leaving, Michael. She said if they couldn’t prevent what will happen, they are happy not to be part of it.”

“I think the colonel and his lady are surely the lucky ones. The Ute and the New Mexicans have been trying to get rid of the Navajo for years and now Carleton is going to give them their chance.”

“And there is no hope of making one more attempt at a peaceful settlement?”

“They don’t want a peaceful settlement, Elizabeth, if they ever did.”

“I have always loved the army, Michael. It has been my home for eight years. The only home I have had as a grown woman. I never questioned much before now. I saw Thomas’s job as keeping the peace. But Serena and Antonio are my friends…our friends,” she added shyly. “How can we stand by and let them be driven off their land?”

“I don’t like it any better than you do, Elizabeth.”

“And the army is even more of a home to you, Michael.”

“It has given me a job I am good at, and home and friends, I’ve been lucky up until now. I’ve been in skirmishes, Elizabeth, but I have not had to be part of a full-scale war before.”

“Will there be much fighting?” she asked, suddenly remembering Mrs. Gray’s words to her.

“In a fight, Elizabeth, you forget your moral qualms, if ye ever had any,” he said with a sad smile. “You get caught up in it, you can’t do anything but react to whatever is coming at you. I’d hate to be fighting Manuelito and his people, but ‘tis what I’m trained to do. What I fear,
muirneach
, is that this will be a very different kind of war. If Carson is as smart as they say he is, he won’t be doin’ what all the others have done: seeking a fight and wondering where all the Indians disappeared to. He’ll go after their fields and stock, if he’s anything like they say he is. He’ll starve them out, is what I am afraid of.”