fading red line was visible on her wrists. Blinking, she could no longer locate it.
“Dan,” she said loudly, seeing that he was still in a stupor.
Dan shook himself awake with such vigor that his beaming smile was almost lost amid the motion of his head. “Wow. That was amazing.” He huffed for a few breaths. “You are bound to me now in Navajo blood and in Navajo spirit. Now only the binding of our Navajo bodies remains.” Dan spoke so quickly that the words ran together. Taking Becka by her left hand, he pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get in the truck.” As Dan pulled her along, Becka painted her face the way she’d painted Dan’s with the remaining paint on her fingers. Instantly she felt her entire body relax.
“Dan, wait.” He was just pulling the truck door open when he turned and saw her face. He laughed.
“You couldn’t resist, could you?” The paint was already disappearing into her skin as his had. Soon it would only be visible in just the right light. He reached for her face but stopped before his fingers touched her. Panic over what was to come next flooded his usually cool features; he’d been thinking about this night for almost four years. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Is it a ring? We are getting married,” said Becka in a shy but playful way, her eyebrows rising hopefully.
“Better! It’s something none of the other brothers gave their intended wives.”
“I love surprises,” she said, gazing at the sky. “It’s so dark tonight because of the rain clouds. Can you see the thunderheads? Wouldn’t it be breathtaking if they all breathed fire at once? You could see all the way to Heaven.”
Becka had hardly spoken the words when the black clouds above released a sinuous bolt of lightening, which crackled silently across the amphitheater’s rocky top. The shock of the initial bolt abating, Becka and Dan looked deep into each other’s souls. An enormous drop of rain hit Dan square between the eyes, and left them both laughing as they hightailed into the truck.
CHAPTER 2
Dan turned on the dome light.
“Is it time for my surprise?” asked Becka, stretching to her full length across the cabin.
“Be patient,” he said, smiling as he reached for the glove box. Dan wasn’t really sure when he’d decided to show Becka the item he’d been entrusted with. He hoped the thing wasn’t going to embarrass him, whatever it was. More than that, he hoped sharing it would help him forget to be afraid. He just wanted to slow things down a little and everything would be fine, then he would put the item back and no one would be the wiser.
Hearing him fumble with the latch, Becka pinched his Achilles heel hard.
“Ouch,” Dan grumbled. Past his shoulder she could see he held something biggish, wrapped in black felt.
“What is it?” she asked, reaching for Dan’s retracting hand.
“Hold on, hold on,” Dan said, half-heartedly resisting Becka’s attempts to snatch his prize. “You’re not even supposed to see it. It’s totally against the rules, just like painting your face. I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to see it. No one would tell me.”
Becka pulled back the layers of thick felt one at a time until the item was revealed. A long moment passed while Becka digested what she saw. Dan watched expectantly. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but breaking the brothers’ simple, clear directive – “Do not show her the item” – was beginning to pick at him.
“My God, Dan, she’s exquisite.” Becka’s tone was awe-struck. “She is…Earth Mother come to life. She is the eagle who sits on this nest. We are her children.” The sacred item was a female statuette, a foot-tall, shiny green miniature carved from indefinable stone. Her features were amazingly lifelike, and clearly those of a young Indian woman. She was naked.
Becka gave Dan his favorite grin as she pulled the Indian girl out of his reach, kissing her in little pecks as she pretended to run her hands though the Indian’s long, green hair. “That’s what I am going to do to you,” she said, half-whispering to the statuette even as she addressed Dan. “Work it out…be hard, make you taste me…”
Dan wasn’t sure how to respond, though he concluded that Becka’s enthusiasm couldn’t be a bad thing as it totally turned him on, his nerves all but forgotten. Becka settled back into the blankets, staring silently into the Indian’s green eyes. She breathed deeply over and over again. After two eternity-drenched minutes, Dan was beginning to feel like a pariah in his own backseat. Regretting his decision to share, he reached for the idol, certain it should return to the security of the glove box. Something in Becka’s expression stopped him.
It was plain to see, even to an eighteen-year-old boy, that Becka was no longer herself. It was like she had been possessed. Her eyes were fixed on the idol’s. Her face had hardened, an unnatural palsy altering her pallor. The blue of her eyes radiated as her pupils contracted.
Dan snapped his fingers loudly. Becka didn’t blink, her features phasing out as if she were underwater. “Becka? Becka!” Dan yelled, shaking her. For his effort, a low, rumbling chant left Becka’s lips and drifted upward like smoke from an extinguished candle. “Becka! You’re freaking me the fuck out,” Dan nearly screamed.
The chant turned from a mournful hum into actual words, Becka’s voice sweet and filled with echoes. To Dan, it sounded like she sang from the shores of another world. He froze next to her and listened, unaware of the panicked tear making its way down his cheek.
“Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds and whose breath gave life to all, hear me. I come to you as one of your children; I am weak, small, and in need of your wisdom and strength. Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunsets. Make my hands honor the things you have made, and my ears sharp so I may hear your voice. Make me wise, so that I may understand what you have taught my people and the lessons hidden in each leaf and rock. I ask for wisdom and strength, not to be superior to my brothers, but in order to fight my greatest enemy: myself. Make me ever ready to come before you with clean hands and a straight eye, so as life fades like light from the setting sun, my spirit may return to you without shame. Walk in beauty.”
With the word “beauty” still on her lips, Becka blinked hard, her face and body phasing back to the present. Her eyes registered a look of astonishment as they rotated to stare at Dan. He looked dumbfounded.
“What the hell was that?” Dan asked, his lips burning as he chewed them, unprepared to believe she’d been in a trance. Becka said nothing. “Were you singing? Is that from church?” Dan gesticulated wildly as he struggled to grasp the moment. “Was it about death? I mean, it sounded like it was about death. Whose death?”
“I don’t know,” Becka finally muttered, carefully, regretfully, placing the idol on Dan’s lap. She hoped having the idol again would help him feel better. He was upset in a way she was having trouble comprehending. When Dan made no move to lift her, to take her back, to carefully wrap her and put her away, Becka was compelled to speak. “She’s so angelic. Can you see? If you look closely, I’d swear her eyes are sparkling.”
Dan’s focused on the green Indian girl. She was a thing, crafted millennia earlier, whose antiquity had escaped everyone who’d handled it…or rather, almost everyone. As he reached for it, he wondered why his fingertips felt so warm. He wondered how many times the Indian girl had watched a boy and girl in love. As his hand
