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Navajo Sunrise
Elizabeth Lane
Miranda Howell grieved for the Navajo and yearned to educate their children for the future they'd face, not the past they mourned. But her every effort was thwarted by a proud warrior who desired only to keep his people strong–and help Miranda free the passion in her soul.…Ahkeah knew his duty to his People, his daughter, his wife's memory. Yet he was unsure of how to treat an enemy who wore skirts and smelled of lilacs. Miranda Howell had come to the desert full of curiosity and compassion…and a tenderness that was slowly turning the wall that surrounded his heart to dust.
His black eyes flashed in warning,
but when he met her gaze, Miranda was overcome by the strange tenderness she saw there. Something moved inside her, warming, unfolding like the bud of a flower. Her lips parted as she struggled to break the silence with words that would not come.
“I know your heart is good, Miranda Howell,” Ahkeah said, “but your efforts to help the Dine will only make enemies for you—dangerous enemies, on both sides.”
“Including you?”
Time froze as he loomed above her, his eyes smoldering with unspoken secrets. His thin lips were sensually curved, his sharp bronze face much too close to her own.
“Including me?” His husky voice echoed her question as his gaze held her captive. “Make no mistake, bilagaana woman. You and I have been enemies from the first moment we set eyes on each other.”
Acclaim for Elizabeth Lane’s recent books
Bride on the Run
“Enjoyable and satisfying all around, BRIDE ON THE RUN is an excellent Western romance you won’t want to miss!”
—Romance Reviews Today (romrevtoday.com)
Shawnee Bride
“A fascinating, realistic story.”
—Rendezvous
Apache Fire
“Enemies, lovers, raw passion, taut sexual tension, murder and revenge—Indian romance fans are in for a treat with Elizabeth Lane’s sizzling tale of forbidden love that will hook you until the last moment.”
—Romantic Times
#607 HER DEAREST SIN
Gayle Wilson
#609 BRIDE OF THE ISLE
Margo Maguire
#610 CHASE WHEELER’S WOMAN
Charlene Sands
Navajo Sunrise
Elizabeth Lane
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Available from Harlequin Historicals and
ELIZABETH LANE
Wind River #28
Birds of Passage #92
Moonfire #150
MacKenna’s Promise #216
Lydia #302
Apache Fire #436
Shawnee Bride #492
Bride on the Run #546
My Lord Savage #569
Navajo Sunrise #608
Other works include:
Silhouette Romance
Hometown Wedding #1194
The Tycoon and the Townie #1250
Silhouette Special Edition
Wild Wings, Wild Heart #936
Author Note
Navajo culture is so rich and complex that an outsider, trying to describe it in a story, is bound to make mistakes. For any errors contained in this book, I ask the forgiveness of my readers and all those whom my words may have offended.
Navajo Sunrise is set against a background of real historical events, but the story itself is the product of my own imagination. Except for Barboncito, Manuelito, Theodore H. Dodd and General William Tecumseh Sherman, the characters are fictitious and bear no resemblance to actual persons, living or dead.
Elizabeth Lane
Contents
Prologue (#u68a34a05-ca88-517b-ba82-a9a82a8f837b)
Chapter One (#uf4567966-6fe4-58b2-b03a-abdd8ead4670)
Chapter Two (#ua3a007a9-8101-5f22-a9b9-ad39917efcec)
Chapter Three (#u2d2b35ca-6112-5ca0-bc06-a7302fe343e5)
Chapter Four (#u05736e2d-ba9c-5077-b256-e746710e647e)
Chapter Five (#u1ddaa51f-b194-56b3-914d-f76e78178deb)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
New Mexico
March, 1864
Ahkeah stood in the cold moonlight, staring down at the grave the bilagáana soldiers had forbidden him to dig. His hands were raw and bleeding, the nails worn to stubs from scraping away the half-frozen earth. His eyes and throat stung as if he had just walked through a forest fire.
Even now that the grave was finished, the top piled high with stones, he feared it might not be deep enough to protect his wife’s body from the marauding foxes and coyotes that would close in after he was gone. She had died that afternoon, on the fifth day of the long walk from Dinétah to the place the soldiers called Fort Sumner—died in agony, her body swollen with a child that would not have lived even if she’d had the strength to give it birth. The passing soldier who’d fired a bullet into her temple had probably done her a kindness. Even so, it had taken three of Ahkeah’s friends, gripping him from behind, to keep him from leaping on the blue-coat and tearing him apart with his bare hands.
At the time he had wanted the soldier to shoot him as well. He had wanted nothing more than to lie on the icy ground beside the body of his sweet young wife, free from the burdens of grief and shame and from the hunger that gnawed at his vitals. But even then reason had whispered that it was his duty to live. There were people who needed him—his small daughter, Nizhoni, whose name meant beauty, and his mother’s elder sister, who had watched her entire family die on the cliffs at Canyon de Chelly, and had not spoken since. And there were others—so many others who needed his strength and his voice.
The crescent moon that hung above the mesa cast ghostly shadows across the desolation of the high New Mexico desert. Through the darkness, the lonely wail of a coyote drifted to Ahkeah’s ears. The yelping cry was echoed by another, then another. At one time Ahkeah would have welcomed the calls of his wild brothers. Now they only chilled his blood, because he knew that the sharp-nosed creatures would be gathering around the bodies of the Diné who had fallen along the trail.
He had begun scraping out the grave as soon as he knew his wife was dead; but the soldiers, jabbing him with the points of their bayonets, had forced him to leave her and move on with the rest of his people. Only after the dismal procession had made camp for the night and settled into sleep was he able to slip past the sentries and race back along the trail to where she lay.
Now the grave was finished. The remains of his beloved were as secure as he could make them. But how many others lay unburied along this trail of tears and misery? How many bones would lie scattered on the sand because there was no one to dig the graves?
Turning in the darkness, he faced the direction of the four sacred mountains that marked the boundaries of Dinétah, the homeland of his people. There, the great headman Manuelito and the last of his followers were still holding out against the overwhelming forces of Kit Carson and his regulars. Ahkeah longed to be with them in the mountains, to fight and die as a free man.
But Manuelito himself, his handsome face creased with weariness, had asked him to join the trek to the new reservation at Bosque Redondo, the place the Diné called Hwéeldi—the fort. “Our people will need you, Ahkeah,” he had said. “You grew up as a slave among the bilagáana, and you speak as they do. Go now, and be the voice of the Diné in this evil time. Go and speak for us all.”
Speak for us all.
Swallowing his bitterness, Ahkeah turned away from the sacred mountains and started back the way he had come. What words could he speak that were not hateful and angry? At one time the Diné had been the lords of the earth, their herds, fields and orchards the envy of all the land. He himself had owned more cattle and horses than a man could count in half a day, and his beautiful wife had worn robes of soft wool from her own sheep and necklaces of the finest silver. Then the bilagáana had come, wanting their land, and everything had changed.
Be the voice of our people, Manuelito had told him. But the Diné needed more than a voice. They needed food in their bellies and clothes on their backs. They needed dignity, hope and pride—things the bilagáana had taken away and flung far beyond their reach.
Perhaps forever.
Ahkeah moved with care as he neared the sleeping camp, slipping from shadow to shadow in the moonlit darkness. Even at this hour the sentries would be on patrol. If they caught him outside the boundary…
His pulse lurched as a flock of wood doves exploded, squawking, from the spidery branches of a creosote bush. Had the startled birds alerted the sentries? Ahkeah froze where he stood, ears straining, hearing nothing but the sound of departing wings.
What if the soldiers had already missed him? What if they were waiting for him in camp, knowing he would return to his precious daughter? Some of the blue-coats were just following orders. But there were vicious brutes among them, men who would relish the chance to make an example of any Diné who broke the rules—especially one who spoke to them as a man, in their own language.
The wind peppered Ahkeah’s face with blowing sand as he crept along the fringe of the camp. The huddled forms of his people lay scattered on the cold ground where they had fallen. Here and there, where the soldiers slumbered in their warm blankets, the embers of dying campfires glowed in the night.
He had left Nizhoni with her old aunt in the lee of a sheltering rock, beyond the supply wagon. If he could manage to cross that last small distance without being seen…
But it was already too late. Ahkeah saw four soldiers, armed with clubs, step out from behind the wagon, and he knew they had been waiting for him. Glancing to one side, he saw others appear out of the shadows. Their pale eyes reflected glints of firelight as they encircled him, cutting off all hope of escape.
Cursing and whooping, they fell on him like a pack of hungry wolves.
Chapter One
Bosque Redondo, New Mexico
March, 1868
Miranda Howell hunched wearily on the seat of the U.S. Army buckboard, her slim body bundled into the folds of her thick woolen cape. The cold spring wind stung her cheeks and peppered her face with alkali dust. Two weeks from tomorrow would be Easter Sunday, but nothing about this desolate sweep of country made her feel like celebrating.
“I didn’t realize New Mexico would be so cold,” she murmured, her eyes scanning the treeless horizon. “It’ll be dark soon. How much longer before we reach the fort?”
“Not long. ’Bout an hour, I reckon.” The pimple-cheeked young corporal was one of nine soldiers who’d drawn the duty of escorting the major’s daughter the 175-mile distance from Santa Fe to Fort Sumner. The other eight rode guard on the wagon, four strung out in front and four bringing up the rear. Their rifles lay across their saddles, loaded and ready. For coyotes, they’d told her, exchanging furtive winks.
In the early hours of the journey, Miranda had made an effort to smile and be pleasant with them. But after four long days of travel she was too tired to be sociable. Her eyes stared across the desert landscape, which glowed like brimstone in the light of the setting sun. A lone crow screeched harshly as it passed overhead, then flapped down behind a clump of rocks, where, judging from the odor, some ill-fated creature lay dead.
What could have possessed any sane group of men to build a fort in such a dreary place? Miranda wondered. For that matter, what was she doing here? She could have chosen to spend the holiday with Phillip’s parents on Cape Cod. Their seashore estate would be beautiful this time of year, and they had made it clear that, as their future daughter-in-law, she would be more than welcome. Why had she chosen to spend the next two weeks a thousand miles from nowhere, with the rough and taciturn father she scarcely knew?
“We ought to be seein’ Navajos afore long,” the young driver said. “They got their diggins’ all over the flat.”
