Elizabeth Lowell - Only You

«My God,» Eve breathed.

She traced the date with fingers that trembled, thinking of the man who had left his mark centuries before. She wondered if he had been as thirsty as they were when they found the first pool, and if he had been struck by the uncanny beauty of the final pool veiled in thousands of shimmering rainbows.

There were other marks on the rock wall, figures that owed nothing to European traditions of art or history. Some of the drawings were easy enough to puzzle out — stick deer with spreading antlers, arrowheads, a ripple that probably meant water or river. Other figures were more enigmatic. Faces that were not human, figures that wore ghostly robes, eyes that had been open for thousands of years.

The shaman had worn such drawings. Perhaps other men had once. But now no men built stone cities and came to drink from the pool. No women came to dip gourds and water jars in the cool silence of the canyon. No children wet small fingers and made fleeting drawings on the rock walls.

Yet there was an odd peace within the crystal laughter of the pool. Orphaned or not, saloon girl or saint, friend or friendless, Eve knew she was part of the vast rainbow of life that stretched from the unknowable past to the unforeseen future. Hands like hers had created engimas on rock walls countless centuries ago. Minds like hers would try to solve the riddles countless years ahead.

Reno bent down, found a cobble the size of his palm, and began hammering carefully on the rock wall. With each strike of stone against stone, the thin black veneer that time and water had left upon the stone chipped away, revealing the lighter stone beneath.

Within a surprisingly short time, he had picked out the date and the name Matthew Moran.

«Is your name really Evening Star?» Reno asked without turning around.

«My name is Evelyn,» she said in a husky voice. «Evelyn Starr Johnson.»

Then she blinked back tears, for she was no longer the only one alive who knew her real name.

EVE floated on her back, watching the sapphire sky overhead and the inky shadows that shifted slowly against sheer rock walls. The ripples made by falling water rocked her gently. From time to time she steadied herself with a hand on the smooth stone or on the cool bottom of the pool a few feet beneath her body.

Suspended in time as well as water, turning as slowly as the day, Eve knew she should go back to camp, but she wasn’t ready to leave the pool’s peace just yet. She wasn’t ready to face the smoldering green of Reno’s eyes as he watched her with a hunger that was almost tangible.

Eve wondered what Reno saw in her own eyes when he turned suddenly and found her watching him. She was afraid he saw a reflection of her own hunger for him. She wanted to know again the surprising, sweet fire that came when he held her close.

Yet she wanted more than Reno’s passion. She wanted his laughter and his dreams, his silences and his hopes. She wanted his trust and his respect and his children. She wanted everything with him that a man and a woman could share: joy and sorrow, hope and heartache, passion and peace, all of life ahead of them like an undiscovered country.

And most of all, Eve wanted Reno’s love.

He wanted her body. And nothing more.

I’ll keep the ring and the pearls until I find a woman who loves me more than she loves her own comfort.

And while I’m at it, I’ll find a ship made of stone, a dry rain, and a light that casts no shadows.

Eve closed her eyes on a wave of unhappiness. Yet no matter how tightly she shut her eyes against the truth, it was there behind her eyelids, haunting her.

There was one way to convince Reno that he was wrong about her. One way to convince him that she wasn’t a cheater and conniver, a strumpet in a red dress. One way.

Give herself to him, paying off a bet that never should have been made and betting her future once more at the same time.

Then he’ll see that I didn’t lie about my innocence, that I keep my word, that I am worthy of his trust. Then he’ll look at me with more than lust. He’ll want more from me than the use of my body until we find the mine.

Won’t he?

There was no answer to that question except to bet herself once more. A chill coursed through Eve at the immensity of the risk she would be taking.

What if he takes everything I have to give and gives nothing in return but his own body?

That was the danger, the risk, and the probable outcome. Part of Eve knew it with the cool logic of an orphan who had learned to survive whatever life threw her way.

And part of Eve had always believed there was more to life than simple survival. Part of her believed in miracles such as laughter in the face of pain, the joy of a baby discovering raindrops, and a love great enough to overcome distrust.

She’s a card cheat and a thief, and she set me up to die.

Unhappily Eve finished her bath, dried herself, put on the shirt Reno had lent her, and walked back to camp.

Reno’s eyes burned with hunger when he looked at her.

«I left the soap there for you,» Eve said. «And the towel.»

He nodded and walked past her. She watched until he disappeared into the slot before she went to the clothesline that had been rigged between two pinons.

Eve turned Don Lyon’s black twill pants over on the clothesline. The white ruffled shirt wasn’t quite dry. She shook it out and draped it over the rope again. She turned Reno’s dark pants over as well, envying him the luxury of a change of clothing. Since her flour-sack dress had fallen apart, she had nothing but Don Lyon’s second-best gambling clothes to wear, for she had buried him in his best.

There’s always the red dress.

A grimace went over Eve’s face at the thought. She would never again wear that dress in front of Reno. She would rather go naked.

Then she wondered if Reno was naked now, bathing as she had bathed in the rainbow pool. The thought was unsettling.

Eve’s restless glance fell on the journals lying side by side on Reno’s bedroll. Eve grabbed them and sat cross-legged, tucking the long shirttails between her knees. Beyond the narrow slot that held the pool, the sun was still a hot, slanting presence across the late afternoon sky. The clear, pouring light made the journals easy to read.

The spare prose of Caleb’s father said much about the centuries the Indians had spent under Spanish rule…

Bones poking up through the desert pavement. Femur and part of a pelvis. Looks to be a child. Female. Scraps of leather nearby.

Bent Finger says the bones belong to an Indian slave. Only the children could fit into the dog holes the Spaniards called mines.

Spanish sign on the rock. Crosses and initials.

Bent Finger says the scattered stones were once a vista, a kind of small mission. Tiny copper bell found with the child’s bones. It was cast, not hammered.

Spanish didn’t call them slaves. Slavery was immoral. So they called it the Encomienda. The savages owed the Spanish for Christian teaching. Pay off in coin or pay off in labor.

War was immoral, too. So the King had a Requerimiento, a requirement that had to be read before fighting commenced. It told the savages that anyone who fought God’s soldiers placed himself beyond the pale.

Upshot of the Requerimiento was any Indian who fought the Spanish was declared a slave and sent to the mines. Since Spanish was gibberish to the Indians, they didn’t understand the warning.

Not that it mattered. Indians would have fought anyway.

Spanish priests ran the mines. Slave labor. Men lasted about two years. Women and children a lot less.

Hell on Earth in the name of God.

Coolness condensed along Eve’s spine as she thought of the ruins she had seen back up the valley. The descendants of the people who had built those many-storied dwellings weren’t dumb animals to be enslaved by other men.

But they had been enslaved, and no war had been waged for the sake of their freedom. They had lived, endured brutal labor, died young, and been buried like rubbish in unmarked graves.

Eve felt a kinship with the forgotten dead. More than once in the past few days, she and Reno had come close to dying alone and unnoticed, their graves no more than whatever piece of earth they fell upon when they drew their last breath. The lesson of mortality was as old as man’s expulsion from Eden. Life was brief. Death was eternal.

Eve wanted more from life than she had known so far. She wanted something she couldn’t name.

Yet even without a name, Eve knew that it awaited her within Reno’s arms.

When Reno came back to camp, Eve was dressed in camisole, pantalets, and one of his dark shirts. She was also curled up on his bedroll, asleep. Slowly he took the journal from her relaxed fingers and set it aside. She stirred sleepily and looked up at him with eyes that reflected sunlight and darkness.

«Move over, gata. I’d like a nap, too.»

When Reno stretched out beside Eve, she smiled.

«You smell like lilacs,» she murmured. «I like it.»

«You should. It’s your soap.»

«You shaved,» she said, touching a place on Reno’s neck where he had nicked himself. «I wouldn’t have cut you. Why didn’t you ask me?»

«I get tired of demanding things from you,» he said simply.

Eve’s eyes opened and she looked at Reno, hearing all that he wasn’t saying.

«I like shaving you,» she whispered.

«What about kissing me? Do you like that, too?»

The green of Reno’s eyes was hot enough to burn, yet he made no move toward Eve.

«Yes,» she whispered. «I like that, too.»

Slowly Reno bent and put his mouth over Eve’s. She made a soft sound of revelation and remembrance in one. The warm, hungry questing of his tongue made her shiver with pleasure. For long, sweet seconds she relearned the velvet rhythms of penetration and retreat, knew once more the textures of his deep kiss, felt again the heat of him spreading through her in wave after wave of pleasure.

Reno cupped Eve’s face in his hands, letting the warmth of her skin radiate through him in a shimmering rush that was hotter and sweeter each time he felt it. Her warmth, her taste, her soft mouth opening beneath his, set fire to him.

«Gata,» he whispered. «You burn me.»

Her only answer was a broken cry and a shiver of pleasure as his teeth scored lightly over her neck.

The passionate cry was a razor fraying the cords of Reno’s restraint. He wanted to strip Eve’s few clothes away and bury himself in the sultry softness he knew waited for him within her body.

But even more than that, he needed to bring her to the point where she wanted him at least as much as he wanted her. He needed her crying and clawing and demanding that he take her. He needed her to forget all her cold feminine calculations and come to him without restraint, a golden fire burning him to the marrow of his bones.

Then he would burn her in return, leaving a mark on her that she would never forget. No matter how many men she had known before, she would never take another without remembering what it had been to be Reno’s lover.

He didn’t ask himself why it should matter that Eve never forget him. He simply accepted it as he had the uncanny currents of the Spanish needles, a mystery that didn’t have to be understood to be used.

Slowly Reno lowered his mouth over Eve’s once more, letting the rising currents of passion swirl back and forth between them, joining them in a quest that ultimately could have only one end.

Eve’s fingers slid deeply into Reno’s thick, cool hair, seeking the elemental warmth beneath. Her nails drew lightly over his scalp. The low sound he made was both reward and goad. She flexed her fingers again, and again felt the response that rippled through his muscular body.

«Such sweet little claws,» Reno said.

He bit Eve’s lower lip with careful restraint. She made a sound of surprise and pleasure. Smiling, he released her lip so slowly she could feel the tiny serrations of his teeth caressing the smooth, sensitive skin.

She leaned closer as he withdrew, for she wanted more of the gentle torment. He laughed softly and turned aside, denying her his mouth. When she tried to follow him, he held her face still between his hands. Her lips were parted, glistening with sunlight and desire, trembling lightly.

«Reno?»

He made a questioning sound that was rather like a purr of satisfaction.