MM02 - Until Morning Comes by Peggy Webb Page B

erotic Apache poetry?”
    “Be serious, Colter. You know what I'm talking about. Confide in me.”
    He gazed down at her, but he wasn't seeing or hearing a lively blond woman; he was looking inward, seeing and hearing a dying old man, his face as white as the pillow he lay upon, his voice raspy. Promise me, Gray Wolf. Promise me....
    He shook his head to rid himself of the voice.
    “It's a journey of the soul, Jo. I have to make it alone.”
    She felt the cold winds of doubt and fear blow over her. In the desert their love had been perfect. Isolated from the real world they had laughed and loved and lived in almost perfect understanding and harmony. But here in these distant and forbidding mountains, Colter was pulling away from her, disappearing into a silence that she couldn't penetrate, an isolation she couldn't understand.
    “Go play your game, Colter.” She pulled away from him and whistled to her dog.
    “Jo...” Colter lifted his hand in the gesture that was so familiar, the entreaty that she had never ignored, never until today.
    “Don't say it. Don't say come, because I'm too weak to refuse you.”
    He hesitated, torn between wanting to stay and clear up the misunderstanding with her and wanting to go and enter once more into the games of his people.
    “I'll go... for now.” He traced the curve of her lips with one finger. “Wait for me, Jo. Please.” Then he turned and walked away.
    Jo Beth watched until he had disappeared around the corner of the village's only gas station, an aging frame building that tilted heavily to one side and looked as if a stiff wind would topple it over. Then she searched the crowd for Colter's mother.
    Little Deer saw her oldest son heading for the ball field where hoop and pole would be played, leaving behind the fair-skinned woman he'd brought to the White Mountains. At first she was filled with glee, and then she saw the dejected slump of the woman's shoulders.
    She closed her eyes and pretended not to see, but she remembered the camera and how much she liked having her picture made. More than that, she remembered how fiercely her son had protected the woman.
    She turned to her friend, Bessie Running Water. “Gray Wolf has left his friend alone.”
    “You should be glad. Didn't you tell me she is a used woman?”
    Little Deer hesitated. She had heard the noises in the night—Gray Wolf coming to fetch the woman. She didn't know why she had ever told such a thing to Bessie Running Water, the biggest mouth in the village. It was one thing to talk about a used woman, but it was another thing to talk about her son.
    “My son is perfect. He would never fool with a used woman.”
    “You told me she was used.”
    “You need a hearing aid, Bessie Running Water. I told you she was a news woman. She makes pictures for magazines.”
    “She makes pictures?” Bessie plumped up her hair and sucked in her fat stomach. “Do you think she might make a picture of me?”
    “No. I'm the one who poses for her. Go play the stave game. I must go to the woman Gray Wolf goes about with.”
    Little Deer left the table where lunch was being prepared and went to Jo Beth.
    “I saw you standing alone.”
    Jo Beth smiled. “I was looking for you.”
    “Did you want to make another picture? You could drive us home to get the camera.”
    “Do you mind if we wait until tonight? I'd like to stay here and wait for Colter. When we go home to dress for the dance, I’ll get my camera.”
    “Then come with me. I will show you the village.”
    Jo Beth and Little Deer walked down the cracked sidewalks toward her youngest son's general store. On the way she pointed out the coffee shop, the gas station, and the dentist's office, giving a running commentary on each. She was a good historian, and Jo Beth enjoyed the tour.
    “What is that building over there, Mrs. Gray?”
    “The beauty shop. Bessie Running Water's daughter runs it. It took us ten years to convince her to share her beauty