"A fiddle player on this ranch? He would starve." Elias "Then we will feed him," Elias said, kissing her temple. Their desire for each other had not faded, but it had changed. It was no longer the desperate, hungry thing it had been in the beginning.
It was protective. It was reverent. When they lay together in the dark, Elias touched her as if she were made of holy glass. He traced the stretch marks on her skin with awe. He worshipped the life she was carrying, and in doing so, he worshipped her.
Naya insisted on teaching him. She knew that the child would be born into a world that would try to strip him of his mother's heritage, and she refused to let that happen. "Say it." She would command gently as they sat by the fire. "Gawa."
"Gawa." Elias repeated, stumbling over the guttural sound. "It means home." She explained. "But not just a house.
It means the place where the fire burns, the place where you are safe." "Gawa," Elias said again, looking around the cabin. "And this." She said, taking his hand. "Shilna ash."
"Shilna ash." He tried. "It means my partner, the one I walk with." Elias squeezed her hand. "Shilna ash."
"And for the baby?" He asked. Naya smiled, a sad, sweet smile. "Me?" "It means child, but also I ni, thunder, because he was born from the storm."
Elias used the words. He whispered them to her when she was tired. He spoke them to the belly. He wove them into the fabric of their life, small threads of Apache gold in the gray wool of their days. The baby came on a Tuesday night in November, riding in on the back of a storm that finally broke the drought.
It started with a drop in pressure that made Elias's old injuries ache. Then came the clouds, heavy and slate gray, rolling over the mountains. By sunset, the rain was falling, not a sprinkle, but a deluge. It hammered against the roof, drowning out the sound of the wind. Naya groaned as she was clearing the supper dishes.
She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles turning white. Elias was at her side in an instant. "Is it time?" "It is time," she gasped. Elias ran into the storm to saddle the horse.