As the posse filed around a steep, narrow zig in the descending dirt road, Paul and Alan in the lead drew up and gazed down at the valley floor.  A river, seldom more than an  arroyo but this week running with storm-season rain, meandered between brushy banks and where the banks spread a bit before they met cliffs, the local pueblo tribe had fashioned clever terraces on which grew corn and beans.  On one such terrace a group of women were performing a dance.  Alan removed his hat and shook his long hair, stretching.  Dean and Dave joined him at the overlook so he explained to them what he knew of pueblo peoples’ devotions to the Corn Maiden and Grandmother Spider.  Cort and Ellen had dropped back with the carriage, which creaked to a halt as it reached the overlook.  The men all turned to see the three girls shake  stiffness from their limbs.  Ellen looked amused.  Cort tried to concentrate on Alan’s lecture.  But riding behind Ellen for the past two hours had diverted Cort’s attention to the rocking and rolling of Ellen’s hips in her saddle.  How she had wriggled on those leather britches without first wading in corn oil?

Alan, Cort knew, had at least one child by a woman of the local tribe.  An unusual woman whose first husband had apparently been unsatisfactory, and had disappeared by the day Alan met her.  His curiosity had taken him to the pueblo.  He had brought a trunk full of items picked up on his long trip to San Francisco – photographs and little models of ships had delighted and intrigued, as had embroidered silk bags and scarves.

The posse got back on the road.  Alan entertained himself with memories of Jane.  Not her real name, but that was fourteen or fifteen syllables long, and he’d never learned which syllables were important.  “Jane” was short and his favorite girl name.  Just as Jane was short and his favorite girl.  The language of her folk was difficult to learn.  For one thing, there were no possessive pronouns when one referred to a self – not my arm, but arm-Alan – (which made love talk an adventure.  And ladies everywhere wanted love talk.  Even the witchy Jane.)   It seemed that one’s parts and attributes had independent existence...or no, one’s spirit was independent of parts and attributes of one’s physical self, so one’s spirit sort of infused them with life the way her herbs infused water into tea...at least, he guessed that was what she meant.

Yeah, she was some sort of sorceress.  Immediately obvious that she had special status; other females’ expressions were envious, males’ a mix of respect, resentment and some trepidation when dealing with Jane.  In her tiny hogan she had some surprising items, probably gifts exchanged for services rendered.  Among them was a guitar with a broken string.  That was a kind of magic Alan had mastered.  He brought her new strings, next visit, and strung and tuned the guitar properly.  She quickly learned some chords but loved to hear him play.

On his third visit, she had invited him to her bed.

 “Breasts-Jane I see round  bird eggs,” was his first attempt at sweet talk, when after serving him a tangy herbal tea, she had opened her arms and embraced him.

Well, the compliment had pleased her – or else her giggle was amusement at his attempt to speak her tongue.  They’d shed clothes. Her compact coppery curves glowed in firelight.  For several long minutes she had studied the buttonhole placquet of his shirt, fascinated.  Impatient, he had tried again: “Honeypot-Jane is a beautiful stream delta.”  Chuckling, she’d set the shirt aside and applied witchcraft to body-Alan.

Her hands explored him thoroughly.  Played him like a guitar.  She found every sore spot with uncanny precision, soothing ache or strain or bruise with magic fingers.  When she got to his bad knee she groaned before he did.  He reminded himself to ask her how she did this.