Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“I love you, Mr. Chatto,” she said, glad for a few minutes of privacy before everyone else made it to the tent. “Do we have to stay long?”
“Yes, darlin’, we do, but when we leave here, we’re only going as far as Tucumcari for the night. I’ve already planned for us to stop in a park there and then leave in the morning for Panama City Beach, Florida. The pictures show sand as white as sugar and the water is emerald green.”
“We’ve got two weeks before we have to be back at the reservation, right?” she asked.
He set her down on the ground and tipped up her chin for another long, passionate kiss.
“And we’re going to enjoy each”—another kiss—“and every day of that time.” A third kiss.
“But for now we’re going to wait until everyone is here so I can have my first dance with you as my wife.
And, honey, I’m glad your parents showed up. ”
“I am, too, but while we were saying our vows, I figured out that the important thing about today and the rest of our lives is that ‘us’ comes before family or friends,” she whispered.
“Beautiful and smart both. I’m a lucky man,” Dakota said.
“It’s called wedding fever,” Dakota leaned over toward Walker and said in a low voice.
“Not for me,” Walker said without taking his eyes off Tina, who was talking with Gracie on the other side of the tent. “I’ve been in love with that woman since I was a teenager.”
“Will Gracie and I get back in time for the wedding?” Dakota teased.
“Of course,” Walker answered. “She says she had a crush on me back then, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need time to see if her own feelings run as deep as mine. There’s been a lot of water under the proverbial bridge since those days.”
Dakota nodded toward Tina and Gracie, who were coming toward the table. “Don’t wait too long.”
“I don’t intend to.” Walker stood up and met Tina in the middle of the dance floor. “May I have this dance?”
Tina wrapped both arms around his neck and pressed her body against his as the DJ played “From This Moment On.” “You may have this one and all the rest. It’s been a beautiful wedding, hasn’t it?”
“Do you want one just like this?” Walker asked.
“No, I do not,” she answered with conviction.
“What do you want?”
“To get married under the Tomorrow Tree with only a few of my closest friends there,” she told him. “After that, I might christen the tree with a new name.”
“And that would be?” he asked.
“The Memory Tree, because that’s what I called my little tree all these years.
It was all the happy memories that brought me back to see it again and to figure out where I belong.
It’s where I found you to love, a family to support me, and a home, plus peace in my heart.
That sounds like a Miss America speech, doesn’t it? ”
“You didn’t mention world peace,” Walker chuckled.
She leaned back and locked eyes with him. “I can’t work on that just yet, not when I’m trying to get a handle on how to convince you . . .” She paused when the music stopped, and Dakota and Gracie came to the middle of the dance floor.
“We have been married in Gracie’s way, and now that it is sundown, we will have our traditional Navajo wedding.
The bride is not to be seen by the sun or sunlight, so she covers her head with a blanket.
” He took a small woven blanket from his grandmother and wrapped it over Gracie’s head.
“You all may follow us to the hogan, where we will be married in the Navajo way.”
Walker laced Tina’s fingers in his and led her outside. “Traditionally, the groom and his family would ride to the bride’s family home on horseback just before sunset. The groom’s saddle would be removed from the horse and placed inside the bride’s house.”
“And then?” she asked when Dakota mounted a beautiful horse.
“The wedding basket, or ts’aa’, will hold cornmeal for the bride and groom to take bites of to get the blessing.
All of that will be done in the hogan with only his family and hers.
We will stand outside”—he pulled a small bottle of bubbles from his shirt pocket—“and send them on their honeymoon with these.”
Elana looked like she might refuse to go into the hogan—a mud hut behind the church—but John took her by the arm and led her inside.
“What’s going on in there?” Tina asked.
“The basket will be facing east, a sacred direction, as that is where the sun rises and therefore a direction from which no harm or evil can come. The singer, known as a hataa?i, will have blessing prayers, and the couple will wash each other’s hands before eating, symbolizing purity—a cleansing.”
“How long will they be in there?” Tina asked. “It’s got to be sweltering hot in that thing.”
“Not much longer, and surprisingly enough, it’s fairly cool in the hogan. I hear the hataa?i talking. That means he is telling Dakota and Gracie about their marital duties and how they should behave toward each other as well as each other’s families.”
“When you get married, do you want to do that portion?” Tina asked.
“Yes, but . . .” Walker paused when the bride and groom and their immediate families left the hogan.
Dakota had removed the blanket from around Gracie’s head and wrapped it around his shoulders. He took her hand in his, and the two of them headed for the trailer in a cloud of bubbles. He opened the passenger door of his truck, picked her up, and set her inside.
“I like the blanket idea, too.”
“If I do this at the end of my wedding, I will use the same blanket my mother did when she married my father in this way,” Walker said.
“That would be so sweet,” Tina said.
Walker almost dropped down on one knee right there and asked Tina to marry him. But he didn’t have a ring, and the proposal should be a private thing, not in a church parking lot with more than a hundred people blowing bubbles at the truck and trailer as Dakota drove away.