He was now fifty-two and she was little more than half his age.
She was still straight and slim and strong; she had never run to fat the way Indian women usually did.
He felt his heart begin to swell inside him.
He let the harness drop from his hand and he drew her head down to his chest.
His hand stroked her hair gently.
Suddenly he knew what he had felt deep inside him all these years. He turned her face up to him.
"I love you, Kaneha," he said.
Her eyes were dark and filled with tears.
"I love you, my husband."
And for the first time, he kissed her on the mouth.
4.
IT WAS ABOUT TWO O'CLOCK on a Saturday afternoon three summers later when Max stood on a wagon in the yard back of Olsen's Livery Stable, pitching hay up into the open loft over his head.
He was naked above his buckskin breeches and his body was burnt a coppery black by the blazing sun that hung overhead. The muscles rippled easily in his back as he forked the hay up from the wagon.
The three men came riding into the yard and pulled their horses up near the wagon.
They did not dismount but sat there, looking at him.
Max did not interrupt his work and after a moment, one of them spoke.
"Hey, Injun," he said. "Where is the Sand boy?"
Max threw another forkful into the loft. Then he sank the pitchfork into the hay and looked down at them.
"I'm Max Sand," he said easily, resting on the fork handle.
The men exchanged meaningful looks.
"We're lookin' fer yer pappy," the man who had spoken before said.
Max stared at them without answering.
His blue eyes were dark and unreadable.
"We were over at the stage line but the place was closed. There was a sign there that said your pappy hauled freight."
"That's right," Max said. "But this is Saturday afternoon an' he's gone home."
One of the others pushed forward.
"We got a wagonload of freight we got to get over to Virginia City," he said. "We're in a hurry.
We'd like to talk to him."
Max picked up the pitchfork again. He tossed another forkful of hay into the loft.
"I'll tell him when I get home to-night."
"We cain't wait that long," the first man said. "We want to make the deal and get on out of here tonight.
How do we find your place?"
Max looked at them curiously.
They didn't look like settlers or miners or the usual run of people that had freight for his father to haul.
They looked more like gunmen or drifters, the way they sat there with their guns tied low on their legs, their hats shading their faces.
"I'll be th'ough here in a couple of hours," Max said. "I’ll take you out there."
"I said we was in a hurry, boy.
Your pappy won't like it none if he hears we gave our load to somebody else."
Max shrugged his shoulders.
"Follow the north road out about twenty miles."
Without another word the three turned their horses around and began to ride out of the yard.
Their voices floated back on the lazy breeze.
"Yuh'd think with all the dough ol' Sand's got buried, he'd do better than bein' a squaw man," one of them said.
Max heard the others laugh as he angrily pitched hay up into the loft.
It was Kaneha who heard them first.
Her ears were turned to the road every Saturday afternoon for it was then that Max came home from school.
She went to the door and opened it.
"Three men come," she said, looking out.
Sam got up from the table and walked behind her and looked out.
"Yeah," he said, "I wonder what they want."