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Authors: Written in the Stars

Nan Ryan

BOOK: Nan Ryan
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Written in the Stars

Nan Ryan

For:

Kathleen Patricia Ryan Du Quette–Laguna Beach

Kimberiy Ann Ryan Morris–Costa Mesa

Sally Jernigan Ryan Allen–Phoenix

The Strong Western Contingent

The Prophet said:

“And lo, the beast looked upon the face of Beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.”

A
N OLD
A
RABIAN
P
ROVERB

Contents

Prologue

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Part Two

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Part Three

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

A Biography of Nan Ryan

Prologue

The Nevada Territory July 1860

The summer night was warm and clear. A gentle breeze stirred from out of the east. The hour was late. Bright stars winked in the heavens, and a full white moon shone down on Nevada’s soaring Sun Mountain. At the mountain’s southern base, nestled in its giant shadow, a small, newly built frame house sat alone on the banks of the Carson River.

Inside the darkened house a young prospector and his wife were asleep in their canopied bed. The tired man lay sprawled on his back, a long arm flung up above his dark head. He snored softly. His young, exhausted wife lay on her side, facing away from her husband, the fingers of her pale right hand loosely curled over the mattress’s edge, as if poised expectantly, ready to reach out instantly at the slightest sound. Directly beside the bed, less than two feet from its slumbering mother, a week-old infant slept in a hand-carved crib of pungent cedar.

All was quiet and peaceful in the small darkened house and in the vast moon-splashed basin. But as the young parents and their firstborn slept, an unseen danger was silently, steadily stalking them.

Around a fluted slope of the towering mountain, lightning flashed less than a mile from the new frame house, and a brittle twig suddenly snapped and burst into flame. In seconds the rain-starved plain was ablaze. Aided by the rising night wind, the deadly fire swiftly spread. The blazing inferno raced directly toward the small frame house, a hungry beast greedily devouring everything in its path.

As the fire moved ever closer, the pristine white dwelling, which had dozed so serenely in the shadows, now stood out in bold relief against Sun Mountain, its shape and size distinct, its hue an eerie orange. The hungry beast soon licked at the house’s pane glass windows, its hot breath upon the wooden walls, flinging handfuls of bright red sparks upon its cedar roof, angrily demanding entrance.

Inside, the family slept on, oblivious of the uninvited guest pounding on the door. A deadly guest determined to get in, to suck the very breaths from their bodies, to burn the flesh from their bones.

High above the house, on the timbered slopes of the towering Sun Mountain, a small band of Shoshoni Indians—the nomads of the American desert—rode out into a clearing and spotted the blaze below. Their solemn leader, the powerful Chief Red Fox, abruptly pulled up on his prancing mustang. The horse snorted and danced in place. Chief Red Fox’s black eyes narrowed with horror as he caught sight of the small frame house about to be enveloped in the leaping, lethal flames.

The chief swiftly raised his right hand, then brought it down and dug his moccasined heels into his big mustang’s belly. The horse shot forward down the mountain. Following their chief’s signal, six Shoshoni braves, mounted astride fleet-footed horses, raced obediently after him.

Leaping deep ravines, evading huge boulders, the chief and his warriors plunged down the steep, treacherous mountainside. Within minutes they had reached the house on the bank of the river, but already the frame building was engulfed in flames. The heat was fierce. The roar of the blaze, the breaking of glass, and the creaking of burning timber were almost deafening.

Chief Red Fox, patting his terrified mount’s sleek neck to calm him, kneed the reluctant mustang closer to the fire. His black eyes staring, his bare chest constricting, Chief Red Fox felt drawn to the blaze, as if a powerful voice from the spirit world were calling to him. Telling him to go inside.

The half dozen braves shook their dark heads and remained mounted. While the worried warriors shouted to their chief to turn back, he moved closer. So close he could feel the intense heat blistering his face, making his eyes sting. Still, he did not turn away. Could not turn away.

Then he heard it.

Faint at first, barely audible above the fire’s roar. The chief turned his head, listened, his big body taut with tension. He heard it again. A baby’s cry.

Chief Red Fox leaped from his horse and dashed into the burning building. As if guided by an unseen force, his long, powerful legs carried him through the dense, choking smoke straight to the bedroom. Flames danced up the walls and made a funeral pyre of the big canopied bed.

One quick glance, and the chief knew it was too late for the man and woman. But beside the burning bed an infant squalled its outrage from a crib yet untouched by the flames. Chief Red Fox snatched the baby from its crib, grabbed up the bedding, threw the blanket over the screaming infant, and crossed the smoke-filled room.

Cradling the infant to his chest, with one big hand resting protectively on its blanketed tiny head, Chief Red Fox crashed through a window and dropped agilely to the ground, the scent of his own singed hair heavy in his nostrils.

A shout of relief went up from his braves as the chief sprinted to safety. Behind him the house’s roof collapsed with a mighty rumble, and the flames shot higher in the night sky. A shower of orange sparks rained down on the chief’s bare bronzed back, burning the smooth flesh in a dozen places.

But he never felt it.

He wouldn’t realize that he had been burned until hours later. For now the thirty-five-year-old Shoshoni chief was totally focused on the precious human cargo he carried beneath the covering white blanket.

When he reached the cool safety of the rushing Carson River, the chief dropped to his knees beside the water. Gently he placed the crying baby on the bank and swept the smothering covers away from its face and body.

For the first time since his great personal tragedy Chief Red Fox smiled.

Screaming at the top of its lungs, its face beet red, the tiny baby squirmed, its fists flailing, legs kicking. Not one dark hair on its head had been touched by the deadly fire.

As any new father might behave, the fierce, feared Shoshoni chieftain patted awkwardly at the baby’s jerking tiny stomach and murmured unintelligible words.

The baby cried on.

The chief smiled on. Then he whistled for his mustang and picked up the screaming infant. He rose and stood in the moonlight beside the river, jostling the child in his arms, bouncing the unhappy baby up and down and gurgling foolishly.

While his warriors watched from a respectful distance, the chief, speaking in his own native tongue, told the baby “not to be afraid, I will not harm you. Nor will I ever allow anyone else to harm you.”

“There is”—the chief spoke in a low, soft voice against the baby’s downy head—“someone who will love you nearly as much as your own mother loved you.”

His faithful mustang mount nuzzled the chief’s bare shoulder to announce his ready presence. The chief lifted his head and nodded. Then, with the crying baby held in the crook of his arm, the chief picked up the trailing reins and swung up onto the mustang’s bare back.

The horse pricked up his ears when his master said, “Now take us home, Nightwind.”

And so it was done.

The mustang whinnied, shook his great head up and down, and turned away from the Carson River. He went at once into a comfortable, ground-eating lope, heading straight toward the looming Sun Mountain. In seconds man, baby, and horse disappeared into the trees blanketing the southern slopes. The Shoshoni braves followed.

Chief Red Fox was eager to be home. His heart was almost free of the pain that had weighed so heavily on him of late. He was sure it was all the work of Appe, creator of the universe. Appe had caused him to come with his braves on this night ride. He hadn’t wanted to. They had insisted, had almost dragged him away.

BOOK: Nan Ryan
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