Nan Ryan (26 page)

Late afternoon finally came and with it a spectacular view on the near western horizon. The Wind River Mountains were graced with puffs of white clouds in a pale blue sky and dramatically backlit by the setting summer sun. There were shades of pink and orange and gold, and the westering sun sent a shaft of brilliant white light through a break in the rugged range.

Awed by the vista, Diane stared at the changing shifts of light and shape, dazzled by nature’s splendor. When she turned her attention back to the trail, she saw a scattering of buildings straight ahead.

“Is that the reservation?” she asked, speaking for the first time since Green River.

“No.” Starkeeper’s voice was low, soft. “That’s Lander. We’ll be stopping there. I need to pick up a few things.”

“What about me? Do you plan to tie me—”

“You will come in with me.”

Diane was more than a little surprised when they entered a large store on Lander’s busy Main Street and the portly proprietor came forward to greet Starkeeper warmly. She was further surprised when Starkeeper introduced her, giving the storekeeper her real name. The stocky man smiled, nodded, and shook her hand.

It was clear that the shopowner knew nothing whatsoever of the kidnapping. A tingling of doubt rushed up Diane’s spine. Surely the Colonel had immediately notified the authorities. Or had he?

Diane watched Starkeeper move swiftly about, going up and down the store’s wide aisles, picking out items. She wasn’t sure how to react when he chose a lovely, stylish white summer skirt and blouse from a rack of ladies’ things, came over, held them up to her, and said, “See if these fit.”

Fifteen minutes later Starkeeper said to the storekeeper, “Put everything on my bill, Edgar. I’ll settle up with you in a day or two.” He placed the last of the red beaded leather squares on the wide counter and added, “Anybody comes looking for me, tell them I’ll be waiting at the reservation.”

“I’ll do it,” said the stocky man. “Come back soon, miss.”

They left the Lander store with Diane looking fresh and pretty in the white cotton eyelet skirt and blouse. Starkeeper wore an ice blue collarless pullover shirt, a pair of dark twill trousers, and shiny black boots. New leather saddlebags were draped over his left shoulder.

It was twilight when Starkeeper pulled the stallion up in a flat, wide meadow on the south bank of the Little Wind River. He pointed to the sprawl of tipi villages across the river.

“My home, Beauty. Wind River.”

Diane nodded, staring. “Is all your family here?”

“Yes,” he said flatly. “All the family I have lives here at Wind River.”

Diane felt strangely tense and uneasy now that they had finally reached their destination. What would his people be like? Were they civilized? How would they treat her? Would she be safe among all these Indians?

Those questions danced through her mind as Starkeeper nudged the stallion into motion again. They forded the shallow Little Wind River and rode onto the huge Wind River reservation as dusk descended over the land. Starkeeper neck-reined the stallion past the agency buildings. Outside, several aged Indian men sat puffing on pipes. Starkeeper nodded and waved to the old-timers, then pulled up on the stallion outside a small post store.

“This won’t take a minute,” he said, dismounted, and went inside. Not five minutes later he walked out with two bottles of soda pop hooked between the fingers of his right hand. He opened the new leather saddlebags, carefully dropped the chilled bottles inside, and swung back up onto the horse.

On they rode through three separate large tipi villages. At a widely spread-out fourth village, Starkeeper halted the big stallion outside a tipi located at the very end of a long row. He sat for a moment looking at the old-fashioned tipi made of animal skins, then dismounted.

He turned, plucked Diane from the horse, and said, “My grandmother’s name is Golden Star. She’s the only family I have.” They were standing very close to each other. Diane could see the muscles flex in his jaw before he added, “No matter what you think of me, you will treat Golden Star with all the respect she deserves.”

“Of course, I will,” she replied sharply, annoyed that a savage like him felt it necessary to tell her how to behave.

Starkeeper tossed the new saddlebags over his shoulder, put a hand to the small of Diane’s back, and urged her forward.

Just outside the tipi’s open triangular flap, Starkeeper called out, “Golden Star, are you there? It’s Starkeeper. I’ve come home.”

They waited.

Several long seconds passed before a slight, stooped form appeared in the shadowy tipi opening. A tiny, gaunt, aged Indian woman with silver gray hair pulled into a knot at the base of her head stood looking curiously up at them. She was sunbaked, her skin folded and carved like the arroyos of her native land. Her face was creased deeply with age, and her hands were disfigured by arthritis. She wore a cream-colored dress fashioned of soft, supple suede, its yoke heavily beaded in shades of gray and blue. On her feet were intricately beaded moccasins. From a heavy silver chain around her neck swung a large silver disk.

One arthritic hand outstretched toward the tall dark man smiling down at her; the old woman’s shrewd black eyes immediately lighted with pleasure. She had a child’s merry laugh when she looked up at the beloved face of her only grandson.

“Starkeeper!” she exclaimed with joy, reaching for him, then hesitating. Those shrewd black eyes darted from the tall dark man to the pale, slender woman at his side, then back again. Her wrinkled brow puckered, and she said doubtfully, “How do I know it is you? I don’t see as good as I once did. If you are my grandson, prove it.” Those black eyes snapped challengingly at him.

Diane, watching the exchange, felt her heart flutter wildly when an almost boyish grin softened the harshly handsome features of Starkeeper. He presented his right wrist to the old Indian woman. Puzzled, Diane observed as the woman’s arthritic hands eagerly wrapped themselves around Starkeeper’s wrist and drew it up close to her face. Those arthritic fingers were strong enough to pry apart the wide silver bracelet. Golden Star stared for a split second at the inside of his dark wrist, and then that child’s merry laugh again.

“Grandson!” she exclaimed happily, drew his hand to her lips, and kissed it “Starkeeper, my boy, my boy!”

“Yes, sweetheart,” he said, freeing his hand from her tenacious grasp. His arms went around the spare little woman, and he lifted her from the ground while she laughed delightedly and hugged him.

“Starkeeper, Starkeeper,” she repeated his name over and over. “You grow to be a big, tall man since last I see you.”

He kissed her leathery cheek, and said, “No, Grandmother. You’ve just forgotten. I’ve been this height since I was fifteen years old.” He carefully lowered her to the ground.

Her hands clung to his blue shirt sleeves. “Fifteen? You are quite a bit older than that now, are you not, Starkeeper?”

“A little,” he said gently, that appealing, boyish smile curving his sensual lips. “I’m thirty-five.”

The old woman laughed again and shook her gray head. “If you are that old, child, I must be fifty or more.”

He affectionately cupped the back of her silver head in his hand. “Golden Star, you turned seventy-nine on your birthday last April.”

Her eyes sparkling, Golden Star patted her tall grandson’s chest. “Did I? Years slip away; I lose count.” Those alert black eyes again shifted to Diane. “Starkeeper, who is this beautiful white girl? Have you married then? Is she your bride? Is she with child yet?”

“No, I—he—” Diane began.

“Forgive my bad manners, Grandmother. This is Miss Diane Buchannan. Miss Buchannan, my maternal grandmother, Golden Star.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Golden Star,” said Diane graciously.

“You are very pale, very pretty,” observed Golden Star aloud, and her penetrating gaze moved over Diane’s face to the bare shoulders and arms revealed in the low-cut white eyelet blouse. “You are from Nevada?”

“Nevada? I—”

“No, Grandmother,” Starkeeper interrupted. Quickly changing the subject, he said, “I brought you something. Invite us in, and I’ll give it to you.”

“Coca-Cola?” the little woman asked hopefully, clapping her gnarled hands together excitedly. “Come in, come in!”

Inside, Diane sat with her feet curled to the side while the happy Golden Star thirstily drank the bottle of soda pop her grandson had brought her. Starkeeper politely inquired about his grandmother’s health and asked after his friends on the reservation. Between long swigs of the fizzing Coca-Cola, Golden Star answered his questions. And oddly, to Diane’s way of thinking, asked no questions of him. Which disappointed Diane. She was hoping to learn something of the enigmatic Starkeeper from a grandmother’s typical questioning of her grandson.

Diane glanced around at the small but spotless dwelling. The light from a small fire at the tipi’s center mingled with dancing shadows on the conical walls made of animal hides. She noticed that photographs of a young, handsome Starkeeper decorated one of the wide panels. Furniture was sparse: a chest made of cedar, a square table, a couple of fur pallets, on opposite sides of the tipi. Glancing first at one narrow bed, then the other, Diane couldn’t help wondering about the sleeping arrangements.

She didn’t have to wonder long.

Within an hour of their arrival at Wind River, Starkeeper said, “Grandmother, we have tired you. It is time you go to bed.”

“No!” objected Golden Star, sounding very much like any white grandmother. “Grandson, you just got here. Open me another Coca-Cola, and let’s visit!”

“Listen to me now,” he addressed the little Indian woman in that quiet, monotonic voice, “I am going. Miss Buchannan will be staying here with you. She, too, is tired and needs rest. Show her your best Shoshoni hospitality.” He kissed Golden Star’s wrinkled temple and rose to his feet.

“Going? Where?” Diane quickly stood up to face him. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer, and Diane felt immediately panicky. Did he plan to leave her here on the reservation while he went somewhere else? Anxiously she followed as he turned and ducked out of the tipi. Outside, she grabbed his shirt sleeve and lifted worried, questioning eyes up to his.

“You can’t go. Please—please don’t leave me here.”

“Beauty, you’ll be perfectly safe and comfortable with Golden Star.”

“But … why aren’t you staying? Where are you—”

“I have my own lodge a half mile from here.” He added pointedly, “The Shoshonis are a very moral people. An unmarried woman never stays in the lodge of a man who lives alone. Good night, Beauty. Sleep well.”

Without another word he picked up the stallion’s trailing reins, turned, and led the weary mount down a wide corridor between the long rows of tipis. Her hand at her throat, Diane watched him walk away and was seized with the strong impulse to rush after him, to beg him to take her along.

“Yes, you, too,” she murmured soundlessly. “Sleep well, Beast.”

Feeling somewhat like a frightened small child who’d been left by her parents with a stranger, Diane sighed, turned, and ducked back inside the tipi.

Golden Star proved to be a gracious hostess. She placed a basin of water, a bar of soap, and a clean towel on a low wooden trunk beside one of the fur-covered pallets. She pulled a curtain across the tipi so that Diane would have total privacy for washing up and for sleeping. She did everything she could think of to make Diane’s stay comfortable.

When her tasks were completed, Golden Star laid an arthritic hand on Diane’s arm, smiled, and said, “My grandson is right We are both tired, you and I. We will sleep now, and tomorrow we will get acquainted.”

“Thank you for allowing me to share your home, Golden Star.” Diane replied.

That child’s merry laugh filled the tipi, then: “If you are as spoiled as my handsome grandson has become, then my humble home may be too primitive for your tastes.”

“Oh, no,” lied Diane, “it’s—it’s charming, really.”

The old Indian’s black eyes twinkled, but she was unconvinced. She said, “It will be for only a short time, I imagine.” The flashing eyes turned wistful, and the old woman added, “My tall grandson never stays long at Wind River.”

“He doesn’t? Where does he—”

“Sleep now, pale, pretty one.” The Indian woman raised her arthritic hand. “Talk tomorrow.” She disappeared through the heavy curtains, and moments later Diane could hear her slow, even breathing as Golden Star slumbered.

Sleep didn’t come that easily for Diane.

Stretched out in the darkness, she tossed and turned restlessly on the soft bed of furs. She was uncomfortably warm although she wore only her satin underwear. She sighed with frustration. Outside, there was a definite chill to the night air. She longed to get up, hurry out of the close tipi, and let the rising night winds stroke and cool the annoying heat from her overwarm body.

Miserable, she blamed her dark, erotic captor for this strange, unsettling warmth that kept her awake. Anger mingled with her discomfort as she envisioned him cool and comfortable in his lodge, sleeping soundly.

Starkeeper was not asleep.

Long after midnight had come and gone, he lay awake in the darkness of his silent lodge, smoking one of the thin aromatic cigars he’d bought in Lander. Naked on his soft bed of furs, his long, lean body was covered with a sheen of perspiration despite the chill night breeze that blew in under the rolled-up back panel of his large canvas tipi.

Annoyed, Starkeeper finally gave up, rose, and reached for his trousers. He ducked out of his darkened lodge and moved with long, determined strides toward his destination, his hands tight fists at his sides, his face set in hard lines of determination.

His heart was hammering with exertion when he reached the high rocky bluffs above the Wind River. He stripped and stood naked in the moonlight for a moment, then dived from the high jutting cliffs into the dark, icy waters of the river.

Starkeeper swam back and forth in the frigid waters until his long arms and legs were so tired they tingled and his bare body was so chilled his teeth chattered. And still he swam. Swam until he could no longer lift those tired, trembling arms and he was so cold he shivered inside as well as out.