Nan Ryan (4 page)

The young senator from Billings walked Diane slowly back to the Howard home, three blocks away. It was quite late. The street was nearly deserted. Crickets croaked in the silence, and somewhere on the river a steamer tug gave a short blast on its whistle.

The couple leisurely strolling down the sidewalk said little. There was really nothing left to say. The senator— his brown eyes sweeping over Diane’s pale, beautiful face, that upswept midnight hair—was in a decidedly somber mood. Diane, not looking at him, was feeling just the opposite.

She was so excited about tomorrow’s departure she could hardly keep her feet on the sidewalk, but she was considerate enough to hide it.

At last they reached the imposing three-story brownstone that was the old Howard mansion. Dreading this final good-bye, eager to have it over with, Diane turned to Clay Dodson as soon as they reached her fanlighted front door.

“Clay, dear Clay,” she said softly, “it’s been a wonderful four years. Thanks for everything.”

“Diane,” came his strangled reply. “Diane …”

Impulsively he grabbed her hand to draw her closer. Diane’s mouth flew open in startled surprise, and a folded piece of paper slipped from her grasp. It fluttered down to the stone steps at their feet. The senator’s eyes followed it. He picked up the fallen paper, unfolded it, and held it to the faint light of an electric streetlamp.

A current Union Pacific train schedule with “Denver, Colorado,” circled in bright blue ink.

“Diane, I wish you’d reconsider leaving—”

Her lips stopped him from further pleading. She kissed him quickly, said good-bye, then hurried eagerly inside to pack for her long trip.

Chapter 3

It was about two o’clock in the afternoon several days later that a long westbound train snaked its way across Colorado’s flat eastern plains. Its journey from Kansas City, Missouri, was nearing an end. Just ahead and looming steadily closer on the near western horizon, the forbidding Front Range of the awesome Rocky Mountains rose to meet a cloudless August sky.

Steaming directly toward those soaring peaks, the train boasted an impressive procession of thirty-four rail cars. On each and every one of those cars, with the exception of the locomotive’s powerful steam engine, prominent gold lettering decorated the shiny black sides. “Colonel Buck Buchannan’s Wild West Show,” the gold letters proudly proclaimed.

At the very front of that long show train, in the big steam engine’s sweltering cab, Boz Whitman, the engineer, jumped down off his stool. Grinning from ear to ear, Boz reached up and gave a firm tug on an overhead rope. The train’s whistle instantly sounded a long, loud blast, startling a small herd of white-faced cattle grazing near the tracks.

The aging engineer laughed, then moved his big wad of chewing tobacco from right cheek to left, and spit a string of brown juice over the side of the train. Boz wore his regulation striped railroad cap with a bright red bandanna, a red shirt, striped overalls, and a pair of goggles to protect his sensitive sixty-two-year-old eyes from cinders as he leaned out the window.

Continuing to laugh, Boz gave the whistle cord another yank, eased off on the throttle, and slammed on the brakes. A great grinding sound was almost deafening. Orange sparks flew from beneath the heavy steel wheels. Finally the train began to slow. Curious show people poked their heads out the windows, wondering why they were stopping when Denver was still a couple of miles west.

When the locomotive had come to a complete stop on the tracks, a pair of loading doors slid open on an animal car at the train’s rear. A wooden ramp was lowered into place. Then a broad-shouldered, powerfully built young man with dark blond hair appeared in the car’s opening.

Billed on the program as the Cherokee Kid, the big suntanned man coaxed a nervous chestnut stallion, heavily packed with weapons and camping gear, down the wooden ramp and off the train.

Following the Cherokee Kid were a pair of the show’s brawny equipment handlers, the Leatherwood brothers, Danny and Davey. The playful, loudmouthed Leatherwoods yanked brutally on their mounts’ reins, unmindful and uncaring of the steel bits punishing the horses’ tender mouths.

On their heels came a short middle-aged cowboy. William “Shorty” Jones was a leathery-faced little man who was so painfully thin he had trouble keeping his faded denim pants up. A silver whistle hung from a chain around Shorty’s neck and a cigarette dangled from his lips. Hitching his breeches with one hand, leading a roan gelding with the other, he squinted through the smoke curling up into his eyes. Never taking the handmade cigarette from his mouth, Shorty warned the thoughtless, overgrown Leatherwood pair, “Take it easy, boys. Take it easy!”

Shorty was the troupe’s animal wrangler and he couldn’t stand to see any kind of animal abused. A very quiet, very shy little man, Shorty was consistently gentle with all God’s creatures—man and beast—and it sorely rankled him to see the bullying Leatherwoods mistreat frightened horses.

Sharing Shorty’s concern, a white-haired old Indian, his bronzed, stony face deeply creased and sun-weathered, led a big paint pony down the ramp after Shorty. He was called Ancient Eyes, and he had once been a powerful subchief of Colorado’s Uncompahgre Utes. Those days had long since passed. Ancient Eyes had seen seventy-five winters come and go. The last twenty had been spent with
Colonel Buck Buchannan’s Wild West Show
. Ancient Eyes realized his value to the Colonel was not so great as it once had been. He was far too old to be the daring fierce warrior, which had been his role in the beginning. Still, he knew that so long as the troubled show kept operating, he had a place with the troupe, with the Colonel, his old and valued friend.

Drawing the long leather reins up over his paint’s lowered head, Ancient Eyes groaned a little as he climbed up into the saddle. Then, seated astride the paint, the old Ute suddenly shuddered involuntarily. Shorty, mounting his roan near Ancient Eyes, saw the tremor go through the Ute’s thick, squat body.

“Chief, you okay?” Shorty spoke in low tones so the others couldn’t hear. “You feeling sick?”

Ancient Eyes shrugged and shook his head no, sending his coarse shoulder-length white hair swinging around his dark, wrinkled face. He looked Shorty in the eye and admitted, “For one split second it was as if’—he lifted a broad hand and gestured toward the clear blue sky—“as if old friends from spirit world were warning me this trip not be good. Something bad happen.”

Shorty neither laughed nor made light of the old chief’s superstitions. He asked gently, “You mean the show’s upcoming engagement in Denver?”

Ancient Eyes again shook his head. “No. Mean this hunt we go on up in Shining Mountains.”

Before Shorty could respond, the loading doors slammed shut behind them, the signal was given, and Boz, the engineer, pumped up the train’s engine again. And the eager Cherokee Kid, standing in the stirrups atop his chestnut stallion, shouted loudly, “What are we waitin’ for? Let’s go get us a big cat!”

He lowered himself into the silver-trimmed saddle, dug his sharp roweled spurs into his mount’s belly, and the responsive chestnut shot away. The train slowly began to pick up speed. The rowdy Leatherwoods galloped after the Cherokee Kid, whooping and hollering. Shorty and Ancient Eyes exchanged looks of disgust, then set out after the younger riders.

In the lead the Cherokee Kid raced across the plain, his horse’s hooves kicking up dust and flinging clumps of grass. He rode directly toward the towering Rockies.

The riders would not be stopping in the city. It was three days until the show’s first scheduled Denver performance. While the troupe spent that time pitching the tents and erecting the grandstands and doing a dress run-through, the five who had left the train early were to spend those days camped in the high country west of Denver. Their mission: to find a mountain lion for the show. Always eager to gain the Colonel’s approval, the Cherokee Kid had promised the old showman that they wouldn’t come down from the hills until they had trapped a prize specimen.

He meant to keep that promise.

So the horsemen thundered swiftly toward the foothills as the much slower show train steamed steadily toward the outskirts of Denver.

*   *   *  

On the platform outside Denver’s newly refurbished Union Depot, Diane Buchannan squinted into the brilliant sunlight on that warm August afternoon. She was both comfortable and striking in a crisp white piqué frock and wide-brimmed straw hat, a violet silk scarf tied around its crown, the ends fluttering in the slight breeze stirring from the north.

On her slender hands were violet cotton gloves, and above her head to shade her face and pale white shoulders from the fierce alpine sun was a dainty silk parasol of the same hue. Diane anxiously looked down the tracks for the train, which was due at the station any minute. She had been looking down those tracks for the past half hour.

That, and pacing restlessly back and forth on the nearly deserted depot platform. She could hardly wait to see the Colonel and Granny Buchannan. Could hardly wait to see the look on the Colonel’s face when he stepped down from the train and found her waiting.

Diane smiled, anticipating the moment.

She hadn’t wired her grandparents that she was meeting them in Denver, hadn’t informed them that she was joining the troupe. It was to be a total surprise and she wasn’t at all certain how the Colonel would take the news. The fiery old man might be downright furious that his upstart granddaughter would deign to think he needed
her
to help bail him out of his financial woes.

The Colonel was and always had been an extremely proud man. His adventurous life had been one of which legends are made. An Arizona native, Buck Buchannan had been an Indian fighter, a scout for the Army, a Civil War soldier with medals of bravery decorating his blue uniform blouse.

Numerous scars of which he was proud were left from his glorious youth. An Apache’s arrow had pierced his left shoulder; a Reb’s bullet had wounded his right hip. His broad chest was scarred from an encounter with a grizzly, and a run-in with a jealous husband had put character into his youthful, perfect face.

At age fifty, as he was breaking a wild mustang for the show, the angered thousand-pound beast fell on his left leg, leaving him with a permanent limp.

The Colonel had fully enjoyed every day of his life. It had all been a lark, and none of it more satisfying than being the owner of the traveling wild west show. And so it was painful for the fearless old scout even to admit that his beloved wild west show was in serious trouble.

The short, loud blast of a train’s whistle made Diane look up and again squint down the tracks. And her heart skipped a beat.

Steaming down those vibrating tracks directly toward her—old Boz, the engineer, leaning out the window and waving his striped cap—was that long, very special train she was waiting for.

Suddenly there were crowds of excited, chattering people swirling around her. She realized—and was delighted by the knowledge—that they, too, had come to meet the troupe’s train. At the sight of all those eager faces, Diane felt a great sense of relief. She had been so afraid that the crowd would be embarrassingly sparse, that only a handful of people would turn out. And that the Colonel would be miserably disappointed.

A smile of pleasure curving her lips, Diane quickly lowered her violet parasol, tucked it under her arm, and hurried toward the train, jostled and pushed by the swelling crowd. She tried, but couldn’t break through the mass of humanity gathered around the very first of the passenger cars, the lead passenger car with big gold letters shining in the sun: “Colonel Buck Buchannan’s Wild West Show.”

At last the train came to a complete stop.

A uniformed conductor opened the car’s door. In his gloved hand he held a set of portable steps, which he placed on the ground directly beneath the door. He straightened, tugged his black jacket back down into place, lifted then lowered his black-billed cap, folded his hands behind him, then nodded to someone unseen on the train.

All eyes were riveted to that train door. Reporters from the
Rocky Mountain News
and the
Denver Post
were poised with pads, pens, and flash cameras, ready to conduct interviews.

Minutes passed. Anticipation grew. Diane grinned.

She knew the Colonel. The crafty old showman knew exactly how to play crowds. Likely as not, he was standing just inside, concealed in shadow, purposely making his audience wait, allowing the excitement to build.

Then, sure enough, after several long minutes, the very first passenger to step down to the platform was a stately figure in velvet-soft buckskins with fringed collar and leg seams, rust suede gauntlets, hand-tooled cowboy boots, a white Stetson, and a butter yellow silk bandanna tied at his throat. Ruddy-cheeked, blue eyes eager, teeth flashing in a broad smile, the Colonel gallantly doffed his Stetson to the cheering, whistling crowd, revealing a full head of long white hair pulled back and secured in a ponytail.

“Colonel!” Diane happily shouted, addressing her grandfather by the title he most favored. “Colonel Buchannan!”