Nan Ryan

by Written in the Stars

  The old woman nodded. “So you have, so you have,” she said thoughtfully. Her eyebrows lifted questioningly, and she touched her grandson’s knee. “Perhaps this one is different?”

  “No,” he assured her with a bitter edge to his voice, “this pale beauty is exactly like all the others.”

  By noontime on that first day at the Wind River Reservation, Diane was aware that Starkeeper was purposely avoiding her. She knew as well that it was more for his sake than for hers. He had no real regard for her; that wasn’t the reason he stayed away. It had nothing to do with honor and respect and a wish to keep her safe, even from himself.

  No.

  It was because of the fierce, undeniable physical attraction that existed between them. Diane reasoned that ironically, had the handsome, sensual Starkeeper been less attracted to her, more than likely he would have casually made love to her by now. Such a deduction might be a somewhat conceited view, but it was a correct one nonetheless. The reason she could see it so clearly was that she felt much the same way about him. The mutual attraction was so potent, so powerful it was unsafe for them to be alone together.

  So Diane was relieved that Starkeeper apparently meant to stay away from her. At least she told herself she was relieved. But after she had been at Wind River for two full days without once seeing that tall, commanding lithe frame approaching her, or looking into those beautiful black eyes, or hearing that deep, intriguing voice, Diane realized, regretfully, that she missed him.

  Her attempts at trying not to think about him were hopeless since Golden Star spoke of little else. From the talkative old woman Diane learned that Starkeeper had gone away to the Carlisle Indian School in far-off Pennsylvania when he was just thirteen. It was there that he had learned to speak English.

  “My grandson is trilingual, you know,” Golden Star told Diane, beaming with pride. “He speaks his native Shoshoni, English, and Spanish, all fluently. He’s a very intelligent man.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “And a patient one!” That appealing child’s merry laugh erupted from Golden Star’s lips. “He taught me to speak English, and my head”—she touched her skull with an arthritic forefinger—“is very hard. I do not learn quickly. But never once did Starkeeper raise his voice,” Golden Star mused, sighing. “Such a sweet young boy. Such a dear—”

  As if she had been questioned, Golden Star told Diane that Starkeeper’s father had been a mighty warrior chief. Chief Red Fox’s Shoshoni tribe had lived in the Nevada Territory. “The chief had come one summer for a visit with his Wind River kinfolks.” Golden Star paused, and her black eyes disappeared into folds of wrinkled flesh as she smiled in fond remembrance. “The chief was thirty years old and very strong and very handsome, and he had no wife. So all the winsome young Wind River maidens buzzed around him like bees after sweet pollen in the springtime.” Her eyes opened, and she looked at Diane. “But Chief Red Fox saw the shy, beautiful sixteen-year-old Daughter-of-the-Stars—my precious only child—and fell immediately in love with her. The two of them were married within a week and Chief Red Fox took my daughter back to his Nevada village.”

  All traces of her smile disappeared as Golden Star went on to say that when Starkeeper was only three years old, Chief Red Fox was ambushed and killed by the hated Arapahos. The grieving Daughter-of-the-Stars brought her young son home to Wind River. Only twenty-two when she lost her husband, Daughter-of-the-Stars never married again. When Starkeeper was a happy, healthy boy of ten, Daughter-of-the-Stars fell ill with a fever and died.

  Diane listened intently, fascinated, longing to solve some of the dark mystery that was Starkeeper. She was not surprised when Golden Star told her that her grandson had made such high marks at Carlisle he was accepted into the Colorado School of Mines when he was only sixteen and that he had earned a degree in geology by the time he turned twenty.

  “My grandson is very bright,” Golden Star again pointed out, “a brilliant man.”

  Diane knew instinctively that the way to learn the most about the enigmatic Starkeeper was to allow his grandmother to tell—without being prodded—those things about him which she wanted to reveal. So, with effort, Diane was patient when the aged woman lapsed into silence or lost her train of thought or skipped back and forth from present to past, leaving her waiting anxiously for an explanation that never came.

  But she couldn’t keep from asking one question. “Golden Star, when Starkeeper and I arrived at Wind River, you asked if I was from Nevada. Why would you think that?”

  Those shrewd black eyes pinned Diane. “I did not know at the time the circumstances of your meeting. I thought … I hoped you were.… Nevada is my grandson’s home.”

  “Oh? He lives there with his father’s people?”

  Golden Star shook her head. “All of Chief Red Fox’s people have gone on to the Great Mystery.” Almost immediately she preened and stated, “My grandson owns a big, fine mansion in Nevada. He is a very rich man.”

  “Is he?” Diane replied, hiding her skepticism. She serfously doubted that Starkeeper was wealthy. What pathetic definition of wealth could have had him alone up in the wilds of Colorado wearing breechcloth and moccasins? She waited, thinking Golden Star might elaborate, tell more about his Nevada home or how he made all his money.

  But she didn’t.

  Distracted by other thoughts crowding into her mind, Golden Star forgot entirely that she had been talking about Starkeeper’s home in Nevada. She got off on the topic of when he was a young man. Back when he had just passed his sixteenth birthday and gone away to college.

  “… and he had the most beautiful black braids,” Golden Star said, smiling, “just like satin.” Abruptly a veil seemed to fall over her wrinkled face, and her expression became cold. She turned glittery black eyes on Diane and said, “Do you know what happened to my grandson that first day he walked up the steps at the Colorado School of Mines?”

  “No, Golden Star. What happened?”

  The old woman’s bottom lip began to tremble, and her eyes snapped with rage. “A gang of white boys held Starkeeper down and cut off those beautiful black braids.”

  Diane’s expressive eyebrows drew together, and her violet eyes deepened to purple. “No!” she exclaimed, horrified. “Starkeeper told you they actually cut—”

  “I see you know nothing about my proud grandson,” Golden Star impatiently interrupted. “Starkeeper was not the one who told me. Starkeeper would never have told me about such a thing!”

  Day three at Wind River.

  Diane and Golden Star went down to the river at mid-morning. Diane washed her long raven hair and let it dry in the sun while the aged Indian woman talked of the days gone by, of carefree, happy summers when she herself was young and pretty. Of long, cold winters when several friendly tribes would occupy the same stream and there was plenty of food and the big winter camp would be a place of constant rest and enjoyment.

  But no matter where Golden Star’s conversations began, they always returned to Starkeeper. Starkeeper swathed to the chin in his cradle, peering out at everything from his mother’s back. Starkeeper as a young boy learning to become a tracker and hunter—essentials for becoming a good provider. Starkeeper learning skill, endurance, and daring. And, most important of all, the ability to withstand pain. Mental as well as physical.

  With a chuckle Golden Star told of how the young, quick-witted Starkeeper had learned to gamble with the aged warriors who passed their days in games of chance, how he had won a prized pony in a gambling exercise when he was just eleven. Continuing to smile, she told of how the pretty maidens had begun to take notice of Starkeeper by the time he was twelve.

  Golden Star’s loud sigh filled the peaceful glade as she confided, “In the summer of his fifteenth year Starkeeper came home from Carlisle. He was as tall and strong as he is today and beautiful in the way only the very young and very innocent are beautiful.” She paused, looked embarrassed, and bowed her head. “My grandson lost a great deal of
his innocence that summer.” Quickly she pointed out that he never misbehaved with any of the pretty unmarried girls of the village. He had been properly raised! He was never even alone with a maiden.

  Diane was tempted to ask how he had lost his innocence if he wasn’t allowed to court the young girls. She didn’t dare. But, then, she didn’t have to.

  Suddenly Golden Star was amazingly frank. “In our village lived a lonely woman twice widowed. She was a Sioux by birth, tall, straight-backed, and as pretty as any woman I’ve ever seen. Her name was After-the-Summer-Rain; she kept to herself much of the time and seemed not to care what gossip was spread about her.”

  Golden Star fell silent, closed her eyes, and Diane, dying to hear more, was tempted to shake her. Hardly daring to breathe, she waited, hoping Golden Star wouldn’t forget what she was talking about.

  The papery-thin lids remaining closed over the black eyes, Golden Star added, “Summer-Rain was twenty-seven at the time. Twelve years older than Starkeeper and knew better.” Again she stopped speaking.

  “Knew better?” Diane prompted.

  “The Sioux woman lured Starkeeper to her tipi on his first night at home. After that they were together every night in her lodge.” The old woman’s eyes opened. “Summer-Rain fell in love with him, wanted to take him as her third husband.”

  Diane made a face. “When he was only fifteen?”

  “Then. And after he became a man. And even now.”

  “After-the-Summer-Rain still lives here at Wind River?” Diane suddenly experienced a sharp jolt of jealousy.

  Golden Star nodded. “The Sioux woman lives alone in the same lodge where Starkeeper so rapidly grew up that fifteenth summer.”

  Diane swallowed hard. “Do they—does Starkeeper— what I mean, is …” Her words trailed off.

  The old woman shrugged narrow shoulders. “Who knows?”

  Diane told herself she didn’t care. Didn’t give a fig if Starkeeper had gone straight to After-the-Summer-Rain’s lodge and had been staying there the entire time they had been at Wind River. If he was spending his nights and days in bed with a woman forty-seven years old, then it was revolting testimony to what an overly sexual animal he was! Imagining the lean bronzed Starkeeper making love to an aging, unattractive gray-haired woman filled Diane with disgust.

  She first blinked in confusion, then narrowed her violet eyes in resentment when, on their way back to the tipi, Golden Star pointed to a tall, strikingly attractive woman with silky black hair falling past her waist and voluptuous curves who stood laughing in the sun.

  “Summer-Rain,” said Golden Star.

  Diane felt sick.

  She quickly shook her head no when Golden Star asked if she’d like to meet the Sioux woman. Diane fretted all afternoon and wondered how any woman that old could look that young. Now it was all too easy to imagine Starkeeper and Summer-Rain together, and Diane was tortured with mental images of the beautiful Sioux woman and the handsome Shoshoni man.

  Restless, troubled, Diane left Golden Star napping and went for a stroll in the middle of that hot afternoon. She had no destination in mind. In the distance, on an open quadrangle beside the agency buildings, she saw a small crowd gathered. There were women among the men, and they were laughing and talking, so Diane sauntered forward to investigate.

  When she was approximately thirty yards away, she saw that a handful of men were engaged in a tomahawk-throwing contest. A large bull’s-eye was painted on the side of an agency building. Several contestants had already had their turn. A tall, lean man stepped into position to have a go, and Diane’s heart skipped a beat, then raced.

  Starkeeper stood before the admiring crowd, a sharp tomahawk in his right hand. He wore a pair of snow white leggings that clung to his lean flanks and long legs like a second skin. His naked torso and deeply clefted back and long, leanly muscled arms had been well oiled and shone like bronze satin in the sunlight. His silver-streaked raven hair was plaited in two shiny braids, the braids’ tips bound with soft white leather strips that brushed his shoulders. The wide silver bracelet flashed on his right wrist.

  All eyes clung to the tall, magnificent man as he lifted the hatchet and threw it with perfect precision and power, hitting the bull’s-eye dead center. While the crowd of admirers, including the pretty Summer-Rain, clapped and called his name, Starkeeper stood there godlike in the brilliant sunlight. Diane was so awed by his masculine beauty she felt something akin to worship. Felt as if she should fall to her knees before such a supreme being.

  When she could again breathe and think and move, she whirled and hurried away. But she couldn’t get the vision of him out of her mind. All afternoon and on into the late evening she kept seeing that gleaming naked torso, those long legs encased in white leather, that sure, skilled hand wielding the sharp-bladed tomahawk.

  What had seemed so spiritual at the time became more worldly as Diane continued to think about Starkeeper. He was not a beautiful, untouchable god. He was a handsome, accessible man.

  “I think I’ll take a walk,” Diane casually announced to Golden Star at sunset.

  She looked the village over for Starkeeper and couldn’t find him. But she felt a great sense of relief when she spotted After-the-Summer-Rain talking with other women of the village on the agency porch.

  Diane turned and headed directly to Starkeeper’s tipi. She had never been there, but she knew where it was. She hurried, anxious to get there, feeling she couldn’t wait one more second to see him. The last traces of pastel light remained behind the peaks of the Wind River Range when Diane reached Starkeeper’s lodge. She stood before the closed flap of his tipi.

  Diane didn’t call out to him. She was afraid he wouldn’t invite her inside. And she had to see him. She pulled back the lowered flap, ducked in, and let it fall back into place. A flickering fire burned at the tipi’s center.

  Starkeeper lay stretched out on his bed across the tipi, his hands folded beneath his head. He still wore the tight white leather leggings. His smooth bronzed chest still gleamed with oil. His raven hair was still braided and dressed with white leather bindings.

  He slowly turned his head and looked at her. In his dark eyes was a strange, unsettling expression, one she’d seen before in the eyes of the Redman. He appeared both dangerous and vulnerable. The combination was overpowering.

  Starkeeper looked at the incredibly beautiful young woman standing there staring at him, the white eyelet blouse falling off one pale, delicate shoulder, her raven hair shimmering in the firelight. He knew exactly what was going through her mind. She was curious, just like all the other beautiful white women he had known. That’s why she had come here. She was wondering how would it be to make love with an oiled, hatchet-throwing savage.

  He wanted her. Wanted her so badly he was almost ill with desire, but still, he hoped that she would prove him wrong. That she would turn him down. Prayed she would say no.

  Starkeeper’s flat voice was soft when he said, “Go now, Beauty. You still have not learned who I am. Go back to Golden Star. You’re not safe here with me this night.”

  Diane felt her knees go weak. The pulse in her bare throat throbbed. It was unforgivable, it was foolish, it was wrong, but she was overwhelmingly attracted to this paradoxical man.

  Nervously she said, “What if I don’t want to be safe this night?”

  “Then come here.”

  Chapter 26

  For a minute Diane didn’t move. She couldn’t.

  She began to shiver, although it was so warm inside the firelit lodge Starkeeper had rolled up the tipi’s back panel to admit the cool fresh air.

  It wasn’t the chill of the night that caused Diane to tremble.

  It was emotion. Powerful, potent emotion.

  Her fear of and fascination with the dark, lean man lying in the firelight was so compelling Diane felt numb, incapacitated. She couldn’t go to him, but neither could she retreat. Paralyzed by an odd mixture of anxiety and anticipation, she stood there tran
sfixed. Trembling.

  Starkeeper silently stared at her.

  As intense as the physical attraction was between them and as much as he wanted to make love to her, he already felt a sad sense of loss. The pale beauty standing across the tipi from him was about to become interchangeable with dozens of other restless, spoiled, thrill-seeking white women he’d held in his arms.

  How naive he still was. How childlike. How incredibly foolish he’d been to hold out any hope that she might be different.

  Starkeeper was annoyed by the painful squeezing of his heart. How absurd he was to feel a sense of loss over something he’d never had. Could never have.

  His chiseled face abruptly hardened, and so did his heart.

  The dark eyes that were fixed on Diane changed as well. Beneath the lazy lids those eyes began to smolder with sexual heat as he languidly examined the lush, slender curves appealingly outlined beneath the white blouse and skirt.

  This ivory-skinned beauty wanted a naked savage to make fierce love to her. Well, so be it. He was her man. He’d give her what she’d come for. And more. By the time she sneaked from out of his tipi in the wee hours of the morning, she would feel both contentedly satiated and brutally violated.

  Exactly what she wanted.

  “Beauty,” Starkeeper said, continuing to lie there stretched out on his back, “come here. Come to me.”

  “Yes … I … all right,” Diane managed, and was relieved to find that her legs would work, that she could walk after all.

  That short walk seemed like a very long one to Diane as she made her way across the firelit tipi to the dark, reclining man. Finally she reached him. She swallowed with great difficulty and stood there above, unsure what to do next. Uneasily but eagerly she waited for him to rise. She expected him to leap to his feet and take her forcefully in his arms. Felt certain that those cruel, sensual lips would cover hers in a kiss of ruthless passion.

  It didn’t happen.