Nan Ryan (35 page)

There was that merry child’s laugh from Golden Star. Then she said confidentially: “For centuries woman has changed man’s mind. Change Starkeeper’s mind about you.”

“But how?” Diane spoke at last.

“Why, the same way women have always done it.” She looked up at Diane and winked.

Before Diane could reply, Starkeeper appeared. “Ready?” he asked, his tone flat, cool.

Diane squared her slender shoulders, smiled brightly, and said, “More than ready. Are you?”

Starkeeper didn’t respond. He turned to his grandmother, draped a long arm around her shoulders, and said, “I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask one more time if you’ll come with me.”

Golden Star smiled broadly, patted his chest, and shook her head. To Diane she said, “My grandson is a stubborn man. Each time he comes to Wind River, he asks me to leave my home. Wants me to come to Nevada and live with him.”

Surprised, Diane looked from Starkeeper to Golden Star. She’d been thinking how ungrateful and selfish he was not to allow his grandmother to live with him when all along it was Golden Star who refused.

“Why don’t you?” she said to the smiling Shoshoni woman. “I’m sure he would take good care of you and—”

“I take care of myself,” said the independent Golden Star. Then she softened and added with a barely perceptible sigh, “We have had our day, Chief Washakie and I and the rest of the old ones—just like the buffalo. The future belongs to you, Pale One. And to my grandson, Keeper of the Stars.” She smiled then and added, “This is my home. Up here is the air the angels breathe. I could never leave this place.”

“You’ve left out one of your reasons,” Starkeeper gently prompted.

“If I go away from here”—Golden Star soberly addressed Diane—“I could not see the moccasin prints in the sky to guide me to the Great Mystery.” She looked up at her tall grandson. “I do not wish to lose my way.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he said, bent and kissed her wrinkled temple affectionately, and pressed her gray head to his chest.

She hugged him tightly and said into his shirtfront, “You will come again to see me?”

“Count on it,” he murmured, and released her.

The old woman turned immediately to Diane. When Diane hugged her, Golden Star said, “You will come see me again?”

“Count on it,” Diane whispered with a confidence she wished she really felt.

Diane released her. Golden Star quickly turned away. Her slumped shoulders shook. She was crying.

When the silent pair rode out of the Wind River Reservation, Diane felt certain she would never see it—or Golden Star—again. It was noon when they boarded the train in Lander. Seated by the window, Diane looked back at the snow-capped Wind River Range rising to meet a cloudless Wyoming sky.

She laid her forehead against the cool train window and watched the mighty mountains growing steadily more distant.

Diane’s head shot up as something streaking closely by the train captured her attention. She leaned forward, peered out, and saw the diamond-throated cat racing the moving train. A small smile lifted the corners of her lips. She watched the cat, thinking he was the most beautiful beast of them all, with perfect conformation and a grace of movement that was unique. The tawny mountain lion ran with a fluid motion through the dense tangle of sagebrush without ever breaking his stride.

And then disappeared.

Diane pressed two fingers first to her lips, then to the window in a silent salute and good-bye. She turned to look at Starkeeper, but his dark eyes were shut, arms crossed over his chest.

The locomotive’s whistle blew loudly at a railroad crossing. Diane sighed, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes. All was silent save the rhythmic clickity-clack of the train’s steel wheels on the tracks.

The wheels of a train which was rapidly speeding her westward.

Chapter 32

The train rolled into the station just as the fog rolled in over the bay.

It was early afternoon when Boz, the engineer, poked his head out the train’s window. His striped railroad cap pushed way back, his dust-covered goggles shoved up on his wrinkled forehead, Boz blinked and squinted, his eyes locked on the swinging red signal light guiding him safely through the dense fog and into the Oakland, California, switching yard.

When the tricky maneuver had been successfully accomplished and the troupe train had come to a complete stop at its siding, Boz wiped his perspiring face with his red bandanna and addressed his locomotive as if it were a person.

“Whew!” he said aloud, mopping his face. “That was danged tricky, old girl, but we made it.” He grinned, congratulating himself and his faithful, aging locomotive.

Boz tried not to think about the fact that this could be his last time to guide the “old girl” into one of America’s busy train terminals. He
wouldn’t
think about it. Something would happen. Something would save the show. And the train.

Boz swung down out of the locomotive’s cab and shook hands with the lantern-swinging signalman. Their attention was drawn to a pair of white-uniformed men standing on the platform in the thickening fog.

The white-clad pair quickly boarded the train. Short minutes later they carried a stretcher bearing Ancient Eyes off the train, across the tracks, and to a waiting ambulance. Shorty Jones, a cigarette dangling from his lips, hands nervously twisting his battered Stetson, was right on their heels.

“Watch it now, boys,” Shorty warned when they reached the horse-drawn ambulance. “Be mighty careful loading him.” Shorty glanced down at Ancient Eyes’ weathered face and said, “Don’t you worry, Chief. I’m going with you. See they treat you right and all.”

A faint smile touched the old Ute’s lips. “With me,” he managed, and Shorty grinned, nodding reassuringly.

“You bet,” said the skinny animal wrangler, hopeful that in time the Indian would fully recover from the heart attack and stroke that had almost taken his life.

Ancient Eyes had come out of his deep coma back in Salt Lake, and now he was even able to say a few words, to comprehend some of what was going on around him. But he remembered nothing of the day he was stricken or of the events and circumstances leading up to it.

They all waited until Ancient Eyes had been taken off the train. When he was on his way to the Oakland General Hospital, the rest of the tired troupe poured off the train, pushing trunks and carrying valises. Shorty’s boys began the unloading of the animal cages, preparing them for transport to nearby holding pens.

The performers tried their best to be keep their spirits up, to be optimistic about their future and the future of the show. It was far from easy.

Colonel Buck Buchannan hadn’t been his old jolly self since his beautiful granddaughter had been kidnapped and Ancient Eyes had fallen ill. A trouper to the bitter end, the Colonel kept a stiff upper lip. He’d discharged his duties and played to the sparse crowds that attended the Salt Lake and Sacramento performances, but the custernary twinkle was missing from his expressive blue eyes, and those who knew him best doubted it would ever return.

The thick fog blanketing the coastal city on that chilly September afternoon added to the feeling of gloom. Texas Kate’s raucous laugh didn’t ring out through the high-ceilinged train station as usual. Kate didn’t feel like laughing. She didn’t feel like talking either.

With several other show people she boarded an omnibus for the short ride to the troupe’s winter quarters. From the bus’s window, she looked out at the bay, which she could barely see through the fog.

Texas Kate knew it was time she started thinking about the uncertainty of her future. She knew
Colonel Buck Buchannan’s Wild West Show
was on the verge of collapse. Ruth Buchannan had confided that unless the Colonel could manage to obtain substantial financing before the spring season rolled around, there would no longer be a show.

Texas Kate felt a shudder surge through her stocky body.

If there was to be no show, what would she do? Go back home to Texas? The prospect of returning to that lonely little ranch made her shudder again. For the first time, realization struck Kate. She didn’t want to go home to Texas. Ever. This was her home! This traveling wild west show was her home, her only home. These people were her family. These talented, remarkable show people who smiled no matter how blue they were, who performed no matter how sick, who loved and lived for the thrill of performing. Kind, loyal, gritty folks whose lives would be considered hard and unrewarding by ordinary people.

Well, civilians just didn’t know! No, sirree, they had no idea how it felt to claim the spotlight. To step out there before thousands of awed, anxious fans and bring them screaming to their feet! Those who’d never experienced it couldn’t possibly know how it wanned a body’s heart to be greeted and cheered and loved by admiring throngs!

Dear Jesus
, Kate suddenly offered up a silent prayer,
please don’t let the Colonel lose this show! Don’t let me lose it! It’s the only home I have!

The long caravan of taxis and omnibuses carrying the Colonel’s troupe began arriving, one by one, before the four-story rooming house that was to be their home for the winter season.

It was not the kind of lodging they’d been used to in the past. Back in the glory days they would have boarded a ferry as soon as they got off the train. They’d have crossed the choppy bay and checked into the fine hotels found in exciting, glittering San Francisco.

Not this year.

This year they were lucky to have a roof over their heads. There was nothing grand or imposing about the big wooden building which was sadly in need of paint. Nor was the address impressive, located only a few blocks from the train switching yards, loud saloons, a smelly wholesale fish market, a smithy’s, a furniture maker’s shop, and other run-down rooming houses. The street was narrow and noisy. Vagrants in threadbare jackets loitered under lampposts lining the sidewalks.

A heavy suitcase in each hand, Texas Kate stepped into the dim, sparsely furnished room assigned to her. The one window across the room was tightly shut, the worn lace curtains closed. Kate dropped her baggage, charged across the room, yanked back the curtains—coughing when dust flew—and raised the window.

She poked her head out. There was nothing to see but the rear of another building, a brick one less than fifteen feet away across a narrow alley. Kate sighed and turned back to look at the shadowy third-floor room: an iron bedstead, a lamp table and lamp with a smoked globe, a battered chest, and two straight-backed chairs.

Kate told herself there was nothing whatsoever wrong with the room. It just seemed a bit dreary because of the fog. Why, soon as she unpacked, spiffed the place up with a few personal belongings, and the sun came out, this would be a right pleasant room.

Kate sighed again.

She didn’t feel like unpacking. She didn’t even feel like lighting the lone lamp. She trudged tiredly over to the bed. And frowned. A big double bed instead of her usual single one. Its size gave it a lonely appearance. It was meant to be shared. Meant for two, not one. Kate sat down on the edge of the double bed, heard the springs squeak under her weight, and the sound was somehow forlorn.

Texas Kate felt a strange tightness in her chest, a worrisome lump rising to her throat. Her fleshy chin drooped low; she bowed her head. She hadn’t wept in almost thirty years, but on this dim, foggy, depressing afternoon, she felt like bawling.

A loud knock on her door snapped her out of it. Before she could respond, Shorty’s unmistakable voice called through the door, “Open up, Kate. It’s Shorty. We have to talk.”

Texas Kate blinked, swallowed, and jumped up from the bed. She ran blunt fingers through her gray-brown curls, shoved the loose tails of her blouse down inside her waistband, straightened her wrinkled brown skirts, and went to the door.

As soon as she turned the doorknob, Shorty pushed the door open wide, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. Kate’s eyes widened when he threw the bolt, locking the door.

“Kate, sit down,” Shorty commanded, taking off his Stetson and dropping it atop the scarred chest.

“Why? Is something—”

“Woman, I said, ‘Sit down.’” Shorty pointed to one of the straight-backed chairs.

Mouth gaping in shock, Kate backed away from him, turned, and hurried to the chair. When she was seated with her hands folded in her lap, Shorty walked over to the night table, snuffed out his half-smoked cigarette in a tin ashtray, then came to stand directly before Kate. Booted feet apart, he held her gaze as he hitched up his faded Levi’s and then hooked his thumbs into his leather cowboy belt.

Wondering what on earth he was up to, Kate felt a sense of unease and expectancy.

“Kate, I’ve had enough of your nonsense,” Shorty said with cool authority.

“Nonsense?” Texas Kate echoed, her eyes wide.

“That’s right. It’s time I put a stop to it, and that’s just what I mean to do.” Shorty’s eyes were narrowed, his jaw firm.

“Well,” said Texas Kate, “it appears to me you’re just gettin’ a mite too overbearing.” She started to rise.