Nan Ryan Read online

  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.”

  AN OLD ARABIAN PROVERB

  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.

  A week had passed since his wife, the beautiful Wind River Shoshoni princess Daughter-of-the-Stars, had given birth to their first child. A boy. Their son had lived for only a few hours. Daughter-of-the-Stars had not stopped grieving since, was near death herself. He had not left her bedside since the baby’s death. He worshiped her. He would not wish to live if he lost Daughter-of-the-Stars. And she did not wish to live without their dead son.

  Chief Red Fox lowered his eyes to the tiny baby resting trustingly in the crook of his arm. If anyone could save Daughter-of-the-Stars, it was this white man’s child.

  The full, bright moon had gone down when the chief and his precious cargo reached the High Sierra hideout of his Shoshoni Bannock band. He knee-reined his mustang through the sleeping camp toward his tipi at camp’s outer edge. As it had been when he had ridden away, a gathering of the tribe’s women remained around his lodge. A fire burned brightly just outside the big tipi; a kettle boiled over the flame.

  The women turned sad eyes on him when they saw him nearing. They appeared the same: solemn, resigned, defeated. Fearing he might be too late, Chief Red Fox, still mounted, inquired of the nearest woman, “Daughter-of-the-Stars still lives?”

  “She lives, but not much longer,” came the reply.

  Relieved, the chief slipped from his horse and rushed into his lodge. Ordering the women inside to leave them, he crossed the dim tipi to where Daughter-of-the-Stars lay weak and barely conscious on their bed of furs. Kneeling beside her, Chief Red Fox gently placed the blanket-wrapped baby beside his distraught wife.

  He held his breath.

  For a moment nothing happened. Daughter-of-the-Stars continued to lie unmoving on her back, her sightless black eyes staring straight up, seeing nothing.

  But then the infant squirmed and fretted. Daughter-of-the-Stars felt a welcome warmth against her chilled left arm. Slowly the grieving young woman’s dark head turned.

  Quickly, carefully the chief swept the white blanket away from the baby’s face and looked hopefully at his stirring wife. Puzzled, Daughter-of-the-Stars turned her head more fully and saw the baby lying beside her. At once her dulled dark eyes glimmered with light.

  The chief hurried to explain what had happened. But Daughter-of-the-Stars wasn’t listening to her husband. Her undivided attention was on the baby at her side. Strength began to flow back into Daughter-of-the-Stars’ slender, weakened body. She sat up.

  Never taking her eyes off the infant, the frail young woman fully unwrapped its white blankets. She then slipped the long white nightshirt up over its dark head and off. Carefully she removed the baby’s diaper.

  And for the first time since losing her child, the beautiful Wind River Shoshoni Indian princess smiled.

  “My son?” she said in her native tongue, lifted the tiny naked boy up into her arms, and hugged him so tightly his squalling started anew.

  The chief was quick to shake his head. “No. The child is of the white man’s blood.”

  Daughter-of-the-Stars’s head snapped around. She turned wild, angry eyes on her husband. “This white man’s son lives while mine dies!” - She placed the baby back on the soft bed of furs. Then, taking the chief by surprise, she swiftly drew the sharp hunting knife from his waist scabbard.

  “No!” pleaded the horrified chief as the blade glittered in the dancing firelight.

  Daughter-of-the-Stars grabbed the baby’s tiny fist. The infant stopped crying, looked straight up into her wild dark eyes. She quickly slashed an X on the tender inside of his right wrist, bent, and sucked the blood away. She then pricked her finger with the knife’s sharp point. When a dark red droplet of blood appeared, she stuck the tip of her finger into the toothless mouth of the baby boy. Starving, he greedily sucked on her finger.

  Daughter-of-the-Stars smiled triumphantly, dropped the knife, picked up the baby boy, and said defiantly, “Now we are same blood! My son. Mine!” Her fierce black eyes dared her husband to deny it. Chief Red Fox merely nodded.

  Daughter-of-the-Stars touched her husband’s bronzed cheek lovingly. Then quickly unlaced her soft doeskin dress to feed her crying, hungry son.

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  San Francisco, California August 1895

  At a gala dinner party in a luxurious Nob Hill mansion, a dark, lean man in an impeccably tailored suit of slate gray linen lazed comfortably on a Louis XV patterned brocade chair. The legs of the gentleman’s stylish trousers were narrow in cut and sharply creased. The cuffs and collar of his pristine white shirt were stiffly starched. His neckpiece was a pale lavender silk four-in-hand with a large, flat knot. His shoes were of the softest English leather and polished to a high gleam.

  His slightly too-long jet black hair, raked by dramatic silver streaks at the temples, was clean and carefully brushed. That thick raven hair shone with healthy luster in the light cast by electric chandeliers which party decorators had swagged with silver lamé. The gentleman’s tanned face was not handsome in the classical sense. It was a lean, hard-set face with dark, brooding eyes which remained constantly half hidden by lazy lids. Those lids, plus a small white scar beneath his dark left eyebrow, a nose that had been broken and imperfectly set, a mouth that was full enough to suggest sensuality, yet amazingly looked cruel, added up to a slightly sinister appearance.

  His name was Benjamin Star, and his manners were polished, his intellect was keen. He had a quick, self-deprecating sense of humor. He was tall, slim, and graceful. He moved with stylish masculine ease. His lean brown hands were nothing short of beautiful, the fingers long with clean, short clipped nails. Those attractive hands never gestured nervously as he spoke. He didn’t fidget about on the brocade chair or twist and crane his neck to catch a glimpse of late-arriving guests. He never laughed too loudly or drank to excess or purposely attracted attention to himself.

  Benjamin Star was, in every sense of the word, a gentleman. Educated. Cultured. Urbane.

  And yet …

  The expensively dressed ladies in their elegant gowns and glittering diamonds were not drawn to the maddeningly elusive Ben Star because he was the consummate gentleman. Every female present at the summertime Nob Hill party was helplessly attracted to the wild, animalistic side of his nature which they were certain lurked dangerously close to the surface. Was there any doubt that beneath that smooth, imperturbable veneer and those perfectly tailored clothes there was an abundance of such frightening untamed masculinity that no female would b
e safe alone with him?

  Ben Star lifted a sparkling fluted glass to his lips and drank of the fine French champagne. He was casually aware of a trio of very rich, very pretty young socialites staring hungrily at him as if he were a part of the tempting buffet laid out in the mansion’s dining room.

  A tiny muscle twitched in his tanned jaw. Their twittering reaction to his nearness was nothing new or unique. Ben Star was used to causing a stir. Had been used to it for the past fifteen years.

  But at this particular party on this particular night, it seemed to Ben Star that he had lived through just such an annoying moment a hundred times before. Struck with a strong sense of déjâ vu, he suddenly longed to bolt and run. To head for the nearest exit this very minute. To seek out the sweet solitude awaiting him far from this crowded room.

  He didn’t do it.

  Rudeness was intolerable. In himself as well as in others. He had been invited to this gathering, and he had accepted. He would stay for a decent length of time, endure the tiresome chatter, the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped. Observed. Caged.

  Then tomorrow …

  “Your attention, everyone!” His beautiful hostess clapped her delicate hands, pulling Ben Star from his reverie. “Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Ben Star’s dark eyes lazily lifted, came to rest on the slender blonde in a stunning, frothy gown of midnight blue chiffon. She stood on the marble steps leading down into the sunken drawing room. Widowed for less than a year, the thirty-four-year-old Mrs. Richard Barnes Crocker was one of the Bay City’s wealthiest, most respected citizens.

  San Francisco’s Old Guard adored and admired the glamorous Maribelle Crocker. The manner in which she had conducted herself since the loss of her doting husband was commendable beyond belief. Grief-stricken though she was, Maribelle had continued to discharge her charitable and social duties with a stiff upper lip.

  Though desperately lonely she surely must be, the well-brought-up young widow was never seen alone in the company of a gentleman. Never. Maribelle wouldn’t consider allowing another man to take her dear departed Richard’s place for years. Perhaps never.