Читать книгу Arrowpoint - Suzanne Ellison - Страница 9

FOR NEARLY fifteen minutes, Renata stood on the porch, grateful for the overhang, while Michael and his grandfather chanted in the mud. She had no idea what was going through their minds, though she was reasonably certain it wasn’t the same thing. The old man was totally absorbed in his ritual, but Michael’s eyes were open and his neck muscles rippled with tension. Every now and then he made a mistake in the chanting and had to take a moment to pick up a clue from his grandfather. It was obvious that the ceremony, whatever it was, did not come easily to him.

At last the old man stopped and lowered his arms. It didn’t seem to Renata that he was tired or resigned. He just seemed to be finished. At first he did not speak, but at last he opened his eyes and looked at Michael.

A good two minutes of silence passed before Michael began to speak, and even then Renata could not understand him. To her he’d spoken clear, unaccented Midwestern English. To his grandfather he was speaking an unintelligible tongue that she took to be Winnebago. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound; it simply surprised her to hear a man in a suit use a language that seemed to belong to another world...another century.

When Michael was done, the old man spoke, his own voice weak and quavery. He sounded calm but stubborn. Michael spoke again, gesturing to himself and then Renata. He sounded angry and embarrassed. She didn’t need to speak Winnebago to understand the look on his face.

Whatever he said seemed to impress his grandfather, because for the first time the old one’s watery gaze drifted toward Renata. Then he looked down, as though he, too, were ashamed. By this time Renata was shivering with cold and so was the old man. Michael still looked tense. And incredibly handsome.

At last he stood. Muddy water dripped down the legs of his ruined suit. He held out a hand to his grandfather, who ignored it but painfully struggled to rise on his own. The old man had to roll sideways to his knees and use both hands to push away from the ground, and even then he almost fell over. Michael kept his hand outstretched, leaning close to him, but he did not reach out to catch him. Renata was touched by his obvious effort to save the old man’s dignity.

When Michael’s grandfather stood up and started toward the house, Renata could see that the night in the rain had taken its toll. He looked shaky and cold and exhausted. At once she said to Michael, “Why don’t you take him upstairs and warm him up with a hot shower while I find you both some dry clothes.”

Michael’s eyes met hers with embarrassed gratitude as he nodded just once. Then Renata quickly slipped down to the basement while Michael and his grandfather moved slowly into the house.

It wasn’t hard to find clothes for two men; the basement was full of Renata’s parents’ and grandparents’ clothes and keepsakes. She even had a trunk of her great-grandparents’ things. Sometimes, when she was feeling lonely, Renata spent hours down here, perusing old photos and letters or rearranging her grandpa’s box of artifacts. She had never regretted being raised without brothers and sisters because she’d had so much love from the grown-ups in her life. But one by one, death had claimed them all—tractor accident, cancer, kidney disease. Her grandfather had lived longer than his son; he’d been the last to go. But for four years now, Renata had been the last of her branch of the Meyers in Wisconsin. Until recently she’d been too busy trying to launch a career to worry much about marriage and children, but she knew that she was nearly ready to settle down. The pull was always strongest on the days she came to Tyler.

Pushing away her maudlin memories, Renata quickly dug out several sizes of men’s jeans and T-shirts, plus some old long johns and a heavy jacket, despite the humidity, for the shivering old man. She took the clothes to the extra bedroom upstairs and knocked on the bathroom door. Over the sound of running water she called out, “The clothes are in the room next door. I’ll be down in the kitchen making breakfast if you want anything.”

She heard a muffled “Thanks,” but nothing more.

The instant Renata reached the kitchen she remembered that she hadn’t been here for more than a month, and she’d planned to stop at the grocery store after the meeting, on her way back from town. Fortunately she always kept a few staples on hand, so she had no trouble finding some coffee and a box of pancake mix. Normally she added milk and a fresh egg to the batter, but under the circumstances, water would have to do. Pancakes were a better choice than soup at this hour of the morning.

She’d just started dropping batter onto the griddle when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She turned as Michael stepped into the room.

He looked different in a pair of old jeans than he had in a suit. Renata’s father had been heavier than Michael, so the jeans were loose on him. So was the T-shirt. The casual look did nothing to diminish Michael’s attractiveness; if anything, it made him seem more accessible. Renata noticed that his hair was just as appealing wet as it was dry—thick, shiny, the fullness lifting it off his face before it curved under slightly on his shoulders.

But what really drew her to him was the expression on his face. She’d never seen a man look quite like this—proud, grateful and embarrassed all at the same time. When Michael had arrived and found his grandfather, Renata had guessed he was caught up in fear and relief. But since then, a measure of shame had crept into his regal bearing.

“I know Brick introduced us,” he greeted her quietly, “but I’m sorry to say I didn’t get a grip on your name.”

“Renata Meyer.”

“Michael Youngthunder.” He held out one strong brown hand, and Renata slipped hers into it. His was still cold, but the chilliness of his skin didn’t linger in his eyes. “I want you to know how much I appreciate your kindness to my grandfather. Most people would have called the cops and had him towed away.” He glanced toward the front lawn. “I put the slicker on the porch to dry.”

“Thanks.” Renata tried to give him a reassuring smile, but somehow a smile didn’t work at the moment. When he gently disengaged his hand from hers, she realized belatedly that she’d gripped it in greeting and forgotten to let go.

“We’re indebted to you,” Michael said sincerely. “If there’s anything my family can ever do for you, don’t hesitate to let us know.”

Renata was touched by the offer—and by the sincerity in Michael’s beautiful dark eyes. Lots of people, if they’d made the offer at all, would have said “I,” not “my family.” Obviously his family obligations were important to him.

“I wish I could have gotten him inside sooner, Michael,” she apologized. “I only arrived an hour or so ago. For all I know, he could have been out there all night.”

“I suspect he was,” Michael agreed sadly. He looked absolutely exhausted, but he made no move to sit down.

Abruptly Renata realized he was probably waiting for an invitation. “Please have a seat,” she was quick to offer. “I’ll have pancakes for you in just a second. Did you have anything to eat this morning?”

Slowly he took a chair, his gaze gratefully brushing her face in a way that made her skin tingle. It occurred to Renata that she must look as bedraggled as Michael and his father. Before, she hadn’t minded, but for some reason she didn’t want to look her worst now that she was talking to Michael face-to-face.

“I haven’t had an appetite since I first found out he was gone,” he admitted. “Now that he’s in there steaming himself, I’m absolutely ravenous.”

This time Renata grinned, and to her surprise, Michael grinned back. His smile took her totally off guard. It was brilliant, almost boyish, utterly charming. What a change from that fierce, anguished scowl!

“Good. I was hoping you’d be too hungry to notice that I’m piecing together a meal from odds and ends,” she confessed. “I keep staples here but I always need to get milk and fresh produce when I come to town. But if you’re hungry—”

“Ready to eat cardboard. Whatever you’ve got will be fine.”

He gave her another dazzling grin as she handed him a plate full of pancakes, dug in the cupboard for some syrup and rinsed off a clean but dusty fork. It occurred to Renata that coming back to her house in Tyler was sort of like arriving at a neglected backwoods cabin. It was cozy and quaint, but it wasn’t set up to entertain strangers. At least she had a phone and running water—the thumps and bangs in the pipes triggered by the old man’s shower were proof of that—but that was about the extent of the amenities.

Michael’s eyes met hers with an expression that reminded Renata of a little boy in a candy shop in a Norman Rockwell painting. “Are you going to join me?” he asked.

This time Renata laughed out loud. “For goodness’ sake, Michael, eat! I can hardly bear to look at you. In another second you’ll start drooling.”

The smile quickly vanished. “No worry about that. I drooled a lot when I ate raw buffalo in the wigwam, but at Georgetown they frowned on that.”

Renata was surprised that she’d offended him and even more surprised that he’d felt compelled to trot out his academic credentials. Honestly, she said, “I was only teasing, Michael, because you sounded so hungry. I wasn’t thinking at all about your...heritage.”

A dark flush reddened his angular cheeks. “After what’s happened outside this morning, I wouldn’t think you’d be able to think about anything else.”

He was so blunt that Renata decided she should be straight with him, also. “I’ll admit that your grandfather took me by surprise. I’m worried about him and I’m damned curious. You took me by surprise, too, but that’s because I’m having a devil of a time figuring out how a man who looks so comfy in a suit and acts so white can speak Winnebago and think like a traditional Indian.”

She drew a quick breath, but didn’t give him time to reply. “Now I’m wondering if I’ve done anything to cause you to believe that I’ve got some Neanderthal prejudice against people who aren’t just like me. Since I’ve spent my whole life as a square peg in a round hole, I’d have to dislike just about everybody if that were true. As it happens, I like people. I like diversity. Until you started making insinuations,” she finished a bit sarcastically, “I rather liked you.”

Michael was silent, but his eyes grew dark as he listened to her speech. For a long, tense moment his inscrutable gaze impaled her. Then he rose, abandoning the fork poised to snag a pancake, and slowly prowled across the room.

Renata wasn’t sure what to expect of this tightly coiled stranger. She knew he was angry, but she wasn’t sure if she was scared. She tried to remember just what Brick had said to her about Michael Youngthunder before he’d galloped off in his police car. He had acted as though Michael were a friend. He’d given Renata no overt or even subtle warnings. Surely he wouldn’t have left her alone with these two Indians if he had any reason to distrust them!

Still, Renata shivered as Michael approached her, his lips drawn down in a fearsome scowl. She wanted to duck away from him, to hide or bolt from the room, but she didn’t seem to be able to move.

And then he spoke, and she knew by the fresh shame in his voice that his anger was directed inward. And she also knew that the chill that feathered up and down her spine as he touched her wrist had nothing to do with fear.

“Renata,” he said softly, his voice taking on a low and tortured tone, “please forgive my rudeness. I am always overly touchy about my...bloodlines. And this morning, I am—” he shook his head “—a great deal more embarrassed by my family than usual.” His gaze met hers, then slipped away, reluctantly swinging back to hers again. “I’ve never been in a situation quite like this before, but that’s no reason for me to behave badly.” As the bathroom pipes upstairs stopped banging, he finished tensely, “You don’t have to feed me. As soon as my grandfather gets dressed, we’ll go.”

As he turned to leave the room, Renata caught his arm. She seemed to be doing a lot of that this morning—holding on to Michael—but she couldn’t seem to help herself. There was something about him that made her want very much to touch him.

“Michael, I’m sorry,” she said simply. “I know this whole situation is terribly awkward for you. But it’s kind of strange for me, too, you know.”

He turned around, met her eyes again and slowly nodded. A thin layer of tension seemed to leave the room.

“My grandfather lived to be ninety-six,” she told him, “and he just died a few years ago. I loved him dearly, but I was the only one left to take care of him near the end, and I didn’t always know what to do with him.”

Michael ran a nervous hand through his thick mane. “Grand Feather’s not senile,” he declared almost defensively. “I know it looks that way, but he’s still sharp as a tack. He’s stubborn and determined, but he’s not losing a grip on reality. At least, not on his reality. It’s just that his reality is probably different from yours.”

Again his dark eyes met hers, imploring Renata to understand what he didn’t seem to be able to say. She wanted him to go on, to share his feelings, for reasons that went beyond the need to satisfy her curiosity or ease her conscience after their spat. But she knew he was still ravenous and exhausted...and nearly proud enough to leave his pancakes uneaten and go.

“Why don’t you sit down and tell me about it while we eat?” she suggested. Renata wasn’t a breakfast person, but she saw no need to mention that to Michael. Grabbing a plate from the cupboard, she filled it with pancakes. “I’m pretty hungry myself,” she lied.

It was hard to say whether it was Michael’s hunger or Renata’s offer to join him that finally did the trick, but he did move back toward the table, where he waited behind his chair until Renata sat down. Only after she took a bite of pancake did he take a forkful from his stack. She tried not to watch him eat, certain that he was holding himself back. Deliberately she kept quiet until he’d consumed three pancakes and she’d discreetly refilled his plate. Mercifully, a companionable silence seemed to fill the room.

Despite her request to have him share the details of his grandfather’s reality, Michael didn’t mention the old man again. Instead he asked, “So where do you live when you don’t live here?”

If Renata had believed he was really interested in her, she would have been pleased by the question. Under the circumstances, she was reasonably certain that he was merely trying to be polite.

“I live in Milwaukee,” she answered simply. “How about you?”

“Sugar Creek.”

He made no effort to expand on the terse answer, so Renata asked another question. “Does your grandfather live with you?”

Michael exhaled sharply and shook his head. “No, unfortunately. I have begged him and begged him, but he won’t leave Wisconsin Dells. He won’t even let me buy him a nicer place. Even a little trailer would be an improvement.”

“Does he live alone?”

“For all intents and purposes. I have an uncle who owns some land nearby. He checks on him every night.”

Renata got the picture. Near the end her own grandfather had been too stubborn to live with anybody, either. She’d had to arrange for a year’s leave from the university—while she pretended to her grandfather that she’d dropped out of school—so she could come home and take care of him. Knowing all the hours of worry that Michael surely had to put up with, all the trips back and forth, she said kindly, “But when he’s in trouble, you’re the one they call?”

He looked surprised at her deduction.

“It’s obvious that you two are very close.”

Renata was rewarded with another smile—tentative, but beguiling nonetheless.

“He raised me after my grandmother died. He felt he’d failed to teach my father the old ways, so he tried to pass them on to me. That’s the only reason I know—” he gestured with his head toward the front lawn “—a few words of Winnebago. Enough to fake my way through a couple of old ceremonies.”

Renata was quite certain that he knew far more than “a few words of Winnebago” and “a couple of old ceremonies.” His Winnebago conversation with his grandfather had sounded quite fluent, and though he’d stumbled a few times with the chanting, she’d gotten the impression that he’d been struggling to remember something he’d known very well at one time. It took no genius to deduce that his Indian roots made him uncomfortable, and not just because his grandfather had made a scene.

The kitchen became suddenly silent when the old man padded through the doorway, his eyes not on Renata but on Michael. She didn’t know if he’d heard Michael’s last words. If he had, they had surely hurt him.

He was wearing a pair of her grandfather’s jeans, which were far too big and far too long. He’d rolled up the hems several inches in a way that almost made him look like a clown. He’d disdained the heavy jacket, but he was wearing three wool shirts. His hair, soaking wet, had been carefully rebraided. One soggy feather hung from his head.

The old man whispered something in Winnebago, then stood absolutely still. Michael turned around, gazed at him for a moment, then said in English, “This young lady has offered us her hospitality and it would be rude to refuse it. It would also be rude to exclude her from our conversation. If you’re not ready to break your fast, come sit down and join us anyway. We can’t leave until the policeman comes back.”

The old man looked affronted at the quiet reprimand, but he did not move toward the table. He glanced briefly at Renata and said in quavery but perfect English, “I am sorry for the trouble. I am grateful for the clothes. I will wait on the porch until my grandson is done eating.”

Shame colored Michael’s sharp, handsome features as the old man left the room.

* * *

IT WAS NEARLY NOON when Michael helped his grandfather out of Lieutenant Brick Bauer’s black-and-white cruiser at the police station, where Michael had left his car. As he shook Brick’s hand, he said quietly, “Thank you again for helping me search last night. And assure the young lady that I’ll return the clothes just as soon as I can.”

Brick waved a negligent hand. “I’m just glad we found your grandfather in one piece, Michael. I’ll give Renata your message, but don’t worry about the clothes. She’s not likely to need them till the next time a soaking-wet stranger shows up on her doorstep.”

Michael managed a smile before he slipped into his BMW, but his face was stony by the time his grandfather joined him inside. Forcing the old one to speak English to Renata had demonstrated a measure of filial disrespect, but it had been unavoidable. Tongue-lashing the old man would wait until the white people were out of earshot.

“I have never been so frightened in my life, Grand Feather,” Michael snapped in English. “And once I found you, I was ashamed and angry. I spent a whole night looking for you with a policeman. We must have made three dozen phone calls. We knocked on doors of strangers and got them out of their beds! And then—” he sucked in a breath, finding it was hard to tackle the worst thing “—you forced that white woman to take us in. To feed us, to get us warm, to give us clothes! And then you treated her with contempt!”

His grandfather looked gray, utterly fatigued. “I was too tired to speak English to a woman whose people stole our land.”

“You were rude to a decent person who could have had you arrested for trespassing! You got me so upset that I was rude, too!” Michael knew that was what bothered him the most. He’d been grateful to Renata, but he hated feeling in debt to her. Not just because she was white, and not just because she was a woman. She was also—how could he put it?—the sort of woman who beckoned to him.

“I want your promise that nothing like this will happen again, Grand Feather,” he said sharply, in fluent Winnebago this time.

“I am old,” his grandfather answered softly. “It is time for me to go. I want to go to my people. I should not have to explain this to you.”

Michael took a deep breath. “You said there was a Winnebago graveyard here. Lieutenant Bauer looked for it. I looked for it. You looked for it! We could not find it.”

The old eyes bored into his. “That doesn’t mean it is not here.”

Michael threw up his hands, wondering what he’d do with this stubborn old man when he really did become senile. He hoped he’d spoken the truth to Renata when he’d insisted that the old man was not becoming irrational yet.

“You were lucky you pulled that stunt on land that belongs to a kind woman. If she’d been a different type of person you could have been shot or arrested.”

If she’d been a different type of person, I wouldn’t feel so ashamed, he added silently. He knew dozens of Winnebagos who would have responded the way Renata Meyer had, but very few white people. She’d gone out of her way to help an old man. She hadn’t accused him of trespassing. She hadn’t called him a dirty Indian. She hadn’t ordered him never to bother her again. She’d fed and cleaned him up and gotten him warm. And she’d smiled...oh, had she ever smiled....

Angrily he thrust away the memory of that smile. It was the sort of smile that could get a man in serious trouble if he dwelt on it.

Still, as he drove back to the Dells, Michael couldn’t seem to put Renata out of his mind. She was not the sort of white woman he dealt with impersonally every day at work. Most of his female customers were professional women who strove to keep their conversation light, and his co-worker, Maralys Johnson, was an aggressive career woman with a sharp tongue and a hard edge. Maralys wasn’t a bad sort, but she sometimes got on Michael’s nerves. Always jockeying her way to the top, she spoke the language of power and even dressed to look the part of a rising young executive.

There were no hard edges to Renata Meyer. She spoke her mind, but gently. She opened her home to the rain-soaked and wayward. She wore ratty jeans and a paint-speckled T-shirt, and her luscious blond hair cascaded unfettered to her trim waist. She wore no makeup, no jewelry, no power suit. Everything about her was natural and unpretentious.

And she was damn easy on the eyes to boot.

But it wasn’t really her appearance that had moved Michael. It was her honesty, her compassion, her warmth. She’d surely felt as awkward as he in their unusual situation, but she’d handled it a lot better than he had. She’d admitted her curiosity, but she hadn’t pressed. She’d tried to anticipate his needs and meet them. When he’d botched everything, she’d tried to make amends.

She was a rare woman, and he was sorry—as well as relieved—that he’d never see her again.

Oh, he could return the clothes to her house. He could even call ahead to make sure she’d be home when he got there. He had a hunch she’d be more flattered than distressed. But Michael Youngthunder was not a foolish man, and he knew trouble when it bit him on the kneecap. He’d been clever enough to crawl out of a shack and drag himself through college; he’d been clever enough to get three promotions in the past two years. He was certainly clever enough to remember how painfully he’d learned that he should never, ever, get romantically involved with a white woman.

He’d loved one once—surrendered himself body and soul—and he’d believed, with every ounce of his heart, that she had truly lived for him. When he’d proposed marriage, Sheila had accepted with what seemed like true joy. When she’d taken him home to meet her parents, she had seemed proud of him. But when he’d introduced Sheila to his grandfather and asked that her parents meet him, she’d told Michael gently, “Maybe some other time.” She’d been so gentle, in fact—so loving and ashamed—that it had taken Michael three full weeks to get the message.

But he’d learned his lesson in the end, and it was not one he could ever forget. He’d mail back those old clothes or leave them with Brick Bauer. He could not deny that he was drawn to Renata Meyer, but that only meant he’d move heaven and earth to make sure he never came face-to-face with her again.

* * *

BY THE TIME the two Indians left and Renata started into town, it was almost eleven, the hour the crafts-fair meeting was set to begin at Alyssa’s house. It was the first time Alyssa had ever asked her to serve on a committee, and Renata wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or put out. The fact that Alyssa wanted her artistic expertise meant that she didn’t see her as a child anymore, and that was good. But since she had plenty of multipurpose volunteers in Tyler, Alyssa most likely planned to turn to Renata for advice that nobody else could offer. Advice that was probably going to translate into boring civic duties that took a lot of time.

As Renata pulled up on the familiar street, she remembered that she had always thought the Ingallses’ old house was magnificent. It had trim white columns on the front porch and clusters of wisteria trailing from trellises below the windows. As a little girl Renata had read books about children who dreamed of living in a palace. She’d always dreamed of living like the Ingallses.

“Renata! How nice to see you,” Alyssa greeted her when she knocked on the door.

Alyssa was a willowy, elegant blonde in her late fifties who looked a good ten years younger. Today she was dressed as casually as Renata had ever seen her—in jeans and a T-shirt. But the jeans were spanking new with a designer label, and the T-shirt had shoulder pads and some sort of hand-painted design that would have gone for fifty or sixty dollars in Milwaukee. Renata hadn’t made a fraction of that when she’d painted some herself.

“You remember everybody, don’t you?” Alyssa asked.

I certainly hope so, Renata thought, knowing that all her parents’ friends would be offended if she forgot their names. As she glanced around the room, old faces pricked her memory. Dear Anna Kelsey, aging some but looking just as pragmatic as ever. Alyssa’s daughter Liza, the hellion, glowingly pregnant and—lo and behold!—proudly sporting a wedding ring. Nora Gates, whose name Renata had recently heard linked with Liza’s husband’s brother; she’d either married him or was planning to soon. And last but not least, Elise Ferguson, Tyler’s beloved spinster librarian.

Nobody ever thought of Elise and marriage in the same breath. Not that she wasn’t nice looking—she was tall and slender with a subtle, almost ethereal sort of beauty. Her smile was as sweet as her spirit. But she carried too many burdens on her slim shoulders to indulge herself in romantic fancy. Her sister, Bea, wheelchair-bound for years, demanded a great deal of care and even more attention. And Elise treated the library itself almost as though it were a living thing. It had become her child. For this Renata, along with the rest of the town, would always be grateful. She’d spent more happy hours than she could count poring over art books that Elise had special-ordered for her back in the days when nobody else had thought she had a lick of talent.

Proof of Alyssa’s father’s faith in Renata was that one of her first paintings, a product of her cubist phase, now hung on a wall in the Ingalles’ living room. It was a crush of blues and greens, with no discernible subject matter, though Renata recalled believing at the time that it represented heaven’s relationship with earth. Now it represented the fact that crusty Judson Ingalls had been the first person in the world to pay actual money for a Renata Meyer painting. For that reason alone she would always cut Alyssa’s dad a lot of slack, no matter what Tyler’s rumor mill had to say about him.

“It’s good to see you all,” said Renata, suddenly enveloped by a sense of warmth for each of them. After the unsettling events of the morning, it was good to feel that she was really back home among people who were always kind and predictable.

“So what have you been doing lately, Renata?” asked Elise with a sparkling smile.

“I’m still trying to make a living from my paintings,” she replied, opting not to mention that most of her income came from drawing newspaper ads free-lance. “It’s a bit of a challenge out there.”

“Tell me about it,” said Liza, not with rancor but with genuine, shared frustration. “Oz isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Renata grinned. That was as close as Liza was likely to come to admitting that even for a rebel like herself, there really was no place like home.

For fifteen minutes everybody munched on Alyssa’s croissants and swapped tales about who had said what last week at the Hair Affair. Renata listened with one ear while her thoughts drifted back to Michael. He’d said he was going to take his father home first, then report to work as soon as he could. He’d mumbled something about his usual unpaid overtime equaling this morning off, but he’d never gotten around to telling her just what his job was. Brick Bauer surely knew and would tell her if she asked, but she couldn’t think of a good excuse to pose the question. Renata had no reason to think she’d ever see Michael Youngthunder again; he’d certainly given her no indication that he was interested in getting to know her. And yet, for reasons that weren’t entirely clear to Renata, the man seemed to have implanted himself in her subconscious. Despite the cheery laughter all around her, she couldn’t quite seem to join in. She wasn’t a woman who normally spent much time worrying about men, but she somehow couldn’t get this one off her mind.

“As most of you know, we’re in the middle of a fund-raising event to replace our library,” Alyssa declared when the meeting finally got under way. “As I understand it, the matching funds we expected to receive have been held up, maybe for years. Elise is going to contact the architect who drew up the plans to see if he can scale them down considerably and still meet our needs, but we’re going to need a massive infusion of cash anyway. It is our hope—” her eyes turned to Renata “—that this wonderful crafts fair will help meet that need.”

Renata didn’t comment, but she couldn’t help thinking that Alyssa was dreaming. No crafts fair could produce the kind of revenue the town was seeking, even if the artists paid a hefty commission or made a generous donations from their profits.

“Uh, excuse me,” she said apologetically, “but this is the first I’ve heard about replacing the library. I’m all for raising funds for books, but to be honest with you, I don’t think we can get all that much money from a crafts fair. Not on the scale of building a new library.” She turned to Elise. “Frankly, I don’t see the point. I love the old place.”

Elise shook her head. Her lips tightened in distress. “So do I, Renata, but Tyler has grown since you were a little girl! We simply don’t have enough room anymore. Not for books, not for people, not for meetings that could be held in the public gathering rooms.” Her voice grew low and impassioned. A hint of desperation darkened her normally cheerful eyes. “Besides, the building is so old it’s likely to be condemned as unsafe at any time, or we could have a disaster that would cost us thousands of dollars in books or even threaten the safety of our patrons. The library needs massive restoration—electrical work, plumbing, plaster, everything.” There was a tremor of despair in her voice now. “Originally we just hoped to renovate the building or add on, but it would almost cost more to do that, and we’d still be short on space.”

Briskly, Nora said, “Renata, we discussed all of this at the council meetings. If you’d gone through all the hassle we have, you’d understand that we really do have to build a new library. The only question is where we’re going to come up with the funds.”

“The crafts fair is only one idea,” Anna chimed in brightly. “We’ve got several others in the works.”

They weren’t exactly ganging up on her, but Renata got the message clearly enough. You weren’t here when all the planning was done. It’s too late to raise objections now.

Renata maintained a sober silence when Alyssa started to speak again.

“In order for this to come about, we have several ideas. The first is that crafts people will donate part of their proceeds—” her gaze flickered nervously to Renata “—and the second is that we hold an auction of some works by more famous artists, whomever we can impress with the urgency of our cause. Although we’ll be offering notable artwork, we’re hoping that our publicity of this event as a fund-raiser will inflate the prices considerably.”

Again her gaze drifted toward Renata, who was definitely getting edgy now. She didn’t have enough money to be generous with her donations to Tyler, even though she loved the old town. She couldn’t imagine how she was going to get equally impoverished artist friends to donate their paintings to the cause.

When Renata remained silent, Alyssa started to speak again.

“Of course, we need someone to handle the auction portion of the fair—recruiting the works themselves, I mean. Someone who really knows about art and can assess it fairly. That’s why we were so glad that Renata volunteered to serve on the committee.”

Volunteered, my foot, Renata thought. But she kept her expression neutral as Alyssa continued.

“Some of you may not remember that Renata started painting when she was a little girl. She sold her first picture to my father when she was thirteen. It’s probably worth a fortune now, but he would never part with it.” She faced the cubist mass of blues and sighed. “It has such sentimental value.”

Renata had to stifle a smile. The only thing Judson Ingalls could sell that painting for was kindling. Still, it was nice that he’d kept the homely thing, even though she suspected that Alyssa had dug it out of the basement to put on display just for this meeting. It didn’t fit in a home that had been decorated with such wealth and taste.

When all the other ladies beamed at Renata, she felt the noose tighten. Liza winked at her, clearly reading her apprehension.

“With all of her artist friends and contacts, we’re certain that Renata will be able to make the auction an outstanding success,” Alyssa continued. “We’ll help her store and organize the paintings and sculptures, but of course none of us is in a position to recruit and evaluate artwork as she can.” Alyssa smiled hopefully at Renata, who did her best to smile back.

“We were hoping you could bring some of your work to the fair, dear,” said Anna. “And possibly donate some of it.”

“I know it’s asking a lot,” begged Elise, “but we so badly need a new building.”

Before Renata could answer, Liza suggested, “Why don’t you paint us something new for the auction, Renata? You know—the official painting that expresses the theme of the fair? Something Tyleresque but distinctive? Maybe we could capitalize on it in a big way. Reproduce posters for sale nationwide or something.”

Why don’t you order a painting out of the Sears catalog? Renata was tempted to suggest, not quite sure if spunky Liza was kidding. I don’t do paintings on demand. Each creation came from the soul and it dictated its own terms. Renata could no sooner make a sculpture adhere to a given theme than Michelangelo could have painted the Sistine Chapel with a paint-by-number kit.

Before she could express this perspective, however, Anna said, “I think a unique theme for the fair is a great idea.”

“I thought the library renovation was the theme,” said Nora.

“No, that’s the reason for the fair, not the artistic theme,” Alyssa pointed out, looking truly inspired now. “The physical properties of books makes a very narrow theme, and the subjects books cover is just too broad. I think that the history of Tyler, represented by the library’s past and future, might be more appropriate.”

Liza didn’t look impressed. “How do you draw history? Make a painting of a bunch of pioneers cutting down trees and herding dairy cows? I mean, that might be nice for one painting, but how many can you use in one auction? Besides, we’ve all seen that sort of thing before.”

There’s more to Tyler’s history than the pioneers, Renata suddenly thought. Michael’s people were here for generations before the first white person set foot on Wisconsin soil.

As an idea began to form in her mind, Renata cautiously suggested, “I think it might be interesting to feature a different kind of artwork altogether in terms of history. How about bringing Indian arts and crafts to the fair and featuring paintings and sculptures with Native American themes?”

For a moment they all stared at her. Then Alyssa said, “I don’t think Indian things will raise much money, do you?”

“Of course they will!” Liza suddenly burst out. “Get with it, Mother! Indians are in right now. The Santa Fe look is everywhere.”

“But we’re not in Santa Fe, dear,” said Anna.

Nora added, “This is hardly known as Indian country. It’s not the wild West.”

“But there used to be a great many distinguished tribes in Wisconsin,” Elise reminded the group, “and I believe there are still some small reservations not too far from here.”

Suddenly Anna blinked. “Why, just last night my nephew said the police were looking for some old Indian who’d gotten lost in Tyler. I think Brick said something about an old burial ground.”

Renata felt a sudden, curious sense of alarm. For some reason she could not explain, she didn’t want anybody in this group to talk about Michael and his grandfather as strangers, Indians who didn’t really belong here. Her encounter with the two had been oddly touching, almost spiritual, and she knew she couldn’t explain the depth of meaning their visit to her land had had for them. She wasn’t even sure she understood it herself.

“All I know is that Tyler’s focus has always been on white settlers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—I’m proud that my great-grandparents helped settle this place,” Renata was quick to clarify. “But we all know about pioneer art—quilts and wood carving and knitted goods—and I think it would be an interesting change of pace to focus on the Indians who lived here first. If white artists could use Indian work as a theme and we could persuade some local Indians to sell some of their authentic work, we might be able to really make the fair special.”

“I knew she’d think of something!” Alyssa warmly concurred. “Oh, Renata, it’s wonderful having you in charge of the auction and recruiting the Indian craft people. I’m just so glad you’re here!”

At the moment, Renata was not at all glad to be sitting in Alyssa Ingalls Baron’s living room, and not at all glad that she’d been roped into helping work on the fair. But there were perks to the job that none of the other women realized. Surely the memory of Michael’s sharp cheekbones or his grandfather’s weathered face would inspire Renata to create some of the finest paintings she’d ever done. And as for recruiting Indian artists, well, she’d have to contact every one she knew.

There weren’t all that many. She’d taken art classes with Bobby Montero and Judy Hall and got along well with both of them. But Bobby was a mixture of three or four tribes from Arizona and Judy was a Sioux. If Tyler’s crafts fair was going to center on Wisconsin history, then surely the committee would have to contact Wisconsin Indians. It seemed to Renata that there were a half dozen tribes within the state, but she didn’t know which ones they were or where they’d settled. All she knew for sure was that her farm had once been sovereign territory of the Winnebago.

And except for the old man who’d spent the night on her lawn, Michael Youngthunder was the only Winnebago she knew.