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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.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_b6d27bb4-0a3a-5869-b52a-7c9f850627f8)
IT WAS NEARLY nine o’clock in the evening when Michael reached the turnoff to Renata Meyer’s place. It had been a horrendous day. After spending the whole night in search of his grandfather, finding him at dawn, driving him back home, reporting late for work and working overtime, about the last thing he needed to do was dash back to Tyler again.
And the last thing he wanted to risk was spending an hour alone with this beguiling female.
With great reluctance and more than a little anger at Grand Feather, Michael rang the doorbell. He heard Renata coming, taking her time, probably glancing out the window to see who’d sneaked up on her in the dark. To make it easier for her, he called out, “It’s Michael Youngthunder, Renata.” And then, belatedly, he realized that she might not find the news particularly reassuring. He could hardly have made a good impression on her this morning. Besides, she’d already done her Good Samaritan deed for the year. If she normally lived in a big city like Milwaukee, she undoubtedly thought twice before opening the door to strangers or casual acquaintances who were men.
Even when they weren’t Indians.
To his astonishment, his words had the same effect as “Open sesame.” The door was flung open wide.
“Michael!” she burst out, the joy in her voice unmistakable. So was her assumption that he’d hurried back to Tyler just to see her.
For a full thirty seconds Michael simply stood there, dumbstruck. Renata was wearing that same casual outfit he’d seen her in this morning, although now the T-shirt seemed to sport a bit more paint. But her face, in the moonlight, looked completely different. This morning she’d been worried, cautious, offended, hurt. Tonight she looked positively radiant.
She’s thrilled to see me, he realized, the discovery swelling through him with a rush. I’ll be damned. Renata was hoping I’d come back again.
It occurred to Michael briefly that maybe his grandfather had already shown up here again and Renata was just relieved that someone had come to tow him away. But he hadn’t kept his distance from white women so long that he’d forgotten how to read the expression he saw on her lovely face. No man in his right mind was likely to be blind to such joyous anticipation.
Michael swallowed hard and tried to find somewhere to look besides Renata’s welcoming blue eyes. He didn’t want to embarrass her and he didn’t want to embarrass himself. But today seemed to be his day for humiliation. Grand Feather wasn’t giving him much choice.
“Uh, Renata, I’m really sorry to barge in like this,” he began, pretending he’d missed her delighted greeting. “But my cousin says my grandfather has disappeared again. He left a note this time telling me not to come after him, but there’s no way I can sleep while he’s missing.”
For the tiniest moment Renata stared at him in confusion, maybe a bit of shock. Then she looked concerned. It was not for several seconds that she began to blush.
It touched him that she seemed more worried than embarrassed. The very depth and decency of the woman made it increasingly hard to push away his keen attraction to her. Fiercely Michael reminded himself of why it was vital that he keep a safe distance from Renata. To her, their meeting was probably the beginning of something totally new. To him it was a replay of a movie he hadn’t liked the first time and was not about to sit through again.
“Michael, I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen him since you two left with Brick this morning,” Renata said straightforwardly, her tone giving nothing away. “It’s been very quiet here this evening.”
Unhappily he met her eyes, frustrated in more ways than one. He knew this was where his grandfather was heading; it was only a matter of time until he arrived. But what was he supposed to do until Grand Feather got here? Wait in the car? Circle the surrounding farmland? Hang out at that ritzy lodge?
“Do you want to come in and wait for him?” Renata asked politely.
He didn’t. He knew it was a bad idea. But he couldn’t think of any good way to tell her so without hurting her feelings. And that was the last thing he wanted to do. After all this time he was still cautious with white women, but he’d gotten over the need to be cruel to them.
