Prologue
Seated in a cramped booth in a rundown diner somewhere in the southwestern United states with little money and no place to stay Shanti wondered if life could get any worse. She had thought the land of opportunity would afford a better life but as yet nothing had been as planned. The advert she had answered had requested an unmarried, relatively well educated woman between the ages of 25 to 35 from the northern mountain region of India to teach preschoolers in a small Indian community. She was 26 with the best education a village girl could ever hope for, had been divorced for a year and had not thought to inform them of the latter. Nor had she though the fact that she was half Aryan and half Dravidian important. It had been.
In the three months she had been in communication with her prospective imployers they had been highly impressed with her command of English, her ability to speak five of their native languages and her knowledge of the basic subjects. Living in a relatively affluent, predominantly Indian surburb north of Seattle they wanted a trusted Indian to teach their children within the parameters of their culture. What they had not explained was that in specifying the northern mountains they had wanted a sheltered Aryan woman, the age group meant she would be unattractive enough not to be married despite her education. Shanti knew, without being vain, she was beautiful. She had her mother's hazel eyes, her rich, flawless amber skin was intermediate of the two and her hair was Dravidian curly. Tall and slender with womanly curves she was as exortic as an Indian woman was likely to be. The Mrs Singhs had not been pleased.
She had wondered while at home why her plane landed in New Mexico when Seattle was more than a thousand kilometres away and they had been dismissive, not today. Mrs Shahruk Singh had coldly told her, after they had suppossedly stopped for dinner, that middle of nowhere New Mexico was where they dumped opportunistic villagers who thought to lie their way to America. It truly was the middle of nowhere. Situated in the desert the small town of Solida was no more than a street on which the most basic stores stood with the diner at the edge. She did not see any industry about to explain its existence but judging from those in the diner a significant number of people lived here.
Nothing she had said had made a difference and the two had calausly left her there.
Dusk had settled, the lights already lit against the encroaching darkness. Outside the wispy clouds blazed crimson and orange as the barely past the horizon sun gave them its last kiss. The flatness of the desert gradually disappeared as she watched. It was all foreign to her, used as she was to the tree shrouded mountains of her homeland. She was out of place here, not only in this land but in the slowly filling diner. The patrons were mostly white with a couple of mexicans and one black woman and except for a couple of women, a teenage girl and the waitresses in short skirts they were all wearing tight jeans, tops, shirts and cowboy boots. In her flowered pink kurtar and deep pink chiridar she stuck out like a sore thumb and they all noticed. Their eyes on her compounded her helplessness, they would be going home to their loved and she had the barren cold to look forward to.
"Honey you ain't the first." a kind feminine voice drawled.
Looking up she saw the patroness standing besides her, a kindly matron with streaked brown hair and a glint of steel in her eyes.
"Excuse me?" Shanti asked.
The woman squeezed herself into the bench across from her then met her eyes with compassion. "The Mrs Singhs, they left another young lady up in Conner's Creek two hours ride from here 'bout four months back. Poor gal nearly cried her eyes out having nowhere to go and little money."
Shanti stared at her horrified at what was implied, surely the Mrs Singhs did not make a habit of this!
"Two months before 'twas a young man in Santa Esteva and those are just the ones we know about." A man in a booth across from them put in.
"But why would they do that?" she asked
"Honey people do strange things all the time." the patroness replied with a shake of her head. "I have a room above the diner, its not much but you can use it 'til you figure out what to do. Do you know anyone in the states?"
Shanti shook her head, no one from her village or any of her many relatives had ever come here. Not that they would have taken her in given her disgrace. The patroness, Emma, pated her hand with a smile.
"The Shepards are going up there north ain't they?" a grizzled old man asked
"Yes to Seattle actually, but Freddy Castais you cannot expect her to go to the Singhs!"
" 'Course not," the old man's wrinkled face creased even more with anoyance. "There's that there fancy place at the foot of the Cascades for women." he explained proudly head up and eyes bright.
"She ain't battered." a rough looking cowboy put in.
Freddy scrowled even more, "It
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