Thunder on the Plains (21 page)

She pulled open the drawer where the letters were kept and whipped them out. “Here! Do you want to censor my mail? You'll find the letters are perfectly respectable!” She slammed them down on the desk. “I have a right to my private life, Vince. And give me a little credit for common sense. Believe me, Colt Travis wouldn't come here and take over Landers Enterprises for all the money in the
world
! Believe it or not, there
are
men in this world who don't put money first! Besides that, the man has no romantic inclinations anyway. It's obvious by his letters that he is still haunted by the deaths of his wife and son. I highly doubt he's ready to fall in love again, especially with someone he hasn't seen in four years and who is as far a cry from what he would want in a woman as she could get!”

She turned away. “Get out, Vince. Every time you come around I get a headache. I might have known you didn't come to see me just to offer your help or to try to start being a real brother.”

He stared at her a moment, tempted to explain. “Sunny, I am just looking out for your welfare. For Christ's sake, you're only nineteen. What do you know about men?”

She slowly turned proud eyes to meet his gaze. “I know when a man doesn't respect my intelligence. I know when my own brother hates me. I know that most men put money above all things. I grew up around the most scheming kind of men there can be, remember? Father taught me better than you think. I know I have to be careful.” She looked away again. “Besides, I have far too much work ahead of me before I can devote my time to
any
kind of a relationship, whether it's with someone like Blaine O'Brien or anyone else. I have a railroad to build.”

She heard him sigh deeply. “A railroad that is never going to come to be. What will happen then, Sunny, to all the money you're putting into it? It will be gone, lining the pockets of men like Thomas Durant.”

“Mr. Durant has kept me totally informed every step of the way. If the railroad fails, he and a lot of others will have lost, not just me.” She faced him again. “But we aren't
going
to lose, Vince.”

“You'll never raise the money you need, not while there is a war going on.”

“Let me worry about that. You worry about Great Lakes Shipping and Landers Warehousing.”

His mouth moved into a sneer. “When it comes to that goddamn railroad, you're as much of a fool as Dad was! I hope you aren't as foolish about the men you take to your bed!”

Her eyes widened with indignation. “How dare you say such a thing! I've never given one thought to going to bed with
any
man!”

His gaze moved over her strangely. Was she still a virgin, or was she going to be like her mother? he wondered secretly. “Just remember my advice about Blaine O'Brien. Don't waste a good thing, Sunny, and don't be stupid enough to think that this Colt Travis, or whatever his name is, doesn't see dollar signs every time he gets another letter from you!” He walked to the door, stopping to gaze around the room once more. “I see you didn't waste any time getting rid of everything that speaks of our father.”

“I changed this room because it hurt too
much
to leave it the way Father had it! Why in God's name do you continue to reopen old wounds, Vince, to make life hell for me!”

He stiffened and closed his eyes for a moment. How could he explain? “I'm sorry.”

He turned and left, and Sunny stared after him, furious at how he always found a way to upset her. Why had he made the remark about taking men to her bed? She had never done anything more than let Ted Regis kiss her once, and that had been merely a kiss of friendship. She turned back to her desk, picking up Colt's letters, realizing he was the only man about whom she had ever had any truly romantic thoughts, and that was when she was a daydreaming child. She scanned one of the letters again, refusing to believe Colt would write her for any reason other than out of true concern.

She looked over at the magnificent spray of flowers Blaine had sent her. He was coming to Chicago soon to see her. She could not deny he was a charming man whom any woman would consider a perfect catch. She also could not deny that Vince was right in saying that she had to be careful who she allowed into her life, but the way he had said it left her somewhat stunned.

She sat down and again picked up her pen. She was determined to keep writing to Colt no matter what anyone thought of it.
I
might
not
know
much
about
men, Vince Landers, but I know of one man for certain who couldn't care less if I was worth no more than the clothes on my back.
She told herself she was not foolish enough to entertain romantic thoughts about Colt, for just as she had told Vince, it would be ridiculous, considering their different life-styles. But that didn't mean they couldn't continue to be friends, and it didn't mean she couldn't still daydream about a beautiful land and correspond with someone who was part of a lovely memory. She needed Colt's letters, and she was sure that he needed hers.

Dear
Colt
, she wrote.
I can't begin to tell you my sorrow at hearing about your wife and son. I can't think of one thing I could possibly say that would make the pain of your loss any more bearable, except that you should never blame yourself. God works in mysterious ways, and sometimes we just have to accept what happens.

She set the pen aside again, a sudden shot of jealousy moving through her at the thought of Colt loving another woman, sleeping with her, having a child with her. She put his letters back in the drawer and stared at the beginnings of her reply. Was she asking for trouble by continuing the correspondence? Was she risking an awakening of that childish crush?

She let out a sigh of disgust with herself. Colt Travis was a lonely man who had loved and lost and was surely not about to love again for a long time. He knew back on that trip that they could never be anything but friends, and now that they both were older and more mature, what was wrong with corresponding? If her letters did some little bit to help him feel less lonely in his time of loss, then it was good that she kept writing him.

She took up her pen and continued. Neither Vince nor anyone else was going to stop her from helping a friend in need, especially one to whom she owed her life.

***

Colt headed Dancer up the gradual slope, his heart pounding with dread. For some reason he thought it was necessary to come here, that somehow seeing the graves would help him forget. He had stopped in Denver first to see Joanna Scott and tell her what had happened to LeeAnn, but he had discovered the woman had died, which only reawakened his grief. Mrs. Scott had been his last link to LeeAnn's memory. Now that she was dead, it was as though poor LeeAnn and her whole family had never existed.

A biting February wind stung his face, yet it felt as if a piece of hard, hot iron were lying in his stomach. Since leaving his employ with the Pony Express in November 1861, he had again wandered, moving from town to fort to town along the Oregon Trail. He'd written his fourth and last letter to Sunny in late November. He had told her their correspondence would have to end for a while, since he would have no permanent address.

He never realized how much he would miss her letters, and he couldn't help wondering if she missed hearing from him. He thought perhaps he should write her again, even though she couldn't write back. He wasn't sure what he would do with himself now. He was only sure that before he could go on, he had to visit LeeAnn's and Ethan's graves and face the reality of their deaths once more. Maybe if he finalized things in his mind, it would be easier to go on.

He crested the rise, and pain ripped through him like fire. There lay the little homestead, still vacant and burned out, the plow still there, the broken-down fencing. Someone had either buried the Pawnee bodies, or come and taken them away, for as he came closer, he saw no bones or remnants of any kind. He grasped at his stomach, the awful memories from that ugly day coming back in sharp images.

He trotted Dancer to the burned-out cabin, every muscle tense, his heart pounding so that it hurt. He dismounted, tying Dancer and turning up the collar on his wolfskin jacket against the cruel wind. He walked through the cabin's ruins, remembering—a smile, a warm embrace, LeeAnn sitting by the fireplace breast-feeding little Ethan. That fireplace was all that remained now. The rocker in which LeeAnn used to sit still stood in front of it, but it was a charred skeleton of a chair, debris lying on top of it.

Colt shuddered, but it was not from the bitter cold. His whole body began to tremble, and he went to his knees beside the rocker, letting the tears come, telling himself it was better to let it out. Sobs racked at his body. He had no idea how long he knelt there before he managed to get control of himself. He struggled to his feet, throwing back his head and screaming, turning and kicking at the debris while sleet turned to snow and began to whiten the ugly black ruins.

After a rage of kicking and throwing things about, he stumbled upon the hinged door he had built into the floor of the cabin, under which LeeAnn stored potatoes and other vegetables. With a growl he shoved away more debris and lifted the door, kneeling down then to see a sack of potatoes still there but they were shriveled and dry, totally covered with long viney sprouts. He pushed the potatoes aside, and to his surprise, the four hundred dollars he had hidden behind them were still there. He grasped the money angrily and sat back and stared at it a moment, finding it ironic that out of all of this, only the damn money had survived.

He stood up and shoved the money into his pants pocket, staring around the cabin ruins, sometimes wondering if those few precious months he had had with LeeAnn had really happened. It seemed he had already done so many things in his life, yet he was going to be only twenty-five in three months. He felt like seventy.

He wished that for a little while he could have them all back, his mother and father, Slim, LeeAnn, Ethan. He had tried to find White Buffalo, but the ever-more-warlike Cheyenne were becoming very elusive, and bad weather had forced him into Denver for shelter. He had come here during a break in the weather, but it had again grown worse on his way out.

He walked away from the cabin, and the wind began to howl as he looked around for the graves. He tied his hat under his chin to keep it from blowing off his head, and he huddled his mouth and chin down into the front of his jacket as he walked around searching for some sign of where his wife and son were buried. The wind blew so hard that the snow swept across the ground, mixed with sand, leaving the earth bare in spite of the snow getting heavier by the minute.

Colt finally spotted a mound near what was once the horse shed. He hurried over, seeing that it had rocks laid over it in the shape of a cross.
I
marked
your
woman
and
baby's grave with stones in the shape of the white man's sign of God
, White Buffalo had told him.
I
learned
of
this
sign
from
your
missionaries. If you go to find it, look for the sign of the cross. The boy is buried with his mother.

Colt stared at the grave. So, it
was
real. LeeAnn and Ethan really were dead! He had never quite gotten over little spells of disbelief, the thought that somehow, somewhere, he would find them alive.

He knelt beside the grave, grateful to see that no animals had dug at it. “My poor LeeAnn,” he groaned, reaching out and touching the rocks. “I'm so sorry.” More tears came, and he hung his head, hardly aware of the wind and snow. Finally, he lay down, stretching himself across the hard mound, pretending his wife and son were in his arms. Snow drifted up against him and began to cover him, and somewhere in the distant hills, wolves began a mournful wail.

***

Blaine draped Sunny's fur cape around her shoulders, nodding to several of Chicago's most elite as others began leaving the theater. “Quite a good symphony, wasn't it?”

“I enjoyed it very much, Blaine,” Sunny answered. “Thank you for taking me.”

He took her arm, aware that people were staring. Blaine O'Brien and Sunny Landers were the hot topic of the society columns. Everyone in Chicago seemed to know who Sunny was, and any man who might be a love interest gained instant public attention. Blaine didn't mind one bit. He had big plans for the future, a career in politics. Public attention was just what he needed. He had deliberately taken time away from his business in New York to stay in Chicago for a while and court Sunny. As far as he was concerned, he had found the perfect woman, but sometimes he wondered just how long it was going to take to get her to marry him.

He was determined to keep trying. It wasn't just her beauty that fascinated him. He had dated many beautiful women in his thirty years. Nor was it just her intelligence and abilities, both of which she had proved in a grand way over the last few months. He decided that what frustrated him and made him want her most was the fact that she still had not put him on a pedestal the way other women had. He could not get the sexual response from her that he wanted and needed, nor could he get her to commit to him in any serious way. Her father's business and the railroad still came above all else.

They stopped and talked to a few people on their way out, people who looked admiringly at the couple, women getting flustered when Blaine kissed their hands, men ogling Sunny's exquisite beauty. Blaine himself had been unable to keep his eyes from the way Sunny's dress was cut, just enough to reveal a tempting portion of the crests of her untouched breasts, breasts he dearly wanted to touch and taste, wanted to own. He escorted her outside to his waiting carriage, both of them ducking against a bitter March wind. Blaine shouted to the driver to take them to Sunny's home, then helped her climb into the carriage and settled in beside her, commenting again about the symphony.