Thunder on the Plains (23 page)

“Mr. Tibbs is willing not to press any charges if you're hiding him,” one of the other gang members told the customers. “Just turn him over.” He gave a signal to one of his men, and Colt watched warily as the second man turned and headed upstairs.

“You all might say you're Negro lovers,” the man talking below went on, “but do you love them more than money? Our boss will pay good money to the man that turns the boy in. He's small built, eighteen years old, wearing a fancy suit. Tibbs treats his slaves good, especially his personal servants. Nothing's going to happen to him if you turn him in.”

“Except a good whipping that will open up his back, right?” someone said with a sneer.

Colt boldly met the eyes of the man who had come upstairs. The man hesitated, his eyes moving over Colt, taking the several scars on his face and naked torso into account. After years of hard living and personal loss, Colt looked older. The scar above his right eye indicated a man who could be mean when necessary, let alone the fact that he stood over six feet tall, his arms and chest hard-muscled. He kept his cigarette between his lips, literally frightening the intruder with his eyes as he stared him down. “There's nobody in there but my own personal whore,” he said firmly but quietly. “You've got no right coming up here and disturbing people. Get the hell out.”

The man kept a gun on him, moving to peek around the doorway. Billie, still sitting stark naked on the bed, smiled and waved at him. The man took a moment to get a good look before turning back to Colt, clearing his throat nervously. “There's a reward, if you're interested. The boy's name is Elam. He's the boss's favorite, if you know what I mean. Mr. Tibbs will pay plenty to get him back.” The man turned and went downstairs, leaving with the others then to continue their search. Colt went back inside Billie's room and began dressing.

“Where are
you
going?” Billie asked him.

“Out for some fresh air. I just saw something that made me feel a little sick. Besides, I'm wide awake now.”

“You're going to look for that Negro kid yourself, aren't you?”

“No. I just have a sudden urge to get the hell out of here, maybe go for a ride. I've got some things to think about.” He finished dressing and strapped on his gun. He picked Sunny's letter up from the night table and shoved it back into his saddlebag, then shoved in other personal articles. He tied his tobacco pouch onto his belt and picked up the saddlebags and his carbine.

“You won't be back, will you?” Billie asked.

He met her eyes, seeing a hint of sadness. “Probably not. Thanks for the last three days. I needed it.”

“I'm sorry about your wife and all. I just wish you wouldn't go get yourself involved in that war, Colt. You're a nice man, way down deep inside that mean-looking exterior. If you get wounded, lose a leg or something, who's going to take care of you?”

He smiled sadly. “I've always found a way to get by. Take care of yourself, Billie. Be careful who you invite up here.”

She grinned. “They'll all be a disappointment after you.”

He laughed lightly, showing the melting smile that made her wonder if maybe she could love a man at that. But then, what man would love her back? “Bye, Colt. You're one hell of a man.”

Colt just shook his head. “Bye, Billie.” He headed out and down the stairs, walking out into the cool night air and taking a deep breath. He could hear the gang of searchers pounding on doors and shouting farther up the street. Suddenly, he wanted to get the hell away from all of it. He walked in the opposite direction to the livery where his horse was kept. He had already paid the owner for Dancer's stall for tonight, so he decided it wouldn't matter if he got his horse and left.

He reached the livery only to find that the front doors of the shed were padlocked. “Damn,” he muttered. He paced in front of the building, frustrated. He started for the back then, remembering there were more double doors on the opposite end of the shed. If those were simply board-locked from the inside, then if he could get inside himself, he could open them and get the hell out of there. He had no idea where the owner lived, and he was not about to wait for the man to open up in the morning. When Colt Travis got an itch to ride, there was no waiting around.

He checked the back doors, secured from the inside, just as he had suspected. He looked up—no window. He walked back around the side of the building, remembering he had seen a window there. It was then that he noticed some crates stacked against the side wall of the shed, leading right up to the window, almost as though they had been put there deliberately. The window had been pushed open.

Frowning with curiosity, Colt slung the saddlebags over his shoulder and climbed up on the crates to the window, which was only eight feet off the ground. He peeked inside the darkened shed. A couple of horses whinnied, but he wasn't sure if it was from his appearance, or if someone else was inside.

He let his eyes adjust to the moonlight that came through another window at the front of the shed, and he saw a stack of hay below him. He swung his legs over the windowsill, throwing down his saddlebags first, then keeping hold of his rifle as he jumped into the hay. A few more horses whinnied and snorted. Colt picked up the saddlebags, talking softly to the horses to calm them, then making his way over to where he knew Dancer was kept. He found an oil lamp, then felt around in his saddlebags for a match, taking one out and lighting the lamp just enough so he could see to saddle Dancer.

He looked around the shed, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. He cautiously walked over to Dancer, hanging the lamp nearby and setting his rifle and saddlebags aside. He stroked the horse a moment to keep him calm, then turned and took his saddle blanket from a hook and slung it over the animal's back. He lifted his saddle from where it was perched on the stall gate and set it on Dancer, reaching under the horse's belly to grab the cinch.

It was then he saw movement under a small stack of hay in the opposite corner of Dancer's stall. Colt hesitated, slowly reaching for his revolver. Quietly, he moved around the other side of Dancer, then aimed the revolver at the stack of hay. “Who's there?” he demanded.

The only answer was a strange whimpering sound, certainly not what he would expect to hear from a horse thief, unless the thief were a child. He stepped a little closer, suddenly thinking about how the crates had been stacked by the window. Maybe whoever was under the hay had simply come in here to hide. He could still hear shouting farther up the street. “Damn,” he whispered. “Elam? That you?”

There came another whimper. Colt had seen a few Negro slaves when he was younger, down in Texas, and he had always felt sorry for them. Since coming into the Plains country, he had seen almost no Negroes, slave or free. Kansas and Nebraska tried to keep them out to avoid trouble over the slavery issue. If there was a Negro under that hay, it had to be the one called Elam.

“I won't hurt you, and I won't turn you in,” he tried to explain. “My name is Colt Travis, and right now I've got no particular plans but to get the hell out of Omaha. You want to come along?” He put his gun back in its holster. “Let me help you, Elam. I'm riding out of here tonight. I can take you into country where those boys up the street would never find you.”

He finally saw movement again. Some of the hay tumbled away, and a slender boy who looked to Colt more like fourteen than eighteen scrambled from under the straw. He was quite handsome, with a face that could almost be called pretty. He stared at Colt wide-eyed and shivering, reminding Colt of a scared deer.

“You
are
Elam, aren't you?” Colt asked.

The boy swallowed and nodded. “Please, please don't turn me in, mister! Mr. Tibbs, he'll hurt me good.”

Colt looked him over. He wore a tight-fitting suit with a ruffled shirt, and his hair hung in curls to his shoulders. “How come your owner dresses you fancy like that? That suit looks like silk.” He squinted. “You
really
a boy?”

“Yes, sir, I'm a boy. Mr. Tibbs, he makes me wear my hair long and makes me wear these clothes. He likes to dress his servants good, pretend he treats them just fine. But he don't. Not really. Don't make me go back to him, please!”

“Where is this Tibbs from, and what's he doing in Omaha?”

“He's from Kentuck, sir,” Elam answered, his voice still that of a younger boy. “He come out here to maybe buy some land, have him a big ranch on account of that Homestead Act. He brung me with 'cause I'm his favorite.” The boy sniffed and shivered. “I was waiting till we got far enough north that maybe I could get away. You know a place called Canada?”

“I've never been there, but I know how to find it.”

“Take me there! Please, mister! I be free there! You done said you could take me into country where those men wouldn't come looking for me. You said it. You said you was riding out of Omaha tonight!”

Colt scowled slightly. “You didn't do something wrong, did you, like steal something? Kill somebody?”

“No! No, sir! I just gotta get away from Mr. Tibbs, that's all. It ain't right, what he makes me do. I ain't no woman, you know? I gotta do what he say, you know? Or else he hurts me bad. I don't mind doing housework, working in fields, none of that. But I ain't no woman, and it makes me throw up sometimes. And when he gets tired of me, or when I start looking like the man I'm gonna be, he'll have his men shoot me. I've seen him do it to others. I'm just his newest, you know? Pretty soon he'll be done with me and he'll kill me! I gotta get away, get to Canada!”

Colt thought about the remark the man who had come upstairs with the gun had made about this young man being the boss's “favorite.”

“What do you mean, you're no woman?”

Elam looked down at the floor. “You know, don't you? I'm Mr. Tibbs's favorite. He don't like real women, jus' boys.”

Colt stared at him, dumbfounded, feeling like a fool for not immediately grasping what the poor kid was trying to tell him. “Jesus Christ,” he swore, finding it hard to believe there really were men like that. “Stay put.” He walked back around and finished cinching his saddle. He tied on his bedroll and saddlebags, then shoved his rifle into its boot. “Come on over here,” he told Elam.

The young man obeyed, still looking fearful. He swallowed when he looked up at Colt. “You an Indian? I ain't never seen one, but you look like how I'd picture one.”

“Half Indian. Cherokee. You ever ride a horse?”

“No, sir.”

“Come over here and put your foot in this stirrup and climb up.”

The young man just gawked at him a moment. “You won't…you ain't like Mr. Tibbs, are you? I'd just as soon you shot me.”

Colt let out a sigh of disgust. “No, I'm not like Mr. Tibbs. Look, I'm a wandering man with no job at the moment and no particular plans except a sudden urge to get the hell out of Omaha.”

“You takin' me to Canada?”

“If that's where you want to go. Soon as we get a good ride away from here, I'll see about getting you into some clothes that aren't so damn conspicuous.”

“How do you know them men won't come after us?”

“Because nobody in his right mind wants to ride into Sioux country.”

“Sioux! Sioux
Indians
?”

“Don't worry. I've dealt with them before, and I know the country. Now, which would you rather do—have those men up the street find you, or take your chances with the Sioux?”

Elam took a deep breath and managed a limp smile. “Help me up,” he answered. He put his left foot in the stirrup and Colt gave him a boost. As soon as Elam was in the saddle, his feet were no longer in the stirrups because his legs were so much shorter than Colt's.

Colt took Dancer's bridle from where it hung on a nail and he slipped it over the horse's head and ears. He took hold of the reins and blew out the lamp, leading the horse to doors at the back of the shed, which were locked from inside with a simple board shoved through iron bars. He pulled the board away and cautiously pushed open the doors, leading Dancer out into the dark alley behind the livery. “Move to the back of the saddle,” he told Elam quietly.

The young Negro obeyed, and Colt mounted up. “Hang on to me,” he told Elam. “We'll leave very quietly and stay to the shadows. Once we're beyond hearing, I'm going to be riding hard, so be ready.”

“Yes, sir. I…I don't know what to say…how to thank you.”

“Don't worry about it. Besides, if you end up on the wrong end of some Sioux arrow, you might not be so grateful.”

“Don't matter, sir, long as I don't have to go back to Mr. Tibbs.”

Colt gently touched Dancer's sides, trotting the horse through the back alley and keeping out of the light.

***

The Senate gallery was filled, mostly with reporters who were certain the Pacific Railway Act would be defeated. Sunny was certain it would not. She and Durant and others had spent far too much money bribing some of the men who sat below. For months the Pacific Railway Act had been tossed back and forth from House to Senate, studied by various committees, read, changed, reread. Congressmen and senators alike had given long speeches for and against the idea, and Thomas Durant, Sunny herself, and several other of their wealthy cohorts had presented their own arguments before Congress.

Now, finally, the act was down to the final Senate vote, after being approved by the House. Sunny was beyond worrying about whether her own bribery techniques were moral or immoral. She had paid men directly, promised others she would contribute to future campaigns, awarded shares of railroad stock free, and had even invested in one senator's fledgling textile mill. Part of her considered it abhorrent that so many of the elected officials below would so easily take bribes. They were supposed to be law-abiding men, the pillars of their communities.
Just
about
any
man
can
be
bought, Sunny.
She could hear her father's words.
And
when
it
comes
to
what's best for Landers Enterprises, and what's best for this transcontinental railroad, then we will pay the price, right or wrong.