Thunder on the Plains (51 page)

“You think I
care
, now that Sunny's married to someone else?”

“The letter—”

“That letter was a bunch of bullshit! Something happened, Vi, and I'm betting it has something to do with Vince Landers! What did you say to her when she got back, Landers? When I got well enough I did a little investigating—found out from Sunny's servants in Omaha that
you
were waiting for her the night she got back after seeing me! They heard yelling, heard Sunny crying! Everything changed after that, and I want to know why!”

Stuart looked at Vi. “What do you know about this? What is he talking about?”

Colt jerked Vince over to a bigger chair and slammed him into it. A butler banged on the outer doors, which Stuart had locked. “Mr. Landers! Mr. Landers! Are you all right in there?”

“We're okay,” Stuart called back. “Just stay out! And leave the police out of it!”

Vince sat in the chair panting, blood mixing with the potatoes on his face. He angrily wiped away some of the potatoes, then took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his forehead. “Good God,” he muttered. “What kind of a madman are you!”

Colt stood over him, waving the knife. “I'm a savage
Indian
, remember?”

“Colt, this isn't you,” Vi said, remaining calm. “Don't do it this way.”

“This is the only way men like Vince understand!” he shouted. He walked around behind Vince's chair, grasping some of his hair in his hand. Vince looked ready to cry. “I
loved
her, Vi. You know that,” Colt said then, pain in his eyes. “And she loved me.” He moved his eyes to Stuart. “She came out alone to see me. We finally admitted our love for each other.” His jaw flexed in anger. “In fact, we did more than just admit it, but the details are for me and Sunny to know about. All I know is that when she left me before I rode out to the Cheyenne, it was with a promise to break her engagement to Blaine and come back to me. We were going to find a way to work things out!”

“Dear God,” Eve muttered, looking at him as though he were some kind of monster. “You can't be serious!”

“I don't want you to say a word,” Colt warned her. “I've got no more use for snobby bitches than I do for lying bastards like your husband!” Eve put a hand to her throat. Colt jerked again at Vince's hair. “What did you say to Sunny when she got back?” he demanded.

“What difference does it make? She's married to Blaine now.”

In one swift motion Colt whipped his knife through Vince's hair, cutting it off at the top to a stub and throwing a handful of the sandy and gray cuttings into the man's lap. Eve closed her eyes and wept. Colt reached down and grasped Vince under the chin. “The
truth
,” he warned.

Vince looked at Stuart. “Letting her be with this savage would have been a disaster, for her and the whole family,” he choked out. “I…I told her I could easily find someone to put an end to you,” he said then, directing his words to Colt. “A lot of men would take money for something like that. I told her if she pursued her sordid affair with you, I'd see you
dead
!”

“Vince!” Vi felt faint with anger. “Sunny
loved
Colt!”

“There's
more
, isn't there?” Colt asked. He moved around to stand in front of Vince, bending over the chair and laying the knife at his throat. With a quick flick he cut the string tie at the neck of Vince's silk shirt, and everyone gasped. “Sunny knows I can take care of myself,” he told Vince. “She could have warned me. There's something else. What are you leaving out, Landers?”

Vince glanced at Stuart again, and Stuart's eyes widened with outrage. “Vince, you didn't
tell
her! We promised
never
to tell her!”

“How could I
not
tell her, after learning she'd been cavorting with this savage like a common
whore
!”

The room hung suddenly quiet. Vince trembled, watching Colt put his knife back in its sheath. Vince breathed a little easier until suddenly Colt jerked him out of the chair. “You filthy-minded
bastard
!” Colt sneered. He laid into the man with his fists, knocking Vince halfway down the long table and sending more food scattering and spilling. Eve screamed and wept more when Colt jerked the man back off the table, hit him again, sending him sprawling into two chairs.

“Colt, please stop!” Vi shouted.

“For God's sake, man, you'll kill him,” Stuart put in.

“He
deserves
to die!” Colt raged. “How
dare
he call the woman I love, his own sister, a whore!”

“That's because her
mother
was one, and
her
mother before that!” Vince shouted. He managed to get to his knees, grasping at his stomach and spitting blood from his mouth. “Father…
bought
her…
paid
for her…the daughter of a high-class prostitute in New York City!”

Both Eve's and Vi's eyes widened in shock, and Colt stumbled backward as though he'd been hit by something.

“You stupid bastard,” Stuart shouted at his brother. “You
told
her, didn't you! My God, Vince, how could you
do
that! You know we promised Father! You
know
Sunny is nothing like that!”

“Vince! Tell me it's a lie,” Eve groaned.

“It's the truth.” The man tried to get up but managed only to turn and sit on the floor. He wiped the blood that dripped from his nose, and one eye was already swelling. “I didn't want any more shame…in this family! Not many knew, but those who did were just waiting for Sunny to show her true colors,” he panted. He looked up at Colt, grimacing with pain and grasping his ribs again. “When I…found out she was rolling in the grass with this worthless…half-breed, I knew what people would say, how it would look, and I told her the truth about her mother!” He grabbed the seat of a chair and got to his knees, blood and potatoes now smearing the front of his shirt and jacket. “I told her even
Colt
wouldn't want her…if he knew! I told her if she wanted the family secret protected…if she wanted any respect left to her mother's and to Bo Landers's name, she'd better marry…a proper man and behave herself!”

Vi turned to Stuart, shivering with the shock of the news. “You
knew
this and never told me?”

Stuart glared at Vince. “We made a pact,” he said through gritted teeth. “Father said he'd disinherit us if we ever broke Sunny's heart like that. When Sunny got older, she was so pretty and sweet and tried to be so good to us, we both decided to let it go.
I
let it go for
Sunny's
sake!
Vince
let it go only because he wanted to keep it covered up for the sake of gossip about the family, to save his
own
face!”

Colt turned away and grasped the back of a chair. “Do you really think something like that would have mattered to me?” he groaned.

“Hell no,” Vince answered, still shaking. “But I knew…
Sunny
would think it mattered! I knew she'd…never want you to know. Between that…and my threat to have you killed…she knew what she had to do…and it was
right
, dammit! You know it never could have worked, Colt. It's as much for…your own good as hers!”

Colt closed his eyes, breathing deeply for self-control. Oh, how he wished he had Vince Landers out in a lawless land where he could do with him what he'd like. “Yeah,” he said, his voice oddly quiet. “That's what she said in her letter—that it was best for both of us.” He whirled, the chair in his hands. “I should
kill
you! You've destroyed Sunny's chance to ever be a truly happy woman. You're a selfish, arrogant
bastard
, Vince Landers. Nobody is
ever
going to love her like I did!” He turned with the chair, throwing it at a mirror over a huge stone fireplace. Eve screamed again when the mirror shattered into thousands of pieces, falling to the hearth along with the broken chair. Colt turned back to Vince, and Vince tried to scoot back again. Colt charged toward him, lifting him up and landing a booted foot into the man's groin. “You filthy-minded son of a bitch! You took something that was the most beautiful thing in the world to her and you made her ashamed of it!”

“Please, please don't kill him,” Eve screamed.

“Colt, let him go!” Stuart begged. “His kids are right here in the house! So are my own!”

Colt just stood there a moment, as though deciding. Vince hung limp and groaning in his hands. “Don't even
think
about sending someone after me, Landers,” he snarled, “because if I find out about it, you're a dead man for
sure
, even if I hang for it!”

He brought a knee up into the man's nose, and Vi grasped her stomach at a cracking sound. Colt threw the man across the table again, astonishing the others at how easily he tossed the man about. Vince weighed a good two hundred pounds or better. Colt looked at Vi, tears in his eyes. “He's not even
worth
killing, at least not
this
time! He'd just better never threaten me again!” He moved his eyes to Stuart. “Don't worry. I'll never give away your little secret. I'd never do that to Sunny! She's suffered enough!” He headed for the doors.

“Colt,” Vi called out. “Where will you go?”

He stopped, his back to her. “I don't know. I sure as hell can't work for the U.P. anymore.”

He charged through the doors, and several servants gasped and scattered. Eve stumbled over to Vince, who had rolled off the table and lay curled up on the floor, covered with blood and potatoes and a mixture of several other foods. He held his nose, which was bleeding profusely.

Stuart turned to Vi and shook his head, tears in his eyes. “I loved her, Vi. I never would have told her.” He frowned. “You knew about her and Colt?”

“I knew she went out to the camp alone. I had an idea why.” She wiped her tears. “I thought when she came back she'd tell everyone and they would be happy. I never could get her to tell me why she changed her mind.”

Stuart closed his eyes and sank into a chair. “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. “I knew a long time ago she cared about Colt, but I never thought it was that serious. One of you should have come to me. I might have been able to straighten it out.”

“She wouldn't let me, Stuart. She told me it was all Colt's doing, that he had told her it just wouldn't work, that he was interested in someone else.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, it's pretty obvious that wasn't true, isn't it?” He shook his head. “Poor Sunny. She's never been allowed to be happy.”

“I'll go talk to the children—think up something to tell them.” Vi hurried out of the room while Eve began ordering servants to clean up the mess. Vi hurried to the front doors first to try to catch Colt, wondering if there was anything she could say to ease the pain; but he was already gone.

“He took off on a horse, ma'am,” one of the servants told her. “Went charging out of here like lightning. Who was he, ma'am?”

Vi turned back to the house. “It doesn't matter anymore. I highly doubt any of us will ever see him again.” She walked wearily back inside, her heart aching for Colt, and for Sunny. She had no pity for Vince whatsoever, and for the first time in her life she thought how pleasant it might be to kill someone. Colt had shown amazing control, for surely he had wanted nothing more than to murder Vince Landers.

February 1868

Billie sauntered up to Sheriff Rex Andrews, her bright green dress swaying with her walk. She leaned over his desk, displaying as much of her bosom as the dress would allow without falling completely out of it. “Come on, Rex, let him out. You know he'll be good.”

Andrews snickered and shook his head. “He's got to stay out of those fights, Billie. You seem to know him pretty well. Can't you get through to him?”

She shrugged. “He's an angry man right now. He's really okay, Rex. Let him out and he'll ride out to sleep under the stars like he always does after he gets into a brawl.” She reached out and touched his hair. Sheriff Andrews stood only five foot nine, but he was brawny and daring, a former guard for Wells Fargo who had settled in Cheyenne at the request of certain citizens who wanted their town to become more respectable.

“Come on, Rex. Please? You know he can't stand it in that jail. He goes crazy closed in like that. The poor guy lost his wife and son to Pawnee Indians, fought in the Civil War, spent time at Andersonville—give him a break. I'll give you a free night for it.”

The sheriff scowled. “Billie, you know I'm married.”

She reached between the cleavage of her bosom and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. “Will this cover the fine?”

Andrews rose with a deep sigh. “You win. He'd just better hightail it out of here for a couple of days, or next time he'll be in there for a good week.”

Billie straightened, smiling. She liked it in Cheyenne, a booming town that was expecting the railroad to arrive by April. Omaha was getting too civilized for her kind, many prostitutes already run out of town. In Cheyenne she was free to do what she liked. She had opened her own saloon with profits from the camp town, and she was making more money than ever. The town overflowed with single men, and some lonely married ones, men who worked for the railroad, bankers, lawyers, gamblers, freighters—men from all trades. There were women, too, but not enough to tame the wild town just yet. At night the air was filled with the sound of piano music, laughing prostitutes, shouting men, and occasional gunfire.

Andrews took the keys from a hook and walked through a door to the cells at the rear of the building. Moments later Colt appeared at the doorway, a cut on his lip and one over his left eye. Billie already knew that the man who had insulted Colt had come out much worse and was lying in a room at the doctor's house. “Colt, why do you always have to be such a bad boy,” she pouted. “I can't always be leaving my customers to come over to bail you out.”

He gave her a bashful smile. “Sorry. What do I owe you?”

She looked him over. “Oh, I'll get it out of you one way or another. I—”

Billie's words were cut off when gunfire crashed through a barred front window. Billie jolted forward, and Colt caught her as she went down, a bullet in her back.

“Billie!” Colt and Andrews both ducked down, and Andrews crawled to the door and bolted it.

“Send him out, Sheriff,” someone outside yelled, “or we're comin' in after him!”

“It's those damn cattlemen that caused so much trouble earlier,” Andrews told Colt. “I locked one of them up and the others said they'd be back for him, but I didn't expect something like this!” He crawled over to Billie. Colt had rolled her onto her back and was kneeling over her, feeling for a pulse. There was none.

“Sons of bitches,” he groaned. He looked at Andrews. “Give me my gun. I'll help you.”

Andrews quickly moved to where Colt's gun belt hung. He jumped up and grabbed it, and another shot came through a different window.

“Come on, Sheriff, let him go or you're a dead man!”

“They're all drunk,” Andrews fumed. He looked down at Billie. “Bastards! Is she dead?”

Colt took his gun belt, nodding, tears in his eyes. “Somebody is going to pay for this! Billie's been a good friend to me the last few months, just a friend, nothing more.” He tied the bottom of his holster around his thigh. He still felt a soreness and tingling in the back of the thigh, and he had lost a piece of muscle from the blow of White Buffalo's tomahawk, which caused him to walk with a slight limp. But he was strong as ever, and his shoulder wound had left no permanent damage. “How many of them do you think there are?”

“I'm not sure. Probably five or six.”

“Close the shutters and turn out the oil lamps. I'll go out the back way. Once it's dark in here, you can get to a window without them seeing you.”

“You heard us, Andrews! Send Mills out, or Cheyenne won't have no sheriff in the morning!”

Colt quickly crawled to the jail cells, where he stood up and ran out the back door. Andrews ran in a stoop back to the windows, reaching up with one hand to slam the wooden shutters closed. He stood up then and blew out the lamps, then made his way back to the windows. He opened the shutters on one and peeked out at seven men perched on horses outside the jail, guns leveled at the door. He wondered if Colt Travis would help him or just duck out on him.

“Come and get me,” Sam Mills yelled from his jail cell. “There's only two of them!”

The men outside looked at each other, frowning. Two men? They all knew that Sheriff Andrews always worked alone. He had never been able to find anyone skilled or brave enough to take on the job of helping civilize the untamed town. Cheyenne was growing so fast with men who lived by their own law that the town council could not pay most men enough to take the risk. “Keep a lookout,” one of them said to another.

“Hold it right there,” came a voice from the shadows. “Everybody get down, or you can each wonder which one of you I'll shoot first.”

They could not see the speaker. “We want Sam back, mister,” one of them spoke up. “No big deal. It's not worth dyin' over.”

“That depends on whether it matters to me if I die. It doesn't. But I'll bet it matters to you.”

The front door came open then, and Sheriff Andrews stepped out. “Get down off those horses, boys.”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then one of them fired at Andrews. The man spun around when the bullet grazed his left arm, but he kept hold of his gun in his right hand. From the shadows came more gunfire, and three men went down in quick succession. Two rode off, and Andrews shot at them, wounding one. Colt fired from the alley, killing a fifth man. Two others managed to ride off unhurt.

“You all right?” Colt shouted to Andrews, moving out from the shadows.

Andrews was panting, holding his arm. “I will be.”

A few people came out of saloons and gambling houses to have a look, but throughout most of the town the piano music went on, people so used to gunfire that they didn't bother to see what it was all about. Andrews looked up at Colt. “Thanks.”

Colt holstered his gun. “You think the other two will come back?”

Andrews looked out in the street, where five bodies lay, one of them still alive and moaning. Their horses had scattered every which way. “Are you kidding? They'd be crazy.” The man looked back at Colt. “You did good. You said earlier you used to scout for the U.P.?”

Colt nodded, opening the door and leading the man inside. “You'd better sit down. I'll relight the lamps and get the doc.” He took a match from where he'd seen some in a box on Andrews's desk and lit one oil lamp, then the other. He walked around and looked down at Billie, the old familiar grief he had felt so often over the years returning. She had gotten him through some rough times, and he was still not over Sunny's marriage to Blaine. It had been Billie's idea to come to Cheyenne, but Colt's anger had caused him to get in a few fights and had landed him in jail more than once. He worked for a rancher outside of town, but he felt restless and unhappy, wondering if he would ever love again, ever care about anything again.

He knelt down and caressed Billie's face. “Poor Billie,” he muttered. “This is my fault. If she hadn't come to bail me out, this wouldn't have happened.” He closed his eyes and made a fist. “Damn! Everything I touch dies or leaves me.”

“I know a good way to keep you busy and give you an outlet for all that anger, Travis,” the sheriff told him.

Colt swallowed back an urge to weep. “How's that?” he asked, pain in his voice.

“Be my deputy. Nobody else around here has the guts to do it.”

Colt shook his head. “Me? A lawman?” He turned to look at Andrews. “I don't know.”

“What the hell? You got anything better to do? Pay's forty dollars a month. You said yourself you didn't give a damn what happened to you. A man who thinks like that is even braver, and I like the way you handle yourself.” Andrews leaned back in his chair and shivered. “You'd better go get that doc right now. We'll talk about this later.”

Colt nodded, taking a jacket from a nearby hat tree and laying it over Billie's face. “I'm sorry, Billie,” he groaned, tears welling in his eyes. “I'll see you get a real nice burial.” He rose, turning away from Andrews and sniffing. “I'll go get some help.”

“Think about what I said, Travis,” the sheriff answered. “You could start tonight. God knows I'll be out of commission for a while. I need the help.”

Colt walked to the door. “I'll think about it.”

“I'd want you to cut that hair and wear regular clothes instead of those buckskins. You too Indian to do that?”

Colt smiled sadly, thinking of White Buffalo, wondering if anyone had bothered to bury his body. God, how it hurt to know he'd been the one to kill the man who was once his good friend. “No,” he answered. “I'm not too Indian.” He looked back at Andrews, pain in his eyes. “Find me some kind of badge. I'll be back in a bit.”

Andrews smiled. “Good. Now you can help me put other men in jail instead of it being you.”

Colt nodded. “I suppose.” He walked out and closed the door behind him.

“What's goin' on out there!” the cowpuncher Sam yelled from his cell.

“Shut up!” Andrews barked. “Four of your friends are dead and another one wounded. The other two rode off. The one still living is going to hang for the murder of Billie White!”

“You can't hang a man for killin' a damn whore! They ain't worth it!”

Andrews stared at Billie's cold, still body. “This one was,” he said quietly.

***

Sunny lay in a bath of sweat, her face pale from loss of blood. The doctor had finally stopped her bleeding after she gave birth to an eight-pound son. Labor had lasted for hours, and Sunny barely had the strength to move when Vi came into the room, the baby in her arms. “Time for a feeding, if you have the strength, Sunny.”

A nurse helped Sunny roll to her side and propped pillows behind her. She had come back to Chicago to have the baby, wanting to be near Vi when her time came; and Blaine had come just a few days before, taking time away from his renewed campaigning. It was an election year, and this coming summer he would be completely immersed in his effort to get into politics. He would expect his wife and child to be by his side, but right now Sunny liked the thought of being with her son.

She smiled when Vi laid the baby beside her. She helped her open her gown, and in moments the baby was suckling away at its nourishment.
My
son
, Sunny thought.
You're as beautiful as your father
. His skin was still too red to tell if he would be brown or fair, but she already knew how he would look. He was perfect in every way, without a flaw on his skin. His shock of black hair was oiled and combed to the side. When he opened his eyes, they were not blue like Sunny's. They were hazel.

“How are you feeling, Sunny?” Vi asked.

She closed her eyes. “Like I died. Please stay here. I don't know how long I can even lie here and feed him.”

Vi reached out and touched her hair. “I know. My second one was like this.” She stroked her hair away from her face, thinking about the things she had learned about Sunny's mother. It had taken Vince some time to recover from Colt's beating, but Vi had not felt the least bit sorry for the man. She realized now the unhappiness with which Sunny must live, but now she at least had this baby. Vi had hoped the baby would change everything for her, but during the throes of birthing, Sunny had called out Colt's name. No one had heard but the doctor and nurse, and Vi had warned them to keep still about it.

Now, as she studied this baby, while she had bathed it, powdered it, looked into its eyes, she could not help wondering if the child might be Colt's; but she was afraid to ask. If she was wrong, Sunny would feel terribly insulted. She had never told Sunny what she knew about her mother or about the confrontation between Vince and Colt. She figured it was best now not to mention Colt's name anymore.

“Isn't he beautiful?” Sunny said weakly.

“He is perfect. How could you and Blaine
not
have a perfect baby?” Vi saw the clouds move into Sunny's blue eyes.

In the aftermath of birth Sunny felt vulnerable and sentimental, an odd depression engulfing her. Oh, how she wished she could tell Colt he had a son! How happy it would make him! But it would be cruel to tell him when she couldn't be with him, to let him know he had a son he could never hold or raise himself. “Vi,” she whispered, her eyes tearing, “I have to tell someone. You're the only one I can trust.”

“Tell me what, darling?”

Sunny looked past her. “Are the doctor and nurse gone?”

Vi frowned. “Yes.”

Sunny looked at her with eyes of sorrow. “This is Colt's baby, not Blaine's.” The tears came harder then.

Vi put her head in her hands. “Dear God, Sunny. Do you know what this child would mean to Colt?”

“I know.” A tear dripped onto the baby's head, and Sunny quickly wiped it away. “Get me a handkerchief, will you?”