Thunder on the Plains (54 page)

“The boy is fine, sleeping soundly,” Robert assured her, not realizing she meant the baby she thought she might be carrying by Blaine. She had been saving the surprise for after the elections, thinking to add to Blaine's celebration by telling him she was going to have another child. He had not given her the chance.

“I'll say she fell down the stairs,” Trudy was saying. “Mr. O'Brien is much too important for the doctor to dare say it was anything else. I'll call Dr. Tims, Mr. O'Brien's personal physician. He'll be discreet about it.”

“Yes, yes. Well, hurry and send someone for him. She's in a bad way.”

Sunny rested her head on Robert's shoulder, and as consciousness began to leave her, she thought it was someone else holding her. “Colt,” she whispered.

***

Since the Union Pacific had come through, the wild, fast-growing town of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was bursting at the seams with people from all walks of life. The summer of '68 saw thousands of cattle move through the town, brought in by surrounding ranchers and on drives from the south to be boarded onto trains that would take them to Chicago for slaughter. Numerous side tracks held additional locomotives and waiting cattle cars, and it had already been decided that more would be needed the next summer. The town citizens joked that if the dust or a stray bullet didn't choke or kill a person, the smell would do him in.

After a wild shootout with bank robbers the day before, Colt was given some time off to recover from a minor bullet wound that had grazed his left hip. He sat in his room at the Eat & Sleep boardinghouse, owned by an older couple by the name of Perry from the South who had lost everything they owned in the war and had come west to start over. It was Mrs. Perry who had brought the morning paper for him, along with a cup of coffee.

Colt picked up the paper and read the headline.
Infamous
Cheyenne
Leader, Roman Nose, Killed in Heated Battle
.

So
, he thought,
another
good
man
down
. He had followed the Indian problems closely, wondering if he would ever get over his own guilt for killing White Buffalo.

The
Cheyenne
leader, Roman Nose, was killed recently during a siege against Major George A. Forsyth and approximately fifty experienced scouts, who were pinned down on an island along the Arikaree River in Kansas, from September 15 until September 25. The scouts were surrounded and held on the island by hundreds of attacking Cheyenne. Shielded only by their own hand-dug rifle pits, and many nearly starving to death, Forsyth's scouts hung on in a heroic effort against warring Cheyenne intent on a massacre. The scouts had been hired on order of General Phil Sheridan to help track those Indians who have been committing depredations against settlers throughout Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado.

On
the
morning
of
September
25 the 10th Cavalry arrived on the scene to find hungry, battered but cheering scouts still entrenched in what is now being called Beecher's Island, after a Lieutenant Frederick H. Beecher, who was killed in the fight. By the time the scouts were rescued, at least six had been killed and another fifteen wounded. Forsyth reported at least thirty Indians killed and close to a hundred wounded. For the last few days of the fight, Forsyth's men survived on boiled horse flesh.

It
is
hoped
that
the
death
of
Roman
Nose
will
take
some
of
the
fire
out
of
the
constantly
warring
Cheyenne. General Sheridan will continue to pursue the savages, and has promised General Sherman that there will be no peace for the Cheyenne for many months to come.

Colt folded the newspaper and sighed, reaching over to pick up a pre-rolled cigarette and lighting it. He winced with the stinging pain in his hip, a wound that was not major, but bad enough to make a man grimace when he moved around too much. He sat up on the edge of the bed, too restless to let the pain keep him on his back, but forced to gingerly lean to one side to avoid putting pressure on the sore spot.

He took a deep drag on the cigarette, thinking how he could have been there at Beecher's Island if he had answered the ad he had seen a few weeks earlier calling for experienced scouts. He had been tempted to take up his old profession and get back out on the Plains, but he had come to like Rex Andrews and knew the man depended on him to help with the demanding job of trying to keep some kind of order in Cheyenne.

He grasped the iron post at the foot of the bed and managed to stand up, then limped over to a window, watching the bustling, dusty street below. He had to admit that Andrews had had a good idea offering him a deputy's job. Although he usually hated so much noise and civilization, ever since Sunny had married Blaine O'Brien he had needed the excitement and danger, the busy schedule he kept and the outlet it gave him for all the pent-up anger. Being in Cheyenne left him little time to think about the hurt. To return to the open plains and be entirely alone again was now something he didn't think he could bear.

He smoked quietly, allowing himself a rare thought about Sunny. He had struggled against the memories, worked long hours so that sleep came quickly, all in an effort not to lie awake and think too much. It was times like this when it all came back so clearly for him—those blue eyes, that delicious smile, the feel of her body against his own, the ecstasy of claiming her.

He sighed angrily. That was the hell of it.
He
had claimed her first. Sunny belonged to him, and he knew damn well nobody else was going to love her as he had, although sometimes he almost hated her. As time went by he felt more and more angry that she had not come to him in the first place.

He turned away from the window, another painful shiver of remorse moving through him. God, how he had loved her, and much as he hated to admit it, he still did. The thought of her lying in Blaine O'Brien's bed stabbed at his gut like a knife. He would never forgive himself for riding off that day they had returned to camp and letting her go back to Omaha alone. He felt an explosive fury every time he imagined Vince lighting into her, insulting her, telling her the devastating news about her mother. The only thing that had kept him from killing Vince was the fact that his children were in the house. If he had gotten hold of the man alone, someplace where there was no law…

He couldn't bear sitting around like this. He smashed out the cigarette angrily and began dressing. He had to get out and keep busy in spite of his pain. Minutes later he left the room, leaving the newspaper on the floor for Mrs. Perry's housekeeper to pick up when she cleaned his room. He had not read it all, but he didn't care.

A few hours later the cleaning lady arrived, straightening his bed and emptying an ashtray. She picked up the paper, deciding to sit down for a moment and scan through it before throwing it away. One article in particular happened to catch her eye.

Railroad
and
Shipping
Magnate
Blaine
O'Brien Drowned at Sea!
the headline read on page three.
Blaine
O'Brien, owner of the ocean freighting and passenger line bearing his name, died at sea in a raging storm on the Atlantic. O'Brien was also heavily invested in the Union Pacific branch of the nearly completed transcontinental railroad, as well as…
The woman skipped down through the long list of Blaine's holdings, as well as his social accomplishments…
Lost
his
bid
for
governor
of
New
York
State
in
the
August
primaries…an avid big-game hunter…decided to journey again to Africa for a hunting vacation after a hard campaign…

She scanned through more words, always eager to read about famous people.
Mrs. O'Brien, the former Sunny Landers, had not accompanied her husband on his voyage due to injuries from a bad fall sustained only one day before Mr. O'Brien left for Africa. The O'Briens have one son, Beauregard Stuart, who is six months old…O'Brien's death leaves Sunny O'Brien heiress to an even greater fortune than that which she had already inherited from her father. It is estimated that her combined wealth surpasses even that of Cornelius Vanderbilt…Memorial services were held September twenty-four, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, at St. John's Lutheran Cathedral, New York City. Mrs. O'Brien remains in seclusion, refusing to speak to reporters.

“Well, I'll be,” the woman muttered, always enjoying reading about the misfortunes of rich people. She folded the newspaper and put it in with the rest of the collected trash.

February 1869

Sunny watched Bo crawl around beneath the huge Christmas tree in the downstairs parlor of her Omaha home. More and more the boy, a year old now, was looking like his father. He was strong and active and adventurous, and so beautiful. He was almost walking now, pulling himself up by grasping furniture, sometimes taking several steps with no help.

Whenever she looked at her son, she saw a reminder of how beautiful her love for Colt had been, not the ugly, whoring lust Blaine and Vince had both tried to make it seem. She wondered sometimes if she would ever get over the ugliness of that night when Blaine had beat her, not just the physical pain she had suffered for weeks afterward, but the emotional pain of his cruel words, and the deep abiding pain of having lost a baby. Maybe if she had told Blaine she was carrying his child…but then, life was full of maybes. The shock of learning about her mother, of loving Colt so intensely and then having to abandon that love, the emotional abuse she had suffered from Blaine, followed by the vicious beating and Blaine's untimely death, had all left her weary and near collapse. The only thing that kept her going and gave her a reason to go on in spite of her grief and guilt, was her son, her little bit of Colt Travis. In all that had happened, her little boy remained innocent of any wrongdoing. He was her only joy.

Sunny had come back to Omaha because it had become the only place she felt content and at peace. She decided that was because it was close to the land Colt loved, the land she and Colt together had loved. She had left others in charge and had come here to be alone, to think about what she should do, whether she should try to find Colt. Maybe it would hurt more to find him and discover he hated her and wanted nothing to do with her than to just let sleeping dogs lie and allow the poor man to go on with his life, leaving her out of it. Maybe he had found some other woman by now. Still, he had a son. It only seemed right that he should know about Bo. Even if he didn't love or want her anymore, he had a right to be aware of the existence of his own flesh and blood. She knew how important that would be to him.

She wondered how, with all her experience in the world of business and power, she could have made such a shambles of her personal life. Not only had she hurt Colt deeply, but she had destroyed the sweet love they had shared, and now she carried the guilt of feeling responsible for Blaine's death. If not for their fight that night over Colt, he might not have left. His cruelty could never be forgiven, and she would forever be haunted by his vicious abuse, yet the fact that he had left in anger and had ended up dying made her feel as though she were the cause. She still carried a faint scar on her cheek from that awful night, and to her it was like being branded a harlot.

Vi had told her over and over that it was Blaine's fault, not hers; but she could not shed her part of the responsibility, nor could she avoid the fact that all of it was more Vince's fault than anyone's. She was going to do her best to correct that today. She walked to a window to see if anyone had arrived yet for the special meeting she had called, and she saw a fancy coach approaching the curved, brick drive. “Good, Vince,” she said softly, her eyes cold and hard. “You came.”

Never had she been more determined, and in a sense she had never felt stronger. She thought how ironic it was that she was the richest woman in America, but the most unhappy, with no reason for living other than her little boy. What she was determined to do might bring her more trouble, but she had made a decision, and she was going to go through with it. What kind of problems would Colt give her over the boy? If he hated her and wanted no part of her life but wanted rights to Bo, how would it all be handled? Blaine had not yet changed anything in his will before leaving for Africa, which meant she and Bo had inherited a vast fortune. Little Bo, the son of a half-Indian scout who cared nothing for riches, stood to become one of the richest men in the country one day.

For now, though, the boy could do nothing to help his mother with the burdens she would face. Blaine's mother and sister had wanted no part of running any of the businesses. They were satisfied to simply live a life of leisure and travel, wiring Sunny for more money whenever they needed it. The bulk of the estate, which meant the bulk of the work and decisions, had fallen to Sunny, small shoulders that now carried a bigger burden than ever. Blaine had good men running his various enterprises, and Sunny was perfectly willing to leave things in their hands for the time being. She was not emotionally ready yet to take on her vast new holdings. She had left everything to the men already in charge, with a request for monthly reports to be sent to Omaha. In time, she supposed, she would make trips to New York to oversee her new interests there, perhaps sell some of the businesses; but she had not decided just what to do yet about the logging business Blaine had been building in Oregon.