Wildest Dreams

by Rosanne Bittner

  She sighed deeply. "With all this success, I feel sorry for Luke, because I know he still hurts inside, not just over

  Nathan, but also over the situation with his own father. I told you in my letters the story behind why Luke came out here. He has written to his father several times, but the man never replies, nor does Luke's brother. I know it hurts him deeply, but he refuses to show it."

  Katie took her daughter's hands. "And what about you? You went through so much hell those first couple of years."

  "Life goes on, Mama. Actually it was Luke who thought about giving up, right after Nathan was taken. He said we could move to Denver so I could be with you, that he'd find a job there. I know he didn't really want that. He just made the offer for my sake, but I couldn't take his dream away, Mama; and I couldn't leave this place, not when I know in my bones Nathan is still alive. I've always thought that if he ever comes back, he'll come here looking for us. I want to be here when that day comes. At the same time, we've both grown to love this land. This is home now, Mama." She squeezed the woman's hands. "Except for the ever-present longing to find Nathan, we're fine. Our love is strong, and we have the other children. Life is still often very hard. It will be a long time yet before Montana is as civilized as most of the rest of the country; but we're getting there."

  Katie smiled sadly. "I'm glad you're doing so well." She sighed deeply. "We saw the graves on the way in. Will reminded us about the outlaws buried there. I remember you telling us about it in one of your letters. I just couldn't imagine Luke shooting down seven men."

  Lettie looked up the hill toward the graves, their mounds now sunken and weathered by time. "That was not an easy time for him, but out here men have to take the law into their own hands. In some ways Luke is a much harder man than the one you knew when we first parted on the trail. He's actually feared by some, respected by all. He has taken to this land and to ranching like a fish to water. Not all men can come here and settle. It takes a special breed." She looked back at her mother. "But when it comes to me, and to the children, he's always good and gentle," she added.

  She put an arm around her mother then. "No more talk of this. We're happy and everyone is healthy, and it's been nine years since I've seen my mother. I can't believe you're really here. You'll stay till Luke gets back, won't you? Surely you didn't come all this way just to stay a couple of days. We have a brand-new bunkhouse that the men haven't moved into yet. It would be a very nice place for the three of you to stay. With five children and three bedrooms, there isn't room in the house, but you'd be quite comfortable in the bunkhouse; and of course, during the day you'll spend every minute with me, every meal. I'll introduce you to the wives of some of the help. We can have a big picnic when Luke gets back! That would be fun. He should be back within a week or two. You can stay that long, can't you?"

  "We were figuring on a nice, long visit, unless we wear out our welcome!" The woman laughed lightly. "Louise's husband owns two banks. He's his own boss, so he can do what he wants. Their little girls will be fine with James and Sara. We had already agreed that we would stay as long as necessary. After all, I'm getting on in years myself. This might be the last time we see each other, Lettie."

  "Oh, Mama, don't say that."

  "Well, it's just a fact of life; but we won't think about things like that. Let's enjoy the visit. I want to see your house, Lettie."

  They returned to Louise and Henny, and all four women strolled into the house, chattering and laughing.

  "There's nothin' that can gaggle more than a bunch of women," Will commented to Kenneth.

  "I fully agree!" Kenneth answered, rather intimidated by the much bigger, buckskin-clad Will Doolan. Will was friendly enough, and as soon as he'd got word that Lettie Fontaine's mother was in town and looking for someone to bring her to the ranch, the man had readily obliged, renting a comfortable carriage for them, introducing them to his wife.

  As Kenneth looked around the sprawling ranch, it was obvious what a different life people led out here. "She must be a very strong woman," he murmured.

  "What?"

  "Lettie. She must be very strong, for all the things she's been through."

  Will nodded. "That she is, Mr. Brown. She's a good match for Luke."

  One of the hired help rode past them then, dressed in dirty denim pants, his shirt stained with sweat. His horse kicked up a cloud of dust, and Kenneth looked down to brush at his suit.

  "You'd better be wearin' some sturdier clothes than that if you intend to stay here awhile," Will told him with a laugh.

  Kenneth took out a handkerchief and wiped dirt and sweat from his eyes. "Yes, I can see that." How did these people put up with being so far from town and civilization, with no schools, no bricked streets, no law? "I am looking forward to meeting Luke," he told Will. "He sounds like someone a person never forgets once they've met him."

  Will laughed. "Oh, he leaves an impression, all right. You mark my words, Mr. Brown. Luke Fontaine is a name a lot of people will know someday, even down in Denver."

  "You do good this time, boss?"

  Luke looked over at Runner, a half-breed Crow Indian who worked at the ranch and had gone on the cattle drive to Cheyenne. "Good enough to pay you enough to buy some good whiskey," he answered, "instead of that rot-gut junk you bought from those whiskey runners last spring. I don't want you dealing with them any more, Runner. Next time I see them on my land, I'll bury all of them."

  Runner grinned, remembering how Luke had chased off the whiskey traders he'd found camped on Fontaine land a few months ago. He hated them because they sold whiskey to the Sioux, and he hated the Sioux for stealing his son from him. Runner didn't mind that. All Crow Indians hated the Sioux also. They had been warring with each other for generations, but that was over now. The Crow were at peace, most living on reservations. They no longer roamed wild, competing with the Sioux for land and game. The Sioux were one of the last of the American Indian tribes to continue resisting white settlement. Red Cloud and a new warrior called Crazy Horse were causing a lot of problems, had even chased out the army and burned forts. They were aided by another warrior whose name no one dared mention in front of Luke Fontaine. He was called Half Nose.

  "I don't like you drinking at all, Runner," Luke warned. "But as long as you don't cause trouble and as long as you don't drink when you're supposed to be working, I'll put up with it."

  Runner not do you wrong, boss. Double L a good place to live. Better than reservation."

  "What's the matter, Runner? Don't you like farmin' and livin' that quiet life on the reservation?" Ben Garvey, a bearded, grizzly old man who Luke suspected was as strong and hardy as a twenty-five-year-old, looked over at the half-breed from where he rode on the other side of Luke.

  "Reservation life no good," Runner answered. "Nothing to do. Just sit and drink and die. No good. I like working for Luke Fontaine."

  Luke laughed as he removed his wide-brimmed hat and wiped at sweat on his brow. "You're just soft-soaping me, Runner, so I'll let you have your whiskey."

  "Soft soap? What is this, soft soap?"

  Luke put his hat back on. "Never mind. You're a good worker, Runner. That's all that matters. We had a good drive, didn't we, boys? For once we didn't have trouble with renegade Sioux stealing some of our beef, and we only had one stampede. If it wasn't for that damn thunderstorm, even that wouldn't have happened. I have a feeling that from now on our biggest problem will be rustlers and squatters. According to men I talked to in Cheyenne, rustling is getting to be a big problem down in Colorado and Wyoming. It won't be long before they come our way."

  "We can handle them," Ben answered, patting the six-gun on his hip.

  "Maybe so, but I'm going to hire even more men next year for the drive. Shelby Preston wants me to bring an extra five hundred head next summer, twenty-five hundred total."

  "Ah, those city people back East, they're getting a taste for good beef, huh?"

  The question came from Sven Hansen, a Swede Lu
ke had hired after the man had given up in the gold fields around Helena, the new name for Last Chance Gulch. It was one of the few gold towns that had survived and was still thriving. Most of the men who worked for Luke were men who had given up their dream of getting rich by finding gold. Some miners had found the precious metal but could not afford to mine it properly. Others had died at the hands of angry Sioux Indians who wanted the white men off their land.

  Ben Garvey was one of those ex-miners. He was Luke's top hand now, and a close second was a quiet but rough-looking dark-haired man simply called Tex, who rode out ahead of the rest of them now, taking turns with Runner in scouting for any trouble that might lie waiting for them. Tex appeared to have some Mexican blood, but he never talked about his heritage, family, or where he had come from. He had arrived at the ranch one day looking for work. At first Luke had not trusted him. He suspected the man was wanted for some crime back East. But Tex had proved to be extremely talented in breaking horses, as well as in using a rifle. He was hard but dependable, a man who did not hesitate to pull a trigger when necessary. Out here, especially on cattle drives, that was the kind of man Luke needed.

  He had also brought young Billy Sacks on the drive, wanting him to learn the ropes. Billy, twenty-three, had come to Montana with his then-seventeen-year-old wife, Anne, just last year. Both were orphans from the Civil War and had come west to forget the horrors of that war and start a new life. Billy thought that by working for Luke, he could learn the things he needed to know about settling in this country, and Luke had promised him that if he did a good job, he'd let him have a prime piece of property on his own land eventually, so that Anne could continue to live near Lettie. He well understood the strain of loneliness for a woman in this country. Maybe Anne wouldn't have to suffer that pain as intensely as Lettie had those first couple of years.

  Billy was the only married man he had brought on the drive. He had left the rest of the married ones at the ranch, hired another six extras, all single men, for the cattle drive. Single men had less mental distractions to keep them from concentrating on the cattle, and they were more willing to put their lives on the line in times of danger. Most of the extras had stayed on at Cheyenne once the cattle were sold and were someone else's responsibility; but two, Cade Willis and Bob Dolan, were returning with him to the Double L.

  They were all good wranglers, dependable men he could trust. He looked down at his saddlebags, stuffed with money paid by Shelby Preston, a buyer from Omaha. He'd got four dollars a head for his two thousand steer; eight thousand dollars. He'd heard in Cheyenne the army sometimes paid up to six dollars a head. With new forts being built in Montana and northern Wyoming because of a new campaign against the Sioux, he figured he'd see about getting a government contract to sell beef to the army, which would in turn help ensure that he could continue to use government land for grazing.

  It wouldn't be long now before he could build Lettie the biggest, finest home in Montana. He smiled at the thought of it, but those thoughts were interrupted when Tex came riding back to them at a gallop.

  "Some men camped on the other side of the hill," he told Luke. "They've got a good-size campfire going, and it looks like they're roasting something over it."

  Luke and the rest of the men followed him to the crest of the hill, where they halted their horses and studied the camp below. "Who do you think that is, Runner?" Luke asked.

  Runner watched them for a few seconds. "Got a wagon down there. Looks like it's piled with robes. Buffalo hunters, I think. There be more and more of them lately. They skin the buffalo and leave all the meat. I no like these buffalo hunters."

  Luke squinted against a setting sun. In his years of riding the perimeter of his property, rooting out squatters, outlaws, and Indians, he had become as adept at scouting as Tex and Runner. He sniffed the air. "Smell that?" he asked.

  "Smells damn good," Tex spoke up, "like roastin' meat."

  "Like beef," Luke answered.

  "A man gets tired of buffalo meat," Tex kidded.

  "I suppose he does," Luke answered, "but he doesn't come onto Fontaine land and take whatever beef he wants for free. Let's go."

  All eight men rode down the hill toward the strangers camped around the fire. As they came closer, Luke could see they were a rough-looking bunch, although after weeks on the trail and some hard riding to get back home, he and his men didn't look much better. The intruders rose, and Luke counted six men. The wind carried their smell, which overpowered even that of the roasting hindquarter of beef that hung over their fire. It was an offensive smell, the scent of old blood, buffalo robes not yet fully dried and cured. A few of the hunters still had bloodstains on their clothing and hands, which they had not bothered to clean.

  "Enjoying your meal, boys?" Luke asked.

  The apparent leader of the bunch stepped away from the others, putting on a smile. "You fellas want to join us? They's plenty of meat for all."

  Luke looked past him at a dead steer lying in the distance, its body covered with thousands of flies. The carcass was hacked up but not even gutted. They had apparently killed the valuable animal just for the meat they needed at the moment. "Do you know who that steer belongs to?"

  The man he was facing eyed all eight of them carefully, stepped back a little. The others with him all straightened, one man resting his hand on a six-gun at his side. "I don't reckon it matters," the leader answered. "It's just one little ol' cow, wanderin' around where it don't belong."

  "That 'cow,' as you put it, belongs to me, mister. Luke Fontaine! You're on Fontaine land, my land, and you've killed one of my best steers. I suggest you get the hell off my land, right now!"

  "Or what?" One of the others spoke up then, leaning on a rifle with the longest and biggest barrel Luke had ever seen. "You know what this is, mister?" The man, so tall and skinny he hardly looked strong enough to hold the big gun, slowly picked up the rifle. "This here's a buffalo gun, made special for huntin' the big beasts. It shoots farther and makes a bigger hole than any other rifle there is. I hate to tell you what it can do to a man. It would—"

  Before he could even finish the sentence, Luke's six-gun was drawn and fired. The man screamed out when the bullet ripped through his right wrist, and the buffalo gun fell to the ground.

  "You son of a bitch!" one of the others spoke up. Luke waved the six-gun. "All of you, get the hell off my property!"

  "You gonna let him do this, Cully?" one of the others asked their leader.

  "You bastard." The one called Cully sneered. "We didn't see no fences! If your goddamn beef stray beyond where they're supposed to be, that ain't our problem! Keep your damn beef on your own land!"

  Luke rode closer, suddenly kicking out at Cully and landing a foot in the man's chest, knocking him onto his rump. "Mister, as far as you can see from here is Fontaine land! I just haven't fenced it all yet. And even if it wasn't, Fontaine beef is Fontaine beef, whether it's on my land or off it, and theft is theft! Now you take your stinking bodies and your stinking buffalo robes and get the hell out of here, and don't let me catch you anyplace around here again!"

  Out of the corner of his eye Luke saw the man with the six-gun start to draw. He whirled and shot, opening a hole in the man's chest. Only a fraction of a second after his own gunshot, he heard another gun fired. Another buffalo hunter went down, and he turned to see Tex's gun smoking.

  Cully had got to his feet by then. He stepped away, glaring at Luke. "You shot my brother, you bastard!"

  Luke aimed his six-gun at the man, and the rest of Luke's men had rifles and handguns ready. "A man pulls a gun on another man, he takes the chance of getting shot,"

  Luke growled. "It's just a fact of life out here. Now you take those two dead bodies and your gear and get going! Now! And leave the buffalo guns behind! I don't intend for you to turn around and use them on us after you get a couple of hundred yards away!"

  "We need those guns for our livelihood!"

  Luke nodded to Tex and the others. "
Take their rifles."

  His men surrounded the buffalo hunters and picked up all the buffalo guns they could find. The skinny man with the wounded wrist and Cully both let off a string of curses then as Luke's men forced them to pick up their things and get on their horses. Two of them picked up the dead bodies and threw them onto the wagon full of robes.

  Cully rode up to Luke then, bitter hatred in his eyes. "You'll regret this, Fontaine! You can't be everyplace at once, and I expect you're gone a lot, runnin' such a big ranch, ain't you? You got a wife, Fontaine? Kids? You'd best keep a good eye on them."

  Luke charged off his horse and landed into him, both men plunging to the ground and rolling in the gravel and sage. Luke's men backed away and watched guardedly, keeping an eye on the rest of the buffalo hunters. Cully rolled on top of Luke and pulled a huge knife. He was a big man, shorter than Luke, but strong and burly. Luke grasped his wrist, straining to keep the knife away from him. Tex and the others kept their six-guns ready, afraid to fire for fear of hitting Luke as the two men tumbled and rolled.

  Finally Luke was the one on top, still grasping Cully's wrist. Cully reached up and grasped at Luke's face, trying to gouge his eyes, while Luke slammed the man's knife hand against a rock, over and over until finally Cully dropped the knife. He grabbed Cully's other wrist then, pulled it away from his face and managed to jerk the big, burly man to his feet. Cully kicked at his legs, but Luke landed a big fist into the man's belly, making him grunt and knocking the air out of him. Several more hard blows to his gut, ribs, and face sent the man sprawling, his face bloody, no fight left in him.

  Luke knelt down then and pulled him to his knees, his own eyes bloodshot and bruised from Cully's attempt at blinding him. He jerked the man close, teeth gritted, his face smeared with sweat and dirt. "Nobody threatens my wife and my kids, you stinking bastard! You be glad you're leaving here still breathing! If I ever see your face anyplace near here again, I'll shoot you on sight, whether you're armed or not!" He shoved the man back to the ground, where Cully lay groaning. Luke looked at the other hunters. "Get him the hell out of here, before I decide to drag all of you to the nearest tree and hang you!"