Thunder on the Plains

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Yeah, well, Andersonville just about finished me off better than any bullet could have done.” He grinned bashfully and sat back down.

  Vi touched the scar under his left ear. “Poor Colt. So many scars, inside and out.”

  He met her eyes. “Is she happy with Blaine?”

  So, it’s back to Sunny, is it, she thought. “She seems to be, most of the time.”

  He looked away. “I suppose it’s best. Somebody like him would understand her pretty good.”

  Vi smiled sadly. “He understands her world, Colt. I’m not so sure he understands the woman behind that beautiful face. I have a feeling there’s a part of her that you understand more than anyone.”

  He shook his head. “Maybe. But some things just can’t be. Even if everyone welcomed me into her world, which God knows would never happen in the first place, I wouldn’t want any part of it. It would be just as wrong for me as it would be for her. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “I think I do.”

  He let out a light, clipped laugh. “The night I walked into that dinner party—” He ran a hand through his hair. “God, I was never so uncomfortable in my whole life. I couldn’t live like that. Can you just imagine Sunny showing up at congressional parties with somebody like me on her arm?” His quick laugh had a note of bitterness to it. “Let alone how I’d feel trying to enjoy myself at things like that. No, it’s done now, and it’s best left undisturbed. She’s got Blaine, and that’s good. Something tells me he’s a bastard in most ways, and I know from a certain little argument we had that he can be damn ruthless. But I think he cares for her. I don’t think he’d be cruel to her or anything like that. So it’s best.”

  Vi rose, touching his hair. “I suppose it is. What will you do when you leave here, Colt?”

  He shrugged. “Head west, that’s for sure. I think I’ll leave tomorrow or the next day. Mr. Brinks is seeing about getting my horse and belongings back. I’ll heal better when I get back out where I belong. I’ll be all right. Once I’m strong enough, I’ll get a job.” He looked up at her. “You going to tell Sunny you saw me?”

  “I think I should, don’t you? She has a right to know you’re all right, Colt.”

  “I suppose. Just keep your promise to wait till I’m gone.” He studied the plain face, a face that seemed to grow more beautiful as they talked. “You’re a nice lady, Vi. I don’t imagine many women of your station would bother working here as volunteers, with the smell of blood and the dirty work involved. Why do you do it?”

  She folded her arms. “I’m not sure myself. At first it was just an effort on my part to feel that I was doing something to help the cause, and I was the Landers token, so to speak. But then it became a very personal thing for me. I’ve had men cling to my hand and call me by their wife’s name, or call me Mother in their delirium. My heart goes out to them. I just thank God it’s over with now, and I especially thank Him that you survived.”

  He smiled sadly. “Thanks for the smoke. Tell Stuart hello for me.”

  “I will. Do you have any messages for Sunny?”

  He shook his head. “No. Just that I’m alive. Don’t say anything about, you know, some of the things I said tonight. Tell her I wish her and Blaine the best. She’ll know what I mean.”

  Vi was beginning to have her doubts that Sunny and Colt’s decision to never see each other again was such a good idea. She wondered if either one of them realized that they were in love. Was such a match so impossible? Perhaps it was. She had firmly believed it until now, but she decided it was not her place to meddle. “All right.” She sighed in doubtful resignation. “I won’t be back here until the day after tomorrow. I imagine you’ll be gone by then.” She touched his hair. “Sunny said once that you were like the wind, always drifting, hard to catch and hard to hold. I guess she was right. You take care of yourself, Colt. I wish you only health and happiness.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it, surprised at how easy it was to talk to this woman he hardly knew. She couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than he was, but it didn’t seem to matter. “Thanks. And thanks for not saying anything to Sunny until I’m gone.”

  “Are you all right now? I have to go to another ward.”

  “I’m all right. Thanks again for the smoke, and for the talk.” She started to leave, but Colt kept hold of her hand. “Do me a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Kind of watch out for Sunny. She never had many women friends. I know by the way she talked about you a couple of times that she thinks a lot of you. She needs your friendship.”

  And perhaps she needs yours too, she thought. “I love Sunny like a sister, sometimes more like my own daughter, in spite of the fact that I’m not so very much older than she. Beneath that very businesslike, calculating, manipulating exterior lies a very sweet girl who sometimes gets terribly lonely, and who never had a mother to teach her how to be a woman. All she had was a bellowing father who could teach her only a man’s ways, and I feel sorry for her having to take on so much at such a young age.”

  Colt lay back down. “Well, she’s handled it pretty damn good.”

  “Yes, I suppose she has.” Vi walked over and picked up the oil lamp. “Good-bye, Colt. God bless and be with you.”

  “Thanks. Same here.”

  Their eyes held a moment longer, and she turned and left. Colt stared into the darkness, old feelings aroused anew. He decided he would leave tomorrow, whether he was physically ready or not. He had a feeling Vi Landers just might not be able to keep her word about not telling Sunny about him before he left the hospital. It was time to get out of Chicago.

  Part Three

  Chapter 18

  Spring 1866

  A sweet-smelling breeze caressed Colt’s face and free-flowing hair as he ascended the gentle slope. He had to keep tugging at Dancer’s reins to make the horse obey him, for the prairie was thick with fresh spring grass that was nearly as high as Dancer’s belly.

  “I swear if I let you, you’d eat yourself to death,” Colt chided. “It’s a damn good thing I keep you exercised or you’d bloat up and roll down these hills instead of walk down them.”

  Dancer shuddered and shook his mane. Colt grinned, stopping at the top of the rise and finally letting the animal nibble. He leaned over and patted the horse’s neck, then sat up straighter and began rolling a cigarette, watching the construction crew below.

  He had imagined that building a railroad would be quite an undertaking, but he still had not quite expected to see so many men involved that they could comprise a small town. He figured there were two or three hundred men down below, spread out from the end of track clear back to a second supply train and beyond to those who guarded a herd of beef to the north, which he figured was kept to feed the many hungry mouths at the end of a long day’s work. The entire work camp covered close to a mile, maybe more.

  From this distance he could only faintly hear shouted orders, but it appeared the men were working with precision, the actual track layers going at it like little machines. He could see men pounding in spikes, their mauls hitting silently at first, the sound coming to his ears a second or two later.

  “What do you think, boy?” He sealed the paper and stuck the cigarette into his mouth. “Should I go on down there and see about work?” Dancer whinnied lightly and kept eating, moving ahead a little. Colt lit the cigarette and struggled with indecision. “Lord knows I’ve got to do something with my life.” He looked around at the vastness that stretched in every direction. If he had to earn himself a living, he couldn’t think of a much better job than scouting for the railroad, if they would have him. There weren’t a lot of choices left for a man who enjoyed being out on the open prairie and plains, living under the stars.

  Just as he had figured, coming back to this country had done more for him than any medicine he c
ould have taken. He had needed time to be alone, had not been to one good-size town since leaving Chicago. He had at first contemplated stopping at Omaha to find Billie, but he had ruled that out. He just wanted to be alone, to let the quiet of the prairie and the mountains soothe his torn soul, erase the ugly memories that brought on the hated dreams. Yes, he was still lonely, but loneliness wasn’t cured by being around a lot of people. A man could be lonely anywhere; and for him there were times when the loneliness was eased by not seeing anyone at all.

  He let the reins go slack so that Dancer could continue to enjoy the treats of the prairie grass, and he rose up in the saddle a little to stretch his legs. He felt stronger, back to his old self, maybe even a little heavier than before the war. When he first came from Chicago, he often rode without shirt or hat, feeling a kind of healing from the sun that both warmed him and brought a rich color back to his skin. He stuffed himself with antelope and quail and rabbit and whatever wild game he could bag, as well as potatoes, carrots, bacon, beans, and other supplies he picked up at forts along the way. For a while food had become almost an obsession with him, and he had to grin now at teasing Dancer. He realized that for a while he hadn’t been much different from his horse when it came to eating. He had spent the winter holed up in the Rockies, with little more to do than eat and sleep, taking down deer or moose when needed, just letting himself lie around and rest like a bear in hibernation. Sometimes he lifted rocks to help build his strength, or played cards with himself, or even studied a book of Shakespeare he had carried with him for years. It had never been easy reading, but parts were certainly exciting; and the challenge of sometimes having to study certain passages over and over to grasp their meaning kept his mind stimulated.

  He felt healed now, in mind and spirit as well as physically. There were times when he wanted to shout with the joy of realizing he had survived personal and physical hell and now was back in the land he loved. Sometimes he would kick Dancer into a run, letting go of the reins and spreading his arms, riding hard, the wind in his face. He would yell and whoop like the wildest of Indians. He figured if anybody would see him at those times, they would think he was a crazy man. Maybe he was—crazy with a new eagerness to live, free of death and war and prison.

  The only thing left that he was needing more and more was to lie with a woman, and he contemplated going back to Omaha and finding Billie before taking work. But going there meant risking the temptation to see Sunny Landers again, and that was something better left alone.

  Sunny was truly in his past now. So were a lot of other things. He was twenty-nine years old and Slim’s death, LeeAnn’s and Ethan’s deaths, the ugly war—all were behind him. There would always be a nagging, painful void in his life, times when thoughts of his baby son would bring the heavy pain to his chest; but he understood and accepted that now. The fact remained he was still alive and still young enough to love again and have another family someday. It was time to get back to living, to put aside what could not be and leave himself open to new possibilities.

  Down below, one of the two huge locomotives that pulled the construction supply train blew its whistle, and a few men who had been sitting about moved to take the place of other workers, the men apparently working in shifts. So, he thought, she really is building her railroad. He had his own doubts in the beginning, but there it was, the Union Pacific, pushing its way west across the Nebraska prairie, edging toward the sandhills, right through the very country Colt had led Sunny and her father nine years ago. Life sure was strange, the way people moved into and out of each other’s lives, the way things kept changing. He thought how Sunny must be busier than ever now, excited and happy at seeing her father’s dream finally becoming a reality, proving to Vince that it could be done.

  He already had a good idea of the enormity of the project, both in manpower and equipment, and in cost. Nearly three hundred miles to the west, graders were building a bed for the track layers. Colt had noticed the sod-covered dugouts that provided temporary housing for the graders, and when he rode in to talk to them, they had told him to come to the construction site to ask about work. He had not thought the project would be so strung out. The graders had explained that even farther west were the surveyors, who along with the graders were in the most danger, since they worked in smaller crews and were more at risk from Indian attack.

  The Cheyenne had been on a wicked rampage against the railroad, something Colt could fully understand. Once the railroad was completed, the West would fill up even faster with white settlers, let alone the fact that the big locomotives frightened away buffalo and other wild game. The graders had explained that sometimes sparks from the smokestack set fire to the prairie. But the Cheyenne had more reason to be at war, not just with the railroad but with all whites. On his way west last summer he had learned at Fort Laramie about a massacre of innocent Southern Cheyenne by Colorado Volunteers at a place called Sand Creek. Ever since then the Indians had been hot for revenge and had attacked and pillaged the town of Julesburg, in Colorado. They had raided and slaughtered whites on a bloody trail to the north, destroying telegraph lines, killing cattle, and burning towns and farms. The graders had told him gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, and now prospectors were flooding into land promised to the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne under the Laramie Treaty. That could mean only more trouble.

  Colt wondered what had happened to White Buffalo and his family, wondered if the man ever thought about him. He couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for the Indian plight. The same thing that had happened to his own people was now happening to the Sioux and Cheyenne and other Plains tribes. He knew what the future held for them, already realized that no matter how hard they fought, there could be only one outcome. According to the graders, more soldiers were already on their way west to protect the railroad, and hundreds more soldiers were being sent into the Black Hills and to Powder River country, where a Sioux leader called Red Cloud was wreaking so much havoc that some forts were being abandoned.

  Sometimes he felt he should be with his Indian brothers, but he knew what they were trying to do was futile, and he had long ago chosen the path he would take in life. He had his special time to feel that side of his life when he spent the winter with White Buffalo, had experienced the savageness that lay just under his skin when he attacked the Pawnee. That, too, was behind him now. He picked up the reins, taking a last puff on his cigarette and pressing the stub against his metal canteen to make sure it was out before throwing it into the grass. “Let’s go, boy.”

  He headed down the slope toward the construction crew. Men swarmed everywhere, working almost like soldiers at precision drill, running with rails, spiking them into place. Colt tried to imagine what it would cost to pay so many men, let alone the cost of food and supplies, equipment, steel rails, freighting costs to get material to the site and such. It was easy to understand how much money such a project would take, but as he watched, it was also becoming easier to believe this could be done. He kicked Dancer into a gentle lope, riding toward a man who was shouting orders. He and several others turned to look at the approaching stranger.

  “Hello,” Colt called out. “Where’s the boss?”

  The man pointed toward the train that sat close to the construction site. “Last car before the wood box,” he shouted.

  Colt tipped his hat and rode alongside the train, looking up at gigantic boxcars that he guessed to be at least eighty feet long, each with three tiers of windows, almost like a three-story building but not quite as high. A few men stood on the platforms of the cars, some of them just staring at him, others nodding a hello. “Who do I see about a job?” he asked one of them.

  The man looked him over. “You ever work as a scout?”

  “Plenty of times. Is there a need for scouts?”

  The man grinned, showing yellow teeth. “I expect so, seeing as how we just lost one to the Indians a couple of days ago. It’s your neck, mi
ster. Go see General Casement. He’s the construction engineer.” He pointed to a passenger car next to the woodbox that carried fuel for the double locomotives. The big steam engines were used to push the train rather than pull it so that the last flatbed cars that carried tools and supplies could be closest to the work crew. Colt noticed the train was slowly moving, inching along the tracks as fast as rails could be laid.

  Steam shot in one long gasp from the side of one of the engines, and Dancer whinnied and balked. “Easy, boy,” Colt told him. “You’ll have to get used to those damn things.” He rode past the car the worker had indicated, deciding to first get a look at the engines, fascinating, massive power machines that almost seemed alive. He dismounted, keeping hold of Dancer’s reins as he walked around the two locomotives, studying the amazing network of pipes and drive shafts, nuts and bolts and rods and gears that comprised the “iron horse,” as one grader had told him the Indians called these things. They truly were an awesome sight, and in spite of his doubts that the presence of the railroad was good for the land, he could not help being caught up in the excitement, his curiosity stimulated by trying to figure the mechanics of the thing. When he had ridden trains back from prison and on to Chicago, he had been too sick to pay attention.

  He nodded to an engineer.

  “Looking for work?” the man asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, if you want to work for the railroad, it doesn’t hurt to know a little bit about how these things operate. Want a look?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Just tie your horse to the second car there. We don’t move along fast enough that he couldn’t keep up.”

  Colt tied Dancer and climbed into the cab, studying the maze of gadgets and gauges and levers. “Wood goes in here,” a second engineer explained, opening a door to reveal the furnace-like belly of the engine. “The hotter the fire, the more steam she makes and the faster she goes. Hardest part out here is getting wood and water. The U.P. sends a train out every few days with new supplies. Eventually, there will be water towers and supply stations built all along the way, roundhouses where engines can be serviced and oiled and polished up, take on more wood and so forth. Some project, isn’t it? Thousands of men and millions of dollars will be used before we’re through, with way stations and new towns springing up all across this land. This is what you call progress, son, an example of how a few people’s dreams become reality. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when those people have big money of their own and friends in the right places.”