Thunder on the Plains

by Rosanne Bittner

  He pulled back the opening and stepped inside, and the piano music stopped for a moment as a motley bunch of strayed railroad workers looked up at him from four makeshift card tables. A black potbelly stove sat in the center of the tent, its pipe sticking through the top, a hot fire inside keeping the tent reasonably warm, although most everyone still wore jackets.

  For a brief moment the only sound was the wind outside and the flapping of the tent’s walls as people stared at Colt. He figured there were ten or eleven men inside, including a man serving drinks. A board placed over two barrels served as a bar. “Come on in,” the bartender said.

  Now that Colt had been fully scrutinized, everyone returned to their drinking and cards, and the piano player returned to his keyboard.

  “Colt?”

  Colt turned to the woman who had spoken his name, and he broke into a grin. “Billie! The livery owner told me you were here.”

  Billie White brightened, jumping off a man’s lap and walking up to hug him. Colt let his arms go around her, and it felt good. “Colt, you big, crazy Indian you!” Billie turned to the others. “Everybody, this is Colt Travis, an old friend.”

  “An old customer, you mean,” one man teased. Most laughed good-naturedly.

  Colt recognized the man and a couple of others from the work camp. How and when they had made it here was not his concern, except that to be here was to risk being fired. Casement hated these places, where whores and gamblers and whiskey peddlers took hardworking railroad men for everything they earned. He wouldn’t be here himself if not for the storm.

  “Colt, where have you been? My God, how long ago did you leave—sixty-two, wasn’t it?”

  “Over four years ago. I’ve been through a war since then—spent some time at Andersonville.”

  “Oh, Colt, you poor thing!” Billie stepped back, looking him over, her eyes filling with lust. “Well, you certainly don’t look any the worse for wear now.” She smiled seductively. “Want a drink?”

  “Sure.” Colt followed her over to the temporary bar, which took only five steps. He set down his saddlebags, and Billie ordered a whiskey. She turned and looked up at him, opening her woolen cape to expose a low-cut red dress that flaunted her bosom.

  “Need anything else?”

  Colt took a long, hard look. “I, uh, I don’t think you know what you’d be in for. It’s a long story, but I haven’t been with a woman since I left you back in Omaha.”

  She smiled eagerly. “Well, well.” She unbuttoned his wolfskin coat and ran a hand over his chest. “Somebody needs to reacquaint you with the more pleasant things in life.”

  He wished he could have explained to Sunny why he had left so quickly that day he saw her after the Indian raid. It was bad enough wanting her the way he did, but after this long abstinence, someone he had no right touching in the first place was far too dangerous for him to be around. Damn her! he thought. And damn himself for taking a job that left open the possibility of seeing her again. Part of him knew it was just what he had wanted, but another part of him told him he was completely crazy for constantly risking the pain it always caused him to see her. He was always hoping she would get uglier, or get the hell married—something, anything! Why did she have to still have those beautiful blue eyes, and that look she always gave him that made him want to eat her up.

  He pulled Billie to him and planted a long, hard kiss on her mouth. “I expect you’re just the one to show me all over again,” he told her.

  She laughed, turning her wrist to grasp his hand and place it against her bosom, while she licked at his lips. “I never forgot you, Colt. It was just like I said it would be—I never found anybody else like you. Your name should be Stallion, not Colt.”

  He tightened his hold and kissed her again. Some of the men made lewd remarks, while others whistled.

  “Give it to her good, Injun,” somebody yelled.

  The men all laughed, and Billie pulled away and handed Colt a shot of whiskey, which he downed immediately, mostly to warm his blood, partly to help ease the pain that thoughts of Sunny had given him since he’d seen her again.

  “This place gets pretty wild in the warm months,” Billie said, ordering Colt another whiskey. “The girls and I can hardly keep up with business. I’ve made a fortune following the railroad camps. Men who’ve been without awhile will pay anything for a woman.” She handed him the second shot glass. “How about you?”

  He leaned closer. “I figured after what you told me last time we were together, that you’d do it for free, considering what you get out of it.”

  She threw her head back and laughed again, and Colt downed the second drink. “By God, I just might do it for nothing,” she told him.

  “Hey, Travis,” one of the men at a table shouted. “What was it like being in the Icelander’s private car back last fall? She the cold fish everybody says she is?”

  Colt turned from Billie, scowling. “What?”

  “The Icelander—you know, that there Sunny Landers—Queen of the Railroad, Miss High-and-Mighty-Big-Money. What’s she really like? I seen you go inside her car the day them Indians raided us.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “You were in there kind of a long time.”

  Chuckles and whistles moved throughout the tent, while outside the wind howled louder than ever. Colt stepped away from Billie and a little closer to the man who had made the remark, aware that his anger was as much from his own frustration at being so easily shaken by the sound of Sunny’s name as it was from the remark itself. “Miss Landers’s brother fixed up a wound I got,” he answered. “That’s all.”

  The man, a well-built Irish spike man, laughed in a kind of growl. “Sure. I don’t expect she’d get too friendly with the lower help. They say that one’s cold as ice. That’s why we call her the Icelander. Ice—Landers. Get it?” The man returned to dealing cards. “Only men with money and fancy suits can melt that one,” he told the others. “They say she goes down only for rich men and congressmen—anybody who helps her financially or with the railroad.”

  The others laughed, but Colt was not smiling. He leaned over the table, looking big and menacing, and the other three men scooted away. “That’s what they say, is it? You know that for a fact, mister?”

  The Irishman sobered, glaring right back at him. “Only fact I know is that there’s no other way for a female to make it into that kind of money and power. We all know they can’t think for themselves.” The man smiled nervously. “Don’t tell me you’re sticking up for that rich bitch! Hell, she could buy and sell you a million times over, and she’d do it, too, if it meant money in her pockets! Or maybe she’s the type who gets a thrill out of seducing her common help.”

  Colt grabbed the man by the jacket and jerked him out of his chair with such a force that the man’s body hit the card table and spilled it to the dirt floor. “You don’t know a damn thing about Sunny Landers,” Colt raged. “She happens to be one of the nicest ladies there ever was—and you’ve got no right going around spouting lies about somebody you don’t know anything about!” He brought a foot up into the man’s groin, and the others inside the tent gasped; one of the other two prostitutes in the tent let out a startled scream. The Irishman doubled over, and Colt brought a knee up into his face, breaking his nose. He shoved him then, landing him into yet another card table. The men at the table sprang out of their seats, and the table and the Irishman went down together. Blood poured from the Irishman’s nose, and he curled up against the pain in his scrotum.

  Colt whirled, glaring at the others. “Anybody else want to insult Miss Landers?”

  They all backed away, shaking their heads, some glancing at the pistol and knife he wore on his wide belt.

  “Casement ain’t gonna like hearing about this,” one man said tentatively.

  “I don’t give a damn! I came here only for shelter, not for trouble; and I d
on’t doubt the general would be more upset at the remarks made about Miss Landers than he would at me for shutting that man up! She’s a highly respected woman, and indirectly all of us work for her, so keep your ignorant ideas about what the woman is like to yourselves!” Colt walked up and grabbed Billie’s arm. “Do you have someplace private where we can go?”

  She grinned, looking around rather haughtily at the others. “Follow me,” she told him. “I have a feeling you’d better get out of here anyway.” She sauntered outside, and Colt took a last threatening look around before picking up his saddlebags and following her. They both hurried into a small sod house next to the tent, and Billie quickly added some wood to a dying fire in the cast-iron stove that stood in a corner next to the bed. Besides the bed, the only furnishings were a table and a dresser. There were no windows.

  Colt bolted the door and Billie turned, throwing off her cape. She reached under her skirts and pulled down leggings and drawers, kicking them aside. “What the hell was that all about?” she asked, coming closer.

  She reached around his neck and Colt grabbed her at the waist, hoisting her up. She wrapped her legs around him, and he reached under her skirts, running big hands along her thighs and to her bared bottom. “It’s a long story,” he answered.

  “Another one?” She pouted. “Sounds like you have a lot of storytelling to do, lover.”

  “Not just yet.”

  She threw her head back, and he carried her to the bed, kissing her breasts as he sat her on the edge of the bed. He pulled her dress away from her shoulders and off her breasts, and the chilly air made her nipples stand taut. Colt took one into his mouth, relishing the feel of it on his tongue, and this time it was not LeeAnn he imagined letting him do this to her. He stayed on his knees, unlacing his buckskin leggings and unbuttoning his long johns. He pushed Billie’s dress to her waist, and she gasped when he rammed himself into her almost savagely. She remained sitting on the edge of the bed, grasping his powerful shoulders, her head thrown back and her breasts exposed. Colt moved his mouth to her other breast, groaning and pushing at her until his release came all too quickly.

  He began trembling then, resting his head at her breasts. “I told you it had been a long time. For a while, when I first got out of Andersonville, I wasn’t even sure I could be a man again; then I put it off for so long I was almost afraid to try it.”

  She ran her hands through his thick hair. “Nobody would ever doubt your manhood, Colt Travis, and I’ve seen it all.”

  She laughed, and Colt covered her mouth, laying her back and climbing onto the bed with her. “Let’s get undressed and do this right,” he told her. “I intend to keep you here all night, and you won’t need the fire in that stove to keep you hot.”

  She laughed more as they tumbled together and undressed each other. They crawled under the covers, and Colt moved on top of her, ready again to enjoy the pleasures of a woman. She put a hand to his lips when he started to kiss her. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sunny Landers.”

  Colt stiffened slightly, meeting her eyes.

  “I saw her name on that letter you were reading, back in Omaha. Why was she writing to you, Colt? How in hell is it you know a woman like that?”

  He rolled away from her, stretching out on his back. Billie moved to rest on one elbow, reaching out to stroke his hair. “A man doesn’t stick up for a woman that way unless he’s in love with her, and if you are, I feel awful sorry for you if you think there’s any future—”

  “I don’t think it. Leave it alone, Billie. I didn’t come here to talk about Sunny Landers.”

  She studied him a moment, tracing her finger along the scar over his eye. “You seem to always come around when you’re trying to forget a woman.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “But then, that’s part of what I’m here for. It really is good to see you, Colt. I’m glad you got through that awful war all right. I always worried and wondered about you.”

  His short laugh was bitter. “Don’t waste your time.” He sat up. “I need a smoke.”

  Billie pouted, sorry she had brought up Sunny Landers’s name. She had seen the woman once in Omaha, and the thought of Colt with a woman like that was close to absurd, but she wisely guessed it was best not to point out that fact to Colt right then. He already knew it, and that was what was eating him. She wished she knew all the details, but Colt was a man who told a person what he wanted them to know only when he was ready to tell it. She had already made him a little angry, and she feared that to push him would make matters worse.

  He rolled and lit a cigarette. “You breathe a word of anything to do with me and Sunny, and I’ll be damn angry,” he said, taking a drag on the cigarette.

  “Discretion is part of my profession.” She touched his back. “I’m sorry I said anything at all. You aren’t going to sit there mad all night, are you? If you are, I’ll just have to go find some other customer.”

  He lay back down, pulling the covers over himself and smoking quietly for a moment, listening to the winter winds outside, thinking how the howling matched the way he felt on the inside. “Don’t worry. I’m not mad, and I’m not through with you yet.” He put his arm out, and she snuggled against him. “Have you ever felt like you were wandering in a black tunnel, Billie? Every once in a while you see a glimmer of light, a little bit of hope that you’ll find your way out and find there’s a purpose to your life—and then when you walk toward that light it gets snuffed out?”

  She kissed his chest. “I know what you’re saying.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you do.” He took another drag on the cigarette. “She’s going to marry a man she only thinks she loves, Billie, a man who I know damn well is just using her to enhance his own image, and it makes me crazy thinking about it. I know in my gut that he doesn’t love her. He loves only what she represents—wealth, status, power. If she lost everything overnight, he’d be gone the next day, but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. I sure as hell can’t offer her anything to compare to what he can offer her. All I’ve got is love, and in her world that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Even if we could be together, I’d probably end up killing half the people she deals with, including her asshole brother, and I’d be hanged. Worst part is, I think she could love me too, but like me, she knows that love alone wouldn’t be enough to get us through the hell we’d know if we tried to do anything about our feelings.”

  “You don’t know that for sure, Colt. Maybe you should tell her how you feel.”

  He chuckled, turning on his side to put out his cigarette. “Sure.” He turned to face her. “She’ll be married next summer, and that will be the end of it.”

  Outside the wind swept snow into deep drifts in a winter that would prove to be one of the worst in recent history, a winter that kept Sunny trapped in Omaha. No one dared venture beyond the safety of the city, and even in town there was danger because of short supplies. Snows were so deep that no trains were running between Omaha and Chicago.

  ***

  Sunny wondered if the wicked weather was God’s way of telling her she must not consider going back to the construction site to look for Colt. She had put it off, finding all kinds of arguments against it. Now the snow was so deep that she couldn’t go anyway. There was nothing left but to wait until spring, just like she originally thought she should do. Maybe by then she could resolve her dilemma and learn once and for all to face the truth, whatever that truth was. She had until June to decide. That was when Blaine would come to Omaha to accompany her back to Chicago to make plans for one of the biggest, most publicized weddings that city had known in years. Even Vince and Eve were excited about it.

  She turned to her journal, opening it to the yellowing pages where she had made some of her first entries. Our guide is Mr. Colt Travis, she read again. I am sure that we will beco
me good friends before this trip is over.

  She immediately scolded herself, closing the journal and taking up pen and paper. She owed Blaine a letter.

  Chapter 21

  May 1867

  Colt heard the signal, one long whistle, followed by two short ones. Someone wanted him back at the construction site. Because the Indian problem was expected to worsen this summer, Casement had hired three more scouts, and had devised a distinctive signal for each to let him know when he was needed back at the base camp.

  There it came again, the whistle’s mournful wail capable of drifting across the Nebraska Plains for miles. However, today Colt was only a mile distant. He turned Dancer and headed to the end of the track, figuring that at a hard gallop Dancer could be back in a couple of minutes. He charged through tall spring grass, and the train was soon in sight. As he drew closer he realized a third train had arrived at the construction site. How long it had been there he couldn’t be sure, since he had been several miles away earlier that morning. He stayed at a hard gallop until he recognized the fancy car that was part of the visiting train. The windows had all been repaired, as had siding that had been damaged by bullets, but it was the same car all right—Sunny Landers’s car.

  He yanked on Dancer’s reins to slow the horse and felt the old mixture of apprehension and excitement. Why had he been called to camp? Sunny had not come back since the day of the Indian raid, nor had he heard from her all winter. He had supposed that by now she would be in Chicago planning her wedding.

  He drew in a deep breath, hoping maybe only Stuart had come out; but as he urged Dancer into a gentler trot and approached the car, he saw Sunny herself come around the end of it, leading a shiny black mare and wearing a simple riding skirt and a plain blouse and riding cape, her hair pulled back into a thick braid. She looked no different from ten years previous, when they used to ride together on the journey west.