A bawdy female restaurant owner ran up to the pulpit and yelled that a royal feast had hastily been set up at Elmer Handy’s new barn just outside of town, and a few men in town who were capable of playing instruments were prepared to come up with some music for dancing. An unrestrained crowd of cheering well-wishers gathered around Colt and Sunny and herded them out of the church.
Vince watched the rowdy group make their way out, while a few of Sunny’s guards followed and the rest stayed with Mae and little Bo.
“God help us,” Vince muttered as a few straggling reporters hurried out after the others, scribbling on their tablets. “I can just see the headlines in New York.”
Stuart grinned. “Ought to be real interesting,” he answered his brother. “Come on, Vince, let’s go to the celebration. Sounds like fun to me. Let loose for once.”
Vince glared at him. “Go ahead and make a fool of yourself! I’m going back to the train. I won’t give that son of a bitch the satisfaction of attending a celebration of what he considers his victory over this family!”
Vi took Bo from Mae. “The only victory here, Vince, is that love has won out above all else,” she told him. “Now you know that a love like Sunny and Colt share can’t be defeated, and it can’t be bought off at any price! Sunny is happy now, for the first time in her life, and it has nothing to do with how much money she has. If she lost it all tomorrow, she would still be the richest woman in the world. I hope someday you can understand that’s all that has ever mattered to her, and to Colt.”
Vi and Stuart and Mae and the children walked out after the others, followed by more guards. Vince and Eve glared after them, wondering how they were going to explain this to their friends back in Chicago. Already wires were being telegraphed to the bigger cities back east.
Millionairess Sunny Landers O’Brien, widow of shipping tycoon Blaine O’Brien, weds Deputy Sheriff Colt Travis of Cheyenne, Wyoming, in simple ceremony today, May 5, 1869.
Chapter 31
The train whistle wailed through the night air, echoing against canyon walls as Sunny’s train thundered through the rocky gorges of southwest Wyoming. Sunny lay in Colt’s arms, relishing the unspeakable joy of having him beside her as her husband.
She kissed his chest, ran her hand over his firm muscles. “I think it was the most beautiful wedding there ever was,” she said, pleasantly weary from heated lovemaking.
He massaged her back. “Well, people from your circle wouldn’t agree, but I think you’re right. Can’t you picture some of those stuffed shirts from your bunch stomping their feet and whirling their skirts in a square dance?”
Sunny laughed lightly. “Oh, but you looked wonderful, Colt. How on earth did you find such a fancy suit in Cheyenne?”
“Oh, there are a few places that deal in the finer things out here. We aren’t all that uncivilized, you know.”
She turned her face up to kiss his lips. “I’m sorry you had to leave your job on such short notice. I’m sure Sheriff Andrews could use you in that wild town.”
“Well, things are settling some.” He rested a big hand on her belly. “I hated to do that to Rex myself. He’s a good man and we got to be good friends.” He moved his hand to the side of her face. “But I am not going to let you go away from me alone again, Mrs. Travis. You’re stuck with me now.”
She feigned a sigh of dread. “Oh, poor me. I guess I’ll just have to put up with you.”
Colt grinned, moving on top of her. “I guess you will.” He kissed her as hungrily as if it were the first time. She opened herself to him in renewed desire, and he entered her again, gently this time, moving in sweet, slow rhythm. They needed no foreplay, for both were still warm and on fire. This time was a soft joining by two people in their second night of rediscovering love after two years apart. Tonight they had tasted, explored, touched, had taken each other to the heights of ecstasy. Now they were finally beginning to realize this was real, to understand that they didn’t have to make love with quite such fury, as though if they let go of each other, one or the other might disappear. Last night they had been renewed lovers, but still feared separation. Tonight they truly belonged to each other forever.
Sunny arched her head back, relishing the feel of his lips tracing over her throat, enjoying the sweet smell of him. She grasped his thick hair and pushed toward him, thinking how envied she would be by most women when they set eyes on her new husband. She knew that even the very rich ones, who might raise their eyebrows and gossip about her choice, would be wishing a man like Colt Travis were sharing their beds. The rugged qualities about him could not be hidden, even behind a suit, and his dark handsomeness, his build, and skills as a scout and lawman only lent to the male sexual aura about him. The scar over his eye seemed to enhance his good looks rather than detract from them, for it reminded her what a daring fighting man he was. Age had improved the somewhat lanky and bashful young man she had met twelve years before. He was all man now, honed hard by a life of danger and heartache. And because of him, she was fully a woman. Whatever lay ahead, Colt would be her strength, her protector, her beautiful lover.
He let out a soft moan as his release came, and she hoped that very soon his life would take hold so that she could give him another child. He kissed her lightly and pulled away from her, moving to his side of the bed to roll himself a cigarette. Sunny sighed deeply with sweet satisfaction, stretching and then getting up to go behind a curtained area to wash at a stand with a pitcher and bowl that was kept in her room.
Colt lit his cigarette and waited, smoking quietly, smiling when she came from behind the curtain wearing a baby-blue satin gown that clung to her every curve enticingly, her still-erect nipples making little points through the clingy material. “What’s this?” Colt asked. “You’re through with me for the night?”
She laughed lightly and crawled back onto the bed. “That’s up to you.” She stretched out on her back. “I just thought I’d clean up, and I wondered if you liked this gown.”
He kept the cigarette between his lips and rose. “I like it well enough to yank it right off you.” He walked behind the curtain to also wash himself, returning stark naked. He raised his arms out in a kind of shrug. “Sorry. I didn’t have a fancy gown to put on.”
Sunny smiled. “I like you just the way you are. You’re—”
Before she could finish, they heard a loud rumbling sound, and almost at the same instant their car came to such a quick halt that Colt flew against the forward wall. Sunny screamed when she saw him fall, and she was herself plummeted against the headboard of the bed. Bo began to cry, and Sunny screamed Colt’s name as she scrambled to check on the baby. Colt got up from the floor and leapt over the bed to check on them both, taking Bo from Sunny.
“You all right?”
“Yes, but Bo was thrown against the head of the crib!”
Colt held the crying baby close.
“My God, Colt, what happened? Are you all right?”
He laid Bo down on the bed, and Sunny began soothing the child herself.
“Just a bruised shoulder, I think,” Colt answered, rubbing his left arm. Sunny saw the fear in his eyes as he bent down to look the baby over. “I just hope Bo isn’t hurt. He seems to be okay.” He turned his gaze to her then. “What about you? Jesus, your head is bleeding.” He checked her scalp where blood had appeared.
“I’m all right, Colt. Please go find out what happened! I’m worried about Vince’s and Stuart’s children.”
“Sunny!” Mae screamed from the next room.
“Stay with Bo,” Colt told her, hurrying around the bed to pick up his long johns and pull them on. He picked up his cigarette from where it had fallen to the floor and snuffed it out, then quickly pulled on his denim pants. He took a clean rag from near the washstand and handed it to Sunny. “Hold this to your head. I’ll go see what’s happened.” He hurried out o
f the room, still shirtless, and Sunny heard him ordering Mae to go to Sunny’s room and stay there.
Sunny froze when she felt an odd trembling beneath the train, then heard another rumble. Just as Mae came into the room there was a horrendous crashing sound. Mae screamed and crouched near Sunny, and Bo started crying again.
“Calm down, Mae!” Sunny ordered. “Screaming and carrying on will just frighten the baby more.”
Sunny got up, tossing the rag aside and pulling on a flannel robe. “Go grab some blankets for yourself, Mae. We may have to leave the train. We’re in the mountains, and it will be cold out there. Hurry!” Mae left to get some of her own blankets, and Sunny quickly wrapped Bo in the satin bedspread and grabbed another blanket, frightened for Colt. She ran with Bo into the parlor area of the car, then to the door and out onto the platform. “Colt!” she called. Her voice echoed strangely, and she sensed they were in some kind of canyon. She heard the sound of rushing waters far below. She dared to look down, and in bright moonlight she could see the train was on a wooden trestle, high above a canyon floor where a river surged, probably swollen from spring runoff.
She looked up then to see Lou Ballard, the train’s brakeman, climbing down the narrow ladder of a boxcar that was positioned between Sunny’s car and the caboose, from which Ballard had come. The boxcar had been attached to the train at Cheyenne to haul Colt’s horse, Dancer. “What’s happened!” Sunny asked him. “Are the guards all right?”
“I don’t know yet what’s going on, Mrs. Travis,” Ballard answered. “The men in the caboose are all okay—a couple of injuries but none serious. You’d better have Colt check on his horse.” He climbed over to her platform. “I’d like to go through and on up front to see what’s going on.”
“Of course, Lou. Colt already went up there. Please tell him if there is any danger that I want him to come back and not take any chances!” Sunny clung to Bo, shivering with fear for her son and her new husband. Lou hurried through her car and disappeared.
“Colt,” Sunny whispered. She had loved and lost him so many times that the least hint of danger brought back the fear of losing him again. She looked up at a sky that was black and clear, stars and a nearly full moon shining brilliantly. For the moment things were eerily quiet, except for the roaring sound below.
Mae came running to Sunny’s end of the car, carrying a blanket. Sunny ordered her to stay in one place and be very still. “We don’t know what the distribution of weight might do,” she told the woman. “Just wait until Colt and the brakeman get back.” She looked down again when the sound of the torrential waters below was broken by a creaking, crunching sound, and Sunny could see a strange reddish glow, like hot coals. “My God,” she whispered. Was the engine down there? She knew that the U.P. had built several of these trestles as temporary bridges over canyons until sturdier ones could be built—in some cases until a route could be carved out at the bottom or along the wall of a canyon. Had a spring melt turned the river into a raging torrent that had eroded the foundation of the trestle?
She heard a child’s scream then, heard another child crying. Colt was herding Stuart and Vi and their three children through Sunny’s car. Stuart was holding his arm and one of the girls had a bleeding leg. Lou was carrying a hysterical eight-year-old Sarah.
“We’ve got to get off this trestle,” Colt ordered, herding everyone toward the far end of Sunny’s car. “The damn thing collapsed and the engine is in the river at the bottom of the canyon, along with the woodbox.”
“Dear God,” Sunny exclaimed. “What about the engineers? What about Vince and his family? Theirs was the next car back!”
“It’s still attached but it’s hanging over the edge. I’m going to have to go back and see what I can do! Come on! Get up the ladder and head back to the caboose. You’re all going to have to run back along this end of the trestle and get off the thing! Give Bo to me!”
There was no time to stop and question anything. The brakeman was already going up the ladder of the boxcar with Sarah in one arm. “Careful now,” he warned the others. “Crawl across the top of the boxcar and climb down to the caboose. The guards back there will help you to safety. I’ll have them bring some lanterns so you can see where you’re going.”
“Colt, I wish I could help you more, but I think my arm is broken,” Stuart told him.
“Let me stay and do something,” Vi asked. “Vince and his whole family are back there!”
“You stay with your children,” Colt told her. “Come on now. The sooner all of you get to safety, the sooner a couple of the other men and I can help Vince.”
Everyone scrambled up the ladder, and Sunny turned to Colt before taking her turn. “How bad is it, Colt?” She could see he was visibly shaken.
“Their car is about to go. It’s at such an angle that they can’t climb out to the other end. Everybody is hanging on to things. I’ll try to get a couple of the other men to go back with me. Maybe if we tie ropes on ourselves we can get down to them.”
“Colt, the whole thing could go at any time!”
“I know that, which means time is important, so get going!”
Sunny ordered a whimpering Mae up the ladder, then scrambled up herself, too frightened to realize how cold it was. Vi was still on top of the boxcar, forcing a terrified thirteen-year-old Diana to keep going. Sunny fought her own sickening fear, realizing that with one slip, any of them could fall hundreds of feet to the river below. They finally all managed to get to the caboose, hurrying through it then and on outside, where they made the perilous walk along the back end of the trestle. There was little human sound then, other than a few whimpers from the children. The river roared below, and wolves howled somewhere in the nearby rugged hills. It was dark and cold, and everyone concentrated on watching where they walked until finally they reached safe ground.
“Try to help Vi keep the children calm,” Colt told Sunny. He gave Bo a kiss and handed him over to her.
“Mae and I brought a couple of extra blankets,” Sunny told him.
“Good. Soon as I get back I’ll try to find a place where we can hole up for the night against the cold. I’ll grab some matches when I go back.”
“Colt, you still don’t have a shirt on!”
“I’ll find something. You stay right here.” He turned.
“Colt.” She touched his arm, and their eyes held for a moment. “You’re risking your life for Vince.”
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “It’s Eve and the girls that matter. No man deserves to have to sit by helplessly and watch his wife and children die, not even Vince.” He gave her a quick hug. “Don’t worry. We haven’t come this far to have anything happen to either one of us now. Just take care of Bo.” He quickly left her, finding volunteers in the brakeman and two of the guards. The rest of the guards wanted to help, but Colt was afraid to return with any more weight than necessary.
“There’s rope in the caboose,” Ballard was telling Colt as all four men headed back. “I’ll find you a jacket too.”
“I’ll get one once they’re all out,” Colt answered. “I can work better without any extra clothes.”
They all headed back to the train, and soon all Sunny could see was the two lanterns the guards carried. Vi stepped up to her. “Come on, Sunny. Help me with the children.”
“I just got him back, Vi. Something always took him away before.” She shivered with tears. “If anything happened to him—”
“Nothing is going to happen. Let’s get settled so we’ll be ready when Vince’s children get out. They’re going to be so terrified.”
“I wish I could see. It’s so dark, Vi.”
Reluctantly, Sunny walked back to the others, feeling sick at the thought that the railroad, of all things, could be responsible for killing Colt, after all the dangers he had survived in his life. The railroad—her grand dream.
How hideously ironic! She sat down on a rock and held Bo close, bending her head and rocking the baby as she prayed silently.
***
Colt moved quickly through the caboose, telling one of the guards to grab some matches to use later to make a fire. He could only pray Dancer was not hurt. There was no time to check and see, but he could hear the horse whinnying with fright as he ran along the top of the boxcar. He knew the horse’s constantly shifting weight was not going to help matters any, but there was nothing that could be done about it.
Lou Ballard and both guards followed him. They climbed down and moved back through Sunny’s car, on through Stuart and Vi’s car, which was just slightly askew, and out to the platform. The guard held up a lantern. “Jesus,” he muttered. He could see by the position of this end of Vince’s private car that it was dangerously tilted, most likely resting on a partially collapsed trestle that could thunder into the ravine below at any moment.
“Somebody! Help us!” They all heard the faint cry from Vince, the words sounding faraway.
“He must be clear at the other end of the car,” Lou said. “What do you think we should do, Mr. Travis?”
Colt began tying one end of a rope around his waist. “There’s no hope for the engineers or the fireman, but I think Vince and his family are all still alive. I’m going in there and try to lift them out. Two of you secure the other end of this rope around something that will give me some freedom to move. Hang on to the other end so I don’t fall all the way. I’ll bring them out one by one. Your third man can take each one to safety as I go back for the next one.”
“That car could let go anytime,” Lou reminded him. “If it does, we’ll have to release this rope and let you go with it. You understand that, don’t you?”
Thunder on the Plains Page 56
