Thunder on the Plains

by Rosanne Bittner

  He crawled across the ground on his left side, most things still blurry. He tried to get over what he thought was a rock, until he felt how soft it was. He looked down to push it out of the way, only to realize then that it was his son’s dead body, his head brutally crushed.

  Colt gasped, rising up slightly. He screamed Ethan’s name, screamed God’s name, retched until he thought his insides would explode. How could this be? Ethan, his son, his baby! He had watched him be born, remembered how happy he had been to see that he was healthy and perfect.

  His vomiting was followed by bitter sobbing, and in spite of his own grave wound, he dragged himself over and pulled the baby to him, touching him, begging him to come back to life. He looked around again, calling LeeAnn’s name through tears. Surely by some miracle at least LeeAnn had lived. To lose them both was more than a man could be expected to bear. He realized then that if she was alive, he had to find her, help her.

  He carefully laid the child aside, finding the baby’s blanket nearby and covering him with it. With the greatest effort he managed to get to his feet and stumbled toward the cabin, vaguely aware that the roof had just fallen in. Finally, his vision cleared enough so he could see things in more detail. He saw LeeAnn then, lying on the ground at a far corner of the cabin. Her body was naked, several arrows protruding from it. He could see she had been sexually abused by the men, and part of her hair was gone.

  Colt just stared in disbelief. He turned away, looking over at his dead son. Grief consumed him in one great convulsion, bringing him to his knees. He raised his arms, needing to scream out his horror, for he was again alone, more alone than he had ever been, but his voice would not come. He had no idea how much blood had already poured from his own wound. All consciousness left him then. He collapsed, sprawled between his wife and son.

  ***

  The sweet smell of sage filled Colt’s nostrils. He could hear a strange chanting, and when he opened his eyes he saw a lovely dark woman bending over him. At first he thought it was LeeAnn. He groaned her name, but as his vision focused he saw that it was an Indian woman. He tried to sit up, and a sickening pain tore at his side, making him gasp and fall back again. The woman said something to someone, and Colt recognized the Cheyenne word for “awake.” Someone grasped his shoulders firmly.

  “Go and get White Horse,” came a man’s voice, again in the Cheyenne tongue. “You must not move,” the same man told him, leaning closer then. “You are very, very sick.”

  Colt opened his eyes to see a white-haired Indian with a wrinkled face. The old man smiled. “You will live, if you rest for many more days. It might be another full moon before you can rise.”

  It felt to Colt as though his whole body were on fire, and he felt sweat trickle from his forehead. “Where…am I?” he asked, struggling to remember how to say it in Cheyenne.

  “It is the village of Many Beaver, whose son is White Buffalo. Three winters ago you gave us rifles and food. Many Beaver remembered you. When he found you wounded eight sunrises ago, and saw that you were still alive, Many Beaver said we must help you because once you helped him.” Colt struggled to remember. Wounded? Still alive? “Many Beaver says you are a man who has good medicine. Not many men survive the wound of a Pawnee arrow,” the old man added.

  Pawnee arrow? The horror returned then as Colt began to remember. Pawnee! They had attacked his home, raped and tortured and scalped LeeAnn, killed his baby son! The memory moved over him like a herd of buffalo, beating, pounding, torturing. He gasped in a sob. “Let me die,” he groaned.

  The old man applied something cool to his forehead. “We are a people who know grief,” he said soothingly. “Time heals many things. For now your sorrow makes you say foolish things, but you are young. You will live, and there will be other loved ones in your life.”

  “Never.” Colt could not stop the tears that ran from his eyes across his cheeks, some trickling into his ears. LeeAnn. Ethan. It was true. This was not some awful nightmare, but reality. Why had he let himself think that the happiness he had found could last? A man had to be a fool to take such things for granted. The worst part was that it was his fault. He should never have left them. They died alone. Alone! Lee Ann had probably screamed his name, hoping he would come and help her. But he had been off enjoying a good hunt. He put a hand to his face, his body shuddering in sobs.

  The woman returned, two other men with her. “Saaa,” the woman said softly, “what is this?” She wet a rag and applied it to his forehead. “You will heal, friend, in body and in spirit.”

  “Will he live?” The question came from one of the men.

  “I think so,” the old medicine man answered. “But his grief is very strong.”

  “I know a way to make him want to live,” came another man’s voice, this one a little younger.

  Colt sensed a change of positions. Someone different had crouched beside him. “Open your eyes,” the man told him.

  Colt swallowed back an urge to vomit. The woman had moved around to his other side, the old medicine man moving away slightly. The woman continued to bathe his face, washing away his tears. Colt opened his eyes to see a handsome young Indian he guessed was about his same age.

  “Who are you?” the young man asked. “We can see you have Indian blood. What kind of Indian are you?”

  Colt swallowed again. “Cherokee,” he answered. “My father…was white.”

  The young Indian sniffed. “Just as we thought. A half-blood.” He looked back at a more middle-aged man who was crouched on his knees near Colt’s feet. Colt thought he recognized him, but couldn’t remember from where. “Three winters ago, in the time when summer is coming, did you not give rifles and food to the Cheyenne?” the younger Indian asked.

  Colt strained to remember. It was so hard to think when he was so sick with grief. Three years ago. The only time he had handed rifles over to Indians was when a small party of Cheyenne had stopped what was left of the Landers party after the buffalo stampede. Why did that seem more like twenty years ago? It was the first time he had thought about Sunny Landers since marrying LeeAnn, and somehow the thought comforted him. “I…remember,” he answered. “Yes, I was scouting…for a man heading…for Fort Laramie.”

  The young man looked over at the Indian sitting at Colt’s feet. “So, it is the same man!” He looked back at Colt. “I am called White Buffalo. My father, Many Beaver, and I were with the warriors you helped that day.” He pointed to the middle-aged man. “That is Many Beaver. He is the one you spoke with. Do you remember?”

  So, Colt thought, that was why the man looked familiar. “Yes,” he answered.

  “Because you helped us, we are helping you,” White Buffalo told him. “The woman who cares for you is my wife, Sits Tall. The medicine man is Dancing Otter. For many sunrises he has cared for you. He cut the Pawnee arrow out of your side and has put the magic herbs and medicines on your wound to bring out the infection. Many times we thought you would die, but you are a strong man. What are you called?”

  Colt shivered, struggling against a new surge of tears that threatened to overwhelm and consume him. “Colt…Travis,” he answered.

  “You are a brave man, Colt Travis. We found six dead Pawnee when we found you. We buried your woman and child the white man’s way, but we did not bury the Pawnee. Let the buzzards take care of them!” White Buffalo turned and spit in a sign of his hatred and disrespect for his longtime Cheyenne enemy.

  Colt closed his eyes. “LeeAnn,” he groaned. “It’s…true? My wife…my baby boy…”

  “Ai. We grieve with you, Colt Travis, but there is one way a man can help the pain in his heart.”

  Colt opened his eyes again, looking first at Many Beaver, who nodded. “You know what you must do,” the man told Colt. “The Pawnee also attacked our village. We, too, have lost loved ones. Soon we will be joined by many more of our People. We will
make sacrifices and fast and pray. We will make much magic so that we are very strong. Then we will go after the Pawnee when the snows are deep. That is when they will least expect us. Their blood will stain the snow! Many will die!”

  Colt looked at White Buffalo, who grinned. “You will not die, Colt Travis, because if you live, you can ride with us against the Pawnee. Is that not a much more pleasant thought than dying?”

  The image of killing Pawnee brought a surge of new life into Colt’s veins. “Yes,” he answered. Was it his Indian blood that made him understand the glory and satisfaction of vengeance? Part of him wanted to die, to be with LeeAnn and Ethan. But a stronger part of him wanted to live, not just to taste Pawnee blood, but also because his death would only mean another Pawnee victory. “You would…let me ride with you?”

  “If you are strong enough,” White Buffalo answered. “Every extra man who hates the Pawnee means another Pawnee death!”

  Colt looked at Sits Tall, in his agony and sorrow seeing only LeeAnn’s face smiling down at him. “I will be strong enough,” he answered. He looked over at Dancing Otter. “Help me,” he told the old man. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I want to live long enough to ride with your warriors against the Pawnee.”

  The old man nodded, and Many Beaver raised a fist. “So, the half-blood will become a full-blood for a while, yes?” He looked over at his son, and both men laughed.

  Colt looked at White Buffalo, wondering what kind of a man his little Ethan might have become. He would never know now. “Ai,” he answered. “I will be an Indian, long enough to drink Pawnee blood.”

  White Buffalo gave out a shrill cry, throwing back his head.

  “For now you must rest,” Sits Tall told Colt, pressing the cloth to his head again.

  He closed his eyes. Yes, he would rest so that he would heal. He could think of no better way to deal with his grief than to kill and kill and kill, until he was so weary that he could no longer raise his arm. If he was lucky, after he had felt enough warm Pawnee blood on his hands, some warrior’s arrow would end his own life so he could find peace with LeeAnn and Ethan.

  ***

  Sunny took the message from the courier, opening the note that a fellow campaign worker had sent to her from Republican headquarters. “Lincoln won,” it read. Her heart raced with a mixture of joy and sorrow. This was what her father had worked so hard for, but now he might not even live to see Lincoln’s inauguration. Several southern states were close to secession, and the close of 1860 brought with it dark clouds over a divided country, and closer to home, the very real possibility of Bo Landers’s death.

  She thanked the messenger, turning and lifting her skirt to go up the stairs to her father’s room. She prayed that this news would revive him, that by some miracle he would heal and be whole again, the big, strapping man he had always been, not the shell of a man who lay in his bed in his second-story room.

  She was only eighteen, but today she felt old and weary from the strain of having to watch her father slowly die. She could hardly believe that a man could fail so quickly, especially someone as hardy as Bo Landers had always been. She kept waiting for him to get better, but she knew now that that was not going to happen. She had not wanted him to do so much traveling to campaign for Lincoln, but he had insisted, and two weeks before, it had caught up with him. He had collapsed while giving a talk in Indiana, and he had been brought back home on his own train. The doctor said that his heart was slowly failing him, and that there was nothing he could do. It seemed strange to have so much money, to have the best doctors at one’s beck and call, and still not be able to stop the ugly hand of death.

  Sunny suspected that the only reason her father had lived this long was to know for certain whether Lincoln had won the election. It had become an obsession with him, just like his dream of a transcontinental railroad. He expected her to finish that dream for him. He had told her so more than once, had trained her well, taught her everything he knew. She was acquainted with all the important people who could help her make the dream a reality; but the thought of going on without him, of taking on such a tremendous responsibility without her father’s strength and know-how, weighed heavily on her.

  She never dreamed it would happen this way. Men like Bo Landers didn’t die. He was supposed to wait until she was much older, wait until she was married so that she had a husband and family to fall back on. If only she had not been born so late in his life. Now he sometimes mumbled about going to be with her mother. “The love of his life” he had called her so many times. Sunny wished with all her heart she could have known her, wished her mother were here with her now; but the woman would forever be no more to her than a painting that hung over the fireplace in the parlor, a painting that Vince had grumbled several times didn’t belong there, even though Bo kept a painting of Vince and Stuart’s mother in the dining room.

  Sunny wondered how her brothers had treated her mother when Bo married her. She was sure they were as mean to the poor young woman as they had been to her. She thought how her mother had been only her age when she married Bo Landers, but at the moment Sunny could not picture herself married. If her father died, marriage would be an even greater impossibility. She would have far too many responsibilities to think of taking on a husband and having a family.

  She dreaded the smell of death when she walked into the room, but it was always there. A nurse sat beside Bo, and Vi turned from a stand where she had been pouring a glass of water. She set the glass down and rushed over to Sunny, taking her arm.

  “I told you to take the day shopping or something,” the woman told her. “I’ll watch him today.”

  Sunny was grateful for the genuine concern in her sister-in-law’s dark eyes. Vince and Eve seldom had a kind word about Vi, both insisting Stuart had made a grave mistake marrying the plain, plump young woman whose family was not part of the Landers circle of friends. Eve was sure Vi had married Stuart for his money, but Sunny didn’t believe it. She was simply a good-hearted woman who loved Stuart in spite of all his shortcomings.

  “I was thinking of going out, but I got this message,” she told Vi. “I have to tell Father. Lincoln has won.”

  Vi saw the mixture of triumph and sorrow in Sunny’s eyes. “Yes, you should tell him right away.” She walked with Sunny to the bed. As always, Bo’s eyes lit up when he saw his daughter.

  “Sunny! Is there any news yet?”

  She smiled for him. “Yes.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Lincoln won.”

  He broke into a smile, and Sunny thought how thin his face looked. “I knew it,” he said. He closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing labored. “Thank God.” He reached for her hand, enfolding it in his own. “You know what to do, Sunny. You’re my only hope. You know that, don’t you?”

  She tried not to let her tears and terror show. “Yes, Father, I know what to do.”

  “You’re by God a Landers from the inside out.” His eyes teared slightly. “Don’t let them take it away from you, Sunny. You’re a fighter, and you know what needs to be done. You can’t do it if Vince takes away some of your inheritance. That money and what you will own means power, Sunny, power to get done whatever you want to get done! Build my railroad, Sunny. Promise me you’ll do it.”

  She could hardly bear to look at him this way, her own father, thin, failing, giving up. “I need you, Father. You’ve got to get well and help me.”

  “I want to, Sunny. I want that more than anything.” How weak his voice was, compared to the old, booming Bo Landers. “But there are some things money and power can’t buy, and health’s one of them. I’m just sorry I was already getting old when you were born.” He squeezed her hand lightly. “Sunny, my precious, beautiful Sunny. Oh, how I hate leaving you. I’m so sorry I’ve placed such a burden on you, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think you were capable.”

  A tear slipp
ed down her cheek. “Don’t leave me, Daddy,” she said, feeling at that moment like a little girl again.

  “Oh, no, girl, I’ll never leave you. I might not be here in body, but I’ll by God be with you in spirit. When you need strength, when you need to give somebody what-for and make yourself heard, you just think of me. I’ll be standing right behind you. And when you get that railroad built, I’ll be right there at the celebrations, watching them drive that last spike. You can do it, Sunny. There is no doubt whatsoever in my heart.”

  She leaned down, resting her head against his shoulder, and he touched her face, stroking her hair back from her forehead. “My little ray of sunshine,” he mumbled. “Don’t let them take it away from you. You fight for what’s yours.”

  She could not stop the tears. How was she going to go on without her pillar of strength, the only person in her life who loved her totally and unconditionally? She would gladly give up Lincoln’s victory, her wealth, everything…if it meant Bo Landers would live.

  Chapter 8

  Colt could hear the cries again, smell the blood, feel it on his hands. The dream became a mixture of memories and horror. He was lying flat on the ground, and hundreds of Pawnee warriors were riding down on him. The hooves of their horses made his body tumble, and after rolling over several times he thought he heard LeeAnn screaming his name. He got to his feet, searching through the hundreds of Pawnee, who kept shooting arrows at him, but he kept walking, searching. He stumbled over something, looking down to see a baby, bloody but smiling at him. He reached down to pick it up, holding it close in his arms.

  LeeAnn called his name again, and he looked to see her approaching. The Pawnee were gone. LeeAnn’s image kept flashing back and forth from a bloody, naked woman he could not recognize, to his beautiful wife, smiling and reaching out for him. When she came close he could smell the lilac in her hair.

  “We’re home, Colt,” she told him, reaching for the baby. He handed it over to her, and the child was no longer bloody. “See? We’re all right,” LeeAnn said. “And so are you. Go back to the living, Colt.”