Thunder on the Plains

by Rosanne Bittner

  He sighed angrily. That was the hell of it. He had claimed her first. Sunny belonged to him, and he knew damn well nobody else was going to love her as he had, although sometimes he almost hated her. As time went by he felt more and more angry that she had not come to him in the first place.

  He turned away from the window, another painful shiver of remorse moving through him. God, how he had loved her, and much as he hated to admit it, he still did. The thought of her lying in Blaine O’Brien’s bed stabbed at his gut like a knife. He would never forgive himself for riding off that day they had returned to camp and letting her go back to Omaha alone. He felt an explosive fury every time he imagined Vince lighting into her, insulting her, telling her the devastating news about her mother. The only thing that had kept him from killing Vince was the fact that his children were in the house. If he had gotten hold of the man alone, someplace where there was no law…

  He couldn’t bear sitting around like this. He smashed out the cigarette angrily and began dressing. He had to get out and keep busy in spite of his pain. Minutes later he left the room, leaving the newspaper on the floor for Mrs. Perry’s housekeeper to pick up when she cleaned his room. He had not read it all, but he didn’t care.

  A few hours later the cleaning lady arrived, straightening his bed and emptying an ashtray. She picked up the paper, deciding to sit down for a moment and scan through it before throwing it away. One article in particular happened to catch her eye.

  Railroad and Shipping Magnate Blaine O’Brien Drowned at Sea! the headline read on page three. Blaine O’Brien, owner of the ocean freighting and passenger line bearing his name, died at sea in a raging storm on the Atlantic. O’Brien was also heavily invested in the Union Pacific branch of the nearly completed transcontinental railroad, as well as…The woman skipped down through the long list of Blaine’s holdings, as well as his social accomplishments…Lost his bid for governor of New York State in the August primaries…an avid big-game hunter…decided to journey again to Africa for a hunting vacation after a hard campaign…

  She scanned through more words, always eager to read about famous people. Mrs. O’Brien, the former Sunny Landers, had not accompanied her husband on his voyage due to injuries from a bad fall sustained only one day before Mr. O’Brien left for Africa. The O’Briens have one son, Beauregard Stuart, who is six months old…O’Brien’s death leaves Sunny O’Brien heiress to an even greater fortune than that which she had already inherited from her father. It is estimated that her combined wealth surpasses even that of Cornelius Vanderbilt…Memorial services were held September twenty-four, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, at St. John’s Lutheran Cathedral, New York City. Mrs. O’Brien remains in seclusion, refusing to speak to reporters.

  “Well, I’ll be,” the woman muttered, always enjoying reading about the misfortunes of rich people. She folded the newspaper and put it in with the rest of the collected trash.

  February 1869

  Sunny watched Bo crawl around beneath the huge Christmas tree in the downstairs parlor of her Omaha home. More and more the boy, a year old now, was looking like his father. He was strong and active and adventurous, and so beautiful. He was almost walking now, pulling himself up by grasping furniture, sometimes taking several steps with no help.

  Whenever she looked at her son, she saw a reminder of how beautiful her love for Colt had been, not the ugly, whoring lust Blaine and Vince had both tried to make it seem. She wondered sometimes if she would ever get over the ugliness of that night when Blaine had beat her, not just the physical pain she had suffered for weeks afterward, but the emotional pain of his cruel words, and the deep abiding pain of having lost a baby. Maybe if she had told Blaine she was carrying his child…but then, life was full of maybes. The shock of learning about her mother, of loving Colt so intensely and then having to abandon that love, the emotional abuse she had suffered from Blaine, followed by the vicious beating and Blaine’s untimely death, had all left her weary and near collapse. The only thing that kept her going and gave her a reason to go on in spite of her grief and guilt, was her son, her little bit of Colt Travis. In all that had happened, her little boy remained innocent of any wrongdoing. He was her only joy.

  Sunny had come back to Omaha because it had become the only place she felt content and at peace. She decided that was because it was close to the land Colt loved, the land she and Colt together had loved. She had left others in charge and had come here to be alone, to think about what she should do, whether she should try to find Colt. Maybe it would hurt more to find him and discover he hated her and wanted nothing to do with her than to just let sleeping dogs lie and allow the poor man to go on with his life, leaving her out of it. Maybe he had found some other woman by now. Still, he had a son. It only seemed right that he should know about Bo. Even if he didn’t love or want her anymore, he had a right to be aware of the existence of his own flesh and blood. She knew how important that would be to him.

  She wondered how, with all her experience in the world of business and power, she could have made such a shambles of her personal life. Not only had she hurt Colt deeply, but she had destroyed the sweet love they had shared, and now she carried the guilt of feeling responsible for Blaine’s death. If not for their fight that night over Colt, he might not have left. His cruelty could never be forgiven, and she would forever be haunted by his vicious abuse, yet the fact that he had left in anger and had ended up dying made her feel as though she were the cause. She still carried a faint scar on her cheek from that awful night, and to her it was like being branded a harlot.

  Vi had told her over and over that it was Blaine’s fault, not hers; but she could not shed her part of the responsibility, nor could she avoid the fact that all of it was more Vince’s fault than anyone’s. She was going to do her best to correct that today. She walked to a window to see if anyone had arrived yet for the special meeting she had called, and she saw a fancy coach approaching the curved, brick drive. “Good, Vince,” she said softly, her eyes cold and hard. “You came.”

  Never had she been more determined, and in a sense she had never felt stronger. She thought how ironic it was that she was the richest woman in America, but the most unhappy, with no reason for living other than her little boy. What she was determined to do might bring her more trouble, but she had made a decision, and she was going to go through with it. What kind of problems would Colt give her over the boy? If he hated her and wanted no part of her life but wanted rights to Bo, how would it all be handled? Blaine had not yet changed anything in his will before leaving for Africa, which meant she and Bo had inherited a vast fortune. Little Bo, the son of a half-Indian scout who cared nothing for riches, stood to become one of the richest men in the country one day.

  For now, though, the boy could do nothing to help his mother with the burdens she would face. Blaine’s mother and sister had wanted no part of running any of the businesses. They were satisfied to simply live a life of leisure and travel, wiring Sunny for more money whenever they needed it. The bulk of the estate, which meant the bulk of the work and decisions, had fallen to Sunny, small shoulders that now carried a bigger burden than ever. Blaine had good men running his various enterprises, and Sunny was perfectly willing to leave things in their hands for the time being. She was not emotionally ready yet to take on her vast new holdings. She had left everything to the men already in charge, with a request for monthly reports to be sent to Omaha. In time, she supposed, she would make trips to New York to oversee her new interests there, perhaps sell some of the businesses; but she had not decided just what to do yet about the logging business Blaine had been building in Oregon.

  Her new wealth was staggering, all too much to think about, overwhelming even for a Landers. The strange part was, she never wanted any of it, yet could not bring herself to shirk the responsibilities that had landed in her lap. She still found her greatest joy in the simplest things, like horseback riding, and now her
little boy.

  She watched Vince and Eve, Stuart and Vi climb out of Stuart’s coach, and moments later she heard voices outside the parlor doors. She breathed deeply for the courage she would need, picked up Bo, and held him tightly as a servant led her two brothers and their wives into the room. She glared at Vince, seeing in his own eyes a trace of remorse but the ever-present belligerence. Eve marched in ahead of him, shoulders back, head erect.

  “This had better be worth the trip, Sunny,” she snipped. “We don’t particularly care to be summoned all the way from Chicago on a whim. Vince is a busy man. With Stuart and Vi right here in Omaha, why couldn’t you have settled whatever it is you need to settle with them and then written us?” She folded her arms. “Unless, of course, you wanted to personally rub it in about your newfound fortune. I must say—”

  “Shut up, Eve,” Sunny interrupted, her eyes still on Vince. “Sit down—all of you.”

  Eve sucked in her breath in fury at the personal affront. She started to speak again, but when Sunny met her eyes she stiffened at the cold hatred she saw there. She was already aware that Sunny had changed dramatically since Blaine’s death. According to Vince, when she returned to Chicago for a few brief meetings before coming to Omaha, she had been a hard, bitter woman, nothing like the Sunny they used to know. Had her new wealth gone to her head? Was she just out to lord it over the rest of her family because of Vince’s threats to Colt Travis? Surely the half-breed couldn’t have meant that much to her, Eve thought. After all, look at how she had benefitted from marrying Blaine. Still, this was certainly not the old, forgiving Sunny. The look in her eyes made Eve back away and take a chair, as did the others.

  Vince watched his sister warily. Sunny had not spoken to him since the night he told her about her mother other than at a couple of business meetings in Chicago. He was fully aware of the power she wielded now, power she could use to destroy him if she chose.

  Sunny scanned all their faces, still holding Bo. “Vi already knows most of what I am going to tell you,” she finally said.

  Stuart thought how different she looked, still beautiful, but harder, her hair pulled straight back into a bun, a light scar on her cheek from her fall.

  “I am tired of secrets in this family,” she began. “I am going to clear up a few things today and put an end to all the secrets.” She turned to Eve. “The things I have to say can’t be put into a telegram or a letter or delivered verbally by someone else. They have to come from me, and you are going to sit there and listen.”

  Eve stiffened, her eyes little slits of haughty disgust, her thin lips pressed tightly together. Sunny turned her own hard blue eyes to Vince. “Vi told me that Colt paid you a little visit a while back,” she said with a sneer. “As far as I am concerned, I wish Colt could have gotten away with killing you, and I am sure he would have if you had been out in the lawless land where he comes from.” She leaned down to set Bo on the floor again. He shimmied over an Oriental rug to Vi, smiling and reaching up for her. Vince just glared angrily at Sunny.

  “At any rate,” Sunny went on, “the result of Colt’s visit was that Vi and Eve discovered the truth about my mother, a truth that had been kept from me all my life and one that nearly destroyed me.” She turned and began pacing, arms folded. “You all know that Vince used that truth to keep me from marrying Colt, the only man I have ever truly loved. He also threatened to have Colt killed. I suppose I should have trusted in Colt’s love enough to realize he wouldn’t have cared about my background, but at the time the news was so devastating, I couldn’t think straight. When I look back on it now, I realize I should have told Vince that everything I have could be his if he would promise not to tell and would not make threats on Colt’s life. I could have and should have gone to Colt and said to hell with my fortune. But sometimes we do foolish things when we are full of sorrow and torture, when someone we love is threatened, or when we fear we’ll see something besides love in their eyes. Besides, giving everything over to Vince would have been a betrayal of father’s trust in me. It would have been the ultimate victory for Vince.” She stopped to concentrate a hateful glare at her brother. “And Colt would not have wanted that to happen.” She stepped closer to Vince. “I married a man I didn’t love because of you, and in some respects Blaine’s death is also your fault. If not for that unhappy marriage—” She stopped and sighed. “Vi came to help me after my so-called fall. She knows it wasn’t a fall at all. Blaine, the man who, according to you, Vince, was the proper man to marry, beat me within an inch of my life, blamed me for his losing the election. He used his fists on me brutally. He caused me to cut my face, and to lose a baby.” She began to shiver, and she turned away.

  “My God!” Stuart muttered.

  “I suppose considering some of his other reasons, a man could be angry enough to do something like that,” Sunny went on, “but there is never a reason for a man to beat a woman nearly to death. He could have divorced me, brought me all kinds of public shame—” Her voice began to break, and she stopped to regain her composure.

  “Sunny, I’m sorry,” Stuart spoke up. “If I had known what was really going on, how much you loved Colt—I thought you wanted to marry Blaine.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Stuart. There is only one person in this room who is responsible. I called you and Vi here so that you would know about a decision I have made.”

  “Dammit, Sunny, I never thought Blaine was capable of that kind of cruelty,” Vince told her, “or I—”

  “Or you what?” Sunny stood staunchly before him, her hate-filled eyes now red with tears. “You wouldn’t have changed a thing! Don’t pretend your sympathy, Vince. I don’t want to hear it!” She held her chin a little higher. “At any rate, the night of the beating Blaine also told me he had found out I had gone riding alone with Colt before our marriage. He accused Colt of being Bo’s father.” She held Vince’s eyes. “And he was right!”

  Eve’s eyes widened, and she put a hand to her mouth.

  “Jesus Christ,” Vince muttered, looking away from her and taking a cigar from his pocket.

  “I don’t want to hear your judgment of me or your opinion of Colt,” Sunny told him. “Nor do I want to hear your lamentations about how Colt Travis has won a part of my fortune after all through his son. Much as you refuse to believe it, Colt never wanted the money, Vince. He wanted only me, but I let you ruin the beautiful love we shared. I don’t know if I can ever get it back, but I intend to try. Colt Travis has a son, and he deserves to know that. I am going to try to find Colt. He has lost so much in his lifetime. Knowing he has a son will mean a lot to him, and I owe it to him to tell him. And you, Vince, are not going to stop me or threaten Colt. I can destroy you in twenty-four hours. It doesn’t matter if I have to destroy Landers Enterprises to do it, because I don’t need Landers Enterprises anymore! I suggest you remember that. I would always see that Stuart and Vi are taken care of, and I might set up trust funds for your children, but if you threaten my son, or Colt, or any decision I make from now on, you and Eve will be living in the streets eating out of garbage barrels. Is that understood?” Vince’s face glowed red, and Sunny enjoyed the look of defeat in his hated blue eyes. “Say it so I can hear it,” she said, looking at Eve. “Both of you. Do you understand?”

  Eve literally withered, looking at her lap. “I understand,” she said quietly.

  “Understood,” Vince added. He lit his cigar, feeling the fury and frustration at being totally at his sister’s mercy.

  “Fine.” Sunny scanned all their faces, feeling a little better at the look of approval on Vi’s face. “From now on,” she told them, “I am going to conduct my life the way I choose. If it brings gossip, then I will live with it. There is nothing anyone can do to me anymore. My mistake was in thinking I had to protect Colt from the same gossip, from those who would ridicule and insult him. He’s more man than any I’ve ever known, and in spite of the viol
ence he’s known and participated in, even a man like Colt would never do to a woman what Blaine did to me. In that respect Colt is more the gentleman than Blaine ever was, and I realize now that I fully underestimated his strength, not just physical, but emotional. I should have given him the chance to prove he could find a way for us to be together, a way for us to survive in each other’s worlds.”

  She walked over and took Bo from Vi’s lap. “What’s done is done. I don’t care what you know, and I don’t care what any of you think of me. The only tiny bit of happiness I have left is Bo, and probably the only remnant I can salvage of the love Colt and I shared is to at least let Colt share in the upbringing of his son. I can’t think of a better father for a boy who will inherit a fortune and who will need someone who can keep his head the proper size. Colt can do that. He can teach him things all the universities and wealthy friends in the world could never teach him. I don’t know if Colt can ever love or forgive me for hurting him like I did, but I think he’ll want to know about Bo, and if letting him be a father to the boy means letting him into our lives, then that is what we will do. You, Vince and Eve, will welcome him and show the world that he has been accepted by the family—if I am lucky enough to even find him. Is that understood?”

  Vince puffed angrily on his cigar. “You know what it will do to the family, Sunny, how it will look in the papers.”

  “I told you I don’t give a damn. I am going to find Colt. It might take a while.” Her voice softened slightly. “It’s always difficult to capture the wind, but I’m going to try.” She looked at Vince again. “What I have suffered, what Colt has suffered, is all ultimately because of you. It might as well have been your hands that beat me and broke my ribs and injured my kidneys and left this scar on my face.”