Thunder on the Plains

by Rosanne Bittner

  Colt nodded, checking the knot in the rope. “I understand.”

  “You’ve got a new wife and son. Let me go,” Lou told him.

  Colt eyed the aging brakeman, then glanced at the two guards. One was at least fifty, the other young and very slender. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think anybody else here is strong enough. It’s not going to be easy to keep hold of any of them, especially Vince. He’s well over two hundred pounds. With your combined strength you can hang on to the rope, but individually I think I’m the only one who can do this.”

  “You be careful,” Lou told him. “If it looks like it’s going to go, climb out. You can do only so much, Mr. Travis.”

  “Let’s get this over with, then.” Colt left them, climbing onto the tilted platform of Vince’s car. He reached out and took a lantern handed over by one of the guards and leaned down into Vince’s car, holding it up for light. “Is everybody alive in here?”

  “Who is it? Who’s there?” Vince shouted from far below.

  “It’s me—Colt! I’ve come to help.”

  “Colt! Hurry!” Vince yelled back, sounding desperate. “Please, just get my wife and kids out! I don’t know how much longer I can hang on!”

  Colt leaned farther forward, holding the lantern out but unable to see Vince. He guessed the man was clear at the other end of the car, maybe all the way out on the platform on the opposite end.

  “Please, get my daughters out,” Eve begged.

  Colt spotted her huddled against a bedroom wall with the youngest girl, Mary, who was eleven. For safety’s sake, most of the furniture in the cars was bolted into place so that it would not fly around in case of a collision, a safety precaution Sunny had taken after a rash of accidents. Operators of the new railroad were still learning proper switching techniques. Colt was glad for the bolted furniture, or Vince’s wife and children could have been badly injured. As it was, a chair lay against Eve, along with an array of dishes, a teapot, and knickknacks that had spilled from tables.

  “Stay as still as possible,” he ordered them. He heard a whimpering sound near him and raised the lantern to see sixteen-year-old Joyce clinging to a lounge chair. He hung the lantern on a coat hook on the wall nearest him, so tilted that the lantern hung free from the hook rather than hanging too close to the wall. “Give me some slack!” he shouted to the men behind him. He turned and clung to the rope, putting his feet against the floor of the car like a mountain climber and inching down to Joyce. “Climb on my back,” he told her. “Don’t be afraid. There’s no time for hesitation.”

  The girl obeyed, putting her arms around his neck from behind and wrapping her legs around his waist. Colt climbed to the top, his shoulder aching from his own tumble in the initial screeching halt of the train. He got Joyce to the top and helped her climb onto the platform of the next car, and one of the guards helped her run back to safety. Colt went back down, finding twelve-year-old Linda huddled under a sofa, clinging to its legs. The girl was afraid to let go until her mother ordered her to do what Colt told her and save herself so Colt could get back to the rest of them.

  Again Colt climbed up, beginning to sweat in spite of the cold night air. Linda climbed to safety, and Colt went back down for Mary and Eve.

  “What’s happening!” Vince yelled from farther below.

  “Just hang on,” Colt shouted. “Joyce and Linda are out. I’m getting your wife and Mary now.”

  “Hurry!” Vince yelled, sounding terrified. “I can’t hang on!”

  “I can climb up the rope and hold on to furniture and things,” young Mary told Colt. “You take my mother.”

  “You sure?”

  The girl sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I can do it if you’re behind me.”

  “All right. You’re a brave girl, Mary.” Colt reached down and lifted her with one arm. She took hold of the rope and used his shoulders to push herself up. “Hang on!” Colt ordered. He reached down for Eve. “Grab the rope and we’ll climb up together,” he told her. The car shifted slightly, and mother and daughter screamed in terror. Eve grabbed Colt around the neck so tightly she was practically choking him. “Hang on, Mary!” Colt yelled to the child. “Scramble up! Scramble up!” He kept an arm around Eve’s waist. “Come on.”

  Shaking with terror, Eve managed to let go of him enough to take hold of the rope. “Vince!” she screamed. “Vince, are you still with us?”

  “I’m here!” he called back. “Just get yourselves out!”

  Colt helped Eve climb to the top, and a guard reached out and grasped Mary, lifting her to the safer platform of the next car. Eve hesitated as she took hold of the platform railing of the collapsing car. She grasped Colt’s arm tightly. “Please!” she begged, tears of grief and fear streaming down her face. “I know you hate him, but don’t let him die! He’s my husband!”

  Colt thought how ironic her plea was, considering how she and Vince had never seemed to care how much Colt and Sunny had loved each other. “I’ll do what I can, for the sake of your daughters, and because he’s Sunny’s brother.”

  “I’m sorry…how he treated you,” the woman sobbed. “His life is in your hands. You wanted…to kill him once.”

  “I said I’d help him. Go on now, so I can get back to him.”

  To Colt’s surprise, the woman hugged him around the neck. “Thank you for getting my daughters out.” She left him, and Colt watched after her a moment, wondering why God had put him in this situation. He looked up at the stars. “You’re asking a hell of a lot,” he muttered with a scowl. He shouted to the men above then. “Give me plenty of slack this time!”

  He moved back down through the car, letting his eyes adjust as he moved away from the lantern. He moved past the bedrooms, catching his feet on anything he could, on into the kitchen area, where he guessed Vince must have been when the accident happened. He strained to see, noticing the kitchen door was hanging open. “Vince!” he shouted.

  “Here! Out here! Hurry!”

  Colt moved on out to the platform, where by the light of the moon he could see Vince dangling off the end, hanging on to the railing of the platform steps.

  “I can’t get enough leverage…to get my knees back up on the steps,” the man almost groaned.

  Colt could see past him to the gaping canyon below. “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. He reached down. “Grab my arm and I’ll try to pull you up enough to get your knees on the steps!”

  Vince hung there a moment, and Colt realized the man was crying. “If I let go, it will be…the end of me,” the man finally sobbed.

  “Not if you take hold of my arm! I’ve got a rope tied around me.”

  “And if you let go…I’m a dead man. You wanted me dead once! It would be easy for you…to say you couldn’t hang on. No one could prove otherwise!”

  Colt gritted his teeth and scooted a little farther down. “Grab on to me, dammit! I promised your wife I’d get you out of here!”

  “My God, man, don’t let go!”

  “You’ll just have to trust me, won’t you? Hurry up before we both go down with this damn car!”

  Vince made a choking sound, and suddenly Colt felt a hand grasp his upper arm. Colt took a powerful grip on Vince’s own arm, having a harder time hanging on because Vince wore a shirt. Vince gripped his arm like a vise, and Colt grimaced with pain, pulling with all his might. “Come on! You can do it,” he growled through clenched teeth.

  Vince struggled to get a hold, his breath coming in grunts and gasps. He finally managed to get a knee on a step. “Pull! Pull!” he yelled.

  Colt braced his feet against another railing and hung on until Vince got his other foot up and then fell against him on the platform, panting and weeping. “God, God, God,” he moaned. “Thank God.”

  “We aren’t out of this yet,” Colt reminded him. “Come on. Do you have the strengt
h to hang on to the rope? You’ll have to do some climbing.”

  “I can do anything now,” the man answered, his face against Colt’s arm. “Just get me out of here.”

  “Grab on.” Colt took his hand and put it on the rope. “We’ve got to climb all the way up to the next car. There isn’t a second to lose.”

  Both men started up, Vince stopping every few seconds to get his breath. “I’m so tired…from hanging on so long,” he panted. “I’m not used to…all this exertion.”

  “A man can do a lot of things when his life depends on it,” Colt answered. He felt something cut into his sole and only then realized that he was barefoot.

  “Yes, I suppose you would understand that,” Vince answered. He sniffed. “You get me out of this, Colt, and I’ll do what I can to help you learn what you need to learn about the business and all. You saved my wife and daughters, and that would be enough. To come back for me, of all people—”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s get out of here.”

  Both men climbed more, the car shifting again. They scrambled even faster until finally Vince made his way out and into the next car. They could all feel more of the bridge giving way then, and Colt leapt to the next car. All five men ran through it to Sunny’s car, feeling the trestle shifting beneath them. There came another blood-chilling, thundering crash just as they scrambled to the top of the boxcar and ran across it to the caboose. Colt could hear Sunny screaming his name, Eve screaming for Vince. He and the others ran through the caboose and along the trestle, led by one of the guards who carried the other lantern.

  They reached safe ground, and Eve and Sunny started to run to their husbands, but Vi stopped them. “No! Leave them for a minute,” she advised.

  Sunny looked past her and realized the woman was right. This was a deeply personal moment for both men, and she was struck by a sight she never dreamed possible. One of the guards was holding up a lantern, and Vince was sitting on the ground, rocking and crying. Colt was kneeling beside him, an arm around his shoulders.

  ***

  Headlines about the daring rescue blazed in eastern newspapers. Not only had the wealthy Sunny Travis’s new husband saved her brother and his family, but his skills of survival against the elements kept the entire entourage of the Landers family members, clothed only in nightwear or shirts and pants and no jackets, safe through a night that brought temperatures down to the teens. The stories told of how wolves had gathered threateningly, kept at bay by a campfire Colt had built, and by Colt running and shouting at them daringly through the night. Colt had found a small cave-like place, where the family huddled under a couple of blankets and branches torn by Colt from fir trees. Because of the danger of the whole train going down, no one had dared go back for more clothes or blankets. In spite of the threatening pack of wolves, Colt had gone out into the dark forest alone to get the branches. As the story spread, so did the embellishments of the circumstances surrounding the rescue, until a new respect for Sunny’s second husband began to circulate among the elite circle in which Sunny moved.

  Sunny’s own train car and Stuart’s had been salvaged when a U.P. supply train came along the next day. The whole family had awakened to morning light that showed a second, newer track built on concrete bedding across a shorter span of the canyon. Somehow her own engineer had gotten their train onto the wrong trestle, one that was not meant to be used permanently. Two engineers and a fireman had been killed, and Colt and the other men found and buried their bodies. The entire experience had been a trauma for everyone involved, but Sunny could not help being grateful for how it had drawn the family closer, especially for the changed relationship between Colt and Vince.

  Dancer had been rescued and was not hurt, but Stuart was left with a broken arm, and they were all taken to Salt Lake City for treatment of cuts and abrasions. Colt’s hands, arms, and chest were red with rope burns, and his left shoulder was badly bruised. He had also gotten a cut on his right foot. Sunny could not help the tears of relief that second night when she lay in Colt’s arms and reminded herself again that they were all alive, thanks mostly to Colt. She had procured the services of another engine, and tomorrow they would go on to the site of the joining of the rails, Vince and his family sharing Vi and Stuart’s parlor car. Things would be cramped, but no one seemed to care.

  “Things have never felt more right,” she said quietly, “in spite of the awful hell we’ve just been through. I guess we’ve had a wedding night we’ll remember the rest of our lives.”

  They were back in Sunny’s private car, and the train was pulled to a railroad siding for the night, everyone still too jittery to travel after dark.

  Colt kissed her hair. “I’ve been thinking, Sunny. How about if we go find you a horse before we leave Salt Lake City in the morning? We can board it in the boxcar with Dancer. I thought it might be nice to ride back from Promontory, at least to Cheyenne. We could catch a train there to Omaha, or just keep riding if we want. The rest of the family can go on to California like they planned. I’d like to forget that part and just you and me and Bo have some time alone. We haven’t been riding together since you came out to me two years ago.”

  She lay there quietly for a moment, thinking about the joy she had found those two beautiful days, the pain of having to give it all up and marry Blaine. “Yes,” she answered softly. “I’d like that.” She moved to look into his eyes. “Just you and me and Bo, riding free. I don’t want to think about work and decisions and stocks and bonds and all those things for a while.”

  He frowned. “By the way, if I’m going to have a hand in all that, I say there should be no more bribing and underhanded stock deals and illegal bogus companies that double the money in our pockets at the government’s expense.”

  “Oh, Colt, that’s how business survives,” she teased.

  “Well, I say we try a new tactic—like honesty and integrity. You’re the one who told me you admired those traits, wanted to teach them to Bo. You don’t want him growing up knowing what a scheming trickster his mother is, do you?”

  She laughed lightly. “All right. But you’ll have a fine time persuading Vince to deal honestly and fairly with people. Here he is finally ready to teach you a few things, and you’re going to hit him with things like integrity and above-the-table dealings? That should get the two of you off to a good start.”

  He tangled his hands in her hair. “Well, maybe I’ll be the one to teach him a thing or two. Vince and I are going to get along just fine.”

  She grinned. “I’ll have fun watching that one.”

  “You’ll see.” He kissed her eyes. “Right now I’m just glad to be alive, and so is he.”

  She sighed, studying him lovingly. “I think you’ve really won him over.” She traced her fingers over his eyebrows. “You’ll be taking me and Bo riding. I’d like to do something exciting for you too. I was thinking you would enjoy sailing on my yacht out on Lake Michigan. You should try it, Colt. I’ll bet you’d love to learn how to sail, and I know you’d love it out on the lake. It kind of reminds me of the West—big and wide and endless. Father used to take me a lot when I was younger, but I haven’t been sailing in years. Now I’m going to make more time, for everything, especially for my husband and son.”

  “Good,” he said, kissing her lightly. “I don’t know about me and that big lake. I’ve never been out on that much water. I’m more used to prairie grass under my feet—solid ground.”

  She grinned. “Well, we’ll do a little of both.” She found his lips and pressed against him, but Colt winced and pulled away a little. Sunny noticed the deep purple bruise on his upper right arm where Vince had grasped him so tightly. She kissed it. “Thank God,” she whispered.

  ***

  Colt stood beside Sunny as the speeches were made. She had been asked to speak herself, but this day was so emotional for her that she declined. Just being p
resent for this historic moment, Colt standing beside her as her husband, was enough.

  The golden spike was driven into place, and the message was telegraphed across the country with the simple word “Done.” Unbeknownst to Sunny and the others, guns were fired into the air in many cities, bands played, people cheered and danced in the streets. The transcontinental railroad was completed, joined in the midst of the rugged Promontory Mountains, in the dry, barren area north of the Great Salt Lake.

  Here at the actual site, Sunny could almost see Bo Landers standing on the U.P.’s huge locomotive Engine 119, as it steamed slowly ahead to touch cowcatchers with the Central Pacific’s Jupiter. Men cheered, hats were thrown into the air, wine and whiskey were broken out. Sunny wept, thinking about all she had been through to come to this, and how right it was that Colt Travis should be there with her. Her joy of the moment had only been enhanced when before the ceremony several men congratulated Colt on his rescue of the Landers family, which, to Sunny’s surprise, most people at the site knew about. She had no idea how much the news had spread and what a thrilling story the newspapers had made of it. Even Tom Canary had shaken Colt’s hand.

  She wiped her eyes, looking up at Colt. “You were my best friend through it all,” she told him tearfully. Colt embraced her, realizing how meaningful this moment was for her, how she had fought for it, so much alone in keeping the dream for her father. He looked past her to see Vince approaching. Colt pulled away from Sunny, and she turned when Vince said her name. To her surprise, the man embraced her.

  “You did it, Sunny. I have to hand it to you,” he told her.

  Sunny broke into bitter sobbing and hugged him tighter. “This is more important,” she managed to tell him. Brother and sister stood embracing, and Vi stood nearby, weeping at a sight she never thought possible. Stuart, his broken arm in a sling, wiped quietly at his eyes.

  Colt left to get Dancer and a palomino mare he had purchased in Salt Lake City for Sunny to ride. Both horses were already packed with necessary supplies for their ride back east, and he and Sunny had both already dressed for their journey. In spite of the formal ceremony that had just taken place, Sunny had worn a simple brown suede riding habit, and Colt wore denims and a calico shirt.