Thunder on the Plains (11 page)

“I can and I have,” Bo answered. “You've shown your true colors, Vincent. You can pay the price. And I might add that you can also make it a matter of record that as of today, Sunny is an official board member, with full voting rights.”

They left, and Sunny could hear shouting and a buzz of talking. She felt a little sorry for Stuart, but not for Vince. It hurt to see such hard feelings between father and sons, and although she had done nothing wrong, she knew Vincent would find a way to make all of this look like her fault. In spite of her young age, she could see that deep family turmoil lay ahead for her, and she wondered if she could handle it.

A board member with full voting rights! She had not expected that. More and more she felt the weight of the responsibilities she would one day inherit, including having to stand up to Vincent. What had her father meant when he told Vince he would remember this day long after Bo was gone? She wanted to ask her father not to place such a burden on her, but she knew how hurt he was, and she could not bring herself to hurt him even more.

“It will be all right, Father,” she told him.

“You bet it will! You pack your things, Sunny. We're going to Springfield to talk with Lincoln, then on to New York and Washington.”

They climbed into her father's carriage and Bo ordered his driver to take them back to the house. Outside, the wind blew hard and cold, and Sunny's heart felt suddenly heavy at the thought of going even farther east, so far from the land from which she had so recently returned, so far from the rolling plains and the beautiful mountains, so far from Colt Travis. She told herself she had to get over her childish fantasies and face these new responsibilities. Her father had a railroad to build, and she was going to do all she could to help him build it.

1858

The gunshot cracked in the cool autumn air, and Colt jumped up from his noon campfire, a tin cup filled with coffee still in his hand. He listened carefully, sure the shot had come from somewhere to the east. All was silence again, except for the soft moan of the wind in the pines. He decided perhaps it was only a hunter. Since gold was discovered in this area a year ago, thousands of people had poured into the mountains in search of the usually elusive metal, and many had already given up and gone back, discovering the gold was not so easy to find, some convinced it was all a hoax. For most of them life in the Rockies had been a lot harder than they had bargained for, but a few brave souls had stayed, settling along Cherry Creek farther to the north, where more gold had supposedly been found.

An eagle circled overhead, calling to its mate somewhere in the higher mountains. Colt thought he heard another sound at the same time. He waited for the majestic bird to wing its way toward the mountains, then listened intently. He frowned when he heard the strange wail again, unlike the eagle, unlike any animal with which he was familiar. It was more like a cry of pain, perhaps a woman weeping.

He set down his cup and picked up his rifle, going to his still-saddled horse and shoving the rifle into its boot. “Let's go take a look, boy.” He took hold of the buckskin-colored gelding he had purchased not long before at Bent's Fort, after the roan horse he had ridden for years had stumbled on a steep mountain trail and broken its leg. It still hurt to think about losing the animal. He had loved that horse, as he had loved Slim. Now both were gone. He was growing more attached to his new mount, which he called simply Buck; but his loneliness had deepened since Slim died, and a horse certainly was not the answer. He had not been this lonely since his father died.

He mounted up and headed Buck through a thick grove of pine and golden aspen. He knew now that he couldn't lead this life of wandering forever. A man had to have some kind of direction, something to cling to, sons to carry on his name. A man had to have a woman, not the loose kind that provided quick sexual relief, but a woman who truly loved him, who gave herself only to him and gifted him with children. He figured if Slim were still alive, maybe he wouldn't be thinking this way yet. Or maybe if he had never met Sunny Landers and started thinking how nice it might be to have a pretty, devoted woman sharing his bed at night, he wouldn't have this new yen for female company.

He figured he would never really forget Sunny, and he often wondered what life must be like for her back in Chicago. Did she ever think of him? Were wealthy young men fighting each other over the privilege of wooing her, now that she was sixteen and had probably had her grand “coming-out” party? She was back where she belonged, now only a sweet memory to him; but she had made him hungry for a woman, hungry for a different kind of companionship than he'd had with Slim.

He trotted his horse up and down two swelling hills, weaving through more pines, his keen ears still picking up the sound. He could hear it better now, knew it was a woman who was either hurt or in great mourning. He reached a clearing and saw a wagon farther out in a shallow valley of yellowing grass. A woman was bent over a body, weeping. He looked around, seeing no other wagons, no Indians, wondering who had shot a gun, and why. “Get up there, Buck.” He urged the horse into a gentle lope.

The woman looked up then and noticed him. Colt saw her reach for something, and in the next moment she raised a rifle and aimed it at him. He quickly drew his horse to a halt, Buck's hooves pushing up the sod. The horse turned in a circle and whinnied, shaking his mane. “I'm here to help,” Colt called out to her. “I heard a gunshot, heard you crying.”

“Don't you come any closer!” she screamed. “I'm alone here!”

The voice and slender figure told him she was young.

“Ma'am, I don't mean you any harm! My name is Colt Travis, and I'm a scout. I know this country. Please, put the rifle down and let me help you. What's happened?”

She stood rigid for several long seconds, her shoulders jerking with each sob. She finally lowered the rifle slightly. “You can…come closer,” she said, the words choked.

Colt cautiously approached, seeing the terror and sorrow in her pretty brown eyes. He guessed she was perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old, and her thick dark hair hung past her shoulders. He could see the body on the ground now, an older man. Part of his head was missing, and the grass around his shoulders was soaked with blood. Colt drew up his horse, still hanging back, noticing then that there was blood on the girl's hands and arms and dress. “That your pa?” he asked.

She nodded, her face wet with tears, her nose running. “My mother…is in the wagon. She died last night…had a bad cough for weeks. Pa wouldn't bring her out of the wagon and bury her…couldn't face her death. He blamed himself…for bringing her out here. And then today I…I tried to tell him again he had to bury her. He said he would. I went…inside the wagon to dress her and fix her hair…and then I heard the gunshot.” She shook with more sobs, lowering the rifle a little more and staring at it a moment. “He must have just…turned the rifle around and…put it to his head. I guess he just couldn't…live with the guilt.”

Colt's heart went out to her, a young girl orphaned in a strange land. He knew the feeling of being suddenly alone, and this was a horrible way to lose one's parents. He slowly dismounted. “Why don't you put down that rifle? I'll bury your folks for you and I'll get you to some help.”

She looked at him helplessly, and suddenly her eyes rolled back and she slumped to the ground. Colt hurried to her side, kneeling down and pulling her partially into his arms. He smoothed the hair back from her face, studying her pretty features, wiping her tears. “I don't even know your name,” he muttered. She groaned and he gently laid her back into the grass, then went to his horse to retrieve a canteen. He rushed back to her, kneeling down and dripping a little of the cool water over her face. She gasped and opened her eyes again, staring at him a moment, looking confused. She reached up for him, and he pulled her into his arms.

“Everything will be all right,” he told her gently. “I'll take care of you.”

November 12, 1858

Mr. Lincoln has lost the senatorial race, but I do not believe he is through politically. His loss was only because of the way our districts are divided. Although Mr. Lincoln and his antislavery Republican Party actually received the greater share of votes, Mr. Douglas won the majority of seats by district and thus is again senator. However, the speeches Mr. Lincoln gave during his many debates with Mr. Douglas over the past months have made him very popular in Illinois and, in fact, throughout the North.

Sunny put down her pen, wondering if her father was right in fearing the country could end up going to war over the slavery issue. She could not imagine that anyone could think slavery was right, but the South was standing firmly in favor of keeping the long-used, barbaric practice. She and her father had followed Abraham Lincoln's political career, and Bo was convinced Lincoln's eloquent, impassioned debates with Douglas would eventually take him to the presidency. He had contributed heavily to the antislavery Republican Party during the current senatorial race, and soon they would travel to Springfield to speak with Lincoln and urge him to run for president. Bo was ready to contribute even more to such a campaign; but although he was firmly against slavery himself, his intentions for getting Lincoln elected were not to end slavery, but rather to have a man in the White House who was in favor of a transcontinental railroad.

Mr. Lincoln has time and again shown a great interest in a railroad that would span the continent. The only thing that could hold up a vote for such a railroad is the awful possibility of a war between northern and southern states. I dread the thought of such a war, and I also dread knowing that it could be several more years yet before we can even begin thinking about building the railroad. I am so afraid Father will not live to see his dream. He has had a little trouble with his heart, and it frightens me, for I am not sure I could go on living if something happened to him.

She again put down the pen, wishing they had made more progress toward the railroad so that her father could see that the project was at least under way. So far they had still not even been able to convince close friends to contribute a dime toward the dream. Her father had been forced to pay certain congressmen to introduce a railroad bill, but that bill lay dying, overlooked now because of the growing political problems over slavery. They kept in contact with Thomas Durant, who was also campaigning heavily for the railroad, and Bo had invested in Durant's Pacific Railroad Company, the bare beginnings of what they hoped would one day be the parent company of a lucrative transcontinental railroad.

Through her father, Sunny was personally acquainted with both Lincoln and Durant, and with several congressmen and senators. She was only sixteen and a half, but she felt much older and wiser for all she had learned over the past months since returning from the West. Her sixteenth birthday party had been one of the more spectacular parties in Chicago. She had made her grand entrance, coming down the spiral staircase of the Landers mansion on her father's arm, presented to a crowd of over one hundred fifty dignitaries and their wives, Chicago's wealthiest, as well as several political figures, including Abraham Lincoln.

She had worn baby-blue silk, the full bustle skirt of the dress cascading in a tumble of lace and diamond-trimmed tufts. The skirt trailed out in a train at the back, and the scooped neckline of the bodice revealed her bosom in a more enticing cut than she had ever dared to wear before. A brilliant diamond necklace glittered at her throat, a gift from her father, and she had worn elbow-length white silk gloves, silk stockings, and white slippers. She had Vi to thank for helping her dress and giving her encouragement that nervous day. Although her father had hired a new tutor, a widow named Hannah Seymour, and had also hired a personal maid for her, the only woman she could really talk to now was Vi, with whom she had grown even closer. Still, she had not even told Vi of her secret wish that day, that Colt Travis would be in the crowd of spectators, seeing her as beautiful as she could possibly be. She wondered what she might have seen in his eyes.

The thought made her turn back in her journal to the notes from her trip west.
We
have
moved
past
the
Nebraska
Sandhills
and
are
now
in
what
Mr. Travis calls High Plains country
, she read softly to herself. She scanned further ahead.
I
never
thought
I
could
survive
such
a
life…Mr. Travis has been very quiet since Mr. Jessup died, and I think he is in deep mourning. I feel sorry for him…
She turned a few more pages.
Colt
Travis
is
leaving
us. Tomorrow will be the saddest day of my life, for from then on I will never see Colt again…I went tonight to tell him good-bye, and he held me.

She put her head back and sighed. Colt had become just a pleasant memory now. Young men had begun calling on her, with particular attention coming from twenty-four-year-old Ted Regis, the son of board member and bank owner Harold Regis. Her father had had time to cool down since the big blow-up with the board of directors, and they were on speaking terms again. He had not objected when Regis's son had asked to call on Sunny, and Sunny had decided it was time to begin seeing young men. In fact, Ted would be there soon to take her to the theater. Mrs. Seymour, who accompanied Sunny wherever she went, would act as a chaperone. Ted was a mannerly but somewhat cocky young man who seemed totally taken with her, but Sunny had no special feelings for him, nothing like the wonderful feelings she used to get around Colt.

She rose and walked to her dresser, taking another look at herself in the mirror. She recognized her own beauty, but she recalled Miss Putnam telling her, “Don't let your looks go to your head.” What mattered was a person's heart and strength. Still, she had become very aware that her looks could sway a congressman's vote. Sometimes her father swore it was more her beauty than his money that got them into the offices of men who at first refused to see him and listen to him talk about his “damned railroad.”

Someone knocked on the door to her room then, and Mae Bitters, her personal maid, came into the room. “Your Mr. Regis has arrived for you,” the young woman told her.

“
My
Mr. Regis? He's just a friend, Mae.”

Mae giggled, looking Sunny over. “Sure he is. I wouldn't want to be ‘just friends' with the likes of him. Those gray eyes and that handsome smile would melt me right away!”

“Mae Bitters, I swear
all
men make you melt.”

“All men with
money
are good-looking to me, Miss Sunny, and that's the only kind of man who ever comes around here!” She laughed again, and Sunny could not help a giggle of her own. Mae was from a poorer section of town and had been delighted to get a job in the Landers mansion. She was close enough to Sunny's age that there were things they could share; but Mae was too flighty to share truly deep feelings with her, and too uneducated for Sunny to talk to her about political events or some of the bigger financial decisions Sunny knew her father was plagued with making. Still, in many ways Mae was already a better, more loyal friend than the young women of her own class.

Mae helped Sunny pin on her hat, a deep red velvet with pink feathers in it. It matched her red velvet dress that had been perfectly tailored to her voluptuous figure. Forty tiny velvet buttons fastened the dress down the middle of her back, and the puffed shoulders were tapered into tight-fitting long sleeves. Mae draped a fur cape around her shoulders and tied it at her throat, then stood back.