A Promise of Thunder (30 page)

“Let me go with you, Thunder, please,” Laughing Brook pleaded. “It has been many years since I have seen your parents and they
were as dear to me as my own. Your sisters were my only playmates.”

“I suppose both Dawn and Spring are married now and living with their husbands,” Grady said with aching sadness, “and my mother and father are alone at the ranch. I can be there and back before harvest if I start immediately.”

“You need me to care for Little Buffalo on the trip,” Laughing Brook persisted. “And I would love to see the ranch again.” Her voice held a wistful note that tugged at Grady’s heart. “I will return willingly to the reservation if you allow me to visit your family first.”

“I will take you to Peaceful Valley only if you promise nothing like this will ever happen again,” Grady warned sternly. “Another day I might not be in so generous a mood and do something we will both regret.”

Laughing Brook swallowed her delighted smile, hoping Grady meant what he said. One day, she vowed, she’d catch Grady at a vulnerable moment, and afterward his conscience would force him to make her his second wife. White man’s laws meant nothing to the People, who followed their own rules.

“I will try not to tempt you, Thunder,” she promised in a contrite voice. Grady chose to read more into her words than she intended.

“Very well. You may accompany me to Peaceful Valley,” Grady said, heaving a sigh of resignation. “We will take the train to Cheyenne and shorten the trip by many days. Go to your bed, Laughing Brook.”

He deliberately turned his head as Laughing Brook slipped nude from the bed and padded from the room. Though his mind rejected her utterly, his body wasn’t as easily appeased.

When Grady went to town the next day he heard some startling news. He had gone to Guthrie hoping to hire a couple of men to protect his homestead in his absence against predators and speculators like Nat Turner. He was shocked to learn that Nat Turner had been killed by an irate gambler who had caught him cheating in a poker game the previous night. Though it did not solve his immediate need to hire someone to watch the farm in his absence, knowing that Turner was dead eased Grady’s fear over leaving his homestead until harvest. He expected a good crop of wheat from the acres he had planted and looked forward to a profitable first year.

Not every homesteader had the same advantage he did, Grady reflected. Some folks were so dirt poor, and wood so scarce, that they were forced to live in caves dug from hillsides that were dark and dirty, though relatively dry. Or they erected houses from clumps of sod cut into brick size. Since sod houses were built above ground they provided more light and ventilation than dugouts, but they always leaked, and rain and windstorms caused great damage. Grady considered himself damn lucky to have money available to purchase wood to build a cabin and seed to grow crops.

In the best of times even the elements conspired
against the homesteaders. Oklahoma seemed cursed with the worst of all weathers. In the summer rain was infrequent, and the blazing sun scorched and parched crops while grasshoppers and other pesky insects descended and stripped young farms clean of greenery. Plagued alternately by long droughts and sudden gully-washing floods, violent hailstorms and tornadoes, settlers in Oklahoma Territory had to learn to survive hardships of all descriptions. What made the land attractive was the fact that it was free to those with grit and determination, those with hope and dreams, and those who had nothing to which to return.

Grady’s luck held when he found a widow and her strapping seventeen-year-old son to stay at the homestead in his absence. Since he no longer needed to worry about Nat Turner causing trouble, Grady felt secure in leaving the farm in the Martins’ capable hands. They had been forced to sell their own homestead after the death of Mr. Martin and were hoping to buy a small business in town with the proceeds from the sale of their land. Grady bought train tickets to Cheyenne for the following week and returned home to tell Laughing Brook and Tim of his arrangements.

Grady regretted being unable to take Storm to meet his parents. He knew instinctively that they would like and approve of Storm, but he had no idea where to find her. He had questioned the ticket agent at the train station, but
the man swore he hadn’t sold a ticket to her. And the owner of the livery had no idea where she had gone after she left the wagon in his care. Grady suspected she had gone back to her family in Missouri and had to forcibly stop himself from going after her. But he had too many responsibilities to go traipsing after a woman who didn’t care enough about him to stay long enough to learn if he had survived his bullet wound. Obviously Storm didn’t want him and he’d damn well better find a way to keep himself from wanting her. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

For the third morning in a row Storm rushed from the tepee and spewed the meager contents of her stomach onto the ground a short distance from the village. When she returned Sweet Grass took her aside and offered her a drink of cool water.

“What is wrong with me, Sweet Grass?” Storm asked worriedly. “Have I caught your illness?”

Sweet Grass smiled shyly. After many days and nights of being tenderly cared for by Storm she had come to love Thunder’s wife as dearly as she did her own daughter. It was mainly through Storm’s efforts that she was recovering from her debilitating illness, and both she and Jumping Buffalo greatly appreciated Storm’s dedicated nursing.

“Crooked Nose says my fever isn’t catching,” Sweet Grass said, putting Storm’s fears to rest.
Have you had this sickness before?”

“No, I’ve rarely been ill in the past,” Storm said after careful thought.

Just then Crooked Nose entered the tepee, took one look at Storm’s pasty complexion, and smiled broadly. Then she started babbling to Sweet Grass in the Sioux language. Storm tried to understand, but they spoke too fast for her to decipher from the smattering of the language she had picked up in the weeks she had been living on the reservation.

“What did she say?” Storm asked Sweet Grass. “Does Crooked Nose know what’s wrong with me?”

As if in answer to Storm’s query, Crooked Nose nodded sagely.

“Crooked Nose says your ailment is a natural and expected condition in young married women,” Sweet Grass said, stifling a giggle. Her mirth puzzled Storm. Since when was being ill a cause for levity?

“Is it serious?”

“It can be, but it runs its course in nine months.”

“Nine months? Why that’s—oh no, it can’t be! I can’t be having a baby. Not now.”

“Both Jumping Buffalo and I have noticed changes in you. Crooked Nose says it is so, and she is wise in such matters. Thunder will be pleased to add another child to his family.”

Storm gnawed worriedly on her lower lip, aware that having Grady’s baby wouldn’t change the way he felt about her. He hadn’t
wanted her before she was going to have his child, and she definitely wouldn’t go back to him knowing he’d only want her for the sake of their baby. On the heels of that thought came another. Now that Sweet Grass was well and Storm’s usefulness ended, where would she go? Grady hadn’t cared enough about her to come for her and she was determined not to intrude where she was not wanted. On the other hand, there was her land and cattle to consider. She had much to think about during the next days, she concluded, for her own future and that of her unborn child was at stake.

“Jumping Buffalo will escort you back home,” Sweet Grass declared. “I am well enough to manage on my own until he returns with our daughter. I do not know what is wrong between you and Thunder, but the child will heal your troubled souls.”

“I fear it will take more than a baby to cure what is wrong between me and Grady,” Storm said sadly. “In all these weeks I have heard nothing from him. Perhaps all he ever wanted from me was my homestead. But he can’t have it,” Storm said fiercely. “I’d sell it before I’d leave it to him.”

“Has my daughter caused this conflict between you and Thunder?” Sweet Grass asked in a concerned voice. “Jumping Buffalo had little to say about your reason for coming here in Laughing Brook’s place.”

“I won’t deny that Laughing Brook is part of the problem, but she isn’t what ultimately
caused the rift between Grady and me,” Storm confided. “I can’t live with Grady unless he gives up his violent ways. I begged him not to participate in that gunfight. I even told him I’d leave him if he did, but he chose to ignore my plea. After he was wounded I changed my mind and would have stayed with him, but he—he didn’t want me. He told me to leave.”

“That doesn’t sound like Thunder,” Sweet Grass observed with a frown. “Perhaps you were mistaken.”

“There was no mistake,” Storm said bitterly. “If a mistake was made, he would have come to the reservation and told me so. I left a note telling him where I could be found.”

Sweet Grass grew thoughtful. “What will you do? You are welcome to stay here with us for as long as you like, but the reservation is no place for a white woman unaccustomed to our ways. Winters are hard, and many of us do not survive. It is especially difficult for babies and small children. If not for Thunder’s father, we would have starved long ago. Each winter and summer he sends us food, blankets, and clothing.”

“I’ll think of something,” Storm said dispiritedly as she turned away to busy herself with a task that would take her mind away from Grady and the dilemma that faced her.

Jumping Buffalo looked up from the tedious chore of attaching steel tips to his arrows and stared into the distance, an arrested look on
his rugged features. A man driving a wagon was just entering the village. Shading his eyes against the glare of the sun, Jumping Buffalo stared at the man with an increasing sense of familiarity. Something in the set of his massive shoulders and the way he held his head gave Jumping Buffalo his first clue to the man’s identity. Suddenly a broad smile creased his weathered features and he began to walk briskly out to meet the visitor.

Strong, capable hands the color of burnished bronze drew the team of horses to a halt beside Jumping Buffalo. The two men looked at each other for the space of a heartbeat before the man in the wagon jumped to the ground and warmly embraced Jumping Buffalo.

“It has been a long time, old friend.”

“I have missed you, Swift Blade,” Jumping Buffalo said, thumping Grady’s father on the back in exuberant welcome. “If you have come for your grandson, he is not here.”

Blade Stryker’s dark eyes betrayed the anguish in his heart. “I didn’t think he would be, but I had to find out for myself. Shannon is beside herself with grief over the boy. If not for you, we would have no word at all about Tim. Nothing has been the same since Grady left the ranch and took Tim with him. Where is my grandson?”

“Little Buffalo is with Thunder.”

“Thunder,” Blade repeated, swelling with pride. “He is also called ‘Renegade,’ is he not? Thunder is a fit name for my son, but Renegade
brings him no honor. Even in Cheyenne we have heard of the Sioux renegade who is sometimes called Thunder. Shannon and I are deeply saddened by Grady’s pursuit of violence since Summer Sky’s death. Lord knows, the boy wasn’t brought up like that. Living with the People and learning their customs has been a fine experience for him. What saddens me is the way he has chosen to conduct his life.”

“Living with anger changes a man,” Jumping Buffalo said cryptically. “Especially a very young man. Thunder was a green youth when he lost Summer Sky. He has changed much from the boy you once knew, Swift Blade.”

“Shannon and I feared we had lost our only son forever until we recently heard a bit of news that gave us hope where none existed before. I pray it is true. That’s why I’ve come in person this time to deliver food and clothing to the People. I deliberately stayed away before because it was what Grady wanted.”

“What is it you learned?”

“When Captain Starke came to Peaceful Valley recently to purchase horses for the army he told me he saw my son in Guthrie, Oklahoma. He said Grady had taken part in the race for land in the newly opened Cherokee Strip. Is that true, old friend? Has Grady finally decided to abandon his violent life and become a farmer? And if it is true, why hasn’t he contacted me or his mother? Doesn’t he know he is still our son no matter what he has done?”

“It is true, Swift Blade. Thunder—it is difficult
to think of him as Grady—won a quarter section of prime land that he is homesteading. I saw him last when he came to collect his son. Laughing Brook accompanied him to care for the child until he felt comfortable with his new surroundings. The reservation is the only home Little Buffalo remembers.”

“Has Grady married Laughing Brook?” Blade asked, surprised. “It would please me if he has, but I was under the impression that he thought of Laughing Brook as one of his younger sisters.”

“There was no marriage, yet after many moons Laughing Brook is still with Thunder in Oklahoma.”

Blade frowned, displeased by Jumping Buffalo’s answer. “Has Grady changed so much? Has he dishonored your daughter?”

Jumping Buffalo remained thoughtful for a long interval before answering. “I do not think so. Thunder is an honorable man, and he swore to protect my daughter. I trust him. But there is something else you should know. Thunder is married.”

“Grady is married?” The news was startling indeed. “If he is married, why is Laughing Brook still with him? I don’t understand.”

“Thunder’s wife is no longer with him. I will tell you all I know.” Then Jumping Buffalo proceeded to tell Blade everything, from the time he encountered Storm at the cabin until the present. When he finished Blade was more bewildered than ever.

“It appears as if Grady has married an extraordinary woman,” Blade mused thoughtfully. “I’m anxious to meet Storm and judge her for myself. My son must be a fool to let someone like her go. Her decision to come to the reservation to care for Sweet Grass was a selfless act of charity.”

“Sweet Grass and I have come to love the girl and think of her as our daughter. But there is another thing I must tell you about Storm.”

“What is it? Have you found some flaw in her character?”