The Listening Sky (48 page)

Theda Cruise came from her hotel in Jackson Hole by automobile, the first many in Timbertown had ever seen. She had never
married, but it was rumored that she had numerous lovers. Still flamboyant with her dyed-red hair, she was a striking figure
even though she had put on weight. Thanks to her thriving business, Theda was a very wealthy woman

Doctor Bate had stayed on in Timbertown. He had lost his family in the Chicago Fire back in ‘71 and, after years of grieving,
had married a widow who had been among the group that had arrived in town with Jane, Polly and Sunday.

After the wedding, Colin and one of his sons helped Bill Wassall, called Sweet Grandpa by the Tallman children, climb the
steps to the hotel where the reception was to be held. The old man was terribly crippled, but he was as sassy as ever, and
proud of his family. Maude, Marshal Tennihill and their two younger daughters, along with the bride and groom, formed a receiving
line to greet the guests.

In the evening T.C. and Jane strolled around town. Residents stared openly at the man who had founded the town and the lady
he escorted so proudly and who was the subject of many stories about “the olden days.” Slim and elegant, she was fashionably
dressed in a gray silk suit decorated with navy braid. Her soft leather shoes were the same shade of gray, as was the hat
that sat atop her dark-red hair.

Timbertown had lost its bid to be the county seat. Instead of a courthouse, a bandstand, surrounded by benches and walkways,
stood in the town square.

“Oh, dear. So much has changed in such a short time,” Jane said almost wistfully. “The henhouse has been torn down. The stage
station is a millinery store and Sweet William’s cookhouse is The Pheasant Resturant. Oh, look, T.C. Our house has a picket
fence around it I don’t remember that tree where Herb hung a swing for Stella and Buddy being so big.”

“Sixteen years is not a short time, honey. After all that happened to you here, I’d think you’d hate the place.” T.C. moved
his arm to encircle her waist as they paused to look at the house.

“I adore this place! Everything that happened to me here led me to my husband, my children, my home on the ranch, where I
can walk out and look at and talk to the sky if I want to.”

T.C. chuckled. She was the joy of his life. His love for her had grown over the years from the almost frightening love of
youth to the enduring love a man feels for his life’s mate.

“Sweetheart, you’re a pistol, as Doc used to say. Let’s walk up to the cemetery. I saw Buddy go there this morning and put
flowers on his mother’s grave.”

“He was a poor lost little boy back then. It’s a miracle that he came through that terrible time.”

“The miracle was Colin and Sunday.”

They walked past the place in the road where, if not for the protection of T.C.’s heavy shearling coat, Jane would have died.
They didn’t speak of it. Houses lined the road now, and there were more on beyond the brightly painted red schoolhouse, to
which a bell tower and extra rooms had been added. A Sunday-afternoon baseball game had ended, and couples were walking back
toward town.

The Kilkennys reached the quiet knoll dotted with pines and monuments. They stopped to listen to the mourning doves, then
strolled among the grave sites.

A bouquet of wildflowers lay beside the stone Buddy had put on his mother’s grave. Jane stopped to read the inscription.

She sleeps in Jesus, cease thy grief;

Let this afford thee sweet relief.

Now freed from life’s torturous reign;

In heaven she will live again.

“Mrs. Winters would have been proud of Buddy. He turned out to be a fine young man. Even after going to Denver and accomplishing
so much, he came back for Stella.”

True to his word, Herb had seen to it that Doc had the largest monument in the cemetery. A dove of carved granite was perched
on top. The plot was surrounded by an ornamental iron fence.

Jane and T.C. stood silently and reverently beside the grave of their friend.

NATHAN FOOTE

LITTLE DOC

Born June 22, 1838 Died Sept 20, 1882

Received the Congressional Medal of Honor for service to both

sides during the Civil War.

No man could have done more.

Farewell, Little Doc. Because of you, hundreds lived.

“I always think of Doc being old.” Jane turned and rested her face against her husband’s chest “But he wasn’t old at all.”

T.C. held her to him, knowing that each time they came here and she read the inscription she choked up.

Presently, she wiped her eyes and lifted her face to the sky.

“Doc,” she called softly. “Are you listening? Everything turned out all right just like you said it would. I’m having a wonderful
life.”

O
N November 29, 1864, Colonel John M. Chivington, leading a force of 1,200 troops made up of Colorado volunteers, attacked
the camp at Sand Creek. The camp contained several hundred Cheyenne and a few Arapaho. Black Kettle, a Cheyenne chief, had
been negotiating for peace and had camped near Fort Lyon with the consent of its commander.

When the attack began, Black Kettle raised the U.S. flag as well as a white flag. Chivington ignored the flags and urged his
men on to massacre more than 400 Indians. He gave these final orders to his men: “I want you to kill and scalp all, big and
little; nits make lice.”

So began a day given over to blood-lust, orgiastic mutilation, rape, and destruction. Children were bayoneted while still
in their mothers’ arms. Women were violated, then disemboweled—with Chivington looking on and approving.

Chivington sent a battle report to Denver fresh from the bloody field:

Attacked a Cheyenne village of from nine hundred to a thousand warriors. Killed between four and five hundred. My troops did
nobly.

The returning troops were proclaimed conquering heroes—for a while—until Chivington’s report was proved a downright lie.

Once the public recognized what had really happened, Sand Creek became the subject of an investigation by the Congress and
the Army. The charges were that Chivington and his men had murdered Indians who had thought they were under Army protection;
most of the dead were women and children, and their bodies had been mutilated.

This incident was a chief cause of the Arapaho-Cheyenne uprising that resulted in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of settlers
losing their lives.

I have no knowledge that Colonel Chivington had a daughter out of wedlock. Jane Love is a fictional character I created for
my story. Nor do I have knowledge that Colonel Chivington was despised to the degree I describe, although, according to historians,
he was thoroughly hated throughout the territory and was blamed for the decade of Indian wars that followed the Sand Creek
Massacre.

Dorothy Garlock

Clear Lake, Iowa

Jane Love's hopes soared when she set out for Timbertown, Wyoming Territory. There, she thought, she'd be safe from her enemy and find the work and respect she so needed. The big problem turned out to be mill owner T.C. Kilkenny. Sitting high on his horse, the settlement's handsome leader was issuing orders and getting Jane's dander up.
T.C. obviously didn't have enough jobs for all the women who had answered his employment notices: he had lonely lumberjacks who needed brides! Well, Jane Love didn't give a fig for his matchmaking or the rough-hewn frontiersmen who greedily ogled her. With an amused glint in his silver eyes, T.C. schemed to keep her in town. He intended to make her his woman—after he proved he was man enough to stop the varmint who was coming to gun her down.

"ONE OF THE PREMIER WRITERS OF WESTERN ROMANCE."

—Affaire de Coeur

"FOR THOSE WHO LIKE THEIR ROMANCE EMOTIONALLY COMPLEX AND FULL OF GRIT, GARLOCK HOLDS THE REINS MASTERFULLY."

—Publishers Weekly

National bestselling and award-winning author of thirty-four romances that often feature the exciting backdrop of the Old West, D
OROTHY
G
ARLOCK
is one of America's—and the world's—favorite novelists. Her books, all enthusiastically reviewed, now total more than seven million copies in print with translations in fifteen languages.