A Promise of Thunder (2 page)

Jostled by passersby, Storm found it increasingly difficult to maintain her stance at the edge of the wooden sidewalk. The sun was hot and she had forgotten her bonnet in the back of the wagon. Even now she could feel the heat penetrating the thick strands of her hair and beads of sweat collecting on her neck and dampening her collar.

Suddenly she felt a prickling sensation at her nape and her flesh tingled, warning her of danger. Her warm sherry eyes narrowed as she raised them to seek out the cause of her distress. She saw nothing but people. People everywhere, coming, going, milling in front of stores and queuing in long lines at the train station to purchase tickets to take them to the Cherokee Outlet.

Then she saw him.

He was staring at her, his stark face intense with concentration. His midnight black hair hung beneath his shabby broad-brimmed hat to brush his massive shoulders, clubbed at the back with a leather thong. His dusty buckskins molded to the thick muscles of his torso and thighs. Instead of boots his feet were encased in comfortable moccasins. He wore his gun low on his narrow hips, tied down at the thigh in the manner of gun-slingers. A wicked-looking knife was tucked into his belt. Storm thought she had never seen a more dangerous-looking man. At first his inscrutable expression and torrid scrutiny frightened her, then it made her mad. Obviously he was an Indian. Or even worse, a half-breed. One of those despicable men scorned by both cultures.

She returned his look, lifting her stubborn little chin at a defiant angle. She held his blistering gaze for all of five seconds before dragging her eyes away and deliberately turning her head in another direction. How dare
the brazen creature stare at her in such a bold manner! she fumed in impotent rage. She was a married woman, for heaven’s sake. She had loved Buddy since they were both five years old.

Grady was so amused by the frosty blonde’s efforts to ignore him that he allowed the tiniest of grins to soften his hard features. Briefly he wondered who she was and what she was doing in Guthrie. But his rapt attention diminished when he recalled that the woman was white, and her scathing perusal made it perfectly clear that she felt nothing but contempt for him. Which was fine with him. He had no use for whites, male or female. He had abandoned his mother’s people when he left Peaceful Valley to seek a life among the renegade tribes of the once mighty Lakota, called Sioux by the White Eyes.

Grady shrugged off the unaccountable need to bound across the street and confront the woman and continued on his way. Remaining in Guthrie held little appeal for him, and he decided to retrieve his horse from the livery and be on his way. He wasn’t exactly unknown in these parts, due mostly to his association with renegades and later as a gunman spoiling for a fight. No matter what town he had drifted to since he left the reservation months ago, he had managed to cause enough trouble to earn him the title of “Renegade.”

His reputation usually preceded him, and there were always men anxious to challenge
him in those nameless towns along the Western Frontier. In the past six months he had drawn against more men than he could count on his two hands. Though he had rarely been the challenger, he was never reluctant to practice his amazing skills with a gun. Many of those men ended up dead by his hand, and more often than not the sheriff had escorted him out of town. Since he hadn’t been the one to offer the challenge, he had never been arrested, but Grady knew that one day his luck would change. Either he’d fail to outdraw his opponent and end up pushing up daisies in Boot Hill or find himself behind bars. Either way made little difference to him. His life had become a succession of violent acts for which his soul was forever damned. He didn’t even have the courage to go back home, despite the fact that his parents would probably forgive him if he mended his ways.

Violence begets violence. Hadn’t those words been drummed into him as a child? Now it was too late to change his ways; too late for Summer Sky, whose life had been taken when she had had so much to live for. It would take a miracle to make him whole again, Grady decided as he hastened his steps toward the livery. His son, Little Buffalo, would be better off without him. Laughing Brook, Summer Sky’s younger sister, loved Little Buffalo dearly and would see to his raising. As for him, Grady wished that Grandfather hadn’t advised him to leave the People. His own restless spirit demanded satisfaction
for the brutal death of Summer Sky, and even though he hadn’t yet reached his twenty-sixth year he felt his life’s cycle drawing to an end.

A miracle, that’s what he needed.

Grady knew miracles didn’t exist.

Suddenly, without warning, Grady’s keen perception sensed danger. He could smell it. Grady tensed, his hand hovering inches above his gun, every muscle in his body taut; his years of living precariously had taught him self-preservation and survival of the fittest. Every one of his instincts were intact when he sensed someone stalking him, someone whose revolver was already clearing his holster. Fortunately Grady was accustomed to performing at a disadvantage and had learned to work with it in ways that only Indians could comprehend.

“Draw, Renegade! You killed my brother in Dodge City and now you’re gonna pay.”

The roar of thunder sounded in his ears. The People had named him well. In that instant Grady Stryker ceased to exist and Thunder was reborn, swift, keen, perceptive—deadly.

Sensing trouble, people on the streets scattered like leaves before the wind. Women screamed, clutching their children as they hustled them out of harm’s way, and men, placing themselves behind protection, watched with perverse fascination as the two men prepared to outdraw one another.

Across the street, Storm Kennedy noticed nothing but Buddy approaching in the wagon.
Expelling a sigh of relief, she stepped out into the street. Buddy stopped the wagon beside her, preparing to jump down and boost Storm into the seat beside him.

“I found us a place to stay!” Buddy shouted, excited that he had obtained lodging in a city so obviously overcrowded. “We can sleep in a real bed tonight. Mrs. Luke over at the boarding house just threw out a guest because he couldn’t pay, so she let us have his room. I knew luck was with us.”

“How wonderful,” Storm cried. Buddy’s boyish enthusiasm for this venture had fired her own, and she was as eager as he to claim their 160 acres of land and become landowners.

Grady knew the odds were against him, but giving up wasn’t his style. He’d faced tougher competition than this during the past months. If he’d killed the man’s brother, it was because the brother had recklessly challenged him. He recalled that day in Dodge City, even remembered what the brother looked like. And as had happened so many times in the past, that face took on the characteristics of the men who had killed Summer Sky. The man had accused him of cheating at cards, drew, and lost. Grady felt no remorse over the death of another nameless white drifter.

Gathering his wits, Grady turned and dropped to one knee, at the same time drawing and aiming. He knew from the sound of his voice exactly where the man stood—it
was an uncanny ability, knowing where the enemy was—and fired off a shot, all in the space of a heartbeat. The man squeezed the trigger an instant later. Already wounded by Grady’s bullet, his arm flew up and the shot went wild. It found its mark in the body of Buddy Kennedy.

A high-pitched screech was the first indication to Grady that something was amiss, something that had nothing to do with the man lying wounded in the dusty street. Once the danger was past, people began streaming into the open, seeming to converge on one place. Before the crowd cut off his view, Grady had a brief glimpse of a golden head bent over a still figure lying in the street beside a wagon.

Noting that his friends were already helping the wounded gunman to his feet, Grady gave him no more than a passing glance, holstered his gun, and rose to his full six feet three inches. He had no idea what dire mishap had taken place across the street, but something compelled him to investigate. Stretching his long legs, he strode briskly across the teeming thoroughfare and plowed into the crowd milling around the two figures who appeared to be the center of attention. When people saw who it was they opened up a path for him, allowing Grady a clear view of the scene.

A young man, younger even than Grady, lay stretched out on the ground. He was so white Grady knew instinctively that he was dead. Blood seeped from a neat round hole
in his head, staining the ground beneath him. The blond beauty Grady had noticed earlier was bent over him, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, her heartrending sobs piercing the air.

Shock and disbelief nearly paralyzed Storm. One minute she was talking to Buddy and the next he lay dead on the ground. Even in her grief she didn’t need a doctor to tell her that her childhood friend and companion was dead. It was all so senseless, so utterly wrong, that Buddy should die because two vicious men carried their grudge into the streets where innocent passersby could be hurt. Why Buddy? she raged in silent protest. He had so much to live for—so much enthusiasm for life and this new venture they had undertaken.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, burning through the material of her dress. Turning her head, she peered at Grady through eyes misty with tears—and the breath slammed out of her chest. It was
him!
The half-breed Indian who was the cause of Buddy’s death. Her warm sherry eyes turned glacial, her face hardened, and she deliberately shrugged off his hand where it gripped her shoulder.

“You!” The word exploded from her mouth like a vile curse. “Murderer!”

For a moment Grady looked stunned. Then his face cleared as he realized what had happened. He had heard the other gunman fire his weapon, but had given it little thought since the bullet had gone astray. It appeared now
that the bullet had struck down an innocent bystander—the woman’s brother? husband?

“I’m sorry,” Grady muttered. He had difficulty working his tongue around the words. Apologizing was something he rarely did. And when he did, it was never a graceful admission. “I fired only once and my aim was true. It wasn’t my bullet that struck down your …”

“… Husband. Buddy was my husband. And he would be alive right now if you and your friend hadn’t aired your differences on a public thoroughfare.” Her voice had risen steadily until she was screaming at him.

“Calm down, lady,” Grady urged. He wished desperately that he had never set foot in Guthrie, Oklahoma, this day.

“How can I calm down when my husband lies dead? How dare you! What does a savage know about grief?”

“More than you give him credit for,” Grady bit out as he sought to soothe the distraught young woman.

“Just go away! Can’t you see you’re making matters worse by just being here?”

Frowning, Grady stepped aside, allowing a woman to help Storm to her feet. Two men quickly stepped forward to lift Buddy into the wagon and drive him to the undertaker.

“What are you going to do now, dear?” Grady heard the woman ask as she led Storm away.

Grady wanted to follow, to ask the blonde’s name, but by then the sheriff was pushing his way through the crowd, and Grady spent the
next hour answering questions. By the time the sheriff had interviewed witnesses and satisfied himself that the attack upon Grady had been unprovoked, the beautiful widow was gone.

On September 13, 1893, absolute chaos reigned in the town of Guthrie. The line to buy train tickets to the new towns of Enid and Perry, where settlers hoped to claim land, was even longer than the day before. But for reasons he himself did not understand, Grady lingered in town, sleeping in the livery when he found no other suitable lodging. For a man without a conscience, he had lost a lot of sleep thinking about the provocative blonde and her dead husband. He wondered what she planned to do now that her husband was dead. Did she have family back East somewhere?

Try as he might, Grady could not deny the fact that it was his conscience that brought him to the undertaker that bright September morning. A somber man dressed in black greeted him at the door.

“How may I help you?”

Grady cleared his throat and glanced around the room filled with wooden boxes.

“There was a man brought in here yesterday. Young, gunshot. Do you know his name?”

“Ah, you must mean Mr. Kennedy. The funeral is this afternoon. Are you a member of the family?”

“No,” Grady said harshly, unwilling to admit he was the indirect cause of the young man’s
death. “Has the burying been paid for?”

“Why, no, it hasn’t,” the undertaker said. His suspicions fully aroused now, the undertaker took a good look at Grady, put two and two together and came up with the right answer. “Why, you’re the man who shot Mr. Kennedy.”

Grady’s mouth stretched into a grimace. “I don’t shoot unarmed men. Kennedy was killed by a stray bullet. But I’m not here to defend myself, I want to pay for the burying.”

“Why? The man has a widow.”

“Just tell me how much,” Grady said tightly. A man of few words, he saw no reason to offer explanations when he couldn’t even explain his reasons to himself.

The undertaker named a figure. Grady nodded, took the appropriate sum from his money pouch, and placed it in the man’s hand. “Are you sure that’s enough? I want him to have a decent burial.”

There was a rustle of calico, and then an angry feminine voice asked, “Why should you care what kind of burial my husband has?”

While Grady and the undertaker were talking, Storm had entered the establishment in time to hear their words.

Startled, the undertaker sent Storm a sheepish look. “Mr.—er—Mr. …” He slanted Grady a quizzical glance and waited for him to supply a name.

“Stryker. Grady Stryker.”

“Yes, well, Mr. Stryker has just paid for your husband’s burying.”

“What! The man’s a savage; why should he offer to pay for Buddy’s funeral?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” the undertaker suggested. It mattered little who paid for the burial as long as someone did.

“All right, I will.” She turned to Grady, her eyes dark with fury. “I don’t want your charity, Mr. Stryker.”