Savage Thunder

Chapter One

Wyoming Territory, 1878

The Callan Ranch was silent that summer day except for the ominous crack of a whip. More than a half-dozen men were gathered in the grass-patched front yard of the ranch house, but not one made a sound as they watched Ramsay Pratt wield the whip with the expertise he was known for. An ex-bullwhacker, as stock drivers were frequently called, Pratt loved to show off his skills. He could knock the revolver out of a gunman's hand with the flick of his wrist, or a fly off the rear end of a horse without touching the hide. Where other men carried guns on their hips Pratt carried a twelve-foot-long bullwhip coiled on his. But this demonstration today was a mite different from his usual tricks. This one was stripping the flesh off a man's back.

Ramsay did it at Walter Callan's behest, but he derived a good deal of pleasure from it, for it wasn't the first time he had whipped a man to death, or found that he enjoyed doing it, though no one, here in Wyoming knew that. He didn't have it easy the way gun-men did. If they wanted to kill a man, they could pick a fight that would be over in a matter of seconds, then claim self-defense after the smoke cleared. But with Ramsay's choice of weapons, he had to disarm a man first, then proceed to whip the life out of him. Not too many people bought self-defense in that case. But in this case, he was following the boss's orders, and the victim was a no-account half-breed anyway, so no one would care.

He wasn't using his bullwhip, which could take a half-inch chunk of flesh with each stroke. That would end the entertainment too soon. Callan had suggested a shorter, thinner horsewhip, still capable of making mincemeat out of a man's back, but taking much longer to do it. Ramsay was all for that. He could drag this out for a good hour or more before his arm got tired.

If Callan weren't so mad, he would probably have just had the Injun shot. But he wanted him to suffer, to scream some before he died, and Ramsay meant to oblige. So far he was just playing with the victim, using the same cracking technique he used with the bullwhip, slicing an inch here, an inch there, not re-ally doing much damage but making each little cut felt.

The Injun hadn't made a noise yet, not even a sharp indrawn breath. He would, though, when Ramsay started slashing instead of flicking. But there was no hurry — unless Callan got bored and called it off.

That wasn't likely to happen, not as furious as the boss was. Ramsay knew how he'd feel if he just found out the man courting his only daughter was a damn breed. All these months he'd been fooled, and Jenny Callan too, from the look of her when her father confronted her with it. She'd turned right pale and sick-looking, and she stood on the porch now with her father, looking just as mad as he was.

It was a damn shame, for she was a real pretty gal. But who'd want her now after they heard who she'd kept company with, let touch her, and it was anyone's guess what else he'd done to her. She'd been deceived just as her father had, but who could have guessed that the Summerses' close friend was half Injun? He dressed like a white, spoke like a white, wore his hair shorter than most whites, carried a gun on his hip. It was just plain hard to tell what he was by the look of him, for the only things Injun-like about him were the straightness of his black hair and the darkness of his skin, which, truth to tell, wasn't much darker than that of any other man who rode the range.

The Callans still wouldn't have known if Long Jaw Durant hadn't been there to tell. Durant had been fired from the Rocky Valley Ranch and had only signed on the Callan spread yesterday. He had been in the barn when Colt Thunder, as the breed was calling himself, had ridden in on that big-boned Appaloosa, a son of Mrs. Summers' prize stallion. Naturally Durant was curious enough to ask one of the men what Thunder was doing there, and when told he'd been sniffing 'round Jenny Callan's skirts these past three months, he couldn't believe it. He knew Colt from his previous employment as being a close friend of the boss, Chase Summers, as well as his wife, Jessica. He also knew him to be a half-breed who until three years ago had been a full-fledged Cheyenne warrior, though that knowledge hadn't gone much farther than the Rocky Valley, apparently — until today.

Durant had wasted little time in finding his new boss and apprising him of this news. Maybe if he hadn't done it in front of three other hands, Callan would have handled it differently. But with his men aware of his daughter's shame, there was no way in hell he could let the breed live. He had gathered up the rest of his men, and when Colt Thunder stepped out on the porch, having collected young Jenny for an afternoon picnic, he was facing a half-dozen nervous revolvers trained on his belly, enough firepower to keep his hand away from his own gun, which he was quickly relieved of.

He was a tall man, taller than any of the men surrounding him. Those who had seen him come and go over these past months had never had reason to be wary of him, though, for he smiled often, laughed often, gave every indication of being a man of easy temperament — until now. Now there was little doubt that he had been raised by the Northern Cheyenne, those same Cheyenne who had joined with the Sioux to massacre Lieutenant Colonel Custer and his battalion of two hundred men just two years ago in the valley of the Little Bighorn up in Montana Territory. Colt Thunder, in the blink of an eye, became a Cheyenne brave, lethal, dangerous, the savage wildness of the Injun unleashed, striking fear into the hearts of civilized man.

He did not go down easily once he realized that shooting him was not their intention. It took seven men to get him tied to the hitching post in front of the house, and of those seven, not one came away from the scuffle unscathed. Bruises and bloody noses tamped down any qualms the men might have felt when Walter Callan ordered Ramsay to fetch a horse-whip so the breed would die slow. The Injun hadn't even flinched at that order. He still hadn't, even though his shirt was now torn and soaking up blood from the many small cuts Ramsay had inflicted.

He was still standing, his hips against the five-foot-long hitching rail his only support, his arms stretched cut *"> either end of it. There was room toVr ing him sagging to his knees, and he would go down eventu-ally, but right now he stood straight and tall, his head defiantly erect, only the sure grip of his fingers curled around the rail an indication of pain — or anger.

It was that posture, so damn proud, that reminded Ramsay this wasn't like those other times his whip had bitten into human flesh. The two Mexicans he had done the same to down in Texas had crumbled after only three or four licks. That old prospector Ramsay had relieved of his gold and his life in Col-orado had started screaming even before the first stroke of the lash. But this was an Injun, or at least he'd been raised like one; hadn't Ramsay heard somewhere about the Northern Plains Injuns putting them-selves through some kind of self-torture ceremony? He'd wager the breed had a couple of scars on his chest or back to prove it, and that riled him. It meant it would be a long while and a lot of hard work to get any screams out of this one. It was time to get serious.

The first true stroke of the whip was like a red-hot iron laid across the breed's back, branding him, the only difference the absence of the stink of burning flesh. Colt Thunder didn't blink, nor would he as long as Jenny Callan was standing up on that porch watch-ing him. He kept his eyes locked to hers. They were blue like his own, though much darker, like that sap-phire ring Jessie was fond of wearing. Jessie?

God, she was going to be angry about this, but then she had always been protective of him, especially since he showed up on her doorstep three years ago and she took it upon herself to turn him into a white man. She'd even had him believing it could work. He should have known better.

Think of her. no, he could only envision Jessie crying when she saw what was left of his body after they were done with him. Jenny — he had to concen-trate on her.

Damn, how many strokes was that now? Six? Seven?

Jenny, beautiful, blond, sweet as Jessie's home-made candy. Her father had settled in Wyoming only last year, after the Indian wars were over, the beaten Sioux and Cheyenne confined to reservations. Colt had been in Chicago with Jessie and Chase during the worst of the war, Jessie conspiring to keep the news from him, thinking he would want to go back and fight with his people. He wouldn't have. His mother, sister, and younger brother were already dead, found and killed by a couple of gold prospectors heading for the Black Hills just two months after he had left the tribe in '75. The area had been swarming with pros-pectors ever since gold was discovered there in '74.

It was the start of the end, that gold in the heart of Indian territory. The Indians had always known it was there, but once the whites did, you couldn't keep them out. And even though they were breaking the treaty by being there, the army finally came in to protect them, and so the last great Indian victory at Little Bighorn, but then the end.

Colt's mother, Wide River Woman, had seen it coming. That was why she had instigated the fight between him and his stepfather, Runs With the Wolf, pretty much forcing Colt into leaving the tribe. She would have sent his sister with him if Little Gray Bird Woman hadn't already married.

She told him that only after it was over and done and too late to mend the breach, that and her reasons for doing it. He had been furious with her at the time. Her fears for the future meant nothing to him. He saw only the end to his way of life. But she had already seen that end, was giving him a new life in forcing him to go.

It was galling to see her proved right, to know that he would be living on a reservation now if he had survived the wars, just as his stepfather and older brother were — if they had survived. But it was even more galling to be saved from that degradation for this.

Twenty-five? Thirty? There was no point in count-ing, was there?

He had seen Ramsay Pratt's skill with the whip several times before when he had come to visit Jenny.

The man took pride in what he could do. And he was showing off now for the men who stood behind him, slashing the whip down in the exact same welt as many times as it took to lay the welt open, again to deepen the cut, then again just for the hell of it, and the pain of it.

Colt knew Pratt could go on indefinitely wielding that whip. He was a big bear of a man, looked like one too, with a nose so flat it was almost unnotice-able, a shaggy mane of dirty brown hair floating wild about his shoulders, and a long, full beard and mus-tache that blended right into it. If any man looked like a savage, Pratt did. And Colt had seen the gleam in his eyes when told to fetch that whip. This was a chore he was enjoying.

Fifty-five? Sixty? Why was he still trying to keep track? Did he have any skin left? Was the damage as bad as it felt, or was it only Pratt's skill that made it seem as if his back were going up in flames? Just barely, he was aware of the blood seeping into his boots.

How much longer would Jenny stand there and watch, her expression as hard and unemotional as her father's? Had he really thought about marrying this girl, of buying a ranch with the pouch of gold he had found in his belongings when he arrived at the Rocky Valley, his mother's parting gift to him?

From the first time he had seen Jenny he had wanted her. Jessie had teased him about his interest and encouraged him to do something about it. She had also instilled enough self-confidence in him so that he didn't hesitate long.

When they actually met for the first time, he found the attraction was mutual, so mutual that in less than a month, Jenny gifted him with her innocence. He asked her to marry him that night, and they had been making plans ever since, were just waiting for the right moment to tell her father. But the old man had to suspect what was coming. With the Rocky Valley cattle grazing across the open range, practically right up to the Callan Ranch, it was an easy matter for him to come visiting three or four times a week at midday, as well as in the evenings. Walter Callan's knowledge of how serious Colt's suit was probably had a lot to do with his outrage now. And Jenny's outrage?

He realized that he should have told her about his past, that White Thunder was his real name, that Colt for a first name was Jessie's idea. The trouble was, he had known Jenny wouldn't believe him, would think he was only teasing her. Jessie had done too good a job on him; most of the time he even thought like a white.

But to Jenny, he was no longer white. He had seen her fury before she closed it off and matched her father's hard visage as the torture began. There were no tears, no thoughts now of his hands and mouth on her body, of begging him to make love to her each time they found themselves alone. Now he was just another Indian getting what he deserved for presuming to aspire to the affections of a white woman.

His legs were getting weak. So was his vision. The fire had worked its way up to explode inside his brain. He didn't know how he was still standing, how he was keeping his facial muscles from twitching spasmodically. He had thought he had experienced the ultimate in pain during the Sun Dance ceremony, but that was child's play next to this. And Jenny hadn't closed her eyes or looked away yet. But men she couldn't see his back from up on the porch. Not that it would matter. And it no longer mattered that he keep eye contact with her. It wasn't working to block out the pain.

Walter Callan signaled Ramsay to stop a moment when Colt's eyes closed and his head dropped back on his shoulders. "You still alive, boy?"

Colt made no response. The screams were there, in his head, in his throat, just waiting to escape if he opened his mouth. He'd bite his tongue off before he let them out. And it wasn't the fierce pride of the Indian that had decided he would make no sound. The Indian respected the white man who could face death with courage. He didn't expect any such respect from these men for his courage. His silence was for his own sake, his own self-respect.

But the silence around him had been broken by Callan's question. There were exclamations of amazement that he was still on his feet, a debate on whether it was possible to faint without keeling over, a sug-gestion that a bucket of water be fetched to dump over him, just in case he really had fainted. At that point he opened his eyes, still cognizant enough to know that water touching any part of his mangled back would send him over the edge of control. It was harder to lift his head, but he managed that too.

"Wouldn't believe it if I wasn't seein' it with my own eyes," someone said next to him.

The whir and slap of the whip resumed, but no one was paying much attention to it now except the recip-ient and the wielder.

"I still don't believe it," a voice grumbled behind Colt. "It ain't possible he's still on his feet."

"What'd you expect? He's only half human, you know. It's the other half that's still standing."

Ramsay tuned out their voices, concentrating on lashmg only the raw wounds now. He was furious that he hadn't broken the Injun yet, and his anger was affecting his aim. The bastard couldn't do this to him.

He couldn't die without making a sound.

Ramsay was so angry he didn't hear the riders who came tearing around the side of the house, but the others did. They turned to see Chase and Jessica Summers and about twenty of their cowhands de-scending on them.

If Ramsay heard them, he must have assumed they were some of Callan's men coming in off the range, for he still didn't pause. He was in the process of drawing back his arm for another slash when Jessie Summers palmed her gun and fired.

The bullet that was aimed to shatter Ramsay's skull flew over his head instead, Summers having hit his wife's arm up into the air at the last second when he saw her intent. But that shot was like a signal, every Rocky Valley man drawing a rifle or revolver upon hearing it. The Callan hands didn't move a muscle, didn't even breathe.

Walter Callan began to realize he might have made a serious mistake. Not that he didn't want the breed dead, but maybe he shouldn't have gone about it so publicly.

Ramsay Pratt stared in horror at the barrage of weaponry aimed mostly in his direction. A whip wasn't worth a damn against so many, even his bull-whip. He carefully lowered his arm until the blood-soaked leather was like a red snake curled about his feet.

"You bastard!" Jessie Summers was shouting, but she was shouting at her husband. "Why'd you stop me? Why?!"

Before he could answer, she had slid from her horse and run forward, pushing men out of her way who still didn't dare move on their own, and none too gently. She was in a towering rage. In all her twenty-five years she had never been killing mad like this. Not her father, her mother, or her husband, all of whom she had been at odds with at one time or another, had ever made her lose control like this. If Chase hadn't stopped her, she would have emptied her gun into Callan's men, and saved the last bullet for him.

But when she reached Thunder and saw close up the actual damage that whip had done, the fury drained right out of her. She doubled over with a keening moan that ended abruptly as she emptied her stomach in the blood-splattered yard.

Chase was there before she finished, putting his arms around her. But he was staring at Thunder and feeling kind of queasy himself. He had come to think of the man as a friend, though Colt was closer to Jessie. She loved him like a brother. They had shared a special relationship for more than half their lives.

Colt had always been there for her when she needed a friend, and Jessie was going to blame herself for not getting here in time. And Chase had a strong feeling they were too late. If the shock didn't kill Colt, the loss of blood would.

"Nooo!" Jessie was crying now as she raised up and looked at Thunder again. "Oh, God, oh, God! Do something, Chase!"

"I've already sent a man for the doctor."

"That'll take too long. Do something now. You have to do something now. Stop the bleeding — oh, God, why isn't he cut loose yet?"

It wasn't really a question. Jessie wasn't aware of what she was saying just then. Almost in a trance, she walked around the post. That was better. He looked all right from the front — except for the pale-ness of his skin, the deathly stillness of him, his shal-low breathing. She was afraid to touch him. She wanted to take him in her arms, but didn't dare. Any touch was going to hurt him. Any movement was going to be excruciating.

"Oh, God, White Thunder, what have they done to you?"

It was said in a tearful whisper. Colt heard her. He knew she was there in front of him, but he didn't open his eyes. If he saw the pain etched on her face, he would lose the slim thread of control he had left.

As it was, he was terrified she was going to touch him, and yet he needed her tenderness, needed it desper-ately.

"Don't… cry…"

"No, no, I won't," she assured him as the tears continued to pour down her cheeks. "But don't try to talk, okay? I'll take care of everything. I'll even kill Callan for you."

Was she trying to make him laugh? He'd made the same offer to her once, only the man he would have killed for her was now the husband she loved with all her heart.

"Don't… kill… anyone."

"Shhh, all right, all right, anything you say, but don't talk anymore." And then, "Dammit, Chase, hurry up with those ropes! We've got to stop the bleeding."

Colt didn't move his arms when they were freed. Chase stood in front of him now. His voice was gentle as he explained, "Jessie, honey, that whip was trailed through the dirt time and again. His back is going to have to be cleaned first if infection isn't to kill him."

There was a heavy silence. Colt would have tensed if he wasn't already holding himself so rigid.

"Do it, Chase," Jessie said quietly.

"Christ, Jessie—"

"You have to," she insisted.

The three knew each other well enough that both men understood she wasn't talking about cleaning wounds or even moving him yet. Colt's body almost sighed with relief. It was about time she had thought of something sensible.

"We'll need a mattress first, and a couple men to hold him so he doesn't fall."

Jessie was in her element, issuing orders, but when she sent two men into the house for a mattress, Walter Callan recollected whose property they were on and stepped in front of the door to block their way.

"You ain't wastin' one of my mattresses on that dirty. "

He didn't finish. Jessie had whirled around at the sound of his objection, and he now had her full attention, and every bit of the fury she had felt earlier. She mounted the porch steps, and before anyone re-alized her intent, she had hefted the gun from one of the men Callan was blocking. Chase wasn't there to take it away this time. No one else would dare try.

"You ever been shot before, Callan?" she said conversationally as she motioned the two men into the house and casually caressed the barrel of the old Colt.44 Dragoon. "There are parts on the body that can be shot off that won't bleed too seriously, but will sure hurt like hell. A toe, for instance, or a finger… or what makes a man a man. How many bullets do you think it would take to shoot off an inch at a time?

Three, maybe? Not even that many? Would that equal your own savagery, do you think?"

"You're crazy," Walter said in a horrified whisper.

His hand had gone to his gun in a protective ges-ture. Jessie did nothing to stop him, just stared at his hand, hoping he would draw the gun. He saw that hope in her eyes and slowly took his hand away.

"Coward," she hissed, done playing with him. "Pack your gear and be gone by sundown, Callan, you and your men. Ignore my warning and I'll make your life a living hell. There won't be anywhere in the territory you can hide from my vengeance."

He wasn't expecting that. "You got no call—"

"The hell I don't!"

He looked beseechingly to her husband. "Sum-mers, can't you control your wife?"

"I already did you one favor, you son of a bitch," Chase shouted up at him. "I kept her from blowing your head off. Whatever else she has a mind to do is the least of what you deserve, so don't press it. It's lucky for you one of your men who overheard what you were planning is a drinking buddy of my fore-man. And it's damn lucky for you he didn't have to ride all the way to the Rocky Valley, but found us out on the range. But that's where your luck runs out. What you did i.ere is the lowest kind of savagery, fit only for animals."

"I had every right," Walter protested. "He defiled my daughter."

"That cold bitch you got for a daughter encour-aged him," Jessie spat, moving to the side as the mattress was pushed out the door. A wagon had already been confiscated from the barn. "All I got left to say to you is, if he dies, you die, Callan. You better do some powerful praying on your way out of the territory."

"The sheriff will hear about this."

"Oh, I hope you're that stupid, I really do. If I didn't suspect you'd get no more than a slap on the wrist, I'd turn you in myself. Go against me and I'll take the law into my own hands, I swear to God I will. I ought to anyway," Jessie ended with a measure of self-disgust as she turned away.

"Shit," Walter grumbled behind her. "He's only a damn half-breed."

Jessie swung around, her turquoise eyes blazing. "You bastard! You lowlife, worthless bastard! That's my brother you nearly killed! Say one more word to me and I'll put a bullet between your eyes!"

She gave him two seconds to see if he would call her on this last warning, then turned away to return to Colt. His eyes were open. They stared at each other a long moment.

"You. knew?"

"Not always. Did you know?"

"When I. left."

She put a finger to his lips very gently. "I'm sur-prised she told you at all. I had always wondered about the affinity I felt for you, but not for your sister or brothers. I finally asked your mother right out. She wouldn't answer. It couldn't have been something she would have wanted to admit, that her oldest daughter wasn't the only one to bear my father a child. But that she wouldn't deny it was answer enough for me, es-pecially since I so wanted it to be true."

"Jessie, don't you think this conversation ought to wait for a better time?" Chase said.

She nodded and let her finger trail away in a loving caress across Colt's cheek. It was the signal for the two men standing behind him to step forward and grasp his arms. Colt closed his eyes again when Chase moved directly in front of him.

"Sorry, my friend."

"Don't be an ass, Chase," Jessie said matter-of-factly, earning an I'U-get-you-later-for-that-crack glance from her husband, which she typically ignored. "It's the only thing he'll have to be grateful for on this hellish day. Get it over with."

Chase did, drawing back his fist and letting fly with it toward Colt's jaw.