The Coming Storm by Tracie Peterson

the night. The wagons had been drawn together in a tight circle, with all of the livestock inside that perimeter. The smallest of fires had been used for cooking. It wasn’t that they could keep the Sioux from knowing their presence on the plains, but rather Daniel told them not to give their attackers any extra benefit. Now nearly all of the travelers were asleep—or trying to do so—and Cole couldn’t help but be awash in anxiety for the things that might come. He’d heard too many stories; the memories were still fresh from the tales told at Julesburg. While taking supper one night he’d fallen into a conversation with several townsmen. They were only too happy to relate all of the grisly details of an Indian attack on some railroad men who had been out making repairs to the line.
    Cole felt his stomach tighten at the thought of the men whose scalps had been taken and eyes gouged out. Other atrocities had been meted out, but Cole couldn’t bring himself to dwell even a moment on them. Not when the same fate might well lie in store for him on the morrow.
    He slipped into his bedding, knowing that rest was crucial. He needed to be alert when his turn for guard duty came. Cole tried not to worry or borrow trouble, as his mother would say. He couldn’t stop the Indians by fretting. Or by remembering what they’d done to those who’d passed through before them.
    If we make it out alive, he told himself, I’m never crossing this prairie again . Of course, it was probably silly to have such thoughts. He still had family in Kansas, and the transcontinental railroad was in place to make travel easier. The locomotive couldn’t reduce the number of miles between Montana and Kansas, but it could definitely shorten the number of days required for travel.
    “I should have spent the money for the train and told Daniel to forget it,” he muttered, trying hard to get comfortable. Then I wouldn’t be dealing with cantankerous travelers and hostile Indians .
    He supposed the hostility was understandable. Year after year, the land west of the Mississippi was being deluged by a storm of settlers who were looking to make their dreams come true. It was this very invasion that caused such a feeling of desperation in the various tribes who lived in this region. They saw their hunting grounds disappear, along with the buffalo and other game. The railroad was a nuisance to them. The wagon trains with their hundreds of new settlers, a threat to their very existence. No, it was no wonder they were hostile—even to the point of killing the intruders.
    Cole prickled at a sound near his camp. He reached for his revolver, then noticed the slim figure of a man Keefer had hired to help with wagon mending. The young man touched the brim of his hat when Cole continued to stare hard.
    “Evenin’, Cole.”
    “Sam.” Cole relaxed. “Anything worth reporting?”
    “Nah, it’s all quiet out there. Maybe too quiet.”
    Cole nodded. “I’m gonna try to get some shut-eye.Wake me when I need to relieve you.”
    “Sure thing.” The man ambled off toward the west, his rifle leveled at the hip, as if expecting an attack at any moment.
    Cole settled down again and sighed. Oh, Dianne. Why am I here and you’re so far away?
    He knew the answer, of course, but still it troubled him deep in his heart. If he died here on the plains, it might be a long time before she ever learned what had happened. He was already over a month delayed from when he’d planned to arrive home. He’d posted a letter from Cheyenne, but that had been weeks earlier, before the constant sickness had slowed their progress to a snail’s pace. And then the clouds had unleashed freakish summer storms upon them, deluging them with torrents of rain, leaving the trails horribly impassable. They’d waited nearly two weeks just to progress twenty miles, only to have a bout of cholera hit the train hard.
    I should be home. I should be working on the Vandyke ranch, helping Bram