A Promise of Thunder

raising our children in a peaceful atmosphere.”
    “What happened then?” Storm prodded.
    “One of the men lunged for her, pulling her down from the wagon. He held her while his friends began tearing off her clothes. She feared they would rape her and harm her unborn child. She reacted violently, fighting desperately for her life, but the men easily subdued her. They bore her to the ground and she screamed. Her screams must have frightened the horse hitched to the wagon, for she said it reared and began stomping the ground in a wild frenzy.
    “The three men leaped out of the way, but Summer Sky did not react swiftly enough. She tried to protect her child, but the badly frightened animal stomped her viciously, injuring her gravely. The men fled when they saw how badly Summer Sky had been hurt. They might have saved her had they sought help for her immediately. Instead, they rode away and left her to abort her child in the dirt. Father and I found her hours later when we returned from the pasture. She lived long enough to tell me what happened before dying in my arms.”
    Storm was horrified. No wonder Grady was so bitter. “What happened to the men who caused Summer Sky’s death?” Storm askedsoftly. “Did they go to jail for their vicious act?”
    Suddenly Grady seemed to come out of his lethargy. His expression grew fierce, his voice heated as he spat out his answer. “They could never be found. Since Summer Sky was merely an Indian, little effort was made to bring them to justice. From that day on I despised that part of me that was white. I hated the men responsible for the death of an innocent woman and I blamed the law for failing to find Summer Sky’s killers.”
    Storm’s eyes grew misty, feeling compassion for the confused youth who had lost his wife and abandoned his family because of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. The men responsible for Summer Sky’s death were cruel, vicious animals.
    “So you left your parent’s ranch,” she whispered.
    “They begged me not to go, pleaded with me to leave Tim in their care,” Grady recalled, “but my hate even extended to them. If Father hadn’t needed my help that day and if Mother hadn’t allowed Summer Sky to go into town alone, my wife might still be alive today. I’m afraid I said things I didn’t really mean before I left. My God, I’m appalled at how deeply I’ve hurt them,” he agonized.
    “I’m sure they’ve forgiven you.”
    “Perhaps they have forgiven me my hasty words, but they will never be able to forget what I became after I left the ranch. After Summer Sky’s death, her parents and sisterno longer felt safe at Peaceful Valley, and I escorted them to the reservation in the Black Hills. I felt such a kinship with the People that I became one of them. I learned all there was to know about their ways, forgetting all the values I was taught by my mother and father. Eventually I became a fierce warrior, bent on destroying the White Eyes responsible for the death of my wife. As a final act of defiance, I rode with renegades who raided and stole food and guns. I even fought against the army in which my own father served.
    “I’m sure it must have hurt my father deeply when he learned what I was doing. He’s devoted his life to fighting discrimination, and so has Mother. It never occurred to me that what I was doing was as much an act of prejudice as what those drifters did to Summer Sky.”
    “I think you’re too hard on yourself, Grady.”
    “No harder than I deserve. It wasn’t until I realized my son was more important to me than vengeance that I tried to escape the violence that followed me wherever I went.”
    “Is that why you left the reservation?”
    “I left because Wakantanka came to me in a vision and told me it was time to go,” Grady explained. “Even then I refused to give up my violent ways and drifted for six months, searching for a place where I felt as if I belonged. I lived by the gun. I accepted all challenges and made a name for myself as a gunslinger. As you have good reason to know, men came looking for me, hoping to make a namefor themselves by outshooting the Renegade, the name given to me by those who knew of my past.”
    “Do you know the men who caused Summer Sky’s death?”
    “I have never seen them, but Summer Sky gave me their descriptions before she died, and the sheriff found their names on wanted posters. I will never forget them.”
    “What if you run across them one day?