A Promise of Thunder

why should he deny himself the gratification Laughing Brook generously offered? The answer was simple. Because he had given his word to Jumping Buffalo to keep his daughter safe, and to break that trust would be to lose his honor. But more importantly, he couldn’t make love to Laughing Brook because his need for Storm was so strong it rendered him incapable of bedding another woman.
    “Stop that!” Grady grit out, grasping her about the waist and plucking her from atop him. Her flesh was firm, satiny smooth, and warm to his touch, and Grady nearly lost his resolve. “Go back to your bed. Tomorrow I will make provisions for your return to the reservation. And there is something I have been considering for a long time, something to ease my own peace of mind. I want to visit my parents at Peaceful Valley. It is time I made my peace with them and reacquainted them with their grandchild. Perhaps they will find it in their hearts to forgive me for alienating myself from them and seeking a life different from the one they wanted for me.”
    “Let me go with you, Thunder, please,” Laughing Brook pleaded. “It has been many years since I have seen your parents and theywere as dear to me as my own. Your sisters were my only playmates.”
    “I suppose both Dawn and Spring are married now and living with their husbands,” Grady said with aching sadness, “and my mother and father are alone at the ranch. I can be there and back before harvest if I start immediately.”
    “You need me to care for Little Buffalo on the trip,” Laughing Brook persisted. “And I would love to see the ranch again.” Her voice held a wistful note that tugged at Grady’s heart. “I will return willingly to the reservation if you allow me to visit your family first.”
    “I will take you to Peaceful Valley only if you promise nothing like this will ever happen again,” Grady warned sternly. “Another day I might not be in so generous a mood and do something we will both regret.”
    Laughing Brook swallowed her delighted smile, hoping Grady meant what he said. One day, she vowed, she’d catch Grady at a vulnerable moment, and afterward his conscience would force him to make her his second wife. White man’s laws meant nothing to the People, who followed their own rules.
    “I will try not to tempt you, Thunder,” she promised in a contrite voice. Grady chose to read more into her words than she intended.
    “Very well. You may accompany me to Peaceful Valley,” Grady said, heaving a sigh of resignation. “We will take the train to Cheyenne and shorten the trip by many days. Go to your bed, Laughing Brook.”
    He deliberately turned his head as Laughing Brook slipped nude from the bed and padded from the room. Though his mind rejected her utterly, his body wasn’t as easily appeased.
    When Grady went to town the next day he heard some startling news. He had gone to Guthrie hoping to hire a couple of men to protect his homestead in his absence against predators and speculators like Nat Turner. He was shocked to learn that Nat Turner had been killed by an irate gambler who had caught him cheating in a poker game the previous night. Though it did not solve his immediate need to hire someone to watch the farm in his absence, knowing that Turner was dead eased Grady’s fear over leaving his homestead until harvest. He expected a good crop of wheat from the acres he had planted and looked forward to a profitable first year.
    Not every homesteader had the same advantage he did, Grady reflected. Some folks were so dirt poor, and wood so scarce, that they were forced to live in caves dug from hillsides that were dark and dirty, though relatively dry. Or they erected houses from clumps of sod cut into brick size. Since sod houses were built above ground they provided more light and ventilation than dugouts, but they always leaked, and rain and windstorms caused great damage. Grady considered himself damn lucky to have money available to purchase wood to build a cabin and seed to grow crops.
    In the best of times even the elements conspiredagainst the homesteaders. Oklahoma seemed cursed with the worst of all weathers. In the summer rain was infrequent, and the blazing sun scorched and parched crops while grasshoppers and other pesky insects descended and stripped young farms clean of greenery. Plagued alternately by long droughts and sudden gully-washing floods, violent hailstorms and tornadoes, settlers in Oklahoma Territory had to learn