Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,19

been ordered to do.

Lettie was grateful that they had had someone with whom to travel most of the way, since all anyone could talk about was the danger of Indians. So far, no Sioux had given them trouble, but now that she and Luke were alone, she was more frightened than she had been since leaving Fort Laramie to come here. She jumped with alarm then when she heard two gunshots. From the sound of them, they had come from the six-gun Luke wore on his hip, something he had started doing as an extra precaution since they had left Billings.

"Luke!" she called out in alarm. Nathan stirred on her lap, but he did not come fully awake. "What is it!"

She breathed a sigh of relief when he appeared at the doorway, the rifle in his left hand, his six-gun in his right. "Rats," he told her. "I got a couple of them." He turned back inside, reappeared with the dead rodents and tossed them off to the side of the cabin.

Lettie struggled to hide her horror.

"The place looks as though it hasn't been lived in for quite a while," Luke continued, shoving the handgun back into its holster. He stepped off the sagging porch to come back to the wagon. "It's small, but there's a cast-iron heating stove inside, and a small, homemade bed. Nathan can sleep on that. It will keep him up off the floor away from drafts and varmints." He was beside the wagon now, his eyes apologetic. "Don't worry. We'll rig something up to keep us off the floor, too. I'll gather some wood and we can get a fire going. It's getting dark. We'll bring in most of the supplies in the morning. I'll tend to the horses and maybe you can get some supper going as soon as we get the stove heated up." He leaned his rifle against the wagon wheel and reached up to take Nathan from her lap so she could climb down.

"Are you sure no one is around?" she asked.

Luke studied the surroundings while Lettie retied her hat against the cold. The only sound was the soft moan of the mountain wind. Lettie wondered if the wind ever stopped blowing in this land. They had not had a still day since before leaving Fort Laramie weeks ago, and sometimes she thought she might go crazy from the constant droning sound and the fact that everything had to be tied or weighted down to keep things from blowing away.

"No tracks anyplace, no food inside the cabin," Luke answered. "If we're lucky, whoever built this place isn't coming back, at least not until spring."

"And what if it's outlaws who want us out?"

Luke turned and handed Nathan back to her. The boy's eyes fluttered open, but he seemed to be too sleepy to realize where he was. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and kept a tight hold on his horse. "I like this area, Lettie. No outlaws are going to chase me out of it. Right now my biggest concern is to get you and Nathan settled inside and get some heat going. I've heard enough about Montana winters to know I have to get busy cutting wood. It's only the last of September, and if it's this cold already, you can imagine what it will be like by January." He saw the concern and fear in her eyes, gave her a light hug. "It's going to be all right, Lettie. I promised you that, didn't I? You have my word that come spring, I'll build you something a lot better than this sorry shack, and I'll have laid claim to all of this and more." He turned from her and walked around to the back of the wagon to remove a couple of carpetbags of clothing and some blankets. "Come on," he told her, his arms full.

Lettie walked ahead of him into the shack, swallowing back an urge to vomit. Never had she been surrounded by so much danger and desolation. She didn't want to hurt Luke by showing her terror, or letting him know how crude and distasteful she found the cabin. She couldn't scream. She could only breathe deeply and make do with what was here. She heard the thud of the carpetbags, watched the blankets land on the small bed where Luke threw them. The bed was plenty long, but very narrow.

She gazed around the cabin, noticed a few cracks between the boards that were sure