Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,47

in the center of the long back wall of the main room. The entire main living area was cozy yet roomy, with plenty of room for children to play when they were cooped up inside in winter, even room to hang clothes on one end without everyone having to duck under and around them to walk through the room. Besides Luke's and her bedroom, there were two more for the children. Luke wanted plenty of those, but at the moment she wasn't so sure she could keep going through this. She remembered her mother once saying some babies would come easy, others not so easy. Nathan had taken ten hours to be born. She had already been in labor for twelve hours with this one.

Another pain began to build, and she sat up straighter, Henny grasping her left hand, old Willow grasping her right. Again she breathed in deep gasps, but again, nothing she did helped much. Another scream filled the whole house and wandered across the foothills behind it.

Luke lit yet another thin cigar, wondering if he would run out of the smokes completely before his son or daughter was born. He kept an eye on Nathan, who was running around chasing a butterfly. "If I hear one more scream I'm going to lose my mind," he said to Will Doolan. "Maybe we shouldn't have any more after this one."

Will smiled grimly. "How do you propose to stop it? You gonna keep your hands off your beautiful young wife the rest of your life?"

Luke felt sick inside at the sound of Lettie's screams. "Maybe." He walked a few feet away, then turned and caught Will's skeptical expression. He broke into a grin. "I said maybe." He took off his hat and hung it over a fence post. "Too bad there isn't some really good way of preventing these things without having to give up the one greatest pleasure a man has in life."

"Thought you wanted a big family."

"Not at this expense."

"It's what you have to go through, Luke. You and Lettie should both be glad as hell you're able to go through it. Henny would give anything to be sufferin' that kind of pain herself right now."

Luke's smile faded. "I'm sorry, Will. I sound pretty selfish, don't I?"

Will shrugged. "You're worried. It's natural." The man turned to study the nearly completed barn he and others from town were helping build. It, too, was made of logs, a big structure designed to hold a lot of animals. Luke had built several corrals to keep the horses in at night, but right now the animals grazed in the lush, green valley below.

"You were right, Luke. You've got yourself a gold mine here. That herd those outlaws so graciously gave you is a damn good start on horseflesh that will bring you some good money next summer. We'll take some down to Sheridan and you'll make your first big sale, I guarantee."

Luke looked around at the house, the barn, and corrals, another shed he'd built near the house for storing wood to keep it dry, a stone smokehouse nearby for curing meat. Now he was working on a small bunkhouse for Jim, something that could house at least four or five men, once he could afford to hire them. "I don't know what I would have done without all of you," he told Will. "I have a hell of a start, but there are still some hard years ahead, I can see that. I just wish the Indian problem would get settled. I lie awake half the night worrying about my horses getting stolen, or about something happening to Lettie and Nathan."

Will sighed in a kind of grunt. "That damn Red Cloud is really stirring up the Sioux. Ol' Half Nose is another troublemaker. They're all in a dither about so many whites going through their land in order to get to the gold fields up by Last Chance Gulch. If it makes you feel any better, I've heard the army is gonna send out more troops. Soon as the damn War between the States is over, we'll get even more help out here. The war surely can't last much longer."

Luke thought about the horrors of that war, the pain he still suffered at times from his own war wound. It had been roughly eighteen months since he was mustered out, and the realization that all that hell was still going on made him shiver. His own brother was still fighting somewhere.