Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,7

the way. So far they had all been lucky, except for young David Nolan, who had died from a rattlesnake bite two days ago. As Luke got closer, he could hear the man's young widow, Hester, still weeping bitterly inside her wagon, which someone else had agreed to drive for her.

Even without many disasters, the trip was hard and sometimes miserable. They had encountered cold rains, mud, mosquitoes, and unbearable heat. Two weeks ago nearly everyone had come down with something that brought on a rash of vomiting, but luckily it had not been fatal. By now, many of them were irritable—women angry with their spouses for bringing them out here, some begging to go back. Through it all, Lettie did not complain. She and her family had apparently left a relatively comfortable life back in St. Joseph, but they were not soft and whining. They had the stubborn strength of the Irish. Henry MacBride had suffered famine and hardship back in Ireland so this was nothing new to him. His children seemed to have inherited his stamina. Lettie was strong, quiet, brave, uncomplaining... just the kind of woman he would need where he was going. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he didn't want to go to Montana alone after all. If he was going to build something of his own there, he needed a woman to share it with, children to inherit his land. Who better than someone young and strong like Lettie, and beautiful to boot?

Yes, by God, he was going to talk to Henry about asking for Lettie's hand in marriage. The man probably wouldn't want his daughter to leave the family and go to a place like Montana, but then it was really up to Lettie in the end. He'd do this the proper way and approach her father first. He stuck the cigar in his mouth and rode a little faster, relieved to have made the decision.

Dark clouds were moving in fast now from the west, and lightning was shattering the sky, followed by more cracking thunder. Luke noticed Hank Preston riding frantically up and down along the line of wagons.

"Get to the ravine up ahead!" he was shouting. "Hurry it up! Get yourselves to the lowest place possible! Could be a twister coming!"

The wind suddenly picked up to almost violent proportions, and it was icy cold, almost a shock compared to the oppressive heat they had felt all morning. Huge drops of rain mixed with hail began pelting Luke as he kicked Red into a fast run then, heading for the MacBride wagons.

The ground quickly turned white from hail. Luke barely had time to tie Red to the back of one of the MacBride wagons and grab his slicker before the hail became even larger. He grabbed Nathan from Lettie's arms, then pushed her under the wagon, which her brother had managed to get to the ravine. It was really more just a slight dip in the earth, but Preston had insisted they would be better protected there. Luke handed Nathan to his mother, then helped MacBride and his wife get the other two wagons to the low spot, praying none of the animals would go out of control because of the storm, dragging wagons with them, maybe hurting someone or wrecking a wagon.

The hailstones hurt as they pummeled him. Luke and the others scrambled under their wagons then, and women's screams were drowned out by the deafening wind, thunder, and torrential rain that was now mixed with the hail. Luke moved to lie over Lettie and Nathan, spreading his slicker over them. "Keep your heads under my body," he shouted. "If that wind blows the wagon apart, pieces of wood and iron will go flying everywhere!"

A few people did not make it to the low spot, but there was no time now to worry about that. Luke remained huddled over Lettie and the child, and it was impossible to know what was happening to the others. For the next several minutes there was nothing to do but lie there and wait for the worst of the storm to pass. Little Nathan turned on his back and looked up at Luke, showing not a bit of fear from the terrible thunder and roar of the wind. Lettie remained on her stomach, keeping an arm around the boy. She grabbed him a little closer when they heard a crashing sound. The rain came down so hard that the little gully