Savage Thunder Read Free

see Chase and Jessica Summers and about twenty of their cowhands descending on them.
    If Ramsay heard them, he must have assumed they were some of Callan’s men coming in off the range, for he still didn’t pause. He was in the process of drawing back his arm for another slash when Jessie Summers palmed her gun and fired.
    The bullet that was aimed to shatter Ramsay’s skull flew over his head instead, Summers having hit his wife’s arm up into the air at the last second when he saw her intent. But that shot was like a signal, every Rocky Valley man drawing a rifle or revolver upon hearing it. The Callan hands didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even breathe.
    Walter Callan began to realize he might have made a serious mistake. Not that he didn’t want the breeddead, but maybe he shouldn’t have gone about it so publicly.
    Ramsay Pratt stared in horror at the barrage of weaponry aimed mostly in his direction. A whip wasn’t worth a damn against so many, even his bullwhip. He carefully lowered his arm until the blood-soaked leather was like a red snake curled about his feet.
    “You bastard!” Jessie Summers was shouting, but she was shouting at her husband. “Why’d you stop me? Why?!”
    Before he could answer, she had slid from her horse and run forward, pushing men out of her way who still didn’t dare move on their own, and none too gently. She was in a towering rage. In all her twenty-five years she had never been killing mad like this. Not her father, her mother, or her husband, all of whom she had been at odds with at one time or another, had ever made her lose control like this. If Chase hadn’t stopped her, she would have emptied her gun into Callan’s men, and saved the last bullet for him.
    But when she reached Thunder and saw close up the actual damage that whip had done, the fury drained right out of her. She doubled over with a keening moan that ended abruptly as she emptied her stomach in the blood-splattered yard.
    Chase was there before she finished, putting his arms around her. But he was staring at Thunder and feeling kind of queasy himself. He had come to think of the man as a friend, though Colt was closer to Jessie. She loved him like a brother. They had shareda special relationship for more than half their lives. Colt had always been there for her when she needed a friend, and Jessie was going to blame herself for not getting here in time. And Chase had a strong feeling they were too late. If the shock didn’t kill Colt, the loss of blood would.
    “Nooo!” Jessie was crying now as she raised up and looked at Thunder again. “Oh, God, oh, God! Do something, Chase!”
    “I’ve already sent a man for the doctor.”
    “That’ll take too long. Do something now. You have to do something now. Stop the bleeding—oh, God, why isn’t he cut loose yet?”
    It wasn’t really a question. Jessie wasn’t aware of what she was saying just then. Almost in a trance, she walked around the post. That was better. He looked all right from the front—except for the paleness of his skin, the deathly stillness of him, his shallow breathing. She was afraid to touch him. She wanted to take him in her arms, but didn’t dare. Any touch was going to hurt him. Any movement was going to be excruciating.
    “Oh, God, White Thunder, what have they done to you?”
    It was said in a tearful whisper. Colt heard her. He knew she was there in front of him, but he didn’t open his eyes. If he saw the pain etched on her face, he would lose the slim thread of control he had left. As it was, he was terrified she was going to touch him, and yet he needed her tenderness, needed it desperately.
    “Don’t…cry…”
    “No, no, I won’t,” she assured him as the tears continued to pour down her cheeks. “But don’t try to talk, okay? I’ll take care of everything. I’ll even kill Callan for you.”
    Was she trying to make him laugh? He’d made the same offer to her once, only the man he would have killed for her was