The Lady and the Robber Baron Page 36

  Chane shrugged, but his eyes narrowed icily, and she sensed that she was treading on dangerous ground. “So, has she seduced Tom Tinkersley yet?”

  “Is Tom on your payroll, too?”

  Latitia laughed, stepped close to him, and put her arms around his neck. “If she hasn’t yet, she will. She looks as sweet and innocent as a ten-year-old, but she has the morals of an alley cat.” She stopped at the look on his face and sighed. “Well, it’s not necessary that you believe everything I say. But it is necessary that you kiss me. I’ve waited a long time…” She pressed herself against him and whispered, “I love you, Chane. I’ll always love you.”

  Chane was needy. Before his marriage, with one-tenth the motivation, he would have pushed Latitia to the floor and mounted her right there. She was good in bed and very attractive. He had never felt weaker than he did now. She squirmed against him, and the feel of her lush female body pressing against his sent a spear of lust stabbing through him. Tightness, heat, and power filled his loins, but his stubbornness worked whether he wanted it to or not. He grasped Latitia’s arms, freed himself, and stepped away from her. “I’m here on business,” he reminded her.

  “So am I. The business of taking care of you.” She stepped close again, reached up, and pulled his head down. Chane could have resisted, but it had taken all his strength to resist the last time. His mind told him that one little kiss wouldn’t hurt anything. It might even make her go away. She kissed him, and he realized too late that she knew him too well. She was too good at what she did. The wonderful sensations of power and lust spread through him like a wave, engulfing everything, even his head.

  Part of him wanted to push Latitia away, but his body took over. He tore off her clothes and took her in violence and lust and anger. To his amazement, she trembled and cried and begged for more. Seeing her like this, completely undone, he realized that he had probably reached her for the first time. Everything before this had been faked.

  When it was over, he groaned and turned away. He felt sick. Latitia must have seen the disgust on his face. She pulled him back so he was facing her. Rage flickered in her eyes, and her lips drew back in a snarl. “How dare you look at me like that,” she said, struggling for control. “What a fool you are! Still panting after that bitch who betrayed you! Feeling bad because you’ve done the same to her. You stupid, stupid bastard! You could have had me.”

  “Latitia—” he began.

  She slapped his cheek hard. Chane pulled on his trousers and stood up. Latitia crouched on the floor where he’d taken her. “You’ll be sorry,” she hissed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I promise you that you won’t beat us to the New Mexico line. Even if you do, my father will ruin you.”

  “Your father or you?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “And you think Jennie is bad?” Chane asked, turning sharply on his heel.

  Chane slammed the door on his way out, and Latitia picked up the nearest object and threw it at the closed door with all her strength. As she looked around for something else to throw, she suddenly remembered this wasn’t her room.

  She sat down at the writing desk and wrote a note to Jason Fletcher. Her hand was shaking so badly she almost couldn’t read the note when she had finished. And she had foolishly signed her name. She tore it up and started over, this time taking more care.

  Jason,

  You have been paid well and often for the last few months. Why have you not done your job? Kill her.

  This time she had the presence of mind not to sign the letter. She found an envelope and addressed it to Jason in care of general delivery in the town nearest Chane’s railhead.

  Then she wrote a letter to Jennifer, telling her in graphic detail that Latitia had just made love to her husband. Only when the letter was in an envelope and carefully addressed to Mrs. Kincaid in care of the Texas and Pacific Railroad did Latitia remember that she was still naked.

  Two days after Chane left, a messenger came with a beautifully tooled leather saddle from Chane in Denver. Jennifer had no idea why he’d bought her such an expensive gift. He was a mass of contradictions. But she asked Tom to saddle her horse so she could try it out.

  “You don’t need to come with me. I won’t leave the camp,” she said, leaning forward to pat her horse’s silky neck. Tom narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. “I swear,” she said, raising her hand.

  “All right, but if you get me in trouble—”

  Jennifer cut him off, laughing. “I won’t.”

  Men were strung out from the locomotive—sitting dead on the tracks—to a half mile ahead. The roadbed was in every possible stage of completion. Nearest the train, new steel rails gleamed in the sun. Beyond them stretched a wide band of gravel with ties spaced exactly twenty-one inches apart. The sun had melted the snow off the gravel, except in the shady places.

  As Jennifer rode her horse slowly alongside all the activity, men carried rails from the wagons that rolled slowly forward through the slush and mud and laid them on the leveled ties. Other crews sprang into place and bolted on the fish plates. Then new crews stepped forward, swung heavy hammers, and placed the spikes. They worked like machines. By the time the plates and spikes were in, yet another crew had laid two more rails.

  Ahead of the track layers, a gang of Chinese laborers—swarming like ants over the rough terrain—were cutting a grade through the timber. In baggy coats and round, cone-shaped hats, the Chinese swung sledgehammers, strained against wheelbarrows and shovels, and led teams of oxen pulling scrapers. Behind them a wide band of cleared and leveled earth shone gray in the sunlight. Just ahead of them the rocky, snow-dotted, scrub-and-brush-clogged terrain looked impenetrable.

  At first Beaver Targle’s men had made jokes about how they were going to have to lay rail right over those tiny little Orientals. But the jokes had stopped as soon as they realized they couldn’t lay rails as fast as the Chinese could clear what looked like impenetrable terrain.

  A hundred yards ahead of where the men worked, a massive rock blocked the right-of-way. A cluster of Chinese circled the obstacle. Jennifer stopped far enough away not to call attention to herself.

  The Chinese appeared to be arguing. Jennifer’s horse stamped at the hard snow underfoot, snuffled, and bent her glossy neck to nip at ferns sticking out of the snow. A cold wind tore at Jennifer’s hat.

  Beaver Targle said something that appeared to end the argument and walked away. Except for one man, the Chinese withdrew from the rock, backed up a good two hundred paces, still circling the rock, and waited. The one who’d been arguing with Targle picked up a bundle of dynamite and headed back toward the rock. He looked back, waved his comrades farther away, and then shoved the sticks of dynamite into different holes until he’d buried all the sticks under different parts of the enormous rock.

  He stood up, scanned the surrounding terrain, then struck a match and ran from stick to stick, lighting fuses. When they were all lit, he ran as fast as his pumping legs would carry him toward his comrades.

  Jennifer had never seen dynamite explode before, but it seemed odd to her they stayed so close. She thought dynamite was much more fearsome.

  The explosions came one after another, so loud Jennifer felt slammed repeatedly by the heavy blows. Her horse reared, almost unseating her. She dragged the mare’s head back and clasped her hands over its eyes—a trick Peter had taught her. The horse screamed in fright, but she didn’t run. Then the exploded rock began falling to earth in tiny pieces that sounded like hail. A choking cloud of dust obscured everything, blinding Jennifer and stinging her nostrils.

  Still controlling her horse, she turned her attention back to the rock, which had miraculously disappeared. As the dust settled slowly, Jennifer was horrified to see injured men screaming and writhing on the ground. Jennifer urged her mare toward the melee. Tom Tinkersley rode up, saw the mess, and shook his head in disgust.

  “Where’s Dr. Campbell?” she yelled.

  “La Ju
nta.”

  “Send for him now.”

  Men wailed and talked excitedly. Jennifer dismounted and helped a man bleeding profusely from a cut on his temple. By the time she’d finished with him, other Chinese had arrived. Each injured man had two or three to help him. Jennifer hobbled from man to man, picking rock slivers from stomachs, backs, arms, and faces. Twelve men were seriously wounded.

  Kim Wong ran forward, saw her and bowed. “Bad joss. Not look good,” he said.

  “I’ve sent for Dr. Campbell.”

  “White man doctor no good for Chinamen,” he said. “We have own doctor. Fix all manner of illness.”

  “Let’s at least get them to the hospital train to nurse them where they have a roof over their heads,” she said.

  With two men to each jerry-rigged stretcher, Jennifer mounted and led the procession to her hospital car. She knew Chane had told her to stop taking charge, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave injured men out in the cold and snow and wind. They needed help.

  Ah Ling, the Chinese herbal doctor, ran up just as they reached the hospital car, panting loudly. He was carrying a large black lacquer box hanging by a strap from his shoulder. He deferentially took charge, asking Jennifer to boil pots of water for herbal teas and poultices. Some men were treated and sent back to work. Others were placed on cots.

  Jennifer sent for Beaver Targle. “I thought Chane told you he didn’t want these men using dynamite.”

  “He never told me no such thing.”

  He was lying to her. Jennifer knew it, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

  One Chinese lad, no more than seventeen or eighteen, seemed on the verge of death. Jennifer nursed him, doing everything Ah Ling told her to do. She bathed the young man’s head with cool cloths. She put a tarlike concoction on the sucking wound in his chest to seal it. She gave him sips of Ah Ling’s tea every hour. But in spite of everything she could do, his fever soared. He died an hour before dawn.

  The Chinese came for their dead comrade and carried him away. That afternoon they buried him. Jennie and Marianne rode down to the grading site. The funeral procession was accompanied by the bang and pop of firecrackers and much flag waving. Men lowered the slim, cloth-bound body into a shallow grave.

  Jennifer turned away from the sight, too filled with misery and anger to cry. She found Tom Tinkersley in the cook’s shed, sipping coffee. “Send a message to Chane.”

  “Jennie…”

  Startled by his use of her given name, she came out of her misery enough to glance questioningly at him.

  “I mean Mrs. Kincaid…No, I don’t,” he said, running a lean brown hand through his blond hair. “Look, I know this is hardly the time, but…”

  Jennifer felt torn between wanting to stop him and wanting to hear what he had to say.

  “I guess you could’ve stopped me from saying this, so I’ll say it,” he said, a stubborn light in his blue eyes. “Your husband leaves you alone too much. He expects too much. You’re a beautiful woman who needs someone who will love her and appreciate her. If you ask me, which you clearly didn’t,” he said grimly, “your husband is one of the stupidest men I’ve ever met.”

  Jennifer stiffened. “My husband is an incredible man who is trying to accomplish the impossible in record time, Mr. Tinkersley. I hope you haven’t forgotten who pays your wages.”

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten anything. And I’m even more convinced now that he doesn’t deserve a woman who can be loyal to him under these circumstances.”

  Jennifer lifted her chin and prepared to fight.

  “Your husband avoids you, Mrs. Kincaid. There are a couple thousand men on these crews. Any of them would give his eyeteeth for a woman half as fine as you, and Mr. Kincaid does everything in his power to stay as far away from you as he can. What’s wrong with him?”

  “How do you know something isn’t wrong with me?”

  Tinkersley narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “Not possible, Mrs. Kincaid. You’re one hundred percent woman, and that’s a fact.”

  “So what else do you know, Mr. Tinkersley?”

  “I know that your husband could have chosen a dozen married men to guard you. He chose me.”

  “And you find that significant?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Liar.”

  Jennifer felt the heat from Tinkersley’s lean body. He was an attractive man, and he was no fool. She felt sudden, hot anger at Chane for putting her in this position.

  Chane received two messages when his train pulled into La Junta. The one from Tom Tinkersley was brief:

  TROUBLE BREWING HERE STOP MRS KINCAID NEEDS YOU STOP

  TOM TINKERSLEY

  The one from Tom Wilcox was longer:

  NUMBER ONE DIED THIS MORNING STOP LAUREY FILED SUIT AGAINST ESTATE IMMEDIATELY STOP ALL ASSETS SEIZED BY COURT PENDING OUTCOME PROBATE STOP COULD BE HELD UP FOR MONTHS STOP NO NEED FOR YOU TO RETURN STOP WILL HANDLE AND KEEP YOU INFORMED STOP

  TOM WILCOX

  Chane had no idea what Tinkersley’s cryptic message might mean. But he fully understood the one from Wilcox. Latitia had found a way to tie up his grandfather’s estate so that money would not be available for the railroad. Fortunately, his grandfather had given him enough gold to keep them rolling down the tracks for a while.

  The exchange rate was good, so money was plentiful now, but he knew it wouldn’t be by April. In case he couldn’t raise the bond money from the local communities, Chane wired his brother Lance in Phoenix for help. If nothing else went wrong, he could probably finish the railroad by making a deal with Lance to meet the critical payrolls in April and May, when they should be nearing Raton Pass.

  Chane had meant to spend some time in La Junta buying supplies, but he caught the next train south to find out what was wrong at the work site. Jennie had handled just about anything and everything. He couldn’t imagine what sort of emergency would cause her to send for him.

  Except for Latitia, his trip had been successful. He’d changed the minds of two legislators who had been on the verge of withdrawing their support for his railroad. He’d convinced several town councilmen into talking their councils into buying railroad bonds.

  Five hours after he received Tinkersley’s telegram, his train pulled up behind the work train. He saw Jennie draw aside the curtain in her sleeping compartment.

  At the Pullman coach, Chane stopped. Jennie crossed the space between them in six flying steps and flung herself into his arms, her tears coming in a torrent.

  Chane was too stunned by her reaction to do anything except hold her. She felt like a hummingbird he’d held once. Her slim body was vibrating with emotion. Suddenly he was stung by remorse at what he’d done with Latitia. He felt sick.

  Jennifer held on tight to her husband. The feel of his hard body and his snow-chilled skin healed something that had been sick and aching in her for days. She hugged him so tight her arms ached, and still she could not get as close as she wanted.

  “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he whispered.

  “He…He…died,” she stammered. “He was just…a…a boy…”

  “Who died? What’s been going on here?” Chane demanded.

  “It was m-my…fault,” she said, sobbing. Chane listened in silence as Jennie told him the story about the dynamite. “I should have stopped them. But I didn’t know what was going to happen until after it happened.”

  Guilt piled on top of remorse. He was leaving her alone too much. Now she was taking the blame on herself for everything that went wrong. “Dammit. Where the hell was Beaver Targle?”

  “I saw him sneaking away before it happened. I think he wanted it to happen.” Overwhelmed with misery and guilt, she covered her face with her hands. Fresh spasms of sobbing shook her.

  Tinkersley came out of the telegraph shack, saw them together, and stopped. Chane motioned him forward.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  Tom’s jaw
tightened, and Chane noticed something like resentment flaring in the young man’s eyes. Chane had the feeling that something had changed while he’d been away. The sick feeling deepened in him, and became almost unbearable. Tom repeated pretty much what Jennie had already told him. When he finished, Chane said, “I told Beaver the Chinese don’t understand dynamite.”

  “He knew,” Tom said laconically. “They thought it would just vanish that rock. Hopefully, by now they’ve figured out that it turns one big rock into a million bullet-sized missiles.”

  Chane turned his attention back to Jennie, lifting her chin and commanding her to look at him. “You did everything you could have done. It wasn’t your fault, you hear?”

  Jennifer sniffed, red-eyed. “I should have—”

  “No. You couldn’t have—you didn’t know. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine for not being here.”

  “But I was here.”

  “You were an innocent bystander who was also put at risk by men who should have known what the hell they were doing. Beaver Targle is the one to blame, not you. Now, lie down, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Jennie expelled a shaky breath. She started to say something else, but changed her mind and walked toward her sleeping compartment. Chane turned to Tinkersley.

  “Where’s Targle?” he asked, furious.

  “Down by the track layers.”

  Chane walked down there, found Targle, and hit him in the mouth. Targle staggered backward and fell against two men who couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.

  “What the hell?”

  “You’re fired, Targle! Get your things and get out.”

  “I didn’t do a damned thing!”

  “You endangered my wife and let a boy get killed.”

  Looking as if he were trying to decide if he wanted to fight, Beaver cupped his bleeding mouth with his hand. “You owe me for ten days’ work.”

  Silently, Chane paid him from his own pocket. “Now get your gear and get the hell out. In a half hour I’m coming back to look for you. If I find you here, I’ll kill you.”