Hell on Wheels (A Fargo Western #15)

by John Benteen

  “You could be,” Fargo said. “We’ll see.” He laid the shotgun on a chair. There was a half-empty quart of bourbon on the dresser, a single cloudy glass. Never taking his eyes off of her, he said, “You’ve got some talking to do and while I listen, I’m gonna have a drink. Want one?”

  “Nice girls don’t drink.”

  Fargo shrugged. “Maybe. But I’ve got a hunch you do.”

  “Two fingers will be enough,” she added. Fargo grinned, poured the whiskey in the glass, handed it to her, drank from the bottle, which he held in his left hand. The thumb of his right was hooked in his pistol belt. The girl drained a finger of the bourbon at a swallow and sighed. “I’ll have to confess, I had one while I was waiting for you.”

  “I saw that,” Fargo said. “The bottom of the glass was wet.” He was beginning to be intrigued by Ellen Whitmore. “Now, suppose you start explaining.”

  “You’ve had a run-in with Hawk Morrison,” she said.

  “News travels fast out here.”

  “That’s right. So do trains. Every railroad man knows about it by now. That’s how I heard and that’s why I came down from the Coeur d’Alenes. I know all about Landslide Bly and King Brady. Any man who can take both of them out and face down Hawk to boot … Well, I find him interesting.” Then she said, “How would you like to make some money? A lot of money?”

  Fargo’s nostrils flared. He had the scent now, he thought. But all he said, casually, was, “My idea of a lot of money is bigger than most people’s.”

  “So I’ve heard. I was thinking in terms of twenty thousand. Maybe a bonus, five or even ten. Depending on, if you work for us, how well you do the job. And how quickly.”

  Fargo took another drink. “That’s a lot of money for a railroad thirty miles long to pay.”

  “You’ll earn it,” she said. “And if you do, we can afford it.”

  “We,” Fargo said.

  “Dad and I. He’s president of the Cayuse Mountain and I’m vice-president. We’re also the only stockholders. I do believe I’ll have another little touch, Mr. Fargo.”

  “Help yourself,” he said and watched as she poured another inch. Then she turned.

  “You won’t shoot me if I reach into my handbag?”

  “Depends. Go ahead.”

  She smiled. There was a big reticule on the bed. She opened it and brought out something, handed it to Fargo. At first glance, it seemed just a chunk of black rock, but he recognized it immediately, rubbed it with his thumb, gouged it with a fingernail. “Silver ore,” he said. “High-grade as I ever saw.”

  “That’s right. From the Cayuse Mountain Mine. Which is the biggest new silver strike in Idaho since the Tiger and the Poorman, and bigger than the two of ’em put together. We haul two trainloads of ore just like that thirty miles to the smelter every day. And four more of lead ore—and you know the price of lead since the war in Europe. And we not only collect the freight charges, but we get five per cent of the assay value of the ore at the smelter. We’ve been in operation one year, now, Mr. Fargo—and the way it works out is that each train is worth an average of five hundred dollars profit to us. That’s three thousand dollars a day. Or a hundred dollars a day for every mile of track.”

  Fargo did swift mental calculations. His grin widened.

  “Well, now, Miss Whitmore. Let’s just sit down and talk about that.”

  ~*~

  The story Ellen Whitmore had to tell was wild, but no wilder than all the other stories of long gambles and sudden fortunes that came from Western mining camps. “My father, Will Whitmore,” she said, seated on the bed, while Fargo took the chair, “is a railroad man, one of the best. Been one all his life. My mother died young, and I’ve followed him everywhere while he’s boomed around the West.” She smiled, looking at the glass in her hand. “That kind of life, a girl picks up some bad habits, I guess.”

  Fargo juggled the hunk of silver ore. “Let’s get down to this. I said I never heard of your railroad, but I never heard of the Cayuse Mountain Mine, either. Of course, I’ve been down along the border, mostly, past two years.”

  “All right,” she said. “Well, the both of them, railroad and mine, went into operation just a little over a year ago, which is why you never heard of either.” She drained her glass, set it aside, and her voice was businesslike. “Not quite three years ago, Will—that’s what I call him, not Dad—was Division Superintendent here, the same job Hawk Morrison has got now, for the C & W. One day a mining engineer named Tompkins came to him with a proposition for the railroad. He wanted the C & W to build a thirty-mile spur track to a mining property he intended to develop. But they refused, even though they already had a branch line serving a smelter only thirty miles away.”

  “Why?”

  “A lot of reasons,” she said. “First, Tompkins had gone bust a couple of times developing properties that didn’t pay off. Second, this one was in a spot all the experts had already turned thumbs down on. Third, that thirty miles was over the roughest country in the mountains, including one tunnel and a lot of trestling. It would have cost a fortune. And, last but not least, the railroad management was just downright hidebound. For them the whole thing didn’t add up. But it did for Will.”

  Fargo said, “Go on.”

  “He took the trouble to go up, look at the property. He had a hunch: Tompkins had busted twice, but he knew his business, and, like Will said, third time’s the charm. It was a kind of vicious circle. No way to get the ore out without a spur track. Tompkins could raise money if he had a railroad, but the C & W wouldn’t build a railroad until he’d raised money and was in operation. So Will and I stepped in.”

  “Both of you?” Fargo’s brows went up.

  “Since I was sixteen, he’s never done anything without consulting me.” She smiled. “You look after a boomer father, you learn to think clear and hard, and he respects my judgment. My idea was, we should try it. Form a company and build the spur line ourselves.”

  “A Division Superintendent doesn’t have that kind of money,” Fargo said.

  “No. But a Division Superintendent knows a lot of people and companies that ship with him. And if he’s honest and hardheaded he can raise some money. Not a lot from one source, maybe, but a little from a lot of sources.” She smiled. “I did my best to help.”

  “I expect you did right well,” Fargo said. “Women like you are scarce out here.”

  Ellen Whitmore only smiled, then sobered. “Well, we got the money. And Will signed Tompkins to an ironclad contract. The kind of gamble we were taking, we couldn’t live off of haulage. We had to have a sweetener, and that’s where that five per cent of assay value at the smelter came in. Tompkins agreed and we made a deal.”

  She arose, went to the bottle, helped herself. “Fargo, we sweated blood to build that thirty miles of line. Scrimped, scratched and nearly went crazy—but, by God, we got it done! It took us two full years, but we got it done. And with the promise of the track, Tompkins got his money and got the mine in operation—and it was even bigger than any of us dared hope. Tompkins made a fool out of the mining experts and we made fools out of the C & W.”

  “Which they can’t have liked a whole lot,” Fargo said.

  “Not a damned bit. So they tried to buy us out—at a ridiculous price. Naturally we turned them down. So then they decided to play rough—and they told Hawk Morrison to get our line any way he could.”

  “Who is Morrison?” Fargo asked.

  Her face twisted. “A louse. Or a rattlesnake, rather—because a louse isn’t dangerous and a rattlesnake is. Yes,” she finished bitterly, “Hawk’s a snake.”

  “You still ain’t told me …”

  “Hawk was Will’s assistant when Will was Division Superintendent. And you’ve never seen a man so eaten up with ambition as he is. He tried to undercut Will in every way he could, even when he pretended that we Whitmores were the best friends he had in the world. And before he came to Idaho, he was a railroad detective and a gunman
down south. Once I happened to see a gun he owned. It had a lot of little brass tacks driven in the handle. I was afraid to ask him about it, but Dad said usually each tack meant a man killed.”

  “Usually,” Fargo said.

  “Anyhow, he’s just the kind of man the C & W needed to take over the Cayuse Mountain Line. They’ve seen they passed up a fortune—now they’ll correct that mistake any way they can. Hawk’s orders are to get the line and it doesn’t matter how. Since we won’t sell, he’s done his best to put us out of business.”

  “The kind of money you say you’re making, that shouldn’t be so easy.”

  “Oh, sure, we make it big. But we’ve spent big money, too. We borrowed up to our eyeballs to ram that line through. The first year’s operation barely paid off half the debt. The second year would see us free and clear, the third downright rich. But the way things are going, we’ll never make the second year, much less the third.”

  “Morrison’s hurt you?”

  “Hurt us! He’s nearly ruined us! We only had three complete ore trains and we lost one of those in a wreck—and the whole crew and two guards with it! That cut our operations by a third—and believe me, Mr. Fargo, it was no accident. Neither was the tunnel cave-in two weeks ago; we found a tag end of dynamite fuse. We’ve tried to hire more guards, but they get scared off. And somebody took a shot at Will when he was making a run from the mine last week; it’s only God’s grace they didn’t hit him.”

  Fargo said, “You’ve called the law?”

  “The C & W is the law up there,” said Ellen bitterly.

  Fargo went to the bottle, swigged a drink. “Seems like the owner of the mine, Tompkins, would use his influence, call off the C & W. A rich mine like that, he’s bound to have connections.”

  “He’s dead,” said Ellen. “He died in a rock cave-in at the mine six months ago. His estate has the management—a bunch of lawyers. They’re no friends of ours. But our contract still holds, as long as we’re in business. Naturally, if we’re forced to sell out, that contract goes to whoever buys us.”

  “You mean the C & W.”

  Ellen nodded.

  Fargo smiled faintly: it was all clear now—the job Morrison had had in mind for him, the stakes involved ... millions, over the years, if she told the truth ... and, undoubtedly, a vaulting promotion with the railroad for Hawk Morrison, likely a bonus. It added up, all right. Aside from his personal grudge against Fargo, he’d wanted to make sure Fargo didn’t live to join the other side, which was why he’d hired the two Nez Percé. Fargo felt a fine, clear, warming hatred of Hawk Morrison, a sensation better than the whiskey. If he judged right, here was a chance to make a stake and do Hawk Morrison a meanness simultaneously; the best of both worlds. He said, “Okay, Miss Whitmore, I’m interested. Let’s hear the rest of it.”

  “There isn’t any rest of it,” she said. “Except that if we don’t haul, we don’t get paid, and if we don’t get paid, we go broke. And Will’s a railroad man and I know the business end, but now we need a fighting man—somebody to make sure that we haul, no matter what. To hang and rattle with us until even Hawk Morrison gives up or is—” She broke off.

  “Is dead,” said Fargo flatly.

  Ellen Whitmore looked at him directly. “If it comes to that.” She stood up. “Twenty thousand, Fargo. To wipe C & W’s nose until they lay off. To break Morrison or ... whatever. To keep us in business. To fight for the Cayuse Mountain Line. And a bonus, like I said, if things are settled in three months to where we can see our way clear not to need you any longer.”

  Fargo stared at her a moment. She looked back, boldly, the corners of her mouth curving in a faint smile, one he recognized: that of a woman who had been around and knew men and liked them. All right. But business was still business.

  “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no. First, I want to see some money.”

  “I thought you would,” she said. Again her hand went into the reticule. The packet of money she handed Fargo was fat. “Five thousand,” she said. “If you take it, the deal’s sealed.”

  Fargo hefted the packet. He looked at her a moment longer, thought about Hawk Morrison, the Indians he had killed, Landslide Bly and King Brady. He rolled the wad and put it in his pocket. “Ma’am,” he said, “you’ve hired a man.”

  Ellen Whitmore’s eyes moved up and down him slowly, over all that tall, hard, muscular length. “Yes,” she said, something flaring in her eyes, “I think I have.”

  Chapter Four

  They called the town Felspar, and the mountains that ringed in the valley in which it lay were magnificent. But Felspar itself stank with a stench that closed the throat and turned the stomach, pumped from the smokestacks of the big smelter that served the mines of the Coeur d’Alenes of northern Idaho. Fargo swallowed hard when it hit his nostrils, but Ellen did not seem to mind. “You’ll get used to it, Neal,” she said.

  “Maybe.” But he had never been much for mining towns. He liked sun, air and daylight and being able to breathe deeply. He felt a certain pity for the poor bastards who had to live in such a place, and even more for the hardrock miners who worked in the darkness of shafts and tunnels all their lives, like human gophers.

  Ellen Whitmore ran a hand down his arm, over his hard biceps, closing her fingers on his wrist. “I’ll see that you enjoy yourself,” she said, her voice a little husky.

  Fargo grinned. “When I get the time,” he said. Then he pulled his arm away, and closely watched the unloading of his trunk from the baggage car at the C & W station.

  Even as he did so, his mind ran back to night before last and the events that followed, finding two things especially savory: the recollection of Ellen Whitmore in bed and the remembrance of the expression on Hawk Morrison’s face when he had confronted them as they’d boarded the train in Junction Flats.

  “So we’ve got a deal,” Ellen had said when he had slid the money in his pocket in the hotel room.

  “Yeah,” said Fargo.

  “In that case, I think we ought to have another drink.”

  They had one. And as they drank she talked, and Fargo’s admiration for her grew. Ellen had been raised in a tough school, motherless, dragged from one place in the west to another, her father first a locomotive engineer, then a yard-master, and, steadily climbing the ladder, finally Division Super. This girl knew the rough side of life, yet had won self-respect the hard way. Always she had known what she wanted out of life: money and security, and she had manipulated the man in her life—her father—toward that goal. Her mind was quick, clear, and masculine; the rest of her was wholly feminine. But there was no false modesty about her. Now that the deal was made, her eyes roamed Fargo’s body hungrily. “You know,” she said, “it’s a relief to find a man bigger than I am—and tougher.” She sipped from her glass. “That’s another problem I’ve always had. How tall I am. It scares away a lot of men.”

  “Little men,” said Fargo. “And you don’t try to look any shorter than you are. In fact, you make yourself taller.”

  “Well, maybe I’ve no use for little men,” said Ellen. “I don’t mean in size, I mean in mind. As big as I am, any little man that comes after me has got to be a big one regardless of his size. But you ... You’re big enough to cut me down to scale.” She shook her head. “But, Lord, you’re ugly.”

  “Yeah,” said Fargo. “We can’t all be as pretty as Hawk Morrison.”

  “He is good-looking. And as big as you. And he tried that on me, too, you understand? But it’s funny. The more he tried, the uglier I thought he was and the less I wanted to do with him. You, on the other hand—The more I see of you, the better you look. You’re so ugly you’re just about the best-looking man I ever met.”

  “You’re not making sense,” said Fargo.

  “I am to me,” she said. Then she said, “Neal, now that you’re working for me, you’ll protect me, won’t you?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Good. I rented the room next to yours. I’m afrai
d of Hawk, and I wanted to be close to you. But—” She looked out the window. “It’s getting late, isn’t it.”

  “Yeah,” said Fargo.

  “And I was on the train all last night. I need to sleep. But I’m afraid. Hawk wouldn’t balk at killing me. He knows I’m the starch that stiffens Dad.” She paused. “Neal, I’d rather sleep here than next door, even. With you, I know I’m safe.” Her eyes met Fargo’s.

  All right, thought Fargo. If that’s what you want, it goes with the rest of it. “Maybe that would be a good idea,” he said aloud.

  “I think it would be,” Ellen said. “I think I’ll just stay here.” And her fingers went to the buttons of her blouse.

  Fargo took another drink from the bottle, watched without expression as, with a curious mixture of shyness and boldness she undressed. He had been right. Her legs were long, incredibly long and lovely, pale ivory in color. Her nipples were the size of half dollars. their points erect. Her eyes were lambent, her mouth half open as she lay down on the bed. “Neal,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Fargo said. But he made sure the door was tightly locked and the shotgun within easy reach before he came to her.

  ~*~

  The next morning, early, they breakfasted in the hotel, and then Fargo paid his bill and checked out. Ellen stuck closely by his side as he made arrangements with the liveryman. Then, because only the C & W had trains to Felspar, they went to the station.

  Hawk Morrison was there, lounging on the platform. A cigar was clamped between his teeth. Fargo saw the holstered Colt on his hip, beneath the well-cut coat. As they came up the steps to the ticket window, Morrison took the cigar out of his mouth, flipped it out onto the track. “Well,” he said, hawk-eyes yellow. “Hello, Ellen. I heard you were in town. And you, Fargo. I heard you went out and came back.”

  “That I did,” Fargo said. He moved apart from Ellen, and his right hand dangled free.

  “I take it you’re going somewhere—together,” said Morrison.