Thunder Wagon (Wind River Book 2)

by James Reasoner

  "I'm . . . all right," she replied hesitantly. She recognized the rider's voice and knew him to be Lon Rogers, one of Kermit Sawyer's cowboys from the Diamond S. Lon had been in town quite a bit lately, Rose knew, and he usually managed to time his visits so that he could take a meal at the cafe. She had a pretty good idea why he had been doing that, so she added, "I'm rather tired, and I have to get home, Mr. Rogers. It's been a long day."

  "Reckon most of them are for you, ma'am," Lon said, still holding his hat. He lifted his right leg, swung it over the horse's neck in front of him, and slid down from the saddle in one lithe motion. "I never saw anybody who puts in such long hours at their business, not even cow-pokes."

  Instinctively, Rose moved back a little as Lon stepped up onto the boardwalk. She murmured, "Thank you, but if you'll excuse me—"

  "It'd be an honor if you'd allow me to walk you home. Miss Rose," Lon said, the words tumbling out of him in a rush. Rose wondered how long he'd had to work up his courage to say them.

  "That's not necessary," she began. "It's only a short way—"

  "Oh, that's all right," Lon broke in again. "It'd be my pleasure." He turned and whipped the reins of his mount around the hitch rail. "I'll just leave my horse here."

  He was going to be stubborn about this, Rose thought with a sigh. She had seen the expression in his eyes when he came to the cafe, listened to the shy, stumbling compliments about the food and about how pretty she looked each time he came to town. There was no longer any doubt in her mind.

  Lon Rogers was in love with her. Or, at the very least, he had an intense crush on her.

  And Rose knew she could not allow anything to come of that. She had to keep her distance, not allow anyone to know the truth, not even some callow young cowboy who didn't really represent any obvious threat to her . . .

  Old habits were difficult to break, however. The long months of hiding and secrecy had trained Rose to be cautious. She didn't want anyone finding out who she really was, even by accident. Lon seemed to be trustworthy, but Rose knew better than to depend on that impression.

  She had been wrong about men before— deadly wrong.

  He was still watching her in the faint light that filtered onto the boardwalk from neighboring buildings. "I'm not going to take no for an answer," he said.

  Rose allowed a tiny smile to creep onto her lips. "You Texas boys are stubborn, aren't you?"

  "Yes, ma'am." Lon grinned at her. "Some folks've been known to say our heads are harder than a mule's."

  "Well, I don't know that I'd go that far . . ." Rose made up her mind. The quickest, easiest way to get rid of Lon would be to go along with what he wanted, and if that led to more trouble in the future, she would deal with it then.

  She let him loop his left arm through her right, and they started down the street toward the Paines' boardinghouse, where she was renting a room. There was some sort of commotion down at the other end of town, past the hotel, and Rose had thought she heard some gunshots a few minutes before closing the cafe. The trouble was nothing to do with her, however, and she wanted to keep it that way. Here on this side of town, away from most of the saloons, Grenville Avenue was fairly quiet, all the businesses in this stretch already closed for the night. Rose had been the last one to shut her door. There were a few pedestrians on the opposite boardwalk," but she and Lon had this side to themselves at the moment.

  "I'm surprised you've been able to get into town as much as you have lately, Mr. Rogers," Rose ventured. "I understand there's been a lot of trouble out at Mr. Sawyer's ranch."

  "More'n our share," Lon admitted. "But the boss is pretty good about letting the boys have some time off if they get their work done. None of us would want to let Mr. Sawyer down."

  "I've never really met him. He seems like an . . . an intimidating man."

  Lon chuckled. "He rides tall in the saddle, all right, and when he clouds up and rains, you don't want to be caught in it. But he's taught me just about everything I know about ranch work, and I reckon I'd ride right off a cliff if he told me to. He was mighty good to my ma, down there in Texas. Gave her a job and all after my pa died."

  Rose found herself interested in this young man's story despite herself. "What happened to your father?" she asked. "If talking about it doesn't bring up bad memories, that is."

  "No, ma'am. I don't hardly remember him. He had a little spread, nothing like Mr. Sawyer's, mind you, but not a bad ranch. This was back in the late forties, when folks first started settling that country, and from what I've heard, it was pretty wild, let me tell you. The Comanches sure didn't like white settlers coming out there."

  "Did the Comanches kill your father?"

  "Oh, no. A bad horse he was trying to break threw him and stepped on him, busted him up so bad inside that there was no way he could recover. I heard stories about that horse later. It was pure wild, and nobody ever rode it. Don't know how come Pa even tried; he was no bronc buster. But the day my pa died, Ma went out to the corral with a rifle, and I figured she was going to shoot that horse. Maybe she meant to. Instead, she turned him loose, just pulled the gate open and let him run off into the hills. Took most of our mares with him, but Ma didn't care. She knew she couldn't keep the spread going without Pa. The next day Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer came over to our place with a wagon, loaded us up, and moved us to their spread. Ma went to work for them, and I grew up there." Lon hesitated, his voice far away when he resumed. "She's still there, I reckon. She said she was too old to make the trip all the way up here. But Mr. Sawyer, he couldn't stay in Texas after his wife died. I reckon he had to have some new challenge, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get on with his life. He looks a lot better now. Wyoming Territory's been good for him."

  "What about you?" Rose asked softly. She had never heard Lon talk this much, and she had been drawn into his story. "How do you feel about Wyoming?"

  "Why, I love it. It's mighty big country. Not what you'd call pretty, really, but there's places that'll take your breath away, sure enough." He chuckled sheepishly. "Shoot, I've been going on and on about myself, and that ain't polite. Tell me about you, Miss Rose. How'd you come to settle here in Wind River?"

  Rose stiffened before the words were finished coming out of his mouth, and he must have felt it because he went on hurriedly, "Not that it's any of my business, you understand. I shouldn't ought to pry into other folks' lives—"

  "No, that's all right, Lon," she told him. "It's just that my story isn't very interesting. I always wanted to run a restaurant—don't ask me why— and this was a chance to have a business of my own, instead of always working for somebody else. I've been happy here, too."

  That much was true, at least, even if the rest of what she had told him was a lie. She liked it here in Wind River, liked the people and the town even though she was working harder than she had ever worked in her life. She went to bed tired at night, but she also went to bed satisfied that her past was far, far behind her. She hoped as well that it stayed that way, that it never caught up to her here in this isolated settlement.

  "Well," she said, forcing an artificial brightness into her voice, "here we are. I hadn't really noticed, but that's the boardinghouse."

  "Yes, ma'am, I reckon it is." Lon whipped off his hat again. "I'm mighty obliged to you. I enjoyed our walk."

  "So did I. Good night, Lon."

  "Good night, Miss Rose."

  He didn't ask her to linger, didn't try to steal a kiss, and Rose was grateful for that. She just hoped he would be satisfied with the time they had spent together tonight and not press her for more in the future. Lon Rogers was a sweet boy, and she didn't want anything happening to him.

  She didn't want him to die, too . . .

  * * *

  Michael Hatfield hurried along the street, a pencil in one hand, a pad of paper in the other. He had heard the shots while he was at Dr. Kent's house, sitting with Delia in the bedroom where she had been moved to recover from the operation that had saved her life.
r />   She was sleeping fairly restfully, as she seemed to most of the time, and he was sitting in a rocking chair beside the bed, a book open in his lap. He had been unable to concentrate on the words, however, because his gaze kept straying to Delia's face in the dim light from the turned-down wick of the lamp on the bedside table. Michael knew he had come close, much too close, to losing her, and he was determined that nothing like that would ever happen again.

  Then he had heard the distant double explosion of two shots, followed a moment later by two more that sounded like they came from the same gun. His head had jerked up from the book and his reporter's instincts tried to pull him out of the chair.

  He stayed where he was. He wasn't going to leave Delia's side, not even if all hell was breaking loose outside. Not even if the biggest story since he had come to Wyoming Territory was taking place right under his nose.

  A few minutes after that, an urgent knock had sounded on the front door of the house. Someone was looking for Dr. Kent, and that meant somebody was hurt. Michael was sure there was a connection with those shots. He heard Kent bustle out of the house with whoever had come to fetch him.

  Delia stirred a little, turning her head on the pillow and shifting her body just slightly under the covers. She didn't wake up, however. She seemed to settle back down into an even deeper slumber than before.

  He could probably get up, go see what was happening outside, and be back here before she ever woke, he told himself. He could run down the street, jot a few notes, and hurry right back.

  He was waging a losing argument with himself, and he knew it. Taking his pad and pencil from the night table, he stood up and slipped quietly from the room, heading for the front door of the house.

  Now here he was, heading for the light and the cluster of people he saw gathered at the mouth of an alley on the east side of town. As Michael reached the alley the crowd parted, and Dr. Kent and Billy Casebolt came through the opening, supporting another man between them. The man had a bloody bandage pressed to the side of his head, with several strips of cloth wrapped around his skull and tied to hold the dressing in place.

  "What happened?" Michael asked Casebolt as he fell in alongside the deputy. The little group turned toward Kent's house, with the rest of the bystanders trailing along behind.

  "'Nother feller got hisself waylaid and robbed," Casebolt replied. "Hombres who did it sliced his ear off, slick as a whistle."

  The injured man let out a groan, and Dr. Kent said, "Really, Deputy Casebolt, I think we can dispense with reminding this poor unfortunate of what happened to him."

  "Uh, yeah, I reckon so. Sorry," Casebolt said.

  Michael scribbled notes as he hurried along beside them, unsure whether he would be able to read them later. Most of the details would stay fresh in his mind, though. He asked, "Where's Marshal Tyler?"

  "Gone to look for somebody or somethin'," Casebolt answered. "That was him firin' off his gun a while back, but he said he didn't hit either of the polecats. Seemed to think he had a pretty good idea where to find em."

  He would have to go looking for Cole, Michael realized. The marshal held the key to this story. Maybe by the time Michael caught up with him, Cole would have found whoever had been cutting the ears off of robbery victims.

  He was about to say something to that effect, feeling guilty about leaving Delia alone for an even longer time, when Casebolt abruptly stopped and exclaimed, "Tarnation! Would you look at that?"

  Dr. Kent came to a halt, too, meaning that the injured man stopped as well. All of them, including Michael, gazed down at the western end of Grenville Avenue, where several dozen tired-looking men in blue plodded along on even tireder-looking horses.

  The United States Cavalry had returned to Wind River.

  Chapter 15

  Cole slapped open the front doors of the Territorial House and strode into the lobby. A few guests were sitting in the wing chairs scattered around the room, reading copies of the Sentinel. Most of them were drummers who had come to Wind River to hawk their wares. Cole paid no attention to them as he walked over to the registration desk.

  The clerk behind the desk had slicked-down hair and a gaudy stick pin in his cravat. Despite his fancy appearance, there was a frontier twang to his voice as he said to the grim-faced Cole, "Howdy, Marshal. Somethin' we can do you for this evenin'?"

  "Is Mrs. McKay here?" asked Cole.

  "Naw, sir, she ain't. I spect she's gone home for the night. She was by here earlier, but she didn't stay long."

  "What about Wang Po?"

  The clerk frowned. "That Chinaman? Why, he's out back, I reckon. Kitchen's already closed for the night, you know."

  "Out back?" Cole repeated.

  "Sure. That's where Mrs. McKay moved the whole lot of 'em, into that shed next to the barn. Said they oughtn't to be stayin' under the same roof as white folks."

  Again Cole was struck by how much that didn't sound like the Simone McKay he knew, but there wasn't time to worry about such things. He started toward the hallway that led to the rear door of the hotel, saying, "That shed's next to the barn, you said?"

  "That's right, Marshal." The clerk leaned over the counter to call after him, "Hey, what do you want with them Chinamen, Marshal?"

  Cole ignored the question. He strode rapidly down the corridor, opened the rear door, and stepped out into the small wagon yard behind the hotel.

  There was a barn back here where wagons and carriages could be parked and their teams stabled. Leaning against the barn was a shed that would probably look ramshackle eventually; it was still too new to have such an appearance now. There was no window in the shed, but Cole saw lines of light around the closed door that told him a lantern was burning inside.

  He reached for the door's latch, intending to jerk it open, then stopped himself. He didn't have any proof Wang Po or any of the other Chinese were responsible for the attacks on the railroad workers. The badge pinned to his shirt meant he had to follow some rules at least part of the time, wearisome though it was.

  Cole rapped sharply on the door. He heard a burst of words inside, hissed low so that he couldn't make them out. Of course, he likely couldn't have understood them anyway, since the shed's inhabitants were probably speaking their native tongue. Cole knocked again with his left hand and waited, his right hand resting on the butt of the revolver at his hip.

  After a couple of moments he heard a sharp command inside the shed. Chinese, sure enough. Then the latch rattled, and the door swung open. Light slanted out and fell over Cole's tense form.

  "Marshal Tyler!" Wang Po exclaimed, sounding surprised. "What brings you to our humble home?"

  Cole wondered if the middle-aged Chinese was feigning the reaction. Under the circumstances, it seemed probable. He said, "Evening, Wang. I need to talk to you and your family."

  Wang Po stepped back even more and opened the door wider. "Of course. Come in, Marshal, come in. You must excuse our humble accommodations."

  Humble was right, Cole thought as he stepped into the shed and glanced around. Eight people were living in a space that could have more easily held half that number. The floor was packed dirt, and sleeping mats had been spread directly on the ground. The few belongings the family had brought with them to Wind River—a small wooden chest with some fancy engraving on the lid, a short-legged table, and several little wooden carvings—were scattered around the cramped room. There was a small stove tucked into one corner for cooking and heating the place.

  "I'm told that Mrs. McKay had you moved out here," Cole said, not beginning the conversation the way he had intended. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, though.

  Wang Po laced his hands together in front of him and bowed slightly. "Such is her right. The hotel is hers, and I and my family are but humble servants."

  "Yeah," Cole snapped. "But still—"

  "We bear no ill will toward Mrs. McKay, if this is what you have come to discuss with us," Wang Po said.

  Cole shook
his head. All eight members of the family were in the room, and the air was close. Lingering smells from the dinner they had had earlier, smells that Cole couldn't identify, made him edgy. Wang Po's wife was sitting in a corner, eyes downcast, practically invisible against the wall in her drab robe. Cole realized he didn't even know the woman's name. He hadn't heard it spoken in all the time the family had been in Wind River. Nor did he know the names of Wang Po's sons.

  They were hard to overlook, though. They stood ranged along the far wall, arms crossed, regarding the visitor with glares of suspicion and dislike.

  "I've come to ask if any of you happened to be in an alley up the street a little while ago," Cole said.

  "We have been here all evening, since concluding our duties in the hotel kitchen," Wang Po replied smoothly.

  Cole went on as if he hadn't heard Wang Po. "There was a fella jumped in that alley, knocked down and robbed. Whoever attacked him cut off his ear, too. Tonight's the third time it's happened in the past week or so."

  Wang Po murmured, "Surely you do not suspect I or my family had anything to do with such a crime. We are law-abiding people."

  "Maybe so, but this time I got a look at the gents who lopped off the fella's ear. They were wearing dark clothes—a lot like the outfits your sons are wearing, in fact."

  Wang Po's wife suddenly let out a wail. Her husband's eyes darted toward her and he spoke sharply in Chinese.

  "Sounds like your wife's upset about something," Cole said as he moved closer to Wang Po. "What's wrong?"

  Summoning up a smile, Wang Po said, "Nothing is wrong, Marshal. She is not completely accustomed to the ways of your country, even after all the years we have been here. She does not understand that the authorities here will not blame someone for a crime without proof. In our land, the word of the warlords is law, and they care nothing for evidence of wrongdoing. Their belief is all that matters."