The Lady and the Robber Baron

by Joyce Brandon

  “Frightened?” Chane asked, his breath warm against her cheek.

  It was practically the first thing he’d said to her since they left New York City. “You’re asking a woman who has slipped into more towns in the middle of the night than a burglar if she’s scared? Of course.”

  “It won’t seem so bad tomorrow.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “Only once. I was sent to bring back a prisoner.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  His tone changed, hardened. She slanted a look up at his profile, dark against the skyline. “Something went wrong,” she guessed.

  “He tried to escape. I killed him.”

  “You couldn’t have been very old.”

  “Nineteen.”

  Beaver Targle reined the team in front of a building where a hotel sign hung slightly askew. Except for a high false front, the hotel’s exterior looked like a barn she’d seen on the outskirts of Paris.

  Chane helped her down. The interior was dimly lit by two smoky kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling. The counter was deserted. Targle yelled, “Hello, thar, anybody to home?” and banged his fist on the wooden counter.

  Behind the counter a door opened and an old man stuck his head out. Over his shoulder, brooms, mops, and buckets filled what looked like a broom closet.

  “Howdy, howdy,” he said, stepping out and closing the door behind him. “What kin I do you fer?”

  Targle introduced Kincaid, saying Chane’s name proudly, obviously impressed by Chane’s importance and his own by association. Jennifer suppressed a smile. Tinkersley saw it and winked at her.

  Chane bent to sign the register. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his greatcoat. The dark hair on his neck was longer than usual. It curled over the top of his collar. Her fingers fairly itched to stroke it.

  As Chane straightened he glanced at Tinkersley, and his gaze stayed a little too long. Then he looked at her, quirking his eyebrows as if to say, “I made my bed, I guess I can lie in it.” Jennifer was torn. Part of her resented his worrying about every man they came across. Part of her ached for him.

  “Follow me,” the old man said, walking around the counter toward the stairs.

  Jennifer adjusted her crutches and took a tentative step forward. Chane stopped her with a slight pressure on her arm. “You can’t walk upstairs with those things.”

  “I’ve never tried. Maybe I can.”

  The pressure on her arm increased. His warm hand seemed to bleed off some of the pressure that had built up in her on the long trip here.

  She turned, and without a word he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs. He seemed to labor more than she’d expected. His heart pounded so hard she could feel it against her shoulder. She looked up at him, but he didn’t return her gaze.

  At the top of the stairs Jennifer said, “I can walk from here.”

  “I’m strong enough for this short distance…”

  “Even on crutches, I can keep up with him,” she insisted, nodding toward the old man.

  Chane lowered her feet to the hardwood floor.

  The room wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. It was large and clean. A potbellied stove in the corner radiated warmth. The old man tapped the stove with his walking cane.

  “Better go light up some more stoves. You’ve taken all the warm rooms.” With that he left them alone.

  Jennifer sat down on the edge of the only bed. Her foot throbbed painfully.

  Chane realized his mistake as soon as he saw the double bed beside the window. He couldn’t believe he’d left the train, signed the register, and carried her up the stairs without realizing he would be sharing a bed with her. Part of him seemed to go to sleep at critical moments. He only woke once he’d gotten himself into trouble.

  “I have to go see to my men. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “Have you heard from Steve?”

  Chane grinned for the first time in weeks. “He’ll be here tomorrow morning. The Colorado legislature forgot to insert in their new law a clause repealing the old law that allowed incorporation without any of the fancy trimmings required by the new law. He immediately filed under the old law, and even managed to get one of the senators to introduce legislation to exempt railroads from taxation for six years. I think we’re going to be fine.”

  He seemed to remember who he was talking to, turned abruptly, and walked out the door. Jennifer undressed and climbed into bed. She went to sleep wondering if he’d be back in time to sleep in the bed next to her.

  “Pantaloons! Pantaloons? Who larnt you to call ’em pantaloons? Trying to git above me, air ye? Talkin’ like quality folks! You ain’t niver heard me call ’em anythin’ but britches, nor you shan’t neither. Thar, take that!”

  Someone yelled, and two sets of footsteps took off running. Jennifer had listened to the lengthy tongue-lashing with her eyes closed. Now she opened them.

  Sunshine streamed into the strange room. She sat up. The other side of the bed was empty and undisturbed. But the clothes Chane had worn yesterday hung over the back of the ladder-back chair beside the bureau. Her crutches leaned on the foot of the bed and her trunk squatted by the door. Someone had stoked the stove. The room felt comparatively warm. Shivering, Jennifer washed in a basin of cold water and dressed in a brown-and-white houndstooth cashmere gown. Hunger drove her downstairs. With her crutches in one hand, she held on to the banister and hopped down on her good foot. Marianne Kelly, who had come along as her lady’s maid, was already there, talking to the man behind the counter, a different man from last night.

  “’Morning, mum!” Marianne said, walking over to meet her. For the first time since they’d set out, Marianne’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “Are you hungry, Marianne?”

  “No ’m, I ate. But Mr. Hammond and Mr. Kincaid are still in the dining room. Mr. Kincaid asked me to get some things at the store. Unless you need me…”

  Jennifer dismissed the girl and limped into the dining room on her crutches. Four men in rough garb and big hats, engrossed in conversation, were facing away from her in the back corner of the room. Except for them, the room was empty. Marianne must have been wrong about Chane being here, Jennifer thought, choosing a table by the window so she could watch the street. She scanned the menu and chose the closest thing she could find to a normal breakfast.

  “Coffee, miss?”

  “Yes, please. I’ll have the scrambled eggs and fried potatoes.”

  The four men she had noticed got up from their table.

  The sound of Chane’s voice made her look up. She barely recognized him in blue denim pants and a black frock coat. On his right hip a gun rested in a holster tied down with a leather thong. A tan felt hat hung by a chin strap behind his head. Only his craggy face resembled the New York millionaire who had swept her off her feet.

  Jennie glanced from Chane to a man she finally recognized as Steve, then to Tom Tinkersley and Beaver Targle. Steve was dressed much like Chane, except the scarf tied at his throat was red. But even in the rough garb he still managed to look like an attorney.

  “I’m glad you survived your train ride,” she said.

  “I may buy land here to keep from having to go back.” They all laughed.

  “You all look like desperadoes today.”

  Chane nodded to her. “It’s more comfortable for what we’ve got to do.”

  “Even the gun?” she asked.

  “I promise not to shoot myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, smiling. Chane seemed different today, less distant somehow. Jennifer wondered if the smile was for Tom Tinkersley’s benefit. Tom hadn’t looked at anything except her since he’d seen her.

  Targle laughed. “Wal now, ma’am, I expect I can relieve yore mind on that score at least. You don’t have to worry about him hurtin’ hisself with that gun. Yore husband, if you’ll pardon me for braggin’ on him, was one of the fastest guns in Texas when he was
rangering. Bill Longley, one of the killingest gunslingers west of the Pecos—he had ten notches on his gun—went out of his way not to meet Mr. Kincaid not too many years ago. Longley was pards with Ben Thompson in Kansas just before the big shoot-out there—”

  Chane leveled a narrow-eyed look of irritation at the suddenly talkative Targle.

  “Beaver, why don’t you show Steve to the livery stable. We’re going to need some horses.”

  Steve and Targle walked out of the hotel. Tinkersley nodded respectfully to Jennifer and followed them out. He even walked like Peter. Slim of hip and broad of shoulder, from the back he could have passed for Peter.

  Jennifer turned to face her husband. His eyes looked more piercing—tougher and more remote somehow—in the clear western light streaming in the dining room window. He looked blatantly masculine and virile in his rough western garb, able to withstand anything, especially her.

  He suddenly looked like a man who could have said all those hateful things to her the night after the opera—a man who could resist her forever. Until this moment she had believed she could overcome his reservations about trust and make him love her again. Now she felt alienated, as if she’d never really known him at all.

  “They’re waiting for you,” she said.

  Tinkersley, Targle, and Steve stood outside in the bright, cold, sunlit street.

  Chane looked angry. She had no idea why he should be, but flames seemed to dance in the depths of his eyes. “I may not be back until late,” he growled.

  Jennifer felt balanced on a high fence in a strong wind. On one side was safety and warmth and the possibility of forming a new, more stable relationship with her husband. On the other, she felt the icy breath of the gaping maw that threatened to open at any time. She realized that if she hoped to win Chane back, she’d walk this razor’s edge every moment of every day.

  “So?” It wasn’t what she had wanted to say. It was all wrong. She expected him to turn on the heel of his scuffed boot and walk away, but he amazed her by pulling her so close to him she could feel the warmth and strength of him against her.

  This was totally unlike him, and just as unacceptable, but the dining room was empty, and she knew no one was watching them except Tom Tinkersley.

  “If you’re going to pretend to be my wife, you’d better remember that I won’t tolerate your flirting with one of my hired hands,” he rasped, pulling her closer. He lifted her chin with a rough hand and searched her eyes.

  “I know that,” she whispered, suddenly furious.

  “Do you?” he demanded, rage flickering in the depths of his eyes. His hand gave her no chance to look away. “I’ve put up with a lot from you, but even castoffs have their pride.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “It takes less now,” he warned.

  “I swear to you—”

  He must have forgotten why he mustn’t kiss her. He bent his head, and the feel of his lips, warm and hurtful against hers, seemed to release something savage and ravenous in him, something stronger than his usually strong will.

  Jennifer knew the kiss was strictly for show, but it devastated her. Her body, starved for any contact at all with him, however humiliating, responded wildly and hungrily to his touch. She reached up with both hands and grasped his face, biting his lip just hard enough to cause him to suck in a startled breath.

  She thought he was going to push her away, but his hands bit into her back, swept her up against him, and his tongue pushed into her mouth, taking control.

  Once before, Chane had showed her this side of him, this wildness and possessiveness. Just knowing he was still capable of it filled her with hope and exultant joy. He ended the kiss before she could do more. His hand forced her chin up, but her eyes remained stubbornly closed.

  “Insecurity becomes you, Jennie.” He turned her forcefully, set her down in her chair, and left.

  Jennifer watched him walk away. Something trembled deep within her. Chane had changed. He no longer seemed a man so affected by her that he couldn’t touch her. He had mastered touching and was moving on to taking.

  Maybe she had finally seen the real Chane. A man who could kill a man he didn’t want to kill. A man who could end a marriage he had wanted to last forever. A man who could kiss her in public to show Tom Tinkersley that he could.

  A chill swept through Jennifer. She shivered and pulled her wrap closer around her shoulders. This was going to be harder than she’d expected.

  Chane joined Steve, Tom, and Beaver on the sidewalk. He ignored Targle’s foolish grin, Tinkersley’s and Steve’s silence, and asked the first question he could think of to get their minds back on business. “How wide is our right-of-way?”

  “Four hundred feet,” Steve replied, looking at him oddly. Steve knew he knew the answer to that question, but he would never embarrass Chane in public.

  Before Chane could ask another question, a freckled boy ran up and stopped, winded. “Mr. Kincaid?” he asked, his gray eyes darting from Steve to Chane. Chane raised a hand.

  “Telegram.”

  Chane reached into his pocket for a dime, flipped it to the boy, took the telegram and read it.

  CONGRESS GRANTED IDENTICAL CHARTER TO LAUREY AND GOULD STOP L&G BUILDING SOUTH FROM PUEBLO DOWN TAOS TRAIL TO NEW MEXICO STOP FIRST RAILROAD TO REACH NEW MEXICO WINS LAND GRANTS AND CHARTER STOP L&G BEGAN CONSTRUCTION TWO WEEKS AGO AND MAKING GOOD TIME STOP

  WILCOX

  In silence Chane passed the telegram to Steve. According to the charter he’d thought he had before this telegram arrived, he would have had two years to build the first fifty miles, a year for each fifty after that. Now with Laurey and Gould building south on a parallel alignment to New Mexico, the land grants they’d counted on were in serious jeopardy.

  If Laurey and Gould beat them, they would get the land grants, and his grandfather would get nothing, except the right to operate the railroad without government grants, and against stiff competition from Laurey, which made it too risky financially. With the land grants, Laurey and Gould would be able to cut prices and corner the most lucrative corporate customers.

  “Damn,” Steve growled, crumpling the telegram.

  “Now that Number One has dumped enormous sums of money into the railroad, we learn he’s been given a sieve to dip water with,” Chane said.

  “Raton Pass is about a hundred and ten miles from La Junta,” Steve said. “But the Taos Trail is longer. Laurey and Gould had the advantage of surprise, until Tom Wilcox somehow found out what they were doing. They may be ahead of us, but not decisively so.”

  Chane nodded his agreement. “Bless Tom and his network of informants.”

  Steve passed the crumpled telegram to Targle, who reddened and waved it away. “Ain’t never been much for book larnin’.”

  Tinkersley read it out loud.

  “I guess we’d better go see to the Chinese,” Chane said.

  Targle stiffened. A stubborn, bulldog look tightened his lips into a slit. “I may not have got past the flyleaf of a primer, but I’m smart enough to know a mistake when I see one.”

  “Meaning?” Chane asked.

  “I know you’re the boss, Mr. Kincaid, but I’ve never been one to get a sore crotch from straddling the fence. Them chinks look a mite prissy-assed to me. Building a railroad is a job for real men. We don’t need a thousand men to carry over the rough spots.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. If they don’t pull their weight, you can rest assured I’ll send ’em packing.”

  “Much obliged.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take us to lay a hundred and ten miles of track?” Steve asked.

  “Depends on too many things to estimate,” Chane said. “Weather, how well the men hold up in the cold, how many trestles we have to build, and how far we have to transport timber and gravel.”

  “What are our chances of beating Laurey to Raton?”

  “Not good.”

  About the same as the chances that the rest of hi
s life would be bearable, Chane thought.

  Chane rented horses for Steve and himself. Targle and Tinkersley had their own mounts. They stopped first at Beaver Targle’s camp east of town. Some men were camped by the railhead; some had already moved into the railroad sleeping cars. They were playing cards, arguing, lolling on cots. According to Targle, fights had already blacked two men’s eyes.

  “We’re going to have to restrict the sale of whiskey if you want this road built this year,” Targle said.

  “Then do it.”

  They found Kim Wong and his Chinese laborers camped south of town by the river. Smoke from their cook fires curled upward in the cold, still air. A thousand Chinese made more noise than a herd of buffalo. From a half mile away Chane heard singsong voices yelling and laughing.

  Dank-mud river smells mingled with the odors of cooking fish, steeping tea, and mesquite smoke. The Chinese camp spread out along the riverbank for a half mile or more. As they approached, the Chinese fell silent, stopping what they were doing to watch.

  Chane reined up at a campfire. Six pigtailed men in blue tunics squatted on their haunches around the fire, warming themselves. A man fishing at the river’s edge looked around.

  “I’m looking for Kim Wong, the agent.”

  One of the Chinese nodded vigorously and pointed to the south. Chane turned his horse in that direction. The man who had directed him let out a shrill cry, which was taken up by first one and then another.

  Kim Wong walked out to meet them. He was taller and heavier than the average Chinese, and looked slightly Caucasian. He had heavy arched brows over shrewd eyes, a broad Oriental nose, and a full, smiling mouth. He wore the usual blue tunic, and his hair was shaved to mid-crown and the back half braided into a pigtail worn by all Chinese laborers. Chane had been told he spoke English and six Chinese dialects necessary to communicate with the men he’d recruited.