The Stagecoach War

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The Stagecoach War Page 10

by Wesley Ellis


  Roxy had dated and even slept with men her own age, and found them selfish in bed—much too quick to satisfy their own hunger and too slow to help her do the same. Orin was the first man who had shown her how patience could unlock the doors of pleasure for a woman. Before Roxy had met and gone to bed with Orin, she had believed that sex was totally a giving act for a woman, another obligation that the weaker sex reluctantly gave to the stronger. Roxy loved Orin for teaching her differently, and also because he was going to save her father from being ruined by the Sierra Stage Line.

  There were many days when Roxy felt as if she were a martyr. Both her father and her brother had almost disowned her for her involvement with Grayson. They would never have believed that Orin loved her, and that his love would be the salvation of the Bonaday family. Dan and Billy were too proud to accept help from Orin, but they’d need it after the Bonaday Stage Line was auctioned off to pay the creditors.

  But what if Vickie Wilson, if that was really her name, captured Orin’s love and loyalty? Then, everything Roxy had worked for, all the misguided hurt she had endured from her father and brother would be for nothing. She might even end up as broke and bitter as her father and Billy.

  The idea of a stranger like Vickie Wilson destroying everything for her family was too much for Roxy to accept. And so when Jessie left the office to go to lunch, Roxy followed her outside and down the boardwalk.

  “Hey!” she called, running to catch up with her. “I want to talk to you!”

  Jessie turned to see the girl. Roxy was not more than five or six years younger than herself, but to Jessie, the Bonaday girl seemed like a child. Learning that Roxy was mistakenly trying to help her father helped, but it did not change the impression Jessie had of a foolish, rather spoiled girl.

  “I don’t want you to be seeing Orin alone anymore,” Roxy said, coming right to the point. “I don’t believe you are really my cousin, or that your name is Vickie Wilson. And most of all, I don’t like you.”

  They were of the same height, even the same build, although Jessie’s waist was a little slimmer and she was a few pounds lighter in the hips. Now, as their eyes locked, Jessie said, “Miss Bonaday, I hope you believe me when I tell you that I have absolutely no designs on Orin Grayson. I assume that is your main concern.”

  “I’m not jealous,” Roxy said defensively. “If Orin wants you more than me, then he can have you with my blessings.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Orin and Mr. Ford have given me employment. Nothing else. But for your information, I am quitting the Sierra Stage Line as of today.”

  Roxy’s brown eyes widened with surprise. “Why? I thought you were broke and needed the money.”

  “I do. I just feel guilty about working for your father’s competitors. I’m going to ask him once more for a job. If he declines, then I’ll find some other way to support myself.”

  Roxy frowned with puzzlement. Jessie had caught her off-balance and she was still trying to recover. The carefully made-up speech she had rehearsed to tell Jessie off now seemed ridiculous. “Maybe we ought to go eat together and have a nice, private talk,” she said.

  Jessie smiled. “I think that would be a fine idea.” What Jessie would really have liked to do was tell this girl what a fool she was being for trusting Orin Grayson to be fair and merciful once he had destroyed the Bonaday Stage Line. That was the height of wishful thinking. Once the Bonaday line was bankrupt, Grayson, Ford, and the rest of their backers would snap up the coaches, harness, and horses at a fraction of their value and then reap the profits.

  Their lunch was private and adequate, and by the time it was over they had made their peace. “I’ll go with you to talk to my father,” Roxy said. “Maybe I can put in a good word.”

  “It’s not your father I’m concerned about,” Jessie said. “It’s your brother. I think he hates me.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute,” Roxy said. “And even if it was true, once Billy sees that you have decided to quit working for the Sierra Stage Line, he’ll be more than happy to forgive and forget. You should know that my father won’t pay you much of a wage. Not unless Mr. Chen Ling is set free and decides to invest in our business.”

  Roxy shook her head. “But I don’t think either of those things will happen. Mr. Ling isn’t stupid. He would only have to look at the books to see that my father’s business is busted—if there were any books.”

  “No record-keeping system, huh?”

  “Nothing much,” Roxy admitted. “All three of us are terrible with figures. Maybe you could help us out that way.”

  Jessie nodded. “Tell your brother that for me.”

  “I will,” Roxy promised, “but it’s my father’s business, and what he decides is what counts. I just wish he would have sold out and retired to a rocking chair years ago.”

  “Maybe he’s one of those men who will never slow down.” Jessie knew that this girl was thinking about her father’s heart condition and trying to do what she thought was right. “Roxy, there are a lot of men who would rather work right up to the moment that they are called to meet their Maker.”

  “My dad was once a pretty rich man over in San Francisco,” Roxy said, unable to conceal her pride. “He had a fleet of sailing ships and then a so-called friend, a man named Alex Starbuck, stabbed him in the back.”

  Jessie shook her head. She was shocked to hear that Roxy thought Alex had betrayed Dan Bonaday’s friendship. Jessie knew with dead certainty that this was not the case. Over in San Francisco, Mr. Friendel would verify that as the truth. Roxy needed to know the truth, but this was not the time or the place for it.

  “Vickie, my father has always operated on a handshake. That’s all he ever asked for. Well, when Alex Starbuck broke Dad’s fleet of ships, we came to Reno. That’s when Dad had his first ...”

  Roxy could not finish, so Jessie did it for her. “His first sign of a failing heart condition? Is that what you were going to say?”

  Roxy nodded. “But don’t tell anybody. Not even Billy knows. I saw Dad fall when it happened the first time. He groaned and grabbed his chest. We were alone and he fell in the snow. All the blood left his face and he began to shake and water ran off his face. He almost died. I made the doctor tell me the truth—it was a heart attack.”

  “And that’s why you want him out of the business?”

  “Yes,” Roxy said. “No matter what the cost. But don’t tell anybody. You see how my father is. He’s big and strong, and a man like that—well, he can’t stand to have people thinking he’s weak in the heart.”

  Jessie reached out and squeezed her hand. “I understand, and I won’t say anything,” she promised. “But I do think you should allow your father to try to save his stage line. It’s his whole life. You can imagine how he must feel having already lost a shipping company. I think that, for a man like your father, it’s more important than anything else in the world to go out a winner. To leave you and Billy something besides a stack of unpaid bills reaching clear up to the ceiling.”

  “To hell with the bills! I believe I have figured out a way to handle that part of it. And even if I hadn‘t, it wouldn’t matter. We are talking about my father’s life. It’s time he retired to enjoy what few years he might have left.”

  Jessie said nothing more. She could understand Roxy’s concern, but her trying to be the one to make the decision about how her father spent his last years was wrong. Especially when she was helping his enemy destroy everything he had worked to build in Nevada. Jessie walked on, knowing that she would somehow have to teach Roxy that, although you needed to love your mother and father as long as they were alive, you had no right to control them.

  “I don’t give a damn, Pa! This woman is just out to take your money. She’s got no loyalty!”

  Daniel Bonaday slammed his big fist down on the countertop. “Billy!” he shouted. “My mind is made up. I’m giving her the job of taking care of the books and that’s the end of this conversation. Hell, even your own s
ister has decided we ought to give Vickie a chance.”

  “Well, that sure as hell ain’t no character recommendation. Roxy is sleeping with Orin Grayson, too!”

  Roxy lunged at her brother and raked his cheek with her nails. When Billy jumped back, throwing his hands up to protect his eyes, Roxy kicked him in the shins. Bonaday had to separate his two children to keep them from swinging at each other.

  “Get the hell out of here, Roxy!” the old man choked, trying to hold his son back.

  Suddenly, Bonaday stiffened. His eyes bulged, and then he collapsed. One minute he had been towering between his two offspring, the next he was lying on the floor gasping for breath and as pale as a marble tombstone.

  “Get the doctor!” Roxy cried. “Get him quick!”

  Billy took off like a streak while Jessie knelt beside the old stage-line owner and took his pulse. It was weak and fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. Roxy began to cry. Jessie prayed silently until the doctor arrived.

  “Is he still alive?” the doctor asked, bursting through the door with Billy right behind him.

  “Just barely,” Jessie whispered as the man pulled out his stethoscope and listened to Bonaday’s labored heartbeat.

  “Let’s get him to bed,” the doctor ordered. “Quick!”

  Billy picked up his father and carried him into a back room. He laid the big man down on a cot where the doctor covered him up with a woolen blanket. Bonaday looked to be unconscious, barely alive.

  “What the hell is wrong!” Billy cried.

  “It’s his heart,” the doctor explained. “This is maybe his third major attack and, by the looks of things, the worst. I don’t give him more than twenty-four hours to live.”

  Billy looked desolated and Roxy worse when she said, “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “You want to call a minister, I’d do it now.”

  “No,” Billy said. “That ain’t his way.”

  The doctor shrugged. “Then perhaps you and Roxy ought to pray for him yourselves. Meanwhile, I got a man on the operating table in a lot of pain. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Roxy grabbed his sleeve and her face was wild. “You can’t just leave him now!”

  “I have to.” The doctor gently pulled his arm away. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. If he asks for anything, give it to him. Sometimes whiskey is good for the pain.”

  When the doctor left, Jessie closed the door behind him and Bonaday opened his eyes. They were clear and bright with intense pain. The man surprised them all when he said, “You heard the doc—I can have whiskey, so bring me that bottle in my desk drawer.”

  They brought it to him and Roxy held it to his lips while he drank steadily. When he began to choke, Roxy pulled it away and Jessie wiped his lips dry. She had seen men like this before. The whiskey had given Bonaday some of his color back, but it was just a momentary flush. Even as they watched, the deathly pallor returned. Jessie knew the doctor had been overly generous when he said twenty-four hours. Dan Bonaday was failing rapidly and would not last an hour.

  As if echoing her thoughts, Bonaday said, “Listen to me closely, children, ‘cause this is the last I’m going to say to you. Roxy, I’ve understood what you were trying to do and that made it tolerable. But now, there is no need to be around that Grayson fella. Once I am gone, he’ll come after Billy and what’s left of this company like a wolf smelling a wounded buck in deep snow.”

  “No, he promised me that—”

  “Goddamn it, the man’s promise means—unhh!”

  Bonaday stiffened and his eyes rolled up in his head for a minute. Jessie grabbed the man’s thick wrist and felt for a pulse she could not immediately find. But Bonaday came back and when his eyes opened, they all knew it was for the last time. There would be no more foolish protests or arguments.

  It was almost five minutes before Bonaday could summon up the will to speak again. “Billy,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, Pa?”

  “You’re the president of this stage line now. The boss. You’ve always had a stubborn streak, wanting to do everything your own way. Now you can. But you got to promise me one thing.”

  “Name it.”

  “You’ll give Vickie a job and let her do it her own way. You’ll trust her, Billy. I don’t care what you think, trust her!”

  Billy looked up and Jessie could feel his smoldering anger and resentment. But this was a dying man’s request, his own father’s last request, and so Billy choked, “I promise. And I’ll beat them, Pa. I’ll use my brains and a gun if I have to, and I will beat them!”

  Dan Bonaday nodded and a faint smile touched the corners of his lips. “You two young‘uns are in for some big surprises and I wish I could be here when they come. That Chinaman, make him stay too. He’s a good man, better even than you think. Use him, Billy. Trust him and Vickie and then fight like hell to win! Roxy, you stay away from our enemies and help your brother!”

  Jessie saw how the girl wanted to protest that Orin Grayson was an honorable man. Roxy desperately wanted to tell her father that she had Grayson’s sacred vow that the Bonaday Stage Line would be sold for a fair price, but to her credit, Roxy just nodded her head in agreement. “Yes, Father.”

  “Vickie?”

  Jessie leaned forward to hear better. “I loved Alex Starbuck. He was the best man I ever knew and he won fair.”

  “I know,” Jessie said, feeling her own eyes sting.

  Bonaday had grown weaker with each final word. Now, like a balloon that had gone flat, the man seemed small and deflated. He closed his eyes, choked, “Give the bastards hell!”

  And he died.

  Chapter 9

  They were stalling. Ki should have been released that very afternoon but Judge Heath, in some petty show to demonstrate that he had not capitulated completely, refused to sign the orders.

  “Billy, I’m sorry,” the sheriff said, “but until I have the order in my hand, I can’t let Mr. Ling go free.”

  The San Francisco attorney was furious, and it showed in his eyes as he said, “Mr. Bonaday, I know how you and your sister are feeling after your father’s death. But if you want, I could try to threaten Judge Heath into letting Mr. Ling out today.”

  Billy thought it over. “I know Heath. He gets his back up far enough, he might just go fishing for a week, and there we’d be.”

  “That’s the chance we take,”

  “It’s not worth it,” Ki said through the bars. “Twelve more hours and I’ll have the charges dismissed. It isn’t worth risking a week for that short an amount of time. Leave the judge be tonight.”

  The sheriff nodded. “That’d sure be my recommendation. Like you say, Bill, the judge can get right stubborn. Once he gets it in his mind to resist something, he won’t budge.”

  “Are you sure he told you that he’d definitely be by in the morning to sign the release papers?” the attorney asked again.

  “That’s right. And the judge is a man of his word.”

  Billy moved over to the cell. His father had not been dead four hours and yet he seemed to have aged years. Gone was the jaunty swagger, the cocky boldness that had marked him in the past. Now, he spoke in a no-nonsense way and came straight to the point. “Mr. Ling, we have to talk business right now. With the death of my father, there will be a line of creditors from here to the edge of town. What I have to know is, are you going home to San Francisco on the first train, or are you still interested in investing in the Bonaday Stage Line?”

  Ki did not hesitate, because he knew exactly what Jessie’s wishes would be. “I’d like to stay and find out more about the business. I cannot speak to my father until I have very carefully studied the business.”

  “I can have what books there are brought over to you, and you can study them right here in the jail cell and give me an answer. Hell, we don’t keep much in the way of records. In ten minutes, you’ll know everything. And I won’t hold back the debts we owe, either, Mr. Ling. I’ll deal honestly with
you. Just the same way my father would have.”

  “I appreciate that. But if the books have not been well kept, they are of little value. What I need to do is to learn something firsthand about the business.”

  “You’d have to ride the stagecoaches to do that. I lost another couple of drivers as soon as they learned my father died. Most of the employees we had left were just too ashamed to quit because they owed my father favors. I’m afraid that neither Roxy or I are owed that kind of loyalty. There ain’t much of a company left at all. I couldn’t guarantee you any safety. I can’t even afford to hire shotgun guards.”

  “I would not be afraid to be your, what did you call it?”

  Billy forced a smile. “Shotgun guard. But that is impossible. Like I said, it’s a damned dangerous job. If anything happened to you, quite honestly, we’d have to close the doors tomorrow. About all we have left is me, Roxy, that damned phony cousin, Vickie Wilson, and—”

  Ki frowned. “Miss Wilson is working for you?”

  “I had no choice,” Billy said, his tone of voice leaving little doubt that he did not want to discuss the matter further.

  The attorney looked at Ki. “Mr. Ling, I will, of course, remain here in Reno as long as there is any possibility that I’ll be needed.”

  “Thank you,” Ki said. “But I don’t think that will be necessary once I am released.”

  After they left, Ki sat back down on his bunk and stared up at the window. He watched night fall and saw the first star appear in the south. He felt a little depressed because he had been sure he would gain his freedom this night. But he’d been wrong.

  Ki wondered why Jessie had left the Sierra Stage Line and gone to work for the Bonadays. How could she find out who was financing the Sierra Stage Line if she could not gain access to their records? Being locked in this cell had been difficult enough without so many questions remaining unanswered. But tomorrow, tomorrow he and Jessie would both be rejoined with the Bonadays. They would each have to play their separate roles, but at least they could watch each other’s backs.

 

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