by Jo Goodman
Marshall lifted his head and indicated with a short wave of his hand that she should jump ahead to her request. "I'm familiar with it. William Pearson's been assigned since the beginning."
"Yes, sir, but Mr. Pearson's been out these past four days with some illness and it doesn't appear he'll be recovered in time to—" She was interrupted again, this time by Marshall waving his secretary back out of the office as soon as the door opened. For the first time since marching into Marshall's office, Mary Michael believed she had a chance of getting what she wanted. She opened her mouth to state her case when Logan leaned back in his chair and announced the story she wanted to cover had been given to Adam Cushing during the morning assignments.
Disappointed, but trying not to let it show, Mary Michael pressed her case. "I've already been working on some background, sir. An angle that Mr. Pearson didn't have and I'm certain Mr. Cushing doesn't know about."
"On whose authority?" Logan demanded bluntly.
That gave Mary Michael pause. When she hesitated a beat too long the question was rapped out again. "My own authority," she answered stiffly, heat rising in her cheeks as she tried to hold her ground.
Logan pointed at the notepad she held in front of her like a shield. "Are those your notes?"
She nodded, passing them across the desk when he held out his hand. She stood rooted to the floor as he skimmed them, watching for every nuance of expression on Marshall's impassive face. There was only the merest flicker of interest, but it gave Mary Michael reason to hope again.
"They're good," he said finally, handing them back to her. He saw the brief light in her eyes, the beginning of a smile that could have knocked him over even though he was married to one of the most beautiful women in New York. He deliberately crushed it. "Give them to Vollrath. If he likes what he reads, he'll give them to Cushing to use in his coverage of the trial."
"But I-"
"Give them to Fred," Logan repeated softly, brooking no argument. "If you want an assignment you go to the city editor like everyone else, Miss Dennehy. Not over his head to me. If you develop a piece without authority then expect to give it up to someone with more experience working the court beat. Those are the rules. I enforce them."
Mary Michael's fingers pressed whitely into her notepad. She took his reprimand on the chin, knowing it was well-founded. She had taken a chance and she had lost. She may have even set herself back months. The city editor was going to be livid when he discovered she had gone straight to Marshall for an assignment. She took a step backward from the desk, waiting to flee the room at his dismissal.
"Another thing you may want to observe," he went on casually, "is the civilized ritual of knocking before entering or clearing your way with my secretary. That way, Miss Dennehy, you wouldn't enter my office while I'm in the midst of another meeting and make yourself a target for public criticism."
Until that moment Mary Michael had no idea she and Logan Marshall weren't alone in his office. Blinded by humiliation, she glanced over her shoulder and saw the three leather chairs clustered in the corner behind the door were all occupied. She had a vague impression of tall, dark, and handsome—an adjective for each man—and then her mind went blank from mortification at her error.
"Pardon me," she murmured to the room at large, then without waiting for direction from her employer, she turned on her heel and quit the office.
Ethan Stone found it in himself to feel a little sorry for her. Marshall had been hard but fair. He respected her for handling the thinly veiled criticism so well. Still, a woman with hair like that, using it as a nest for pencils and pair of spectacles... it was sign of changing times for which he had no liking.
Throughout the mostly one-sided exchange he had observed her slender back, narrow waist, and boyish hips and found nothing to suit his taste. Standing, he could see that she was taller than he had expected, but still average for a woman. She held herself as stiffly as she sat, her spine rigid, her frame unyielding. It was only when she turned to leave and he saw the full curve of her breasts, tautly defined above the notebook she held pressed to her midriff, that he thought she might be worth the time it would take to get past the brooch on her starched white shirt. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed the idea as ludicrous.
Carl Franklin was the first to breach the silence following Mary Michael's exit. He was a gruff man, a score of years older than any man in the room, and angular in the extreme. He represented the majority stockholder in Northeast Rail Lines who was looking toward western expansion. His client was easily one of the richest, most influential men in the city, and Franklin spoke bluntly of what was on his mind. "I didn't know she was working here. What were you thinking when you hired her?"
Still thinking of the notes he'd read, Logan didn't respond immediately. "Actually," he said at last, "it was my wife's idea."
John Rivington was a government man, looking for a way to promote the western territories by getting eastern money to put down rails. Fresh out of college with a law degree, he was still wet behind the ears, anxious and eager to serve the newly appointed Secretary of the Interior. His sandy brown hair fell over his forehead, his smile was full and gleaming white, and he charmed women with his unaffected good looks. "I suppose it might be all right for a woman to be a secretary."
Logan's smile was faint. "It might be," he allowed thoughtfully. "If that's what she wanted to be. But you see, gentlemen, Miss Dennehy is going to be one of this paper's very best reporters. She just doesn't realize I know it yet."
Ethan Stone set down his coffee cup. He was the man who could make the dreams of Franklin's client and Rivington a reality, who, if he agreed to risk his life in their mad scheme, could probably get Logan Marshall to invest some capital as well. Leaning forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his blue-gray eyes hinting at dry amusement, Ethan said, "Shall we attend to the business at hand?"
Chapter 1
Autumn 1875
Engine No. 349 strained to pull its load up the curving path carved through the Rocky Mountains. The engineer called for more steam and the fireman obliged by shoveling furiously, feeding No. 349's seemingly insatiable appetite for coal. Clouds of black smoke poured from the main stack, drifted and dispersed in the air, and finally settled as a fine gray powder on the snow banks, on the tops of the cars and, filtering through the windows, on the clothes of the Union Pacific passengers.
No. 349 carried 158 passengers, most of them day travelers who would ride only short distances in their second class cars. The discomforts of second class were relatively minor when compared to the difficulties of traversing the Rockies on pack mules and horseback, especially when snow came early to the mountains or never left at all. There were a few cowboys, farmers, and whole families among the way travelers, but the bulk of them were miners looking for some excitement in the next town or the one after that.
Two third class cars on No. 349 carried through travelers, emigrants who had started their journey on the far side of the Atlantic. Taking the eastern rails west, they slowly made their way from New York or Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. The Union Pacific Railway would take over at Omaha, but instead of the four-day trip that a first class passenger could enjoy to Sacramento, the emigrants often found themselves sidetracked with the freight while the express trains and their rich human cargo rolled on by.
To the emigrants it often seemed more whim than design when they were finally moved from the sidetrack to become part of a larger passenger train. They could hope then that it would be the last time they would be pushed aside. It rarely was.
Three plush Pullman cars carried the first class passengers. While the second and third class travelers were not allowed beyond the confines of their crowded cars, the men and women in first class had the freedom of the entire train. The dining car offered them better fare than any of the depot restaurants and the Pullman sleeping berths were infinitely more comfortable than the benches and boards other passengers were forced to use.
No. 349 had the requisite mail car, carrying letters and packages from the East. It also carried silver bullion and the payroll for the entire contingent of miners at St. Albans camp in Colorado. Two guards, hired to protect the shipment, lounged in the mail car and polished weapons they hoped they never had cause to use.
As important as the mail car was, the real pride of No. 349 was in the four private cars preceding the caboose. Commissioned by the New York Chronicle, the cars were designed by George Pullman with every amenity for the comfort of the Chronicle staffers in mind. The least decorative of the four cars was the one which held the photography equipment and the darkroom. It also carried supplies for the reporters and illustrators, reference books, surveying tools, extra baggage, rifles, and maps.
Furnished with inlaid walnut paneling, damask curtains, and stained glass skylights, the staffers enjoyed better accommodations than in their New York hotel apartments. The sleeping berths were wide and firm, the seats were thickly cushioned and covered in soft attractive fabrics, and the dining area in the hindmost car was as cozy as a favorite aunt's parlor. Each car had a cast iron stove to provide warmth, hurricane oil lamps for light, and a toilet for life's necessary inconveniences.
By agreement of the six staffers, the photography car was the site for working, the two sleepers the site for quiet contemplation, and the dining car the site for the best traveling poker game anywhere in the world.
Drew Beaumont tapped his cards against the table top, thought a moment longer, and finally folded. His high, broad forehead was ridged with the bent of unhappy thoughts. "Where the hell is Mike? I need a loan."
Bill and Dave Crookshank, brothers who often were mistaken for twins, shook their heads simultaneously, cinnamon-colored hair falling forward across their brows.
"Not likely," Bill said. "Maybe take you for thirty dollars, but not make a loan of it."
"Mike's wandering anyway," Dave added, tossing his money in the pot. "Said something about getting some personal stories from those emigrants we took on yesterday." He turned to the Chronicle's illustrator on his left and motioned toward the pot. "In or out, Jim?"
Jim Peters flicked his cards with his thumbnail. His lower lip was thrust out as he sighed and placed his hand face down on the table. "Out. I suppose Mike will have half a dozen pathetic faces for me to sketch to go with each story."
The Chronicle's other illustrator and part-time photographer, Paul Dodd, threw his money in the pot and disagreed with his colleague only on the numbers. "A full dozen faces. Half of them probably related to one another. Mike's a sucker for a family story."
The conversation had come full circle back to Drew Beaumont. "And our esteemed publisher is a sucker for Mike's stories," he groused as the play passed him by. When he didn't get any sympathy from the others he knew he had overstepped himself. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and finally pushed away from the table altogether. After a few minutes he left the dining car.
Dave and Bill Crookshank exchanged knowing looks with the remaining staffers. "Drew still can't accept Mike's a better reporter," Bill said.
Jim laughed. "Drew still can't accept Mike."
"Except when he needs a loan." Paul poured himself a drink, watching Bill draw the pot toward him. "You could have lent him the money, Bill. You're the big winner tonight."
"That's because Mike's not here."
"Game's not quite the same, is it?" Dave noted, shuffling the deck.
Everyone agreed. The cards were dealt, the wagers made, but it wasn't quite the poker game it could have been with Mike Dennehy.
No one had ever called her Mike before. Up until the time she had boarded the Chronicle's private touring cars for the trip West, she had been addressed as Miss Dennehy by all her fellow employees. It was probably her fault, she reflected later, that things changed on the train. She had indiscreetly confided that in her own family she was never called Mary or even Mary Michael. She was simply Michael. With four sisters all having the same first name, it was only the eldest, in this case Mary Francis, who answered to Mary. Mary Margaret, Mary Renee, Mary Schyler, and Mary Michael were simply Maggie, Rennie, Skye, and Michael.
Michael accepted the informal moniker from her colleagues as the first sign that she belonged. She knew it started in an attempt to needle her, to point out that she would never be part of the reporting staff no matter what Logan Marshall thought she could accomplish on the Western Tour. Calling her Mike was meant to ironically emphasize her femininity and keep her separate—in what the men perceived to be her place. At some point, however, the tone became affectionate, accepting, and eventually a little awed. Michael felt she had earned the right to the name and the byline, which headed all the dispatches she sent back to New York. She had lived up to Logan Marshall's expectations and put to rest the concerns of most of her male colleagues.
It had only taken three months, 14,000 miles, and 200 hours at the poker table.
Michael's mind wasn't on the poker game as she listened to Hannah Gruber tell her story. Marveling that the woman had strength to talk, troubled as she was by shortness of breath and a cold in her chest, Michael made notes in her pad about the Atlantic Crossing, the impersonal, even degrading inspection upon entering the United States, and the slow and hazardous journey the Gruber family was now making across the country. Hannah cradled a baby in her arms while one of her toddlers slumped against her shoulder. Sitting stoic and silent beside his wife, Joseph Gruber held the other toddler in his lap and watched his wife carefully.
Michael was touched by the concern she saw in Gruber's face, the way his eyes wandered to his wife's careworn features and the tired slope of her shoulders. She felt his disapproval when Hannah agreed to speak to her, but he did not forbid his wife the opportunity to spend time with another woman. He might have spoken in place of Hannah but his knowledge of English was too poor. Michael also suspected he wanted to give his wife this one small pleasure. Since leaving Germany there had been far too few of them.
The stench in the emigrant car was a force to be reckoned with. Even after nearly an hour Michael wasn't accustomed to the smell of unwashed and ailing humanity. It was too cold to open the windows, and the air was further befouled by the uncovered oil lamps and the stove, which burned the dirtiest and cheapest of coals. The car was so crowded that it was impossible for Michael to sit without someone giving up their seat. The uncovered benches were too narrow to comfortably accommodate anyone but the young children. The aisle was cluttered with belongings that could not be contained overhead or under the seats, and the toilet was a curtained-off affair that did little to secure one's privacy or dignity.
It was not the first emigrant car Michael had visited and though she found the conditions deplorable, she also found them to be fairly typical. Forty dollars did not buy much in the way of comfort. It bought hope.
Journey of hope, she thought. It had possibilities. She scrawled the title across the top of her notes on Hannah. Listening for a few more minutes, Michael closed her interview when she saw Hannah was tiring to the point of complete exhaustion. Perhaps California's warmer climes would bring Hannah relief for her lung congestion, but Michael wasn't convinced Hannah would make it that far. It was rare for an immigrant not to experience some infection, by virus or vermin, during the cross country trek, but dying from it was not the norm. Michael remembered a doctor she had spoken to briefly in one of the first class cars. Perhaps he could be persuaded to examine Hannah and recommend something for her cough.
Michael shut her notepad, slipped a pencil behind her ear where it joined another, and pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. Slipping a gold piece—part of her poker winnings—in the small dimpled hands of the Gruber toddlers, she thanked Hannah and her husband for their time and threaded her way down the aisle to exit the car.
Outside, the relief was both blessed and brief. No. 349 was moving slowly through the mountain passes, but at their present altitude the air was bitterly cold even witho
ut the wind whipping around her. Michael slipped the notepad into the pocket of her duster and went forward to the next car. After just a few moments in the fresh air, the odor in the second immigrant car was nearly intolerable. It took an incredible act of will not to screw up her features in distaste as she wended her way through the car. She was largely ignored by the passengers, used as they were to curious first class passengers coming through to discover the plight of the poor. Most of the comment she caused was simply due to the fact that her face didn't register contempt or derision or sympathy. She merely appeared accepting. A change of clothes and she could have been one of them.
It was more difficult to move among the second class passengers. She was propositioned three times by two miners and a cowboy, all of them declaring eternal fidelity until they reached the brothel in Barnesville. Michael merely gave them a hard look over the top of her spectacles. That look did not invite additional comment.
***
My God, Ethan Stone thought, she still wore pencils in her hair. He lifted his hand to shade his mouth and control the urge to speak to her as she passed. At least her spectacles were on her nose where they belonged. Counting backward on mental fingers, Ethan realized it was a little more than six months since the one and only time he had seen her. He wondered at himself for remembering her so quickly. He was good with faces. In his line of work it could make a life and death difference, and often did. But this was something different. Seeing her again, he recalled more than her face. He remembered the solemn and sober set of her mouth, the shape of her shoulders as she sat hunched over her desk, and the stiff way she held herself as she accepted Logan Marshall's reprimand.
As she walked past him on her way to the first class cars, Ethan felt himself struck once again by her determination, her hard sense of purpose. He was also struck by the slender line of her body, a waist he thought his hands could span, and breasts that made him reconsider that he had once thought her figure rather boyish. It wasn't completely surprising that she was propositioned three times as she wended her way through the car. She was the first decent, unattached woman most of the men in the car had seen in a month. There was a lot they were willing to overlook. Like the pencils. But then, when it was too late to discover the answer, he found himself wondering about the color of her eyes. It was not a comfortable thought.