Strong Convictions: An Emmett Strong Western (Emmett Strong Westerns Book 1)

by GP Hutchinson

  From what he had read, Emmett knew Yong Xu wasn’t exaggerating.

  The Chinaman sighed heavily. “When Chinese in other towns have demanded fair treatment, it has often gone badly. People set fire to the Chinatown up in Truckee—more than once.”

  “So trying to track down and rescue the girls yourselves…” Emmett said. He was already piecing together ideas about going with the Chinese—or even going by himself—to find Li Xu and get her back.

  “Other immigrants will probably twist the story and somehow make it seem that we Chinese are just stirring up trouble, regardless of what truly happened to our daughters. It could lead to suffering for all the Chinese people of Virginia City.”

  Emmett glanced at Sikes.

  “Don’t look at me,” Sikes said. “I may be new to America, but I’d never…”

  “Didn’t figure you would,” Emmett said.

  “I wouldn’t put it past a lot of the miners, though.” Sikes shifted in his chair. “Desperately struggling to scratch a living in a new land. Banding together, trying to make sure that if anybody loses everything, it won’t be them.”

  What could he do to help rescue the girls? And to curtail any further threat to Yong Xu and his people? Emmett thought about the Texas Ranger badge beneath his vest. It had to be worth something up here. But even if it wasn’t…

  He grasped Yong Xu’s shoulder. “Let me at least go talk to the marshal for you.”

  Yong Xu lifted his hands and dropped them to the tabletop.

  Emmett eyed his pardners. Questions flooded his mind. Chief among them was whether he could put the pursuit of Charlie Blaylock on hold till after he helped Yong Xu get his daughter back. But that wasn’t his decision to make alone.

  Surveying the empty café and recalling the lively evening he and his friends had enjoyed there just a few nights prior, he now felt an empty space in his chest. The heart of that liveliness—Li Xu—was gone. And he prayed that at that very moment she and her friends were OK.

  “I’ll be back,” he said. “Give me a bit to talk with some folks.”

  “You don’t know this city…this country,” Xu protested through tear-rimmed eyes.

  “We won’t add to your troubles, Yong Xu. I promise.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Leaving Xu’s place, Emmett and his compañeros made their way over to C Street. Out in front of the Lucky Strike Saloon, they held a quiet powwow. Juanito and Sikes would wait at the watering hole while Emmett paid the city marshal a visit. He aimed to find out what, if anything, the local law would do on behalf of the kidnapped girls and their families.

  On his way to the marshal’s office, it struck him as either odd or admirable that the Presbyterian church in Virginia City was located right there on C Street, mere steps from numerous establishments dedicated to gratifying the various passions of the flesh. He paused in front of the clapboard-sided house of worship and deliberated. After casting a glance in the direction of the marshal’s office, he turned and bounded up the church steps, removing his hat and smoothing his hair as he went.

  “Hello,” he called into the empty sanctuary.

  Footsteps resounded from deep within the building. A middle-aged gentleman with a trim beard appeared from a doorway to the left of the pulpit. As he rounded the pews and headed down the center aisle, he adjusted his vest and smiled. “How can I help you?”

  “You the pastor here?” Emmett asked.

  “I am. Ezra Pine’s the name.” He extended a hand.

  Emmett clasped it and appreciated the firm grip. “I’m Emmett Strong. Do you have a few minutes, Reverend?”

  “Sure.” He gestured toward the last pew. “Have a seat. What’s on your mind?”

  The two men sat.

  Emmett placed his hat on his knee. He worked its brim between his fingers as he gathered his thoughts. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, Reverend.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Lot of evil in this world.”

  “True…” The minister nodded. “But there’s a lot of good too. God hasn’t lost control of things. Some particular evil troubling you, Mr. Strong?”

  Emmett sighed. “Couple items.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve got to know where you stand on a matter before I proceed.”

  “And what matter would that be?”

  Emmett looked Reverend Pine in the eye. “God created all people, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Irish folk, Chinese folk, regular American folk—we’re all human beings created in the image of the Almighty, correct?”

  Reverend Pine narrowed his eyes. “The thing that’s troubling you…It wouldn’t have anything to do with the abduction of those Chinese girls, would it?”

  Emmett tilted his head. He hadn’t expected word to have spread much, if any, outside the Chinese community. This minister certainly had his finger on the pulse of the town. And he read people well too. Both impressed Emmett.

  “I have no idea how you divined it, but that’s precisely what’s troubling me.”

  “It was all the buzz yesterday,” Pine said. “When the Chinese elders went down to the marshal’s office, the usual rabble-rousers lost no time getting word out that the Chinamen are up to no good—making unfounded accusations.”

  “The Chinese’ve made no accusations at all,” Emmett said firmly. “They have no idea who’s behind the kidnapping.”

  “And how would you know that? You’re new to town, aren’t you, Mr. Strong?”

  Emmett placed his hat down on the pew and turned toward the minister. “Like I said a minute ago, before I lay everything out, I need to know where you stand.”

  Pine showed his palms. “Fair enough. Where I stand on…”

  “You said Chinese folk are created in the image of God. Same as you and me?”

  “Yes. Absolutely,” the minister answered without hesitation.

  “Then why can’t they get the same consideration—and protection—that people like you and me get?”

  This time the reverend didn’t answer so quickly. “Now that…is a great evil.”

  “You seem to know this town well, Reverend Pine. Me going to talk to the marshal about the abduction—a waste of my time?”

  The reverend’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Probably so, though I could be wrong.”

  “But in the past…”

  “From what I gather,” Pine said, “Marshal Pruett has never lifted a finger to help the Chinese. A few times folks have gone in and torn up Chinese restaurants, stores, laundries. Torn them up pretty bad. As far as I know, he’s never given a minute of his time to investigate even one of those crimes.”

  “Any regular citizens ever try to give the Chinese a hand?”

  “Once again—best I know—only a little charity here and there. Maybe a little money to help fix up their busted-up places. Maybe a few supplies from the mercantile store.”

  Emmett nodded. He sat in silence for a long minute, trying to frame his thoughts. Then he leaned forward. “Now I’m gonna get real personal,” he said. “I care what the good Lord says about this. And I need to know.”

  Tilting his head, Pine invited Emmett to go on.

  “Is it wrong for a white man to be in love with—maybe even to marry—a woman who’s not white? A Chinese woman?”

  The reverend looked off toward the gothic window and rubbed his beard. When he looked back he said, “It all goes back to Babel.”

  “The tower of Babel,” Emmett said.

  “That’s right. Before that, all mankind spoke the same language. There was only one race—the human race.”

  “And then?”

  “Certain men led other men—perhaps most men—to reject God, their maker and sustainer. They wanted a religion of man…to do what they wanted, how they wanted, whenever t
hey wanted. That tower was a fist in God’s face. It was a temple to man, a declaration that man was his own god.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Emmett said.

  “So God put the brakes on the building of the tower—”

  “Made ’em speak different languages.”

  “True. But remember this: At first they were all the same kind of people. One race. Just speaking different tongues all of a sudden.”

  Emmett nodded. “So how’d they get to be Chinese and African and Indian?”

  “People of each new language went to live apart from the folks of the other languages. For a long time they intermarried only within their own language group—or pretty much so.”

  “And?”

  “Well, let seven or eight generations go by that way, and all the folks of that language end up with a unique look about them. Similar to each other, yet different from the people of the other language groups. Not to mention developing unique traditions and customs because of where they lived. Their own songs and stories…”

  “So that was the start of our so-called races,” Emmett said.

  The pastor nodded. “As I understand it.”

  “Well, God sent ’em apart,” Emmett said. “Is it wrong for us to try to—you know—cross the line again? Just be human beings? Not this race or that?”

  “A lot of folks say we shouldn’t cross that line.”

  “I don’t care what folks say. I care what the Good Book says. I want to know whether I’m headed for a moral wrong. In the eyes of God, that is.”

  Reverend Pine rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The Bible tells us that Moses married an Ethiopian woman. And it seems that when Moses’s brother and sister—Aaron and Miriam—went and complained to Moses about him marrying an Ethiopian, God took offense.”

  “I don’t recall that particular account.” Emmett cocked his head. “That’s in the Bible?”

  “Book of Numbers,” the reverend said.

  “What happened when God took offense?”

  “He gave Miriam a case of leprosy. Turned her white as snow.”

  “Well, I’ll be…” Emmett said. “If she wanted white only, looks like God gave it to her.”

  “God did restore Miriam,” Reverend Pine said, “But I think it tells us something about God’s views on so-called races.”

  Emmett gazed intently at the minister. “So it sounds to me like God would be fine with a white fella marrying a Chinese girl then.”

  The minister heaved a sigh. “There are still the antimiscegenation laws. California, Oregon, several other states have them.”

  “You mean laws against people of different colors marrying each other.”

  “That’s right. And the Bible does tell us that we need to submit to the government. So it’s not so simple.”

  “But when a law is immoral…when a law is unjust, shouldn’t we appeal to a higher law?”

  “I can’t advise you to break the law, Mr. Strong. That’s between you and the Lord.”

  “I respect that.”

  Reverend Pine shifted and put his arm on the pew back. “Now may I ask you a question or two?”

  Satisfied with what he’d heard from the reverend thus far, Emmett answered, “Don’t see why not.”

  “You’re new to Virginia City. Yet you show up troubled about the abduction of several local Chinese girls. What’s this got to do with you? Do you know who kidnapped those girls?” The minister searched Emmett’s eyes. “You weren’t part of their gang, were you? You didn’t come down with a sudden case of remorse once one of those girls caught your fancy, did you?”

  “No, Reverend. I wish I knew who kidnapped those girls. I stumbled on this situation while here on other business.”

  “Mind if I ask what kind of business?”

  “Not at all.” Emmett then related to the minister the full account of the murder of his brother and the pursuit of Charlie Blaylock.

  “Seth Blaylock,” Reverend Pine said. “Now there’s a man sold out to the devil—by all appearances anyway.”

  Emmett shifted. “You know Blaylock? What can you tell me about him…and Lucian McIntosh, for that matter?”

  That question brought a dark expression to the minister’s face. “Talk about injustice. Those two are about as evil, ruthless, and proud as any two men in this part of the country. And that’s saying a lot in a place where men far from their roots come into money—whether honestly earned or ill-gotten—and spend it hand over fist on any vice you might imagine, with an ever-increasing thirst for more.”

  “More than one source has told me that they run a string of bed houses from San Francisco down to Genoa,” Emmett said. “That’s a lot of girls of the line.”

  “Never seems to be any shortage of women who fall on hard times and end up in the services of men like them. Difficult for women like that ever to find their way out. Meanwhile, the McIntoshes and Blaylocks of the world grow wealthier and wealthier at their expense. But beyond that, Lucian McIntosh’s places seem to enjoy a distinct popularity. Rumor is that the girls there don’t seem to be the regular down-on-their-luck type.”

  Emmett frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I hear men say they’re prettier. They don’t have that wasted look that so many…soiled doves inevitably acquire.”

  Wait a minute. Emmett frowned and slipped his fingers into his vest pocket. He extracted the papers Cromarty, the newspaperman, had given him in Reno. Searching the sheet of paper with Cromarty’s own handwritten notes, his eyes were drawn to the notation Seth Blaylock (procurement?).

  “What’ve you got there?” the minister asked.

  “Just a moment,” Emmett said, holding up a finger.

  Then, for the first time, he looked at the portion of newsprint that had been neatly folded around the plain white paper. He turned it over. There was the headline: boy found dead, young woman still missing. It was from the Sacramento Gazette. Just above the headline—once again in Cromarty’s handwriting—it said, Seth Blaylock? Procurement?

  Emmett skimmed the story. “An acquaintance in Reno gave me this,” he said. “It’s a news article telling how a young William Stanton, eighteen years of age, was found with his throat cut ear to ear on the banks of the American River in Sacramento. Seems the young lady who was with William disappeared. Name’s Adelle Girard. Age seventeen. My friend seems to wonder whether this sort of thing isn’t the way Seth Blaylock supplies pretty, young girls to Lucian McIntosh.”

  Reverend Pine grew pale. “Nobody’s ever made that kind of allegation against McIntosh or Blaylock before. But then again, nobody would—not publicly anyway. Not if they want to live.”

  Ruthless men, Emmett thought. Ruthless enough and arrogant enough to ride brazenly into Virginia City and simply take what they wanted—a whole group of young women this time. Young women whose families never seem to get fair protection under the law regardless. He felt anger welling up. Did Seth Blaylock kidnap Li Xu?

  “You’re up here searching for Charlie Blaylock, not Seth Blaylock,” the reverend said. “Why do you suppose this newspaperman gave you these notes? How would they help you capture your brother’s murderer?”

  “Seems Mr. Cromarty believes we have an enemy in common—the man Charlie Blaylock is hiding behind.”

  Reverend Pine shook his head. “So the newspaperman has strong suspicions about Blaylock’s crimes, but probably doesn’t have the means to do anything about it—”

  Emmett got up and stepped into the aisle. “I believe Cromarty wants us Texas lawmen to do the work the local law won’t do.”

  Reverend Pine rose and followed Emmett.

  At the door, Emmett paused. “Bad enough men like Blaylock and McIntosh take advantage of women who volunteer their bodies when they’re down on their luck. But if they’re kidnapping innocent young women and forcing them into that kind of
work…”

  “Including, quite possibly,” Reverend Pine said, “a young Chinese woman who’s captured your affections.”

  Emmett tugged at his lip as he stared up the aisle to the altar rail at the front of the church. She had captured his affections, hadn’t she?

  “So can you and your Texas friends take on both tasks—bringing in your brother’s murderer and finding out whether Blaylock is in fact the one who kidnapped the Chinese girls?”

  With his hand on the door handle, Emmett said, “McIntosh has a small army, Reverend. I only brought two men.” An image of Li at the foot of the stairs in a high-dollar saloon flashed through his mind. “What I’m able to do remains to be seen.” But he knew already what he had to try to do—and try with all his might.

  His boot was on the bottom step leading up to the Lucky Strike Saloon when Yong Xu caught up with him.

  “Mr. Strong, I’m glad I found you.”

  After the conversation he’d just had with the minister, Emmett was pleased to see Yong. “How did you find me?” he asked.

  “I recognized your horse.” He nodded toward the fine pinto tethered to the rail. “So I waited here for you.”

  For no rational reason, a glimmer of hope stirred in Emmett’s chest. “Any news about Li?”

  Yong Xu’s gaze dropped. Hidden only a moment ago, his distress was now evident again. It bunched the skin above and at the corners of his eyes. “No. That’s why some of us would appreciate the chance to talk to you. Can you and your friends come back to the Golden Dragon?”

  “‘Some of us,’ you say? Who exactly?”

  “Please. Come and see,” Yong Xu pleaded.

  Regardless of his compadres’ answers, Emmett made up his mind. He’d go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  When Emmett, Juanito, and Sikes entered the Golden Dragon, six Chinese men rose from where they sat and bowed in unison. Emmett touched the brim of his hat.