The Railroad War

by Wesley Ellis

  “But are we—” Jed began.

  “We’re going through with our plans, Jed,” Jessie replied calmly. “We’ll just have to be more careful and work faster. Now you and Ki go ahead. I’m going to write my telegram and send it. We don’t have any time to waste. With any luck, we’ll strike our first blow at the cartel tonight!”

  Jessie walked slowly down C Street when she left the hotel. The main thoroughfare was as crowded at ten o‘clock at night as it had been in the afternoon when she’d gone to the telegraph office in the Virginia & Truckee Railroad depot, and as it had been in midmorning when she and Ki and Jed had arrived.

  Virginia City had two principal industries, silver mining and saloonkeeping, and both operated around the clock. All the retail stores Jessie passed were still open, the saloons that seemed to occupy the ground floor of every second or third building were all busy, and in two or three of the narrow alleys between buildings, where the red lights of the cribs glowed, there were men lined up at some of the doors, waiting for a favorite.

  Most of the men on the street seemed to be moving from one saloon to the next, in search of one of the two other recreations the town offered: drinking and gambling. All of them were out looking for a way to forget the past twelve hours or to dull the dread of the next twelve, which they would spend deep in the steam-hot drifts where two or three men were crushed to death each day under collapsing earth. With ten thousand men off-shift and on the streets regardless of the hour, Virginia City quite literally never slept.

  When Jessie saw the sign of the New Ophir Saloon just ahead, she began looking for Ki. She was sure he was near, even if he was not visible; Ki was not supposed to be noticed, and she knew there was no one as expert as he in making himself unseen. Just before she reached the busy batwings of the saloon, Jessie opened an unobtrusive door that had a sign in discreetly small letters on its upper panel. The sign did not tell where the door led, but consisted of only two words: LADIES’ ENTRANCE.

  Ki and Jed had done their work well when they investigated the saloon that afternoon. Jessie knew what lay behind the door. When she entered, she was prepared to walk down the long, carpeted corridor beyond until she reached a second door. This one had no sign. Opening it, Jessie went into the dimly lighted ladies’ parlor of the New Ophir.

  Chapter 15

  Jessie had been in ladies’ parlors of saloons before, and had found all of them furnished as this one was: there were several small tables, each with a single chair; a large mirror hung on one wall, and the opposite wall had a large plate-glass window opening onto the main barroom; the lighting was dim to the point of obscurity. She was not surprised by the low-turned lamp, and did not turn it higher, as she had learned the reason for the low light.

  Saloons of the better class did not admit women, either to drink or to seek a husband who had not come home, so ladies’ parlors had two purposes. A woman could sit in the parlor and drink, or, if she stood back from the window opening onto the barroom, the dim light kept her invisible while she looked for an errant husband.

  Jessie realized that her arrival must have been signaled by some sort of device that was activated by the parlor door, for she had hardly adjusted the Colt she wore strapped to her hip beneath her green wool suit jacket, shifting it to make her seated position more comfortable, when a silver-haired waiter appeared to take her order.

  She asked for a split of champagne, and until the waiter returned with the wine, Jessie was careful to sit with her back to the window that looked into the barroom. After the waiter had opened her champagne and left, she turned to watch the activity in the saloon and at the gaming tables lining its walls.

  There were two table layouts on each side, with poker tables between them. Along the wall farthest from Jessie, the games were keno and chuckaluck, and on the near wall, roulette and faro. All of them were busy but not crowded, and Jessie saw Jed at once, standing at the faro table.

  Because the New Ophir followed the custom of better-grade saloons and barred from its premises all Indians, Orientals, blacks, and Mexicans, Ki had taken on the job of standing watch outside while Jed looked for Frank Jeffers in the saloon, and Jessie served as his hidden backup. After she’d spotted Jed, Jessie studied the other faro players, but none of them came anywhere close to fitting the somewhat sketchy description of Jeffers that Cheri had given Ki during their pillow talk.

  Jessie returned her attention to Jed. He had a small stack of counters in front of him, and she watched him long enough to see that he was betting consistently but conservatively, the way she and Ki had suggested as being the best to avoid attracting attention. Most of Jed’s bets were what professional gamblers called “break-eveners,” which allowed a player to stretch a small amount of money over a long period of play.

  Jessie returned her gaze to Jed now and then while she scanned the crowded barroom, looking for a man who matched the sketchy description that Cheri had given Ki of a tall and distinguished gent with gray hair and mustache, an embroidered vest, a pearl-gray derby, and a diamond stickpin.

  Several times as the night wore on, Jessie thought she’d seen Jeffers, but each time the man lacked one or more of the key features for which she was looking. She finished the split of champagne and was considering ordering another when the silver-haired waiter appeared, carrying a tray on which rested a glass of the sparkling wine.

  “I didn’t order that,” Jessie frowned.

  “No, ma‘am. It’s on the house,” the waiter said. He smiled conspiratorially as he placed the glass on the table and dropped his voice to a half-whisper. “A customer out in the barroom ordered a fresh bottle, but he was too drunk to finish it. I told the boss there was a lady in here drinking champagne, and he said it’d be all right to bring you this. It’d be a shame just to let it go to waste.”

  “Of course it would. Thank you,” Jessie said.

  “When you want to order again, just tap the door. I’ll be right close by,” the waiter said over his shoulder as he left.

  Jessie resumed her watch on the barroom. Jed was still in the same position, and she began studying the faces of the other players. While she watched, Jessie sipped the champagne. It tasted a bit flat, and to finish the wine before it lost its sparkle, she sipped again sooner than she would have done ordinarily, taking a bigger swallow. She replaced the glass on the table and returned her gaze to the window.

  There was a constant stream of fresh customers entering and tired or tipsy customers leaving the New Ophir. Though there were many new faces in the barroom, each time Jessie eyed the interior, the men she saw were dressed in everything from shirtsleeves to Prince Albert coats and gates-ajar collars. None of them resembled the description of Frank Jeffers.

  Abstractedly, her eyes still fixed on the window, Jessie reached for the glass of champagne. Her arm was slow to respond, and her hand felt cold. Jessie stood up, moving clumsily, her usual quick reflexes sluggish. She realized belatedly that the champagne had been drugged, but while the part of her mind that was still functioning normally told her to get out before it was too late, the part into which the drug had already crept was whispering that it didn’t matter much what she did.

  Summoning all the inner resources she still controlled, Jessie turned toward the door, supporting herself by leaning on the table. The door opened. The man who stood there wore a gray suit with an embroidered vest, and had a diamond stickpin in his wide cravat and a pearl-gray derby on his head. His chin was cleanshaven, and he had a clipped gray mustache and close-trimmed gray sideburns. He looked at Jessie, who was struggling to maintain her balance, and his cold eyes gleamed like opals reflecting firelight.

  At first, Jessie was sure she was suffering from a hallucination. Then the man moved, a quick beckoning gesture to someone behind him. A second man, wide and brawny, came into sight. He held a thick blanket unfolded in his hamlike hands. The two came into the ladies’ parlor.

  With all the willpower she could muster, Jessie forced her muscles to obey her
. She groped for the butt of her Colt with numb and clumsy fingers, but could not push aside the fabric of her coat to get her hand on the weapon. She began to lurch forward, and the hand on which she leaned slid across the table. Her fingers touched something hard and cold.

  Jessie was still half-aware of what she was doing. Her hand closed around the empty champagne bottle, and a split second before the two men reached her, she hurled the heavy bottle through the window overlooking the saloon. She heard the crash as the bottle hit the window, and the resonant ringing of the pane shattering. Then the blanket in the hands of the brawny man came down and enveloped her head.

  When the champagne bottle crashed through the window, Jed was looking at the faro layout, trying to decide what his next bet should be. The thin ivory counters in his hand clattered to the table as he whirled toward the sound and saw the jagged opening in the window, the bottle in midair, still falling to the floor.

  Jed covered the distance to the window in a half-dozen leaping strides, swinging his arms to brush aside the men who were in his path. To get to the window he had to leap to the bar, and as he left his feet, he was drawing his revolver.

  Through the jagged triangles of broken glass that still hung in the window frame, he saw the two men in the parlor. One of them was tugging at a blanket that heaved and billowed while he tried to pull it down. The second man stood a short distance from the one with the blanket. He was drawing a snub-nosed, nickel-plated pistol from a shoulder holster.

  Jed did not recognize the man in gray as Frank Jeffers. He did not stop to think of each move he was making himself. His instinct took over and he simply acted. Leveling his old-fashioned Cooper Navy revolver, he fired, and while Jeffers’s knees began to buckle, Jed put a second bullet into him.

  As the cartel boss sprawled limply to the floor, Jed heard the muffled report of another shot and saw the big man holding the blanketed bundle jerk convulsively. Jed fired at the hulking figure. He was dimly aware that the bark of his gun was echoed, but he had no time to think of the echo.

  Kicking out the sharp shards of glass that remained in the window frame, Jed jumped into the parlor. Behind him, he was vaguely conscious of the shouts and thudding feet of the men in the saloon, but paid no attention to them.

  When Jessie felt the rough fabric of the blanket rasping on her cheeks, she brought around the hand with which she had thrown the bottle and tried to push the blanket away. The man pulling it over her was too strong for her weak, uncoordinated efforts. Jessie was engulfed, her arms pulled down to her sides. She sagged to the floor, and as she felt herself falling, she dropped her hands to break her fall.

  As she slid through the folds of the blanket, her right hand scraped against the stubby derringer nestled in her boot top. Jessie was clinging desperately to consciousness. She slid the wicked little derringer out, pressed it to the body of the man who was trying to capture her, and pulled the trigger twice. The pressure of her captor’s arms relaxed and she fell limply to the floor.

  Jed pulled the blanket away and lifted Jessie to her feet. She swayed and leaned against him. Putting an arm around her waist, Jed started helping Jessie to the door. They’d just left the parlor when Ki came running up the corridor. He saw Jed and Jessie, and hurried to help Jed support her. With Jessie sagging between them, they hurried to the street. Behind them, men from the saloon were beginning to trickle into the narrow hall.

  In Virginia City, men minded their own business, especially after midnight. No one turned to look at Ki and Jed while they walked to the International Hotel, supporting Jessie’s sagging form between them. The desk clerk did not change expression when the trio passed through the lobby and entered the elevator. The hall was deserted. Jed supported Jessie while Ki unlocked the door. They carried her inside and lowered her to the sofa.

  Her brief trip in the brisk night had partially revived her. Jessie opened her eyes and saw Ki. In a thick, slow voice, she said, “Oh—Ki—That was Frank Jeffers who—”

  “Yes, I know,” Ki replied. “He’s dead, Jessie.”

  “Did I shoot him, Ki? I think I fired the derringer.”

  Jed said, “I shot him, Jessie.”

  “Oh. Thank you, Jed...” she mumbled.

  “He was about to shoot me,” Jed said. “But I shot first.”

  Jed’s forehead crinkled into a frown, as though saying the words had only now brought home to him what he’d done. He stood for a moment, staring into space. Then he went to one of the armchairs and sat down, his eyes fixed on the wall.

  Ki understood Jed’s emotions, and knew that the young man needed action to get his mind off himself. He said briskly, “We must help Jessie get rid of the drugs they’ve given her, Jed. Go in her bathroom and fill the tub with cold water. I’m going down to the desk and get some ice and coffee.”

  At the desk, waiting for the ice and coffee he’d ordered, Ki had a sudden thought. When the bellboy brought his order, Ki said to the clerk, “I want to rent the room across the hall from Miss Johnson’s suite for tonight.”

  His face expressionless, the clerk nodded, turned to the pigeonholes behind the desk, and handed over the key. Ki carried the ice and coffee upstairs. Jed had filled the bathtub and now stood by the divan, looking at Jessie. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply.

  “Rub her face with some ice while I get her boots off,” Ki told Jed. “As soon as she’s able to move, she can get into the tub. I don’t know what kind of drug she’s been given, but she’s not really knocked out, just groggy.”

  A few minutes after Ki and Jed began their ministrations, Jessie opened her eyes and looked at them. “I—I think I’m all right now,” she said. “Thank you both for taking care of me.”

  “There’s a tub of cold water waiting for you,” Ki told her. “And I don’t think we’ll need to worry about the cartel trying to get to us tonight, here in the hotel.”

  Jessie was sitting up now. She nodded her agreement and said, “They’ll be too disorganized after Jeffers’s death.”

  “Just in case they should try something,” Ki went on, “I’ll be in the room across the hall, with the door opened a crack. Jed will stay here in the sitting room.”

  Stretched out in the bathtub, Jessie soaked in the cold water until her head cleared and her muscles regained their tone. After draining the tub, she refilled it with warm water and soaped her body, then rinsed away the soap, rubbing herself with the washrag until her skin tingled. Once more herself, feeling the familiar surge of vitality that always followed a safe escape from danger, she stopped in the bedroom long enough to slip on a silk dressing gown and brush her mane of tawny gold hair until it glowed, then she went into the sitting room.

  Jed sat on the divan, his Cooper Navy revolver beside him. He looked up and saw Jessie, the thin silk robe emphasizing rather than hiding the lush contours of her body. He stared at Jessie until he saw the beginning of a smile twitch her lips. In sudden embarrassment, he looked away and asked quickly, “How do you feel now, Jessie?”

  “Wonderful, Jed!” she smiled. “With Frank Jeffers dead, we can all breathe a lot easier.”

  “I wish I felt good about it,” Jed said. “I never killed a man before, Jessie. I’ve got a funny, sad kind of feeling.”

  “Don’t think about it, then,” she said. She indicated the pistol on the sofa. “You can put that away, Jed. Ki was right, we won’t have any more trouble tonight.”

  Jed started to holster the gun, then realized he’d taken off his gunbelt, and laid the pistol on the floor. Jessie sat down beside him.

  “Jeffers was an important link in the cartel,” she said. “We broke it when you shot him. He can’t be replaced soon.”

  “You sound like you’re glad I had to shoot him!”

  “No, not glad. But not sorry, either. With Jeffers dead, we can straighten things out faster in Hidden Valley.”

  “Are we going back there right away?”

  Jessie shook her head. “Not today, perhaps not tomor
row. I wired my bank in San Francisco for information about Oscar Breyer and the Hidden Valley bank, and told them to send a man here with it. He ought to be here today, though.”

  His voice both thoughtful and puzzled, Jed said, “You know, I want to go back to the valley, but I don’t want to. It’s been real exciting being with you and Ki, tonight especially.”

  “I’m still tense and a little shaky, though.” Jessie put her hand on Jed’s. “You can feel my hands tremble now and then.”

  “They don’t feel shaky to me,” Jed told her. He took both her hands in his. “I like the way they feel, Jessie.”

  “I feel better with you holding them,” Jessie said.

  She let her arms sag slowly, pulling her clasped hands down to rest on her thigh. Jed looked at her, his face puzzled, but with the hint of a question in his eyes.

  Jessie leaned back, resting her head on the divan, and turned her face to him. Jed hesitated for only a moment, then he bent to kiss her. She parted her lips and caressed his closed lips with the tip of her tongue, and his tongue slid out to meet hers.

  For a moment they stayed motionless. Jessie was the first to move. She slipped one of her hands free and brushed her palm along Jed’s thigh until she found the firm bulge that was beginning to stretch the cloth of his trousers. With her other hand she guided Jed’s hands to her breasts. He hesitated briefly, then closed them over the warm, inviting globes.

  Jessie kept passing her hand back and forth along Jed’s erection, feeling him grow yet firmer under her caress. Jed’s callused fingers closed on her breasts with a firmness that was almost painful, yet set her whole body to tingling as though tiny, invisible sparks were bursting inside her. She broke their prolonged kiss and looked up into Jed’s startled face.

  “Ki won’t disturb us for a long time,” she said softly. “And we’ll be more comfortable in the bedroom.”