Judith Pella, Tracie Peterson - [Ribbons West 03]

by Ties That Bind

  “Eleven o’clock!”

  He was supposed to meet with the Union Pacific officers at eleven-thirty. That didn’t leave a whole lot of time to waste. To be in Omaha for this meeting, he’d ridden nearly all night from Kansas City, where he had been looking into some job prospects. Arriving at four in the morning, he had fallen onto his hotel bed fully clothed and had slept, apparently very soundly. He wasn’t certain what had awakened him.

  Hurriedly he grabbed up his shaving gear and, rather than wait for the water to heat, shaved with a thin lather of soap and cold water. With his face stinging from the experience, he quickly found a clean shirt, one of two he’d purchased in Kansas City. He hadn’t wanted to be at the mercy of the growing populace of unscrupulous con men flooding Omaha these days. Rich knew con games and underhanded deals were plaguing all the new towns along the Union Pacific, but especially Omaha. The little town had simply grown too big for its britches.

  Pulling on his boots, Rich noted they could have used a good coating of boot black. No time for that, he thought, realizing only too well how quickly the time was getting away from him.

  The last bit of effort he gave his appearance was to pull on a new navy broadcloth coat. After wearing his captain’s uniform for nearly a decade, these civilian duds felt foreign. For the first moment since making his decision to leave the army, Rich seriously wondered if he’d done the right thing.

  With a sigh, he slicked down his black hair, meeting his steely eyed expression in the mirror. Never look back, he told himself mentally. What was done was done. The past could not haunt him if he refused delivery on the memories.

  Ten minutes later he stood in the offices of the Union Pacific. Across the desk from where Rich stood, a grave-looking General Dodge offered a cautious welcome. “Captain O’Brian.”

  “Just Mr. O’Brian now,” Rich corrected.

  General Grenville Dodge, chief engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad, was, at thirty-seven, only a few years older than Rich. But the man held himself with such an air of dignity and command that one seemed naturally to fall under his authority. Dodge had distinguished himself during the war both by his talent at quickly rebuilding railroads and bridges destroyed by the Confederacy and by his valor in battle, during which he was twice wounded. Near the war’s end, he was assigned to fight the Plains Indians, where he again displayed a strong determination and vigor or, in the opinion of some, a savage ruthlessness in his dealings with them. When Washington ordered him to cease his Indian campaigns in deference to recently concluded treaties, he responded by leaving the army and taking up his present job with the Union Pacific. He attacked railroad work as everything else, with energy and determination.

  “Ah yes, of course, I see you decided to leave the army. Have a seat.” Dodge motioned briskly, as if he had little patience for interruption, toward a chair opposite his desk. “Oh, and forgive my poor manners in my abruptness. I’m beating a path to Salt Lake City as soon as we’re done here and there isn’t much time to waste.”

  Rich nodded and did as he was instructed. “The message said this was urgent.”

  “And indeed it is,” Dodge said. “As you well know, last year nearly spelled disaster for the Union Pacific. The Indian conflicts alone threatened to bring us to our knees. Troubles with the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux have cost us the lives of many good men. Not only this, but we fought a constant battle to keep the Indians from tearing up the track nearly as fast as we could lay it. Now there are some five thousand men along the line, and it is still not enough—and may never be enough.”

  “I don’t entirely understand,” Rich replied.

  “We’ve been having some difficulties along the line that I believe have nothing to do with the Indians. I believe there are men out there who would just as soon see us fail at this mission.”

  “For what purpose?” Rich questioned incisively. “The railroad stands to benefit everyone.”

  “Some more than others,” Dodge declared. “To put it bluntly, we believe the Central Pacific may well have sent in spies to relay information back to their superiors in California.”

  Rich nodded. “And how would this present a problem for you? The development of the line is fairly well-known. The eastern newspapers have reported on it. Durant and his New York friends seem to keep the entire world apprised of every inch of track laid. Congress gets a neat and orderly report in order to see the funding continued. I don’t know what the CP could hope to gain by sending spies.”

  “It’s more than this,” Dodge said, lowering his voice. “I believe some of the mishaps befalling us, and being blamed on the Indians, are indeed actions paid for and provoked by men of seemingly good standing.”

  “You are speaking of sabotage?” Rich spoke the question with an edge of uneasiness in his gut. He’d hoped the end of the war would have brought a halt to such activities.

  “I can’t say this for certain, but some of the incidents are just too coincidental for my liking. I need a way to know for sure what’s going on.” Dodge leaned back in his chair, his gaze focusing intently on Rich. “I feel confident from my sources that it’s just a matter of getting the right man into the throes of things. And I believe you’re that man.”

  “The right man for ferreting out who’s responsible for plotting mayhem against the UP?” Rich also leaned forward, his own gaze steely and mixed with suspicion. “Why me?”

  “You know the territory, O’Brian. You are good friends with many of the men involved in building the railroad and guarding it. You will have little trouble moving in and around the various building sites. If there’s a troublemaker in the bunch, I feel certain you’ll be able to smell him out.”

  Rich still felt a bit surprised at this new turn of events. “And what would I do with him once I found him?”

  “Bring him to me for prosecution. Bring his entire entourage. I don’t care how high up this thing goes, I won’t see the line destroyed any further. Neither will I see us waste the government’s money for rebuilding when we haven’t done everything in our power to keep the destruction from happening.” Dodge lowered his voice. “O’Brian, your superiors tell me you are entirely loyal to the UP. I’ve known you long enough to feel comfortable in accepting that as gospel. Will you take this job and help us see this line put through? We stand ready to pay you quite handsomely.”

  Rich rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I am not opposed to good honest work, especially when paid handsomely. But you still haven’t addressed the issue of how you will incorporate me onto the scene. I mean, won’t it look awkward to have me suddenly appearing along the line?”

  Dodge nodded. “We have that figured out as well. As I said, I’m just now trying to get to Salt Lake City. I’ve taken a leave of absence from the House of Representatives—never really wanted to be there in the first place,” he muttered rather absentmindedly. Seeming to realize he’d strayed from the issue, he straightened. With brows knit together and eyes narrowed, he stated, “The fact is, we have it planned to utilize you as a courier. You’ll be sent up and down the line as needed, but you’ll also have the freedom to move about and linger where you will. If anyone questions your actions, you will tell them that you are on the business of General Dodge, and if they have further questions, they may take it up with me. My thought is that the only man who will overly protest your presence is going to be the man who is afraid of being revealed.”

  Rich nodded. The plan sounded feasible, and beneficial, for that matter. He had mustered out of the army without any real purpose or direction. He had inquired into a few jobs, but none had appealed to his sense of adventure. He’d thought constantly of Jordana Baldwin. They had shared an enthusiastic correspondence over the last few years, and Rich found it a growing interest to seek her out. The idea of spending time with Jordana and seeing if they might not find a way to share a future together was one that had startled him at first in view of his avowed disinterest in marriage. He simply could not marry with his past rising up
like a brooding storm on the horizon. He couldn’t expect Jordana to understand, although there was a part of his heart that thought she just might if he could find the courage to share these things with her.

  “Will you do it?” Dodge prompted, breaking through Rich’s thoughts.

  “Yes,” Rich answered without wavering. “I believe I would like to give it a try.”

  Dodge nodded. “I’ve written up all the particulars.” He reached into the desk and pulled out a packet of papers. “You’ll find a list of names and people who are working on the UP and the various locations for which they serve. My first order of business will be to have you accompany me as far as North Platte. From there I’ll continue to Salt Lake and you will stay on and learn what you can.”

  “Why start there?” Rich asked.

  “As you probably remember,” Dodge answered, “our most vicious Indian attacks have come from within a hundred-mile radius of that town.”

  Rich remembered only too well. He’d been a part of the troops defending the workers, not only as they originally put the track down, but then later when they were sent out to repair or augment the line. The Indians had been a constant threat in the lives of the UP workers. Vivid images of heinous massacres with wounded men left to die on the Nebraska plains came to Rich’s memory. It was something he’d worked hard to exorcise from his mind. He’d even written to Jordana about it—not in any real detail, of course. But he’d written her with as much information as he felt she could handle. She was a strong woman, and he greatly admired her for her vigor of living life to the fullest. Had she been a man, Rich would have been given over to calling her his truest comrade. He would have seen her in the role of Jonathan to his David, or vice versa. But because she was a woman, Rich thought of her in an infinitely different manner. One he had promised her he wouldn’t think of her as—a soul mate, a lifelong mate, a wife.

  Grateful that he still held his gaze to the papers Dodge had just bestowed upon him, Rich dismissed the thoughts and nodded as he scanned the list. There were many familiar names on the page before him.

  “I don’t see Sam Reed listed here,” Rich commented.

  “Sam headed out to Salt Lake about four weeks ago. Somehow we have to break the news to Brigham Young that we won’t be building through to Salt Lake after all. It’s just not a feasible route.”

  “Where will you go instead?”

  “Ogden, most likely. We need to handle the matter very carefully, however, or I’m afraid Young will pull his support of the UP and give himself over to aiding the Central Pacific.”

  “Sir, please don’t misunderstand me,” Rich began slowly, “but why are we divided in this matter? Haven’t we learned anything from war? If we see this railroad as the one mechanism to unite the country and bring settlement and prosperity to the West, then shouldn’t we be working with the Central Pacific instead of against her?”

  “O’Brian, I know what you’re trying to say and I agree. The end result should be one that uniformly brings about positive construction and migration throughout the United States of America. However, at this point—and I even regret to say that this is true—it’s all an issue of money. We have to build and complete the track in order to get support from the government and entice investors for the future. It’s more than just laying the track, it’s settling the towns along the way. It’s who will settle those towns, and how they will benefit the Union Pacific more than how they will benefit the country as a whole.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Rich rubbed a finger across his mustache, deeply sensing he was going from one war into another. “You might as well know, I have good friends working with the Central Pacific. I don’t see how it would interfere with my job, though, as I know them to be honorable people who would never consider sabotaging the Union Pacific or participating in anything that could bring about bodily harm to any person. But they are my friends, and I share correspondences with them and have told them from time to time what the Union Pacific’s progress is about. I never felt I was betraying confidences, because as I mentioned before, the progress was neatly written on the lines of eastern newspapers and spouted from the pulpits of politicians up and down the eastern seaboard. If you think this is a problem, you should dismiss the idea of hiring me, because I won’t be giving up my friendships for any man’s cause.”

  Dodge smiled. “If anything, it makes me only more certain that you are the man for the job. Your honesty is noteworthy and your loyalty to your friends impressive. Perhaps, if they are the honorable people you claim them to be, they might even prove to be an asset to you in this mission.”

  “I won’t lie to them or use them,” Rich declared. “However, if there is a way for them to help, I’m sure they would do it in a heartbeat rather than see more blood spilled.”

  “Good. Then gather your things and bring your horse. We’ll take the train to North Platte, but after that you may find it easier to move about on horseback. You’ll have an unlimited pass for travel on the train and papers that will allow you to take whatever freight you want—your horse and tack, or anything else that seems necessary. You’ll also be given an account to draw upon for expenses. This will be available to you through any of the depots. Simply present your credentials and the matter will be taken care of.”

  Rich grinned. “You’ll have everyone wanting to be a courier.”

  Dodge raised a brow and shrugged. “But not everyone would want the task of being a spy.”

  7

  North Platte was known to every man along the Union Pacific as “Sin City.” If something underhanded or otherwise perverse was desired, it could be found in North Platte. But then again, there were a dozen such settlements along the line. Known as “Hell-on-Wheels” towns for the way they were birthed from the very tracks that put them on the map, they very often resembled the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

  Rich bid Dodge farewell and made his way back to the freight car, where he claimed his gear and horse. Faithful, the gelding that had accompanied him for the last eight years, appeared surprisingly undaunted by the trip. Not so the baggage man, who’d put up a complete rebellion when Rich had approached him about bringing the horse. The car wasn’t equipped for such things, the man declared, but General Dodge himself had intervened and simply told the man to make it so.

  Now the man stood almost as white as a ghost, clearly unnerved by the entire experience, as Rich checked the horse over for any damage.

  “Looks like you both fared well enough,” Rich finally said. He tossed the man a coin and touched the brim of his new felt hat. “For your trouble.”

  The man recovered from his apparent fright quickly enough to snatch the coin from the air. He smiled at the sight of the money. “Thank you, sir. No trouble, sir.”

  At this he quickly disappeared inside the car, causing Rich to grin. No doubt the man wanted to get away before Rich could suggest some other fool scheme. Leading Faithful at his side, Rich moved away from the depot and into the dusty streets of North Platte. He sized up the small town, noting the throngs of activity along the main street. It was nearly evening, and it was quite clear that people were preparing for the activities of the night to come. A freighter stood impatiently waiting to be paid for the whiskey his hired help was even now carrying inside a nearby saloon. Several women of questionable virtue lounged around the door, cooing and calling to the men who passed by.

  “We’re gonna have fun tonight,” one called to Rich. “Wouldn’t you like to come and spend the night dancin’ with me?”

  “Hey, mister, ya want to get in on a profitable game?” a filth-ridden man questioned from his side. The man had appeared out of thin air.

  “No, thanks,” Rich replied and moved off down the street. The sooner he could get to his business, the sooner he could leave town.

  The paper in his hand gave an address in the better part of town, or so he was told. Glancing around, he wondered quite dubiously if there really was a better part of town. With litt
le more than sketchy directions and the name Baxter Montego, the paper was pretty useless. Baxter Montego wasn’t a name familiar to Rich, but Dodge had assured him the man had been privy to a great many of the Union Pacific’s secrets. The man apparently worked to promote additional construction in the area for both the railroad and the town. Dodge had suggested Rich start his investigation first with Montego, then glean information and names from their conversations and use the information to help in his search for saboteurs. And all the while, Rich would continue to pose as a courier for the railroad’s upper echelon.

  Continuing to lead Faithful rather than ride him, Rich passed by grocers, mercantile stores, banks, and saloons. Many of the “buildings” were nothing more than tents, but several rather substantial structures were either in place or being constructed. The town apparently felt it had staying power with the Union Pacific track so close at hand.

  Asking directions from a white-aproned store clerk, Rich finally located the two-story home of Baxter Montego. It wasn’t much to look at. The box-styled structure was stark in its whitewash. There were no shutters at the windows or pediments to crown the single, centered door. Just clapboard and windowpanes and the slight show of a chimney peering over the back side. The ground around the house was just as barren, as though the house had recently been built and the land had had no time to recover from the intrusion. Behind the house and to the side stood a small barnlike structure, which appeared to act as a carriage house.

  Tethering Faithful to the hitching post at the end of the dirt walkway, Rich made his way to the house. He had no idea what to expect. Dodge hadn’t given him much information on Montego. The general had, in fact, admitted that he really didn’t know Montego. The man was a friend of Thomas Durant, and because of his relationship to the current vice-president of the Union Pacific Railroad, Montego had earned a position of respect.