Judith Pella, Tracie Peterson - [Ribbons West 03]

by Ties That Bind

  “I was wrong to lie to your family, Patrick,” Rich said, taking his gaze from Jordana and returning it to Worth. “I should have told them the truth, even though it would have been painful for them to reconcile. I’ve been haunted by Peggy’s death for all these years. I couldn’t let go of blaming myself, and why not? I knew you all blamed me as well. It seemed only proper. But now—now I finally feel at peace. The truth is told. The past is dead.”

  Rich sighed and Jordana wondered if it was so. Could he really put the past behind him so easily?

  “I pray you’ll forgive my deceit,” Rich went on, “but I can’t force you to do so. I’ll always remember Peggy fondly, but that part of my life is over. I’m going to look forward to the future.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to forgive, O’Brian,” Patrick said.

  “Forgiving isn’t always easy,” Jordana said softly. “But it is very freeing, and without it, you always have something standing between you and God. That may not seem important now, but take my word, there will come a day and a time when you’ll think otherwise.”

  Worth shook his head. “That’s too easy, for me and for Rich,” he said, looking hard at Rich. “My sister’s still dead. Someone’s gotta take the blame. Maybe killing you, Rich, ain’t gonna bring her back, but . . . someone’s got to pay!” He paused, then his lips twisted ironically. “Guess it’ll be me. You can turn me in for trying to kill you.”

  “I’m not gonna do that, Patrick,” Rich said.

  “What, then?”

  “Just get on your horse and ride away. My punishment for what happened to Peggy will have to be forever watching my back. I just hope you won’t be living your entire life trying to get revenge for one terrible mistake.”

  “I don’t want to live that way, but I don’t know what else to do.” Patrick strode with a heavy step to his horse and stuffed the letters inside his coat before he mounted.

  Jordana put her arm around Rich as they watched Worth ride away. They sat in silence for a long while. There seemed little else to say for the moment.

  Finally Rich rose. “It’s in God’s hands now,” he said to no one in particular, then he stoked up the fire and made coffee.

  21

  After learning from a passing trapper that they were less than a day’s ride to Laramie, Rich and Jordana packed up their things and prepared to follow Worth’s trail back to town. For some reason they felt no imminent threat from Patrick. Rich said he was basically a decent man and that it would be hard, if not impossible, for him to attempt murder again after having heard the full truth.

  Jordana felt glad for the time with Rich. She wanted to explain everything that had happened. She needed to let him in on her work with Charlie and all that she had stumbled across in working on stories for the newspaper. She also wanted to share her heart with him, and if the moment presented itself to her, she would.

  “You’re still looking pretty worn, Miss Baldwin,” Rich said as he helped her up on her pony. “Will you be able to manage bareback?”

  “I am pretty worn, Captain.” She gave him a lighthearted grin. Just making the decision to open up to him had lifted a burden from her. “But I figure I’ll last. And I am getting used to no saddle, but I’ll be happy when I can get one.” She waited until he went to his own mount, then laughed as the horse gave a skittish dance. “He certainly isn’t as mild mannered as Faithful was.”

  “Not by a long ways,” Rich agreed, trying to bring the black gelding under control.

  “What do you call this one?” she asked as Rich finally managed to swing up into the saddle, only to suffer the horse’s rearing up.

  Rich clung to the horn and leaned upward toward the horse’s neck. “Troublesome,” he declared. “I call this fool horse Troublesome.”

  Jordana laughed and waited until the horse settled before speaking again. “Rich,” she said softly, “there are some things we need to discuss.”

  He gave his mustache a thoughtful rub and nodded. “I believe you are correct.”

  “Look, this won’t be easy, but please hear me out,” Jordana said. “I have been working for Charlie Crocker and the Central Pacific. But not for the reasons of causing destruction on the line. I was speaking truthfully when I said I wanted to see both sides thrive.”

  “Go on,” he encouraged.

  “Well, the fact of the matter is, I have some information, and I don’t even know how it all figures in. I can’t give you a name, because I don’t have one, but I know there is trouble afoot, and I want to help put an end to it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Jordana bit her lip and shifted her weight. “Shouldn’t we head on toward town? It’s kind of cold out here.”

  Rich looked at the icy blue sky and nodded. He nudged Troublesome on down the trail that Worth had taken only a few hours earlier. When the trail widened enough, Jordana soon came up alongside him and continued the conversation with great hesitation.

  “I . . . well . . . you see, the thing is . . .” She paused and looked down the trail. How could she possibly explain it all? “Charlie wanted someone to tell him what the UP was planning against the CP. He’d suffered several setbacks and was certain that someone was sneaking around looking to cause trouble for him. He asked me to go see what I could find out. He wouldn’t have asked, but I was restless and had already decided to go out and see what I could of the line and write about it for the Tribune. Plus, I wanted to see you. He knew I’d be headed to Omaha, or thereabouts, and he knew I’d see plenty of the line.”

  “So you dressed like a man and came snooping?” Rich said.

  She was relieved at the hint of teasing in his tone. “Yes, so to speak. I would never have given Charlie information that would have allowed for him or anyone else to cause harm to the Union Pacific Railroad, however. I just want you to understand that. In fact, I had a great deal of information in my journal that I would never have shared with either side.”

  “Where is that journal now?”

  “The Indians took it from me when they took all my other clothes. I don’t have any idea what they did with it. It shouldn’t have been of value to them. It was just a small brown leather journal with my initials on it. But that brings me to something else. While I was with the Indians I managed to overhear a conversation between some of the chiefs and a white man.”

  “A white man?”

  “Yes. I saw him, but then again I didn’t. I had hit my head when the Indians first attacked us. They took me to their village, and when I woke up, I was alone. I heard voices and crawled to the opening of the tepee and saw a white man, but only for a split second. The pain blinded me and I had to lie back down. But when the man laughed at something, I knew it was a voice I recognized. I just couldn’t place it, however.”

  “What does that have to do with spying for Charlie?”

  “Little, but it has to do with spying for you,” she said, smiling, “if you want to look at it that way. Apparently, this white man was involved in causing trouble all along the Union Pacific Railroad. He’d been hiring Indians from this particular tribe—maybe others too—and enticing them with the promise of food and blankets and other supplies they needed. I heard him offer more work to this man, and I also heard him acknowledge that he’d paid the Indians to kidnap me.”

  “What!” Rich pulled back the reins, but his tone of voice had startled the gelding. The horse snorted and did another dance of protest before Rich could bring him under control. “Are you saying that whoever is causing the UP trouble had you taken deliberately?”

  “Yes. Not me, of course, but Joe Baldwin. As Joe I must have presented some sort of threat, but I can’t see how. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that man doesn’t have my journal, and if he does, Rich, he has information on both sides of the railroad that could cause all manner of trouble.”

  “Great,” Rich said, shaking his head. “Does it also reveal that you aren’t Joe, but Jordana?”

  “I did make
mention of that, but I am certain that when he was in camp, the Indians hadn’t yet found out that I was a woman.”

  She saw Rich pale and look away. He seemed particularly upset over this statement, and she could only wonder at his reaction. Then it dawned on her that he must have feared for her, wondering how the Indians treated her, realizing that they knew she was a female.

  “They didn’t hurt me, Rich. Not in the way you’re thinking about,” Jordana said quickly without waiting for him to question her on the matter. “No one touched me except an old Indian woman. She was some sort of seeker—a prophetess, or so she was considered by her people. She told them she’d had a vision of a young white woman who would bring destruction and harm to the tribe if anyone touched her, and she said I was that woman. After that, they set me to living in a small tepee by myself, and while they forced me to work like a mule, no one hurt me or came anywhere near. They wouldn’t even talk to me.”

  Rich’s expression betrayed his relief. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”

  They rode in silence for several minutes, and then Rich surprised her completely by making his own confession.

  “I’m not just a courier for the Union Pacific. I was hired by Dodge to ferret out the saboteurs who were wreaking havoc with the line. I was to move along the line on the pretense of delivering messages, and in fact, I did take letters and papers with me to prove my position. However, I have been just as guilty as you of snooping around for ulterior motives.”

  “So Charlie was right?”

  “Not in the sense that he thought I had broken into the sheds. That wasn’t me. I, just like you, would not have done anything to see people hurt or the line jeopardized.”

  “I know that, and I don’t think I ever really thought otherwise. So now what do we do?” Jordana asked. “Is there a way to work with what we know and catch whoever is at the center of this espionage? The person or persons obviously have no concern about what damage they do to either side.”

  “And that’s what’s truly strange about the entire matter.” Rich looked for all the world as though a great puzzle had just been laid before him. “I can understand a person finding a reason to cause grief to one side or the other. The government is paying out money on completion of track, and the more track laid, the more notice Congress takes of the company. Perhaps to the benefit of future railroads and additional lines. But to purposefully sabotage both lines—well, that leaves me a bit in the dark.”

  Jordana nodded with a grin. “Perhaps together we can come at it from both sides and shed some light on the matter.”

  Rich nodded. “I much prefer working with you than working against you.”

  Sobering, Jordana said, “I don’t like being at odds with you, Rich. I enjoy your company too much.” She paused to consider what else she might say but decided against saying anything more, when Rich interrupted her thoughts.

  “Thanks for what you did for me back there with Worth. Standing up for me like you did. I know Worth is hurting, but maybe now he can work things out.”

  “Maybe you can, too,” Jordana replied.

  Rich seemed to consider her words for several minutes. He rode beside her, staring straight ahead, and when he spoke Jordana knew beyond a doubt that now was not the moment to speak of her heart. “I was pigheaded, just as you’ve stated on many an occasion. I sent Peggy to her death, and that’s something I shall always live with. She was my entire world, and with one act, one very foolish act, I forever destroyed all that mattered.”

  Jordana knew there were no words to say. Nothing she could tell him would alter the way he felt. For him, at this moment in time, the words he spoke were the truth that troubled his soul. Her silly adoration for him or suggestion that he had been more than admirable in the way he’d handled himself and his wife would never see him changing the way he perceived himself. There was nothing at all to be done.

  Well, maybe pray. She smiled. Her mother had always said that prayer was the last resort to which Christians came and the first place they should have checked into. Prayer would make a difference, she had no doubt. She hadn’t known how to pray for Rich before, but now she did.

  ——

  Laramie in all its corruption had changed very little since the last time Jordana had passed through. The biggest exception this time was that her brother Brenton awaited them at a nearby hotel.

  “I thought I’d lost you forever,” he said, helping her down from the pony.

  “I thought so too,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

  “The Indians?” Brenton questioned. “No, they seemed not in the leastwise interested in me or Caitlan.”

  “Speaking of my expectant sister-in-law, where is she?”

  “I sent her on to Sacramento. I figured this part of the world was just too wild. There have been hangings going on left and right and vigilante groups deciding who’s to get what kind of justice and when. It’s already caused a lot of trouble. Albany County has just been founded and Laramie is assigned as county seat, but it seems more like the center of chaos than of anything productive.”

  Jordana nodded. “I suppose folks like the Montegos and other upstanding citizens don’t stand a chance.”

  “Probably not.” Brenton released Jordana and turned to Rich. “I can’t thank you enough for finding her. I want to give you a reward, and please don’t be insulted by that. My father and mother would no doubt insist.”

  “They don’t know about this, do they?” Jordana’s brow creased. She worried about the effect it might have had on her family.

  “No, I didn’t tell them. I figured if this crossed over into the new year, then I might have to, but as it is you’ll be able to be home for Christmas.”

  “Home?” Jordana repeated as if speaking a foreign word. “I’m not exactly sure where I’d stake that claim.”

  Brenton’s expression changed to reveal his sadness. “I wish you’d think of it as where those folks who love you reside. I was hoping you’d come back to Sacramento with me. Victoria’s baby will be due in February, and then Caitlan will be having a baby next spring. You’ll be needed.”

  Jordana smiled. “I’ll think about it.” She looked at Rich. “Are you going to telegraph Dodge?”

  Rich nodded. “I need to find out where he is. For all I know he may well be right here in Laramie. If I don’t see you right away, please don’t worry. Leave word where you’ll be. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Rich said, taking up Troublesome’s reins.

  “Are you sure you don’t want my pony?” Jordana teased. “He’s very calm and even tempered, and his gait is quite smooth.”

  “And for a young woman who weighs all of one hundred pounds dripping wet, I’m sure he rides quite nicely.” Rich hoisted himself into the saddle. “But I think two hundred pounds would be too much to ask of that little guy.”

  Jordana laughed. “Have it your way. But if I hear about you shooting him—”

  “You’ll know it was just cause,” Rich interjected and nudged Troublesome in the direction of the telegraph station. “I’ll send you word.”

  Brenton put an arm around Jordana, hugging her close, and watched as O’Brian disappeared down the street. “I didn’t even have to ask him twice. I wired him about what had happened, and within no time at all he was standing before me asking for the details. I think he cares a great deal for you, sister of mine.”

  Jordana turned to her brother. “That may well be, but his broken heart needs some healing first.”

  “Broken heart?” Brenton said. “How in the world did Rich O’Brian get a broken heart?”

  “It was a stage accident,” Jordana replied thoughtfully. “The stage overturned and Rich’s heart was inside. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but first I want to get out of these horrible clothes and bathe.”

  ——

  “I can’t believe how pretty you look in that gown,” Brenton declared. “I even like your hair, and how it curls when it
’s short.”

  Jordana twirled around the room showing off the fit of the watered silk dress. “I don’t know how you always manage to find such wonderful things, but for this I will kiss you and call you the best brother in the world.”

  She placed a kiss on his cheek and stepped away to admire herself in the mirror. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself the privilege of dressing as a woman, and now she would have her moment.

  “That color does seem to suit you,” Brenton said, watching her all the while, “but I would have liked to have found something brighter.”

  “Why, this is perfect. I love mauve,” Jordana replied. She turned to see the back of the gown. “And this lace is exquisite.” Gently she fingered the delicate weblike trimming.

  “Well, I thought you might enjoy having a nice dinner after your ordeal.”

  “Too bad Rich can’t join us,” Jordana said. “It is he whom we should really be celebrating.”

  Rich had sent word that he was bound for Ogden to meet with Dodge. There was a train departing within the hour and thus he had to leave immediately without seeing them first.

  Brenton gazed at his sister. “Yes, I owe Rich more than I can ever express. Ah, Jordana, I’m so glad you weren’t hurt any worse than you were. I don’t know how I could have lived with myself. I feel so guilty for what happened.”

  “Why must you men always think that way? Why do you take what happened so personally? You neither caused nor could predict the attack. Why does that make it your responsibility?”

  “Because I should have been more astute. I should have been more cautious and alert. I became too casual in regard to our environment. And because I was in charge of our little party, I felt responsible for your safety.”

  Jordana shook her head. “Things happen without bothering to ask permission. People die, they are born, and as far as I know God never bothers to check it out with anyone before allowing His plan to move forward. You take too much upon yourself.” She smiled and her tone softened. “But why should you be any different from the others of your gender? Now, don’t get cross with me. I’m starved and ready to go show off this new outfit. Where’s that sweet little bonnet you bought me?”