The Union Belle

by Gilbert, Morris

  Mark got up once and went to the barrel for water, bringing back two glasses for the women. When they had finished their drinks, he stood there, swaying with the movement of the train, his interest caught by Lola’s expression. As Ray was explaining the difficulties that lay ahead, Mark noted the way her mouth stirred. She had a womanly fullness behind a smiling reserve, a richness that he had always admired. She looked up, caught his gaze, but said nothing. As he turned and went back to replace the glasses, he was aware that the wall he had unintentionally created between the two of them was still in place.

  Moira had not missed the look that had passed between the two, and she studied the pair as Mark came back and sat down. She had long ago decided that Mark Winslow was one of the most interesting men she had ever known, and his refusal to pursue her—especially after the kiss at the church—piqued her. She had grown tired of men who fawned over her, and she was determined to elicit some sort of response from Winslow.

  She began to pay more attention to him, and when the train stopped, it happened that Mark handed her down from the high step, and she took his arm quite naturally as they made their way to the construction area.

  “I guess you’re stuck with me, Lola,” Ray said evenly. There was a sour note in his voice, and his eyes followed the pair as they walked in front. “I can’t decide if my best friend is trying to steal my woman—or if my woman is trying to steal my best friend,” he commented, seeing that Lola was watching him closely.

  “I think it’s neither, Ray.”

  “You’re sure of that? I’m not.” Ray’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “You think that Mark decided to walk with Moira? Not likely. She’s handled men so long that it’s automatic, Lola. She’s a romantic—no matter how much she denies it.”

  “Some women have to flirt a little, Ray. Especially women like Moira.” That sounded critical to her own ears, so she added quickly, “She’s accustomed to having men drawn to her. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You’re half right, Lola. Moira is used to manipulating men. But like I said, she’s a romantic at heart. She’s seen all types of Eastern men, conquered them all. But Mark is a pretty romantic figure. The man who tamed Julesburg and all that. The strong heroic type—just the kind to offer a new challenge to a girl like Moira.”

  Lola shook her head. Mark and Moira had stopped to wait for them, so she admonished softly, “Don’t let that kind of thinking control you, Ray. Mark’s not a man to steal his friend’s woman.”

  He gave her a swift look, but said, “Ah, but you’re taken with him, too, Lola. You’re no judge of what he’ll do.”

  She couldn’t respond, for they came to stand beside the others, getting a full view of the work. This was Casement’s capital city—a formless, dusty, confused affair lying across the sun-blasted Wyoming plain. The long boarding train stood on a siding; the shacks and warehouses and corrals and shops that fed materials to ten thousand men stood in formless rows under a pall of alkali whipped forty feet into the sky. Great dumps of steel and ties lined the right of way, and wagons and men crossed and recrossed the powder-churned earth. A material train slowly backed along the rails, stopping at the very end of steel. Half a dozen soldiers squatted under the false protection of a tin-roofed lean-to, their faces broiled black.

  “Come along,” Mark said. “We’ll see better over there.” He led them to a small hillock ten feet high where they could see the activities of the track gang directly under their eyes. The rush of the steel truck and its galloping bay horse; the runout of the rails; the bronze voice of the steel foreman yelling “Down!”; the clanging fall of the rails and the swift attack of the sledges beating the spikes home all fascinated Lola. Her eyes were filled with the scene, and she moved closer to Mark as a material train heaved forward another length of track, funneling black smoke into the sky.

  “They work so hard!” she exclaimed.

  “They work hard and they play hard,” Mark nodded. “That’s why they get out of hand when they hit town. But they’re the only kind of men who could swing a sledge or hoist forty pounds of steel in this heat.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Her statement was not finished, for a gunshot laid its flat sound across the hot windless air, followed by a closely grouped series of explosions.

  From a small coulee a column of Indians burst forth, almost hidden by the cloud of dust stirred up by their angular, long-maned ponies. They raced down on the steel gang as the construction engine’s whistle set up an intermittent hooting. The crews dashed across the grade to where their rifles were stacked. The soldiers rushed out of the lean-to, knelt and began firing. The Indians, holding to a single wedge-like column, bore straight down upon the camp.

  “Get Moira under cover!” Mark yelled at Ray, then grabbed Lola in his arms and jumped from the small hillock. He went down on his knees and rolled awkwardly to cushion her fall. He saw her face grow pale, but she let go of him at once. He pulled her up and pushed her against a pile of ties.

  He drew his gun and waited, and a few seconds later a bullet struck the tie above Lola’s head with a solid thunk. The Indian column rushed through the camp, shooting at random. The fire quickened as the Irishmen got their rifles unlimbered, and Mark said to Lola, “Those Indians can’t stand up to that kind of fire.”

  He was right, but as the line wheeled, the column passed by the section of ties where they hid, and a lone Indian spotted the pair. He wheeled and aimed his rifle at Winslow, who raised his pistol and got off a single shot. The Indian pulled the trigger, but Mark’s slug had taken him in the chest, driving him back and spoiling his aim. He fell to the ground in a heap of blood, and the rest of the column drove by, leaving the camp, followed by heavy fire from the workers and the soldiers.

  Mark turned to tell Lola that it was over, and shock ran through him as he saw her lying on the ground. “Lola!” he cried out, and fell to his knees beside her. She was on her side, and as he pulled her over, he saw that the bodice of her dress was already soaked with bright crimson blood. A bullet had taken her high to the left, and he ripped the dress from her shoulder, whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket, and placed it over the hole, shouting for help.

  When Ray ran around the corner, his face scared, Mark said, “Tell that engineer to get us back to Cheyenne quick as he can.”

  “Is she—”

  “She’s hit hard—now get going, blast you!”

  Mark picked up Lola’s limp form and made his way to the train. Men crowded around, but he yelled, “Get out of the way!” He climbed aboard the train, followed by Moira, who was white as flour. Ray came in saying, “I told him to tear the tracks up.” He looked down into Lola’s face. “How is she, Mark?”

  Winslow gazed down at Lola. He continued to hold the compress in place, although she had not opened her eyes. “I don’t know,” he said tightly. His dark face was set in a rigid cast, and all the way back to Cheyenne, he silently held Lola in his arms.

  The whistle signalled their arrival, and Mark commanded, “Ray, go to Doctor Innes’s office. If he’s not there, find him. Have him waiting when I get to his office with Lola.”

  “Right!” Ray ran to the door, dropped out as the train slowed, grabbed a horse tied to a post and drove him at a dead run out of the yard.

  “Can I do anything, Mark?” Moira asked tremulously.

  He gave her a strange look as he came to his feet. “I guess not, Moira. It’s up to the doctor now. And God,” he added in afterthought. He moved down the aisle carrying his burden carefully, and out toward a wagon. “Get in and help me hold her,” he said, and Moira climbed up obediently. He lifted Lola up, and the blood from her wound stained the front of Moira’s dress. “Hold that compress in place, Moira,” he said, then took up the lines and drove the wagon slowly into town.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Lost Sheep Is Found

  Doctor Innes came out of a doze with a snap of his wiry neck. He had been leaning back in his chair, his
graying head against the wall, when the sound of boots coming up the steps to his office jerked him from a fitful nap. As the door opened, he lowered his chair, got to his feet and asked crankily, “When did you two get back?”

  Mark came into the room, his face filled with fatigue, and Driver looked even worse. They had just come in from the desert, as the fine dust on their clothes testified. Mark ignored Innes’s question, demanding, “How is she, Doc?”

  The dowdy physician stared at him without answering, then pulled a bottle out of the drawer of his desk. He turned it up, let the liquor go down his throat, then shut his black eyes as it hit his empty stomach. He corked the bottle and returned it to the drawer before he answered.

  “No good, Mark.”

  Innes rubbed his eyes, then added, “If we could just get the fever down, she’d have a chance. But she’s got pneumonia now—or almost.”

  “It’s been three days, Doc,” Driver said almost angrily. “You said then it wasn’t so bad.”

  Innes glared at him, his fiery Scots temper flaring. “I’m not God, man! I said it wouldn’t be hard to get the bullet out—and it wasn’t. But the slug was in a bad place, and it carried some fragments of her clothing when it went in. That brought on an infection that caused a fever, and now it’s going into pneumonia.” He glared at the two men, yanked the drawer open and took another drink from the bottle.

  “Be quiet, Jeff,” Mark said. “Doc’s done all he can.”

  His manner pacified Innes, who threw his hands up in a gesture of desperation. “There’s not much we doctors can do. Set a bone, take a bullet out, help a baby into the world. But you two were in the war. You know how often a man would get hit—maybe just a minor wound. But something would go wrong and he’d die.”

  Both men had their memories of such things, and Jeff asked heavily, “Do you reckon she’s going to die, Doc?”

  Innes bit his lip, trying to find some nice way to say what he felt. But he was a blunt man, feeling that honesty was the best way. He nodded and admitted quietly, “Aye, lad. It breaks my heart to say it—but she’s headed that way.”

  Silence fell on the room for a minute, then Mark asked, “Do you need anything? Medicine—more nursing help?”

  “That girl Maureen, she’s a natural-born nurse,” Innes said, stroking his chin. “And I’ve been a mite surprised at the Ames woman. It was my thought that she was no more than a spoiled brat—but she’s been a help. No, Mark, it’s out of my hands. Out of anybody’s hands—except God’s.”

  Winslow’s face was thoughtful. He finally said, “You know, she saved my life once. I was a gone coon, and she nursed me through it.” He bit his lip, and the sadness in his eyes flared into anger. “And here I am, can’t do a thing for her.”

  Innes’s eyes were on Mark as he pulled on his coat. He had wondered about the man’s concern, and the remark he’d just made cleared some of it up for him. Driver, he had readily discerned, was in love with Lola, but there was something in Winslow’s face that made him wonder about the man’s feelings. “Come along,” he said, picking up his black bag. “I’m going to check on her now. Maybe the fever’s broken.”

  The three men walked out of the office and down the steps, turning toward the hotel where Lola had been installed. They entered and Ernie greeted them, “Hello, men.” He hesitated, then added, “Been hoping Lola would be better this morning.”

  Mark nodded, but said nothing. They climbed the stairs to the second floor, and Innes went into a door, followed by the other two. Maureen was sitting in a rocker staring out at the street. Her face was drawn, and she shook her head saying, “She’s no better, Doctor Innes. Fever is very high.”

  Innes said briefly, “Let me have a minute with her,” and crossed to an adjoining door. Innes had commandeered two rooms, one for Lola and another for those who cared for her. Maureen tucked her hair in place, then said, “She woke up just before dawn. I think she had some kind of a nightmare.”

  “She say anything?” Mark asked.

  “No—not really.” Maureen thought, then added, “She was out of her head, but I thought once she was asking for her father.”

  “Has he been here much?” Driver asked.

  “Oh, all the time,” Maureen said quickly. She bit her lip, then added, “I don’t think too much of men—but that man’s been hurting for Lola. He’s here most of the time, in this rocker. I ran him out last night. He nearly collapsed, he was so exhausted, so I made him promise to get some sleep.”

  Innes came back into the room, his features grave. “You can come in—but she won’t know you,” he warned briefly.

  Mark and Jeff stepped inside, followed by the doctor and Maureen. Mark had not seen Lola for two days, and shock ran along his nerves as he leaned forward to see her face. The fever had eaten away her flesh, it seemed, making her face skull-like. Her eyes were sunken and her lips almost white and very thin. He stood there looking down at her silently, struggling against the blind futility that gripped him. He was a man of action, ready to match his muscles and his skills against anything. He had lost many times in various struggles, and bore the scars, both inside and out, but he had always been able to fight. Now no amount of fighting could help the wasted form that lay before him. He thought back to the time when he had been the sick one, of how she had cared for him, and his eyes began to smart. He shook his head, turned away and left the room.

  Driver followed him, stopping long enough to ask, “Doc, when will you . . . know something?”

  Innes knew that was not the question Driver had intended to ask, but he made no attempt to hide the facts. “The fever had better break in twenty-four hours. If it doesn’t she could go into convulsions, and weak as she is . . .” He broke off and went back into the sick room.

  “I’m going to get drunk,” Driver announced suddenly. He glared at Mark and added, “Fire me if you don’t like it.”

  “He’s in love with her, isn’t he?” Maureen said after he had gone.

  “I guess he is, Maureen.” Mark pulled his shoulders straight, drew his mouth into a thin line and left the room without saying another word.

  Maureen went in to stand beside Doctor Innes. The struggle that was going on in the slight form beneath the covers had made them close. “I’m sorry for Jeff,” she whispered. “He’s going to go crazy when she goes.”

  Innes nodded, then added, “Lola’s made some good friends. I reckon Winslow’s hurting about as bad as Jeff. He just won’t let it crack that surface of his.” He moved away from the bed. “Where’s Moran?” he asked as Maureen followed him out into the other room. “First time I’ve been here that he wasn’t underfoot.”

  “I made him go get some sleep.”

  Innes started for the door, then turned to say, “I never knew a human could pray so long. That man never stops.”

  Maureen agreed, and he asked, “You don’t believe all that does any good, do you, lass?”

  Maureen hesitated, then shook her head. “No—but I wish I did.”

  “Now that’s a strange thing to say—but I know what you mean.”

  Doctor Innes left, and Maureen sat down in the chair. She thought about Jude Moran and his prayers, and wondered, as she had often done of late, how her life could have been different if her own father had been his sort.

  ****

  “I hear the Union Belle’s not going to make it, Ray.” Cherry Valance was standing at the bar drinking with Hayden. He shook his head, adding, “I admire Lola. She’s a straight one. Too bad.”

  “She’s not dead yet,” Ray said quickly.

  Cherry observed him closely, then commented casually, “Miss Ames has been sticking pretty close to her. That surprises me a little.”

  It had surprised Hayden as well, but he merely said, “I didn’t think she had it in her.”

  Cherry surveyed the crowd. “We’re moving to Benton next week. It ought to be the biggest town yet. What will Winslow do?”

  “Dodge told him to clamp the lid down.”


  “You heard him say that?”

  “Sure I did.”

  Cherry frowned, his lean face intent. “I think he’ll try to shut us down right off. Find out if that’s what he’s got on his mind.”

  Ray stared hard at the saloon owner. “That I can’t do, Cherry. Mark and I are pretty close.”

  “How do you plan to work that? You’ve been taking plenty of money, Ray, but now that the chips are down, you’re starting to fold. I don’t think Wallford will like it.”

  “He can like it or not. I won’t have Winslow killed.” Hayden downed his drink, turned and left without a word. He’d had too much to drink, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to help it. The money he’d gotten from Wallford had gone to the gambling tables, and he cursed himself for a fool as he went toward the hotel. How did I ever get into this thing? he wondered, as he had many times. When he was drunk, he hated himself, but as soon as he was sober he half believed that he had had to join up with the Central. He thought of that now as he entered the hotel, nodding at Ernie. The Union’s going down the drain. It wouldn’t make any difference if I stayed loyal or not. A man’s got to look out for himself.

  He knocked on the door and Moira answered it. “How is she?” he asked as he entered, the stale smell of whiskey accompanying him into the room.

  “No change.” Moira moved away to stand by the window. “What have you been doing, Ray?”