Their new furniture was ruined, its upholstery slashed, the fine black walnut scored and splintered. The glass-front bookcase lay on its side surrounded by the remains of its contents. His engineering texts, her collections of magazines and pamphlets were reduced to scraps and smeared with coal oil and molasses. "Careful with that candle," he warned when he caught a whiff of the lamp fuel.
"Oh, Tony," she said, sounding as if she was on the edge of tears, "all our books." She bent and picked up a red leather cover from which all pages had been ripped and clutched it to her breast.
How typically Lulu, to worry about books and papers, when her brand new furniture had been destroyed.
Further searching revealed that the vandals had left virtually nothing in the house undamaged. The ebony screen with its embroidered silk panels was gone. "At least they recognized it was worth something," Tony muttered, when he realized it wasn't in splinters among the destruction. He kicked his slashed boots aside, wondering where he would find another pair so comfortable. That was when he saw the writing on the wall above the bed. Thou art a curse among the heathen! written in foot-high letters with what looked like molasses.
He stifled a curse. So this was because Lulu had hired the Lees. He'd been afraid of something like this. Just not as immediate and not as serious.
He heard her come through the door behind him, and wished he'd been able to wipe away the words. Her gasp told him she'd seen them.
"Oh, Tony, you were right. This is all my fault."
He turned and took her into his arms. Holding her tightly, he buried his face in her curls. "No, it's not. I backed you, so I'm equally to blame." The anger he'd kept in control since he'd realized what had happened burst free. "God damn it! This goes beyond a boycott. I'd like to--"
She silenced him with a hand over his mouth. "I hear a buggy. Take this, in case it's not the Lees." She handed him the pistol that had been under the buggy seat. Trust Lulu to think ahead.
It was the Lees and Xi Xin. The girl's few possessions had suffered the same fate as everything else in the house, but apparently the vandals hadn't been aware of the small apartment in the barn. "We can't all stay here," Tony said as they stood at its entrance. "Lu...Mrs. Dewitt and I will go to town. We'll get a room at the Nevada Hotel."
All three of the Celestials shook their heads. "You go to Mr. Yu," Ru Nan said. "Be safe there. One who did this could find you in hotel."
"I don't think there's much danger of him harming us," Lulu said. "This is the work of a coward, someone who would fear a face-to-face confrontation. Better that you three go to Mr. Yu and we'll stay in the hotel."
"My son and I will stay here, get early start on cleaning your house," Mr. Lee said to Tony in Chinese. "If you will take Xi Xin to her honorable uncle?"
"No, don't do anything until the sheriff has a chance to see it. I don't want it said that we made this up."
"We will watch then, until he arrives. Your house will be safe. You are armed?"
Tony showed him the pistol "I've a shotgun at the office."
"And I have this," Mr. Lee said, showing Tony a broad cleaver. "It will cut more than vegetables."
Tony didn't like the idea of leaving the man and the boy alone, but getting Lulu to a place of safety was of paramount importance. What if the vandals decided to return, perhaps to burn the house and barn? "The house isn't important. You come to town with us."
But Mr. Lee and his son proved even more stubborn than he was. At last, tired and dirty, with no clean clothing to put on and not even a toothbrush to their names, Tony, Lulu and Xi Xin headed toward town.
"When I find the men who did this..."
She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and snuggled close. "You won't be alone. I've never felt as angry with anyone as I do now. I would like to...well, I'm not sure what I would do, but it would not be gentle or ladylike."
He looked down at her, once more appreciating the worth of the woman he loved. No shrinking violet she, to hide behind a man. "I'll be sure and leave some for you," he said, hoping they would get the opportunity to wreak revenge upon those who had destroyed the home he and Lulu had scarcely begun to make.
Chapter Twenty-seven
NEVADA HOTEL
Corner Main and Carbonate Sts.,
HAILEY, IDAHO.
S.G. Humphrey, Proprietor.
______________
In connection with the Hotel is
THE NEVADA CHOP HOUSE,
RUN ON THE EUROPEAN PLAN, with an established reputation as the best eating house on Wood River.
Wood River Times - Regular Advertisement
~~~
"I'll see to it at first light," the sheriff said, "but I don't reckon we'll find anything much. Not with this new snow."
"No, neither do I," Tony agreed, "but I'd like you to see what all they did, before I have it cleaned up."
"You know, don't you, that this might have something to do with you hiring the Chinamen?"
Shrugging, Tony said, "Not much doubt of that. I've been giving some thought to the vandalism at the telephone company, and I think there's more than coincidence at work here."
The sheriff was clearly skeptical, but didn't argue. "I'll come by your hotel in the morning, about six-thirty."
"I'll be ready." Tony wondered if Lulu would mind the office for him tomorrow. Not that he expected any business with Eagleton out of town, but in case there was a problem at the telephone exchange.
He narrowly escaped bumping into Frank Correy as he came out of the sheriff's office.
"Looking for protection against your enemies, Dewitt?" Correy's companion said, his words a mocking drawl.
Newell again? It seemed like every time he turned around, the man was underfoot. "Not at all. Just discussing business with the sheriff." Tony went to step around them, but Newell blocked his way.
"Chinese business? Maybe how to protect those heathens your wife hired? Your wife who appears to be putting on weight...?"
"Why you--"
Newell dodged back. "You should have joined the League, Dewitt. We protect our own. And we see that those who oppose us pay for their folly. Let's go, Frank." He turned and walked rapidly down the street.
Frank Correy hesitated, looking from Tony to Newell and back again. He seemed about to say something, when Newell called his name and he went scuttling away.
Tony stared after them, wondering if Newell was drunk. There had been no smell of spirits about him, but still... "I don't know what I did to make him dislike me," he muttered, "but he's not one I'd care to call friend, either." He never had been able to see why Frank Correy had become friends with Newell.
When he got to the hotel, Lulu was in bed, but not asleep. Propped against pillows, she was writing on a pad of paper held against her knees. "I was beginning to wonder if you planned on coming back tonight. What did the sheriff say?"
"He agrees it's more than a childish prank," he told her, as he removed his overcoat, "but he doesn't believe it's connected to the vandalism at the telephone company." Once again the sense of outrage threatened to overpower him. He pushed it aside. Time enough for anger and thoughts of revenge when they discovered who had destroyed his home. Their home.
"You mean like last week at the switchboard?" She scooted upright and laid her pencil aside.
Sitting on the side of the bed to remove his shoes, he said, "I think so. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's all of a piece. The cut wires, the downed poles, the missing equipment and supplies." Rising, he paced the floor on bare feet. "I thought they were isolated incidents at first, but there were too many of them. Last week, when the sheriff was looking for clues to whoever tried to destroy the switchboard, I mentioned that there had been too much happening to be entirely coincidental."
"Did you give him a list?"
"No, but I mentioned some of them. He said it sounded like kids' pranks."
"Isn't that what you thought at first?" She picked up her pencil, turned to
a fresh sheet in the pad. "When did it start?"
Thinking back, he said, "I'm not sure. There were a couple of shipments that were damaged. The freight company swore they'd left Salt Lake City in good shape. But when I got them, the crates were broken open and some of the contents missing or damaged. Eagleton said it was to be expected, but I thought one of the crates--it held the porcelain cups for the batteries--looked as if somebody had taken a crowbar to it." He sat again, scratched his head. "Now that I think about it, we didn't find any fragments of the missing cups, and we should have."
"So someone broke into the crate and stole them?" She wrote a moment, then said, "What else?"
For an hour they discussed the setbacks and accidents that had plagued the installation and operation of the telephone exchange. Lulu listed every one, marking each item according to whether he thought they might have been real accidents. She added her own opinion, and often he noticed she thought something suspicious that seemed perfectly normal to him. When they were finished, the list covered three pages. It included apparently innocuous events as a cow's using a telephone pole as a scratching post to the destruction of their house. All but about a dozen were marked with either Lulu's stars or his plus-or-minus.
"I forgot to ask if you'd sit in the office and answer the telephone tomorrow, while I go out to the house with the sheriff," he said, when several minutes had elapsed without anything new being added to the list.
"But I--"
"Lulu, I know you could deal with the house every bit as well as I could. But the sheriff doesn't. He's a decent enough fellow, but do you think he'd take you as seriously as he will me?" He braced himself for her reaction.
And was surprised when she only sighed. "No, I'm sure he wouldn't." She laid the pencil and pad on the stand beside the bed. "All right, I'll mind the store while you slay the dragons. But someday..."
"Someday women will be given credit for having minds as good as men's," he said, and had to chuckle at her expression. He'd probably taken the words right out of her mouth. "Let's get some rest. I have a hunch tomorrow's going to be a long one."
When he climbed between the sheets, she blew out the lamp and snuggled close. "I'm trying very hard not to be angry with whoever destroyed our home," she said, sounding as if she was losing the battle.
"Yeah, me too. If I think too much, I'll want to go out and get even."
"Even if the sheriff discovers who did it, there's nothing we can do, except be angry."
"That's the trouble with living in enlightened times," he said, not entirely joking. "One has to act like a civilized person, not like a barbarian. Right now I'm feeling pretty damned barbaric."
"You aren't the only one," she agreed, "no matter how civilized I try to be, I would like to-- Never mind." She snuggled against him. "Tony," she said, as he wrapped his arm around her, "do you realize we've gone an entire day without arguing?"
"Hmmm," he murmured, as he found the sweet curve of her bottom, covered only by the soft linen of her shift. Neither of them had proper night dress, but that had been the least of their worries. She was warm, sweet-smelling, and supple as she arched against him. "That's good," he said, wishing it was two hours earlier.
"I think it's remarkable. No, don't do that. It's late, and you have to be up early." She pushed his hand away from her breast, but made no protest when he put it back. A sudden inhalation told him she was willing.
Unlike the other times they'd made love, they moved together without hesitation, with confidence and knowledge of what would please, would excite. Her fingers were sure when they clasped him. His hand went unerringly to her delicate folds, parting, finding the small seat of her passion without hesitation. Tony lost all sense of time and place as he explored the textures and curves of her body, riper and more lush than ever before, but still unmistakably his Lulu.
His love.
He told her in sweet words and in explicit ones what he wanted to do to her. She begged him to, and when he did, she went wild. When he entered her at long last, she arched against him and, with a cry, came unraveled in his arms.
Her inner spasms brought him to his own completion, hard and fast, and he collapsed on her, panting.
When breath came easier, he rolled away and pulled her close against him. "I think we're getting the gist of it," he said, still slightly breathless.
"Are you sure we don't need more practice?" Her voice was soft, and blurred with incipient sleep.
"Only forty or fifty years' worth," he told her with one last kiss.
* * * *
The desk clerk tapped on their door at six the next morning. "Oh, no," Lulu said, her words distorted by an enormous yawn. "I feel as if I just got to sleep."
"You don't need to get up now. I've got to meet the sheriff, but you don't have to open the office until nine." Tony was rubbing his hands over his face. He sounded still half-asleep. She had to laugh at the way his hair stood on end..
Lulu stayed in bed while he washed and dressed. The hotel room, the only one available, was far too small for two people. One more item for my list of what to do. Find better lodgings. "Mr. Teller said he wouldn't try to rent the apartment until the fifteenth, so it's still available. Would you object to living there?"
"It might be a good idea. Mrs. Graham seems one to keep her eye on the whole neighborhood."
"Thank heaven for nosy neighbors," Lulu agreed. "I'll speak to her this morning." She hesitated. "What about furniture? What's there was adequate for one person, particularly since I was rarely at home. The two of us will need more, if we're to be at all comfortable."
"Hold off for a day or two," he said, after a moment's thought. "I'd like to keep some funds in reserve." He pulled up his suspenders and reached for his waistcoat. "We'll both need clothes, and...damn!"
"What?"
"My bankbook. I can't remember whether it was at the office, or--"
"I'll look for it. Is there anything else I should do?" She reached for her notepad, waited for him to answer. So many small details to remember. A good thing, she decided. The less she thought about what they had lost, the better. Look ahead, not behind, her mamma had always told her. You can change what's coming, but not what's gone.
* * * *
The sheriff tutted and hemmed, poked a finger into messes and pushed piles of debris around with his foot. By the time he signified he was done looking around, Tony was ready to demand some action. "Well? Any ideas," he demanded.
"A couple." At the door the older man stopped and looked back into the kitchen. "Looks to me like he--or they, but I'd bet on one person doin' all of this-- knew he'd have all day. You said your Chinamen went to town before you did. So he knew they was gone too, and probably figured they had the day off. Did you tell anybody you were goin' out to Tellers' for dinner?"
"Not a soul. My wife might have, but I don't know who. She's not too well acquainted around town."
"Hmmm." The sheriff scratched his chin. "I'll have words with Jacob and Mrs. Graham. Not that I'd expect either one to be connected with this, but they might remember who they talked to about your plans." He kicked at the snow beside the walkway. "Something in here." After a few more kicks to break the frozen crust, he bent and scraped the snow aside. Holding up a ball-peen hammer, he said, "This yours?"
"No, I haven't any tools out here. They're all down at the exchange."
"And I don't reckon the Chinamen brought anything like this out." Turning it over in his hands, he examined the handle carefully. "Brand new, or close to it. Coffin's carries this brand, so I'll talk to the folks down there, too." He tucked it into his hip pocket. "I took a good look at the dents on your cupboards. Want to bet they'll match this?"
"No, I learned a long time ago not to bet on a sure thing. So he came prepared?"
"Oh, he had it all planned, I reckon. Knew where you was goin' and how long you was likely to be away. Just like he knew when was the best time to hit the exchange."
Tony had been looking around, trying to fig
ure where a watcher might have been, where he could see comings and goings in this yard. He jerked his head around to stare at the sheriff. "You've decided it could be the same person, then?"
"I have, now I've seen your list. I've been a lawman long enough to know there ain't a lot of coincidences. When a bunch of similar crimes come along, chances are they're all done by the same folks. Oh, sometimes somebody will try to get away with something by making it look like a known outlaw did it. Mostly they do such a poor job of it that nobody's fooled for long."
After a last quick look around the place, the sheriff headed back to town. Tony followed after one more walk through the ruin that had been his home.
His and Lulu's.
I hope the sheriff gets to whoever did this before I do. Because if I find him first, I may end up serving time for murder.
He prided himself on being a civilized gentleman. As a child he had seen far too much barbarism, too much violence, too much needless wasting of lives. He had vowed, when in his early teens, never to raise a hand in anger unless he had no alternative.
Nonetheless, he had learned to fight. Civilized or not, some things were worth fighting for.
* * * *
Alone in the office, Lulu looked first for Tony's bankbook. To her relief, she found it in the first place she looked, the upper left hand drawer of his desk. Relieved, she sat down and studied her list. Had the shipment of iron wire instead of copper been an attempt to delay the telephone installation? How about the rockslide up along Croy Creek, the one that uprooted three telephone poles and snapped the wires they carried? Tony seemed to believe that only a few of the incidents on her list had been deliberate attempts against the telephone company, but she wasn't convinced. Surely no well-engineered project should be so disaster-prone. And this one had been well-engineered. She knew Tony, knew his meticulous ways. He would have planned everything to a gnat's eyebrow.
Tossing her pencil down, she leaned back in the chair and looked out the window. Last night's snow was all but gone, melted by a soft south wind that had brought springlike temperatures to the Wood River. The streets were rapidly turning into gigantic mudholes. The last freight wagon she'd seen go past had been axle-deep and sinking fast. She went to the window and looked out, wishing she could be out in the sunshine instead of here, waiting for the phone to ring with news of another disaster.
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