by Linda Jacobs
“See here.” Hank rose. “That’s preposterous.”
Now, Forrest Fielding appeared dismayed.
Chandler and Norman exchanged a look that raised Cord’s spirits, even as he struggled to contain his confusion at Edgar’s change of story. He distinctly remembered Edgar saying the letter and the inspection report had come from the railroad … but how would that have worked? Had Edgar hired someone to steal from the files, thereby explaining why Chandler had not seen them?
Cord gathered his composure. “Mr. Chandler. It seems obvious from Mr. Falls’s consternation that something is amiss.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall we see the condition of the building?”
With a thoughtful look at Hank and an exchanged look with Norman, Chandler nodded.
Cord led the way out of the meeting room. When he shoved open the main door to the parking area, he noted from the corner of his eye that someone small and feminine fell into step behind the men.
He glanced over his shoulder; Laura shadowed them.
Outside the hotel, he stopped, facing the wall. “Watch this.” He kicked the mortared foundation with the tip of his brown leather boot.
Both Chandler and Norman looked amazed as a puff of dust appeared, and several small rocks rolled to the earth.
“Ten years later, we’re back to the same problems.” Cord spoke to Norman as though they were on the same side.
“How can I help it if the railroad refuses to fix this place up?” Hank shot a look at Hopkins Chandler and then subsided, as though he realized that alienating the Northern Pacific’s representative was a two-edged sword.
Forrest Fielding pulled out a pocketknife, knelt, and inserted it into the crumbling foundation. Frowning, he hoisted himself up.
As the group continued through the hotel, Cord showed rooms without enough steam pipe to make the radiator more than a prop. Next, he led the way to the top of the east gable on the hotel’s roof, where a widow’s walk looked out over the lake and the tops of the lodgepole forest. Noticing the way Laura’s skirt clung to her legs in the freshening breeze, Cord thought the roof could have been a pleasant place to while away an afternoon in view of the emerald Absarokas.
He forced himself back to business. “We saw below in the third-floor hall that the roof has been leaking for years.”
Hank’s narrow nose lifted, as if he smelled something rotten.
The roof had evidently been repaired a number of times, with multiple patches of coal tar and asphalt forming unsightly streaks on the shingles. “Up here, what you see is called V crimp roofing.” Cord pointed to the gap where the crown of the roof did not quite meet. “The vertical seams do not form a lock.”
“I didn’t design this place,” Hank said, “just built
it.”
“The whole building is rife with wiring hazards,” Cord went on, “and there aren’t enough of the glass globes of carbon tetrachloride to extinguish a blaze of any magnitude.”
He could see from the corner of his eye that Laura listened. What he could not decipher was whether she rooted for him or Hank.
Cord looked out over the lake and saw Hank’s steamboat. “I’m sure if we inspected your boat, Falls, we’d find it’s a firetrap, as well.”
Cord raised a pre-lunch toast to Edgar Young in the lobby bar. “Score one for us.”
The meeting had broken up when Hopkins Chandler indicated that he and Norman would take the afternoon and evening to consider the situation and reconvene the next morning.
Edgar smiled. “You certainly showed that Hank hasn’t been keeping the place up.”
Cord’s own grin faded, and the impulse that had sent him to the bar for a celebratory drink evaporated. “Of course, Hank was right when he explained why. The railroad hasn’t authorized the funds to keep it together. They’re selling to get out from under the upcoming maintenance.”
“We have not yet made a firm offer,” Edgar reminded.
“That’s true.”
If Hank did not also deduct the repairs from the price, if he planned to keep on running the place in disrepair, then perhaps the deal might still get away. On the other hand, today’s revelations about past inspections had gone a long way toward discrediting Hank.
Something nagged at Cord, though. Much as he had taken an instinctive dislike to the hotel manager, he did not enjoy the process of character assassination. Especially when he didn’t have the complete picture.
“Edgar.” He set down his glass. “We need to talk about where that letter and report came from.”
His banker shook his head. “The less you know about it, the better for you.”
Cord’s mouth almost dropped open. Edgar had seemed so cooperative. “I’m going to ask you again where you got the information.”
Edgar’s lips compressed into a line.
Cord slapped his palm on the bar. “See here …”
People were staring at them, including the members of the Fielding entourage, coming in to lunch. Laura wore a deep plum riding habit and the boots she had worn on the trail, polished to a high sheen. Even from a distance, he could make out her bruise, becoming a black eye.
Hank stayed close to Laura.
Constance wore the ecru lace concoction he had seen her in last night, the one that made a man look twice to make sure she wasn’t naked. Standing without an escort, she met Cord’s eyes as though she could will him to join her.
On no account would he walk across to where Hank stood glaring at him. After the argument on the pier last night, and the events of this morning, he had no idea what might erupt in front of Norman Hagen and Hopkins Chandler, who were entering the lobby together.
“Let’s get some lunch,” Cord told Edgar. Over the meal, he felt sure he could talk the younger man into sharing his source for the mystery documents.
While Cord and his banker took seats at a window table, Laura watched through lowered lashes. He didn’t look nearly as pleased as she thought he might after showing Hank up. In fact, he and Edgar seemed to be in disagreement.
Hank shook out his napkin.
Forrest glanced at Cord. “You know, Hank, what he’s got is pretty damning.”
“They could be forgeries,” Hank parried. “Are they?” Forrest came back. Hank colored.
Laura studied his discomfiture. “Are you accusing Mr. Sutton of presenting false information? When the things he said about hotel maintenance are true?”
She expected an explosion from Constance in Cord’s defense, but she was speaking to Aunt Fanny and not following the conversation at this end of the table. Instead, the rebuke came from her father.
“Daughter!” he snapped. “I do not know what can have gotten into you since we arrived here. I expect your support and loyalty to me in my business endeavors, as well as matters of the household.”
She refused to reply, holding his gaze with her own. Finally, he reached for a slice of bread and began to butter it. Hank studied the menu, though Laura suspected he knew the offerings by heart.
The approach of Sergeant Larry Nevers broke the tension. “Good afternoon, Miss Fielding. I see you have dressed for our outing.”
Aunt Fanny smiled. Upon hearing Laura’s wish for an equestrian outing, she had altered one of her own riding habits.
Larry bowed. “Shall I escort you to the stables around two o’clock?”
The tension was back as Hank and Cord both scowled from opposite sides of the room.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JUNE 26
Cord rode Dante along the lakeshore through a meadow of waving grass. He tried to focus on the beauty of the afternoon, but it was difficult.
Edgar Young had refused to reveal his sources, leaving a dilemma. If Cord could not communicate with Edgar and place his trust in him, should he go forward with him as his banker?
But what else could he do? If he placed his offer on the table in short order and had it accepted, there was no time to arrange alternate financing.
Unless he used th
e telephone … the army had strung lines to the hotel and soldier station … to call his adopted father. Aaron would loan him as much as he needed. But Aaron would also know the railroad’s attitude toward dealing with those of Indian blood and realize Cord was trying to be something he was not.
“Have pride in both your heritages, son,” he always said. “Your father’s and your mother’s.”
A clutch in Cord’s gut said he wasn’t ready to make a call. It would be tantamount to admitting defeat, and Thomas, his partner in Excalibur, would be sure to gloat that Cord had tried something on his own and failed.
No, Cord would have to go forward as soon as tomorrow, presenting his offer to the Northern Pacific. And he would have to stay clear of Captain Feddors and his accusations in the meantime.
Captain Quenton Feddors thought he was a fool to have taken on the challenge of White Bird simply because the mare had been bred by the Nez Perce. All over the West, they were still bought and sold, traded on the reputation of bloodlines linked to the herd that followed the Nez Perce on their fourteen-hundred-mile flight in 1877.
“Try and throw me?” Feddors hissed through clenched teeth, while he struggled to stay astride the wild gray mare in the Lake Hotel paddock. A shock of his brown hair had come loose from where he’d plastered it down across his receding hairline.
The gray reared again, her shoulder glancing off the split-rail fence. Strong-willed and stubborn, she had an especially long mane and a blaze in the center of her forehead that looked like a white bird flying.
Feddors gripped the reins and noticed that a group of soldiers had gathered to watch their commanding officer’s troubles. He really should have reset the stirrups that were adjusted for a taller man, but hadn’t wanted anyone to see.
Now, before they flew from his feet, Feddors reached for the thin quirt inserted beneath a strap beside the pommel.
He pulled the whip free, thinking that he had always broken horses the way he managed the weak and lazy men in his command. Swiftly and without leaving any doubt as to who was in charge.
“White Bird!” Sergeant Nevers shouted. He leaned against the fence with one leg propped on the bottom rail, waving his arms and inflaming the mare.
Feddors did not like the young man, with his earnest round face, for the simple reason that he had risen through the ranks faster than he had. He was also humiliated to note his viewers included Laura Fielding, the girl from the stagecoach robbery.
The one that Pinkerton man, Resnick, said was
lying.
White Bird turned back and tried to bite Feddors on the calf. He brought the whip down hard.
The animal gave an unexpected twist, and he found himself unseated.
His audience a blur, he fell to land hard on his back in the dirt. The breath knocked from him, he watched the sky spin … transported back to the summer of 1877, when the Nez Perce had gone to war rather than to a reservation.
That August he had been staying at Bart Henderson’s guest ranch north of Mammoth Hot Springs. Of course, at fifteen, he had preferred riding alone to the company of his father with whom he traveled.
In a meadow in northern Yellowstone, he’d come upon the confluence of two creeks. The sound of rushing water drew him on, up into a thick forest of lodgepole, spruce, and fir. There, a cascading waterfall poured at least eighty feet down tiered steps of lava rock.
Quenton dismounted and approached the pool at its base, feeling the welcome coolness on the hot afternoon. On his knees, hands cupped to drink, he suddenly went still.
Beneath the trees on the opposite creek bank, half-hidden in thick undergrowth, two men watched him from horseback. Both riders appeared to be perhaps twenty years old, with shining black hair divided into braids. They each wore blue trousers that could have been part of an army uniform; stripes of red paint decorated their cheeks and bare chests.
Quenton stood up carefully. He reached for his mare’s reins, wishing he hadn’t left his Winchester .25-20 in the scabbard behind his saddle. Over his shoulder, he watched the two men, noting their rifles were larger, the Model 1873 Springfield like the U.S. Army carried.
His heart beat faster. At Bart Henderson’s, the talk was of little except the band of Nez Perce fleeing though Yellowstone. He’d heard of the battlefields farther to the west, the tribe versus the United States Army, and realized that the trousers and weapons had no doubt been stripped from the bodies of dead soldiers.
Quenton watched with fascination. The Nez Perce controlled their horses without benefit of saddles or bridles, merely by touching their moccasined feet to the animal’s side or placing their hands into the horse’s mane.
With a shiver, he felt the almost palpable desire to someday be a horseman of that caliber. Sinewy muscles stood out on the men’s arms and shoulders … he imagined when he finished his growth he would look like that, his scrawny chest and weak white arms transformed magically into manfulness.
Cord returned to the paddock from his after-lunch ride on Dante in time to see Captain Quenton Feddors lose his seat on the back of a well-blooded gray mare. He landed in the dirt, and the gray danced away, still bucking.
Four soldiers in shirtsleeves, who’d been grooming horses, moved to join the group already leaning on the fence. Laura was next to Sergeant Nevers.
Feddors clambered to his feet, knocking a cloud of dust from his uniform pants. “Back to work!” he shouted.
Though one very slim young private, with red hair and freckles, turned away, the others did not.
Feddors raised his whip and started across the paddock after the gray.
The private who’d been leaving put his boot back up on the fence rail.
Catching the mare by the reins, Feddors slashed up and laid open a red welt on the side of her nose.
Cord slid off Dante and went to stand outside the fence beside the sergeant. The whip flashed again, and the abused mare reared.
“By God,” Nevers murmured fiercely, “you get
him, White Bird.”
Her hooves landed harmlessly, and Feddors kept raining blows on her face and neck.
Cord looked around at the enlisted men. A few appeared to be enjoying the spectacle, their expressions taut and their hands jerking as if they were throwing punches. Thankfully, most of the ten or so men looked slightly sick.
Beside Cord, Sergeant Nevers gripped the rail, his knuckles pale. If the captain had not outranked him, Cord thought the young man might have tried to end the senseless cruelty.
“Someone stop him,” Laura called out.
At a woman’s voice, the men’s heads swiveled. But no one made a move to halt the commanding officer’s abuse.
In a single motion, Cord placed his hands on the top rail and vaulted over. He ran, out into the paddock toward the fray. Slipping between man and horse, he jerked the reins from the officer’s hand. With an almost simultaneous movement, he plucked the quirt from Feddors’s fist and threw it across the trampled earth of the paddock.
When he turned his back, he felt an itch between his shoulder blades as though the captain was about to strike him there. Nonetheless, he led the mare to the gate where the sergeant and Laura waited. As Cord passed off the horse, Feddors caught up to him and clamped a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“How dare yew,” he sputtered. “What gives yew the right to interfere in mah discipline of an army horse?” The southern influence on his speech that Cord had noticed the other day was more evident.
“How dare you, Captain?” Cord looked down at the hand that still clutched his arm.
Feddors looked around at the men watching him manhandle a civilian tourist.
He held on a moment longer and released Cord.
“White Bird is an ‘army horse,’ is she?” Cord asked quietly.
Feddors furrowed his brow.
“The only problem with your logic,” Cord went on, “is that White Bird here failed to enlist.”
A wave of laughter rippled through the watchers, and
he noted another woman in addition to Laura. Esther Giles was watching the altercation with an intent interest that chilled Cord; he had no doubt she meant him ill.
“Get out of here!” Feddors waved his arms. Turning back to Cord, he gritted, “I ought to throw you in the stockade at Mammoth for assaulting an officer of the United States Army, you half-breed scum.”
Cord’s aplomb burst like a soap bubble. Behind him, Mrs. Giles’s laugh was as sharp and nasty as a rat terrier’s bark, while he hoped Laura hadn’t noted the last words.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a voice from behind Cord and Captain Feddors.
Thinking someone had divined from his expression his immediate intent to deck the captain, Cord turned to find Manfred Resnick sitting on top of the rail fence like a jockey in the saddle.
“Mr. Sutton never touched you or threatened you in any way,” the Pinkerton man went on, looking sternly at Feddors.
The captain’s already-flushed face darkened. “You’re defending that red man?”
This time there was no mistake. However in the hell the man had guessed, at his words Laura gasped.
Resnick jumped down from the fence. “I did some checking the other day when you accused Mr. Sutton of poaching and other peccadilloes. He was adopted by Aaron Bryce of Salt Lake City when he was quite young.”
“If Aaron Bryce had the rotten judgment to take in an Injun kid, he should get used to folks insulting his … ward.”
“Son.” The word slipped from between Cord’s lips. “Aaron Bryce is my father.”
Feddors stared at Cord a moment longer. Resnick plucked at his sleeve. “I am sure you would not want to incur the wrath of a man like Mr. Bryce.”
“City folks don’t carry much weight out heah.”
Yet, Feddors permitted Resnick to lead him as he limped away.
Cord felt he should say something to deny the captain’s accusations about his heritage, but while he hesitated over telling an outright untruth, the moment passed.
Sergeant Nevers cleared his throat and offered Cord his hand across the paddock fence. “Good show.”