Betina Krahn

by The Soft Touch

  “You in the blue shirt,” Bear said, without taking his eyes from Beecher. “Give him your gun.”

  There was a long, volatile silence as the gunman looked between Bear and his employer. Beecher sealed his fate when he gave a snort of contempt.

  “He’s not your trained monkey, McQuaid. He’s mine.”

  The flint-faced gunman tossed a speaking glance to his companions and apparently found them of like mind. He eased back in his chair and flipped open the buckle of his gun belt. Keeping his gun hand well away from the revolver, he drew the belt from around him and laid it on the table. Beecher’s face flamed as his hired gunman gave the weapon a shove toward him.

  Beecher looked from one gunman to another, demanding they intervene. Their sullen stares declared that they saw this as a matter of guts, a test of honor, in which none of them intended to interfere. Even “trained monkeys,” their pointed refusal said, had their limits.

  “This is absurd,” Beecher declared, tensing. “I’m not a gunfighter.”

  “That makes two of us,” Bear declared with deadly calm. “Strap it on.”

  Bear could almost taste Beecher’s anxiety, could almost feel the way his heart was beginning to pound, could certainly see the trouble he was having swallowing. By the time Beecher moved toward the table, Bear would have put the odds at fifty-fifty that he would accept or refuse the challenge.

  As Beecher picked up the gun and unbuttoned his coat, he tossed a speaking look at the bartender, who reached under the counter and pulled out a shotgun. One fleshy thumb pulled back the hammers on both barrels at once. The gun came down to rest on the bar, and the bartender swiveled it so that it was aimed straight at Halt. Bear stepped to the side in order to keep the bartender and Beecher both in his sights.

  “Insurance,” Beecher said with an ugly smirk. “To keep things fair.”

  Like hell. If Bear were the one left standing, the bartender would likely cut him down on the spot … or so Beecher wanted him to believe. It was pressure that Bear didn’t need and helped to even the odds.

  With slow, deliberate movements, Beecher buckled on the gun belt and tied it down on his thigh. Then they faced each other squarely, and Bear took a deep—

  “Stop!” A blur of green and white, wearing a black hat with a white feather, burst through the swinging doors. Both Bear and Beecher whirled, but only Bear’s gun cleared the holster before the face and figure of the speaker registered.

  Diamond froze, staring down the barrel of Bear’s gun and into his fiercely narrowed eyes. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Those memorable copper eyes eased, then widened in horrified recognition.

  “Bear, you can’t do this,” she said hoarsely, glancing down at the chilling circle of steel pointing her way.

  “Get out of here,” Bear snarled, lowering the gun only slightly.

  She swallowed the fear collecting in her throat and made her feet move … forward. “Please—you have to listen to me—”

  “Diamond—dammit!” he roared. “Get out of here!”

  “No.” She swallowed hard again. “Put away that gun and listen.”

  “If you don’t leave now—go back to camp!”

  “No. Not unless you come with me,” she said, planting herself directly between him and Beecher. She could see a vein throbbing in his temple and knew she was trampling his manly pride and independence. Better that, she told herself, than trampling across his grave.

  “I’ve solved our land problem.” She pulled a folded paper from her skirt pocket and opened it, holding it up … partly for him to see it and partly to block his view of Beecher. Exploding forward, he smashed the paper down and grabbed it from her in the same movement.

  “Are you crazy? Do you want to get killed?”

  “No, I’m not crazy. I’m determined.” She pulled on the paper and his hand came up with it. “I was able to arrange a special lease. We won’t have to purchase anything. The use of the land is ours for one hundred twelve years … until 1999.”

  He glanced furiously at the paper in his hand, then held it out to Halt, who had risen. The Irishman took it from him and looked it over.

  “It’s a land lease, all right,” he confirmed, his eyes widening. “Like she said. One hundred twelve years. No purchase involved.”

  Bear looked down at her, then at Beecher, whose face looked like blood on granite.

  “Danvers’s land, I take it,” Beecher said, lowering his gaze to her and his voice to a menacing murmur. “A lease. No purchase involved. What a clever little wife you have, McQuaid.”

  “Go back to camp, Diamond,” Bear said fiercely.

  “No.” She faced him, praying he would read the softer, more frantic plea in her eyes. “I won’t go … unless you come with me.”

  “Do go, my boy,” Beecher said with a notable relaxation of manner. “There will be plenty of time for murdering me later. Count on it.”

  As Bear wavered, Beecher ripped open the holster ties, raised both hands into view, and then lowered one to undo the gun belt buckle. The thud and then metallic clank of the gun hitting the floor somehow snapped the last of Bear’s restraint.

  He jammed his gun into his holster, ducked, and rammed his shoulder into her stomach—hoisting her up onto his shoulder. She began to flail frantically as they reached the door and didn’t stop until they reached their mounts and he dropped her into the dirt beside her horse.

  “Mount up!” he ordered.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Bear was furious enough to throttle her. He ran the devil out of his horse instead, leaving her to trail behind with Halt until they reached camp. He pounced to the ground, paced furiously … then charged down the track to the first man he saw with a hammer, wrenched it from him, and proceeded to bash several spikes into unrecognizable lumps.

  By suppertime, he had stalked and snarled enough to put the entire camp on its ear. Halt tried to drag him aside and talk some sense into him, but he warned his partner off and continued to work like the proverbial Irish banshee.

  He told himself that he’d give both himself and her time to cool off. He didn’t need to compound the trouble between them by erupting with all the anger and accusations he felt toward her. She was probably just trying to help, in her own misguided way. He needed to stay calm and collected. He needed to plan out what he was going to say. Their future together depended on him laying down the law and forbidding her from interfering with his railroad and inserting herself into matters as dangerous as those this afternoon.

  Then she came around with her big enameled coffeepot and he saw the men turning—none too subtly—to collect his reaction. How the hell had his relationship with her become the business of every man on the crew?

  That annoyance was minor compared to what he felt when she swayed over to him with her back straight and her chin raised, looking as if she were doing him a huge favor to be seen in the same territory with him. He glanced up, caught her gaze unexpectedly in his, and felt as if he’d been struck by the blue lightning in her eyes. She was furious with him.

  She was furious with him!

  Broadsided by that bolt of feminine anger, he jumped to his feet, ripped the pot from her hands, and for the second time that day hoisted her onto his shoulder, and carried her off, kicking and squealing in outrage. He stalked through the camp, through the picket lines, through the piles of brush cleared from the track bed … out into the twilight.

  By the time he set her on her feet, she was well winded and thoroughly rattled … unable to do anything but listen to what he had to say.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing this afternoon?” he roared.

  He had underestimated her ability to talk as long as she drew breath.

  “Saving your damnable railroad,” she panted out, holding her aching ribs. “Not to mention your stubborn, prideful neck!”

  “I didn’t need saving.”

  “Oh, yes, you did … from yourself, if not from Beecher.” She stomped
closer. “You were going to shoot it out with him like some hired gun out of a dime novel. Of all the absurd … arrogant … ridiculous—”

  Her tirade poured over him like molten lead. Every nerve in his body was jangling, demanding not just rebuttal but revenge for every insulting word. He grabbed her by the upper arms.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he declared. “Beecher is a mean, dangerous son of a bitch. He’d as soon kill me or you or the Danverses as look at us. It’s not the first time he’s used threats and violence to try to stop the Montana Central and Mountain and—thanks to you—it won’t be the last.”

  “So you decided to take a gun to him.”

  “I decided to call him out. It would have been a fair fight.”

  “If you had killed him, it would have been murder.” Her volume was rising steadily. “This is your idea of progress? Making yourself judge and jury and executioner? No wonder your blasted railroad is falling apart.”

  “It’s not falling apart!”

  “You haven’t got a decent right-of-way, you’re hardly making two miles a day, and all you can think about is running around waving a gun and playing cowboy,” she charged. “And when I try to do something to help—”

  “Help?” he roared back. “Is that what you call running smack into the middle of a face-off between two men? This is not ‘playing cowboy.’ This is not just some damned social disagreement. Out here people live and die by their words. You had no right to come barging into something you don’t know anything about and clearly don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand?” She wrenched free and stepped back. “I understand that you were about to lay your life on the line because you couldn’t bear the notion that you might have to accept help from a mere woman. I understand that you’re so blasted determined to keep your precious Montana Central and Mountain all to yourself that you won’t let me do anything to help you. That’s not only selfish and prideful and hurtful, Bear McQuaid—it’s just plain stupid!”

  Every shocking word sliced straight to the core of him. Selfish. No one in his entire life had ever accused him of that. He’d never had anything to be selfish with, never had anything to withhold from somebody. He’d always been the outcast, the spoiler, the underdog. His entire being recoiled, then reacted.

  “Now I’m selfish as well as prideful and stubborn and stupid?” He towered above her, grinding out every unfortunate word. “Well, at least I’m not barging in where I’m not needed.”

  She stared up at him, feeling those words sinking into the depths of her heart. Not needed. In one horrifying sentence he had summed up their past, their present, and—she now could see—their future. He might want her as a bankroll and a pleasurable bedmate … but not as an equal, a partner, a loving and vital part of his life. His railroad was his and he didn’t need her to share it. In fact, he’d rather see it go under than allow her any part in it.

  As they stood there, face to face, chests heaving, confronting the deepest division between them, the sound of hoofbeats came out of the distance, growing steadily. It was a long moment before Bear could pull himself from Diamond’s stare to register a light … moving along the horizon … yellow and eerie gray … sparks and smoke. The hurt and anger roiling inside him prevented him from making sense of it at first. It was only his struggle to contain the volatile words in his head that permitted him enough control to finally recognize the shape of a rider on horseback dragging something. Something burning.

  She wanted to shake him, to make him turn back to her, to make him answer all the whys in her reeling mind and heart. But she realized he wasn’t just looking away, he was looking at something. The brightness beginning to light the horizon seemed oddly gray, though it was nowhere near the recently set sun. He was watching what seemed to be a distant horse and rider. She followed his gaze as he whipped it around to scan the southern horizon, and there was another dark form on horseback … with a similar plume of gray rising in his wake.

  “Dammit!” Bear pivoted and charged back toward the train, bellowing from the bottom of his lungs “Fire—range fire!”

  She stood for a moment, watching those horses and riders on distant rises, realizing numbly that they were dragging something behind them that was setting the prairie grass ablaze. She quickly looked from north to south … then to the west, where the dim glow of the sky silhouetted a third rider. Fire. On all sides.

  Seizing her skirts, she began to run toward the train. Fire would soon be racing through the dry grasses toward them, closing in from all directions. By the time she reached their train car, she could hear Bear in the middle of camp, roaring orders, and could hear the shouts and scurrying of the men trying to rescue supplies and equipment. She raced toward him as he ordered men into the cab of the engine, and he turned just in time to catch her.

  “Get in the car!” he ordered above the chaos. “Seal up the windows!”

  “But Robbie—”

  “I’ll find him!” He gave her a shove in that direction. “Go!”

  She barely had time to reach the steps before she heard the sound of coal hitting the metal of the firebox. They were going to try to move the train before the fire closed in. She looked up from the platform and saw the night sky filling with feathers of gray smoke around them. In the last few days they had made so little progress on the track, they had let the engine cool considerably. There was no guarantee they could get it hot enough to generate power in time.

  Bear was apparently coming to that same conclusion. He began ordering the men to grab shovels and head toward the fire. Diamond watched them hesitate and look at each other, then at the train that was preparing to move and leave them behind.

  “Come on—we’ve got to build a firebreak—clear the brush out of the way!” Reading their hesitation, Bear stalked back and picked up a shovel himself and started off toward the rising smoke. A handful of men followed; the others hung back, muttering among themselves, uncertain whether Bear’s orders would lead them toward safety or toward greater calamity.

  Diamond watched with her heart in her throat as they judged Bear’s leadership and found it wanting. He hadn’t exactly endeared himself to them with his constant pushing and his volatile behavior. And now when the chips were down …

  Just then Robbie came running up the track and Diamond grabbed him by the arm and turned him back around. “Go find Silky and stay with her!” She gave him a maternal shove toward the kitchen car, then jumped off the platform and headed for the center of camp.

  She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do until she reached the middle of camp and scorched the lot of them with her most compelling glare.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” She reached for the nearest shovel, pulling it from the startled man’s grasp. Lets go.

  It took only a split second for them to realize that she was going with her man to fight this fire. If she had that much faith in his judgment, then … They headed after her, dipping their kerchiefs in a bucket as they went. They spread out into a line, each man keeping within sight of the others. Somewhere along the way, someone handed her a wetted kerchief and she looked over to watch him tying his own over his nose and mouth. She followed suit and soon realized why. The smoke that had seemed so clear and defined was suddenly all around them, threatening to engulf them and take away all sense of direction.

  “Clear the brush!” The order came down the line, passed from man to man. “Back ten feet. “Turn dirt only when you have to!”

  They fell to work with a fury, pulling clumps of grass, hacking at roots, jabbing spades of dirt from the earth … ripping back the dry vegetation with hands and shovels and ballast forks. The smoke thickened around them, threatening to isolate them from each other, and they called to each other to work faster and pull back.

  The sharp-edged grasses and tough stalks of scrub sage bit into Diamond’s hands and her foot slipped again and again from the shovel, causing her to scar her boots and grit her teeth. Befo
re long her back ached and her shoulders were screaming and her hands and lungs both felt raw. But the earth barrier was widening and when they reached the ten-foot margin she was able to straighten, rest her shovel on her shoulder, and arch her aching back. She didn’t have long to rest.

  “Good enough here—let’s move!” came a familiar roar that seemed smoke-strained and hoarse. She turned to find Bear charging down the line, waving the workers on to a new section. He saw her, standing there with her face half-covered with a kerchief, her eyes red from smoke, and her skirts raised and tucked out of the way, and stopped dead. She was too tired and air-starved to try to evade him.

  Above the kerchief he wore across his lower face, she glimpsed both fury and pain in his eyes. But a moment later, he waved her and the others on. As she lifted her shovel and hurried past him, he wrapped an arm around her waist and propelled her along with him.

  She had no time to think, beyond the fact that he had grudgingly accepted her presence among them. When they reached an area where the fire was some distance away, she took a place in line and began once again to grub out vegetation to extend that fire break.

  The digging and pulling and spading and cutting seemed to go on and on. They worked around in a circle until they reached the tracks then hurried across them. Spotting the plumes of smoke on the other side, they staked out a line and began all over again. Just as they were beginning to flag, Halt arrived with a score of men from the forward camp and bolstered their sagging effort.

  Nearly two frantic hours after they had begun, the fire reached the first firebreak, stopped, and began to burn itself out. Their only assurance of that was a lessening of smoke in the area they had first cleared. Then the breeze shifted slightly, the smoke began to lift, and they were able to send a detail with shovels right up to the fire itself. The crews beat and shoveled dirt on the smoldering grasses until the greatest threat was past.

  Posting linesmen to walk the fire line, checking for restarts, Bear pulled the kerchief down from his face and waded into the middle of the men sprawled on a gentle slope overlooking what had been their base camp. The tents were sagging and forlorn, there were heaps of crates and boxes here and there, and piles of wood being dressed for ties. He leaned on his shovel, staring out over the smoky, blackened earth that ran like a jagged scar across the rolling countryside. Through the center of that blackened ring, like an arrow caught in flight, ran a pair of empty steel rails. The engineer had managed to get the engine running and backed the train down the track, leaving nothing visible except the rails they had labored so hard to lay. A track that went nowhere. For a railroad that didn’t exist.