“Your wife? She’s white?”
“Yes, sir. Her name is Faith Beaumont. She lives at Sommers Station in Wyoming. I was never allowed to contact her after I was arrested. As I said, I believe she has no idea where I am. The sheriff took the money I had earned from selling my horses. I believe he kept the money, and that neither he nor the wealthy man told my wife what happened to me.”
“What is this wealthy man’s name?”
Gabe held his eyes squarely. “I would rather not say, sir. I do not want him contacted. I do not want him to know I am still alive. Besides, sir, this man would deny everything if he was questioned, as would the sheriff who was involved. They claimed to have sent papers along ordering my hanging. I believe the wealthy man forged those papers, and the judge who was here then might have been bribed by this man to take me and keep quiet about it. I do not mean this as an insult to judges, sir. However, others here know that Judge—”
“I am well aware of what the situation was here before I arrived,” Judge Parker interrupted. “That was the reason I was appointed, to clean up this territory, which has become a haven for outlaws. I intend to change that. However, that is not your concern at the moment. And my concern is that you were brought here all the way from Wyoming. Your crime evidently did not take place in Indian Territory, which, as far as I am concerned, means you should not be jailed here. If there were papers ordering a hanging, I can find them nowhere, which leads me to believe you are right about the man who preceded me. He probably destroyed the papers because he knew it could be proved they were forged.” He leaned forward. “Now, Mr. Beaumont, contrary to what you may have already heard about me, I am a fair man. I find it reprehensible that you were sent here without trial, that you were shot and beaten while a prisoner, and that you have lived in that stinking hole below this courthouse for four years with no proof of any crime. What I will do is contact the powers that be in the United States Army and ask if there is any record that a Gabriel Beaumont or a scout named Tall Bear is wanted by army officials for the murder of Officer Balen. If there is a record of such a crime, I will be sure you are afforded a fair trial before army officials and insist that your accuser be present to testify. You will be given a chance to speak for yourself. If there is no record of such a crime, I will release you—but only on one condition.”
Gabe felt like giving out a wild cry of joy. “Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want you going back to Wyoming and murdering this wealthy man you think put you here. I may be exonerating you from the charge of murder, Mr. Beaumont. Don’t embarrass me by going back home and committing a murder.”
There was nothing Gabe wanted more than to sink a blade into Tod Harding and rip it from his balls to his chin. The judge’s request was a difficult thing to promise, but it could mean being with Faith again!
“You have my word, sir.” He might not kill Harding, but he’d damn well find a way to make the man wish he were dead!
“Do you want me to contact your wife?”
Faith! Was she even still there? Of course she was. She wouldn’t leave Sommers Station. He ached at the thought of seeing her again, touching her again. “Sir, I have no idea what her situation is right now. She already had a son by her first husband, who died. It is possible she believes I am dead and has remarried so her son will have a father. I would rather wait until you get your report from the army. If I am freed, I just want to go home. I will tell her the truth then. If I am to be hanged or kept in prison, then she must be told. For now I do not want to build her hopes or interrupt her life until we know.”
Parker nodded. “All right. Whatever you wish.” He pounded his gavel and ordered one of the jailers to take the prisoner back to his cell.
Gabe stopped in front of the bench, joyful hope welling up in his soul. “Thank you, sir. There are not many white men I honor and respect, but I will always hold great honor for you.”
The judge pointed a finger at him. “Mind you, I still might have to hang you, Mr. Beaumont.”
“Then you would only be doing what you must do. If I have a fair trial, then nothing more can be done. At least my wife will know what has happened to me.”
The judge nodded, studying Gabe closely. “You have an honesty about you that I like, Mr. Beaumont. Just keep your promise to me about not killing the man who you believe sent you here.”
Gabe nodded. I did not say I would not torture him, he thought. The Sioux had many methods of torture. He would have to weight them all and decide which was best for Mr. Tod Harding. But first he had to get out of there. He would pray to Wakan Tanka that Judge Isaac Parker would find that the army had no record of his being wanted for murdering Nathan Balen.
Faith led Tod Harding into her parlor, offering him some tea, which he refused. She thought he was behaving rather strangely—all business, rather than his usual flamboyant, charming self. He opened a briefcase, taking out some papers.
“Well, apparently you want to get right down to business,” she said. “I have the money ready. Two dollars and fifty cents an acre for fifty acres comes to one hundred twenty-five dollars. I am glad the railroad is finally ready to square up with people who settled the right-of-way land. I suppose you have some deeds with you?”
“Yes, but I am afraid there are some changes, Faith.” He spoke the words crisply, and Faith felt a hint of alarm. Harding had been gone for two months, having traveled back to Chicago on business, and returned to tell her it was time for those who had claimed railroad land to take care of paying for it. As a railroad official, it was his job to do some of the collecting.
“What kind of changes?” she asked warily. She was well aware of what a powerful political and financial entity the railroads had become. The newspaper out of Cheyenne had been carrying stories of corruption and political bribery. We have our transcontinental railroad at last, one article had read, but what will be the real cost? And how many politicians in Washington, including the President himself, were bribed by the railroad to grant them far more land than was necessary for construction? How many railroad officials own the very construction and supply companies that were paid by the railroad companies for their services? Is it possible those bills were padded to line the pockets of those companies’ owners? At the same time, our government has been subsidizing the railroad for their “expenses.”
“I am afraid the price has gone up,” Harding told Faith. “The government gave the railroad permission to sell excess land given them in the land grants, with the intention of helping the Union Pacific and Central Pacific pay the debts incurred in building the railroad. Those debts were far higher than we had imagined, and we are asking more for the land. Thirty dollars an acre.”
Faith felt a chill move through her, and anger began to move into every nerve end. “Thirty dollars! That’s robbery! I don’t believe for one minute the railroad is that much in debt. You had all kinds of help from the government! I have papers right here from when I laid claim to the right-of-way land saying I would pay two dollars and fifty cents an acre once the railroad was completed.”
“That was your promise, that’s true. You signed your name to those papers. But we did not promise that the price would not change. We underestimated the cost, and now it is thirty dollars an acre. There is nothing I can do about it. It’s the same for everyone.”
Faith fought an urge to cry. “That’s fifteen hundred dollars! You know I can’t come up with that kind of money!”
Harding shrugged. “Just charge your tenants more for their lots. Or you can sell them to me. I’ll buy them for three dollars an acre from you, and then I’ll pay the railroad their asking price. You’ll make some money, and I will own the land.”
“And charge much more for renting the lots, I suppose,” she answered. Harding met her eyes, and she saw a look of evil victory there. She felt her own power in Sommers Station slipping all the more. She was losing her little town, her dream. Sheriff Keller had hired deputies who were more like thugs than legitimate po
licemen. They hung around town in threatening stances, arresting people on flimsy charges and charging high fines. Last week Clancy Dee’s hardware store had burned down. Luckily it was not close enough to other structures to cause them to catch fire too, but in a secret meeting at Faith’s house a few townspeople questioned the cause of the fire. Clancy told them that Sheriff Keller had been harrassing him about a fine he had refused to pay for “public drunkenness.” Clancy claimed he’d had only two beers at the Flowers and Wine and had tripped on something on the way home and fallen. He’d been arrested for being drunk in public, which he swore was not true. Now he suspected his store had been burned down as an example of what happened to people who didn’t pay their fines. Besides that, Harding was building a hardware store of his own, much bigger than Clancy’s. Already Clancy was giving up and moving out of Sommers Station.
“Why are you doing this, Mr. Harding?”
Anger showed in Harding’s eyes. “Are you ever going to call me by my first name?”
She threw her papers aside and rose, walking to a window. “Is that what this is all about? You’re angry because I won’t call you Tod? You’re angry because I have never agreed to see you socially? Angry that I refused to dance with you at the spring dance?”
He leaned back in the love seat where he sat. “You think too highly of yourself, Faith. What is happening here is strictly business.”
She folded her arms, thinking that if she had a gun, she could easily shoot him. “How many other small towns like this one have you already taken over through your deceit?” she asked, facing him again. “In how many other towns have you built your own businesses, knowing that eventually you would own the land, too? In how many other towns have you planted your own lawmen, men who threaten and harass town citizens so that eventually you control everything? You’ve had this planned all along, haven’t you? You thought that by now I would be like clay in your hands, perhaps sharing your bed, which would make all of this even easier!”
He shook his head. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
“Am I? I don’t think so, Mr. Harding. It’s very obvious what you’re doing. You knew from the beginning I’d never get this property for two-fifty an acre. Or would you have stuck to two-fifty an acre if I had been more…friendly? If I had not married someone else?”
He gathered some papers and put them back in his briefcase. “Believe what you want. I’m through trying to deal reasonably with you, tired of your damn dream that that half-breed husband of yours is coming back—tired of your idea this place belongs to you. You’re losing Sommers Station, Mrs. Beaumont. That’s life. As far as your dead husband—”
“Dead? How would you know he’s dead, Mr. Harding?” Faith noticed a flash of guilt in his eyes before he had a chance to put on a show of innocence.
“I just supposed.” He shrugged. “The man has been gone four years. If he isn’t dead, then he sure as hell has no intentions of returning.”
She stepped closer, facing him squarely. “And the reason I have never responded to your advances is because I believe you had something to do with Gabe’s disappearance—you and Sheriff Keller! Besides that, Tod Harding, I don’t believe you ever were interested in me! You were interested only in what I was trying to build here. You saw an opportunity to move in and take over Sommers Station. God knows how many other communities you’ve done this to. You duped me into agreeing to buy railroad property, waited until I had invested every dime into businesses of my own, built my town, attracted good, honest, hardworking people here, people who would also put every penny of their own into their dreams. Then you brought in your henchmen, leading us to believe it was important to have a sheriff here. You have slowly been taking over Sommers Station all along, and now you tell me the railroad property is going to cost me fifteen times as much as originally agreed! Now you can take hold of all that property and own Sommers Station.”
She turned away so he could not see the tears beginning to form in her eyes. Why did she always cry when she was this angry?
“You can’t own what doesn’t exist, Mr. Harding. If you keep this up, everyone will leave, and you will own a ghost town! You deliberately burned out Clancy Dee, and now he’s getting out, which I am sure you planned on, since you’re building a hardware store of your own. Now you have no competition.”
She silently prayed for courage, then turned and faced him again.
“Who is next? Buck’s livery? Bret and Ben’s tavern? Your ultimate goal, of course, is me! Well, I assure you I will be the last to go, and when I do, there will be nothing left here for you, and you will lose everything you have invested in Sommers Station!”
Tod closed his briefcase and stood up, clucking. “Such passion, Mrs. Beaumont. I don’t know where you get your ideas, but your imagination is incredible.”
“Is it? You planned this all along, and you knew that Gabe Beaumont just might have the skill and the guts to stop you from your little plan, so you got him out of the way before you came here to finish the plan.”
He snickered. “I really believe living here all these years has made you crazy.” He turned. “Think what you want. The railroad has given all homesteaders two months to come up with the money to buy the lots, or you can pay in installments. Which way do you want to handle this?”
Faith had never hated anyone, not even Clete Brown, as much as she hated Tod Harding right now. “I don’t know yet. I obviously have no power to fight this, but the citizens of Sommers Station can fight the way you and your thugs are taking over this town. We will find a way, and I will find a way to hang on to what I have here!”
“Well, good luck to you,” Tod smirked. “I am leaving for a couple of weeks on more railroad business. Have an answer for me when I get back.”
He walked out without another word, and Faith walked to the door. Maude had taken the children so Faith could talk to Harding. She walked to the boardinghouse, and she looked up the street at the bustling town of Sommers Station—such a far, far cry from the lonely little stage station it once was. From there she could see Clancy’s burned-out store, and it tore at her heart. Tod Harding and Joe Keller were slowly taking over, and once she sold her land to Harding, if that was what she had to do, she would lose control of everything, lose her primary source of income…lose her dream. This had been a happy, vital town, everyone eager to make their little settlement grow. Now, since Clancy’s misfortune, everyone else’s dreams were fading, too. She could feel it in the air. If she didn’t find a way to stay in control here, Sommers Station would fade away into history.
Where would she go then? Back home? Pennsylvania had ceased being home years ago, and how could she face her father after all this time and tell him she had failed? To lose Sommers Station would also mean failing her sons, who depended on her. How would she take care of them?
She stepped around to the side of the boardinghouse where no one could see her, and she let the tears come. If only she knew what had happened to Gabe. Perhaps she could bear all of this if only she knew the truth about her husband. And if he were there, not even a man as powerful as Tod Harding could hurt her.
Chapter Twenty-nine
You are a free man, Mr. Beaumont. I have found no legitimate charges against you. In fact, Lieutenant Nathan Balen is not even dead. He is fine and healthy, a colonel now. He was shot in a battle with Sioux Indians, just as you claimed, but he recovered.
Gabe heard the words over and over in his mind. Free! Free to breathe fresh air! Free to return to the mountains! Free to be with Faith again! But he could not go to her like this. He was thin and weak, a shadow of the man he’d been when he’d left her. He had to regain his strength and stature. He had to do a lot of praying, rebuild his inner strength. He had to find a way to earn some money, buy decent clothes, a horse…a gun.
No man hated anyone more than he hated Joe Keller and Tod Harding! He’d made the judge a promise not to kill Harding, but he was not so sure he could keep that promise,
and he had made no promises regarding Keller. Right now he had to think about how to contact Faith. He had to find shelter and food, some kind of help. And before he set eyes on Faith again, he had to know if she had given up on him and married someone else. He couldn’t bear setting eyes on her again and not be able to have her for his own.
He’d be a sorry sight if she could see him now. He finished washing his face in a stream and returned to his campsite. He’d been turned out of prison with nothing but an ill-fitting set of clothes, a ragged coat, a couple of blankets, a small pack of food and one pan, one plate, one tin cup and one coffeepot, a pair of previously worn boots, and ten dollars. It wasn’t much to start with, but anything was better than the hellhole he’d lived in over four years. By the time he’d left, Judge Parker was building a new jailhouse for those who remained.
He cleaned up camp and slung everything tied into a blanket on his back, then made his way up the road. Ahead of him he saw someone herding a few head of cattle. The man guiding them on horseback had long black hair that was tightly braided into two plaits Indian style, but he dressed like a white man. Gabe hurried to catch up, calling out “Hello!” as the man led the cattle to the stream. The rider turned to look, and Gabe could see he was obviously Indian. He had a stocky build, and even though he was on a horse, he looked short. His round face showed dark eyes that were wary but gave hint he was basically friendly. Among Gabriel’s own people everyone took care of each other. Those with the most shared with those who had little, and he suspected it was that way with most tribes. At least he hoped so. Since he’d been told this area was mostly occupied by Cherokee, he guessed this man might be from that tribe.
“What can I do for you?” the rider asked, trotting his horse closer.
“I need work. I need a place to stay for a while.”
The stranger looked him over. “You look sick.”
Tame the Wild Wind Page 35