The Passionate and the Proud

by Vanessa Royall

  MR VESTOR TELL

  US CLAIMS OFFICE

  TERRITORY OF OLYMPIA

  They were generally filled with praise for the fullness of Tell’s reports and for the successful work he was carrying out:

  COMMENDATIONS REGARDING EQUITABLE LOAN POLICY OLYMPIA STOP CONSULT TERRITORIAL BANKING CHARTER. 2 JUNE 1866 SHOULD NEED ARISE.

  Another read:

  CLOSE ATTENTION SHOULD BE PAID TO POSSIBLE GRAZERY TILLER CONFLICT STOP SIGNS OF DISCORD ARE TO BE ADDRESSED AND REPORTED AT ONCE.

  And:

  REGARDING YOUR SUGGESTION THAT FEDERAL INSPECTION TEAM UNNECESSARY DUE TO HIGH LEVEL OF COMITY IN ARCADY STOP STATUTES MANDATE VISIT WITHIN TWO YEARS OF SETTLEMENT STOP HOWEVER PLANNED INSPECTION POSTPONED ON YOUR RECOMMENDATION UNTIL LATER DATE.

  All of the messages closed:

  UNITED STATES LAND OFFICE WASHINGTON. D.C.

  Emmalee wondered exactly how Tell had worded his messages to the land office. Those hadn’t been kept, obviously. But she could determine from these filed telegrams, which he was apparently retaining as proof of his tremendous success, that he was being grossly deceptive in three main areas: first, in the loaning of money; second, in his reporting of the situation regarding ranchers and fanners; third, in attempting to delay if not cancel a visit by inspectors from Washington.

  The whole thing made her so mad! She tried another drawer, hoping to find the code book. She was angry enough, just then, to sit right down and tap out a message that would inform Washington of a few things…

  Then a key rattled outside in the front door lock. Tell! thought Emmalee. She slammed the drawer shut—much too loudly: any nearby dead ought to have sat up immediately—and raced toward the table where she’d left her coffee cup. Mistake! she decided.

  Then the door swung open.

  Hester Brine. She regarded Emmalee with mild surprise. “Just openin’ up for business. I take it you came in the back way?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you were here.”

  “Well, I was. Then I wasn’t. And now I am again. Help yourself to the coffee. Oh, you have. Good. What do you want to send a telegram for, so early in the morning?”

  “What? I—”

  “How do I know? I saw you through the window when I was walking by the front of the store.”

  Emmalee felt embarrassed. Even worse, she felt stupid. “I was just—”

  “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Just a word to the wise. You’re one up on Vestor since you got the money out of him. But be careful. He don’t like to have people get the jump on him, an’ he’ll wait an’ he’ll wait to even things out. Get my meaning?”

  “Very clearly.”

  “So unless you know exactly what you’re dealing with, and unless the stakes are pretty damn high, don’t rattle his cage any more just now.”

  Hester took off the heavy woolen shawl that she was wearing against the chill of that December morning, warmed her hands over the glowing stove, poured a cup of coffee, and sat down at the table. She motioned Emmalee to join her.

  “You want to know what makes Vestor so strong?” Hester asked abruptly.

  “He has the contacts back east. He has money.”

  “Yes. But more than that. It’s us. It’s everybody around these parts. He keeps the farmers and ranchers divided, plays them off one against the other, and draws strength from the hostility he helps to foster.”

  “But he’s friends with the ranchers, he loans them money…”

  “Only seems that way, just seems he’s friends with them. Nope, I think he’s using them for some purpose of his own.”

  “That’s the reason I came to see you,” Emmalee said.

  “Why? Because Tell is using the ranchers just like he’s using the farmers?”

  “No. Because there is hostility. Because the two sides are so far apart. You know, I had an idea…”

  She told Hester of her plans for a big Christmas dance and party. The orange-haired woman listened thoughtfully.

  “What do you know?” she said. “Sounds like it might be fun. Maybe, it bein’ Christmas and all, the menfolk will stay out of trouble.”

  Enthusiastically, they set about planning the event. Hester would make up a big notice and tack it out in front of the general store, where everyone would see it. The word would get around. There were plenty of people around who played various instruments, so there’d be a band for dancing.

  “Randy knows how to call square dances,” suggested Emmalee. “He told me he used to do it back in Ohio.”

  “Good. And there’s a supply train due in today. I’ll send an order back with ’em for a couple cases of moonshine.”

  “But Mr. Torquist is against drinking, I’m afraid.”

  “Honey, it ain’t his party. He can stay home if he don’t like it. Say, this is a good idea you had. Build up a little spirit around here. The place could use it. How are you and Randy getting along, by the way?”

  “Oh, fine. I’m so happy to be on my own at last.”

  “On your own at last and you’re planning on getting married?”

  “Away from Mr. Torquist, I meant.”

  “Lot of talk about you and Randy, you know. Living out there all by yourselves and everything.”

  “People will always talk. In our case, there’s nothing to talk about.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  Emmalee looked at Hester. She was just about to ask what Hester meant when Vestor Tell entered, followed by some women who had come to buy flour, coffee beans, and rice.

  “Time to go to work,” said Hester, getting up.

  “You’ll have plenty more to do in about half an hour,” Vestor informed her. “I just caught a glimpse of the supply train coming over the plains. Looks like they got at least half a dozen wagons with ’em this time.”

  “Hmmm,” said Hester with interest. “Wonder what for? Two or three’s usually enough to haul the stuff we need.”

  Emmalee finished her coffee, nodded to Tell—he’d finally removed the bandage from his hand, she noticed—and went outside to watch the wagon train arrive. It was an important event in the lives of settlers on this rich but relatively remote plain, and from all over the countryside people headed toward Arcady. On horseback, on wagons, and on foot they came, eager for news and goods from the west coast. (Emmalee had already begun to think that, as soon as she got her land paid off, a trip to the west coast would be grand.)

  The wives of three ranchers pulled up in front of the store in a buckboard, a small, utilitarian wagon with four wheels, one seat, and a flat bed for hauling tools or supplies. The two-horse team was driven by Cloris Hamtramck, the big-handed woman Emmalee had first seen the day Kaiserhalt had nabbed her in the willow grove. Among the ranch women, Emmalee probably knew Cloris best. Mrs. Hamtramck had been particularly impressed by Em’s speech against violence on the day of the land rush, and she was always ready with a grin or a bit of gossip when she saw Emmalee in town.

  “’Lo there, youngster,” Cloris said now, climbing down from the buckboard’s seat along with Mrs. Jacklinson and Ruth Rutkowski, wives of Pennington’s close friends. “Hear you got yourself a new cabin. How’s the love life?” She winked and spit tobacco juice next to the wagon wheel. The older, hardier women did not shrink from enjoying the pleasures of their men; Cloris knew how to drink from a moonshine jug too.

  “Everything’s going pretty well,” answered Emmalee. “I just wish the ground hadn’t frozen. Randy and I could be getting some plowing done before snowfall.”

  “Wish I had your energy.” Mrs. Jacklinson groaned, trying to stretch away the kinks left by the wagon seat. She and Mrs. Rutkowski went into the store.

  “Everybody is working too hard out here,” Cloris said. “It makes us mean.”

  Emmalee told her about the plans for a Christmas party. “Hester is making up a sign to hang in front for everybody to see.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Cloris said. “It’s about time we had some fun and let ou
r hair down around here. Tell you what, I’ll start spreading the word about the big shindig. Yonder comes the wagon train. Let’s have ourselves a looksee.”

  The street was filled with people now, milling about and watching as the wagon train covered its last hundred yards. The extra wagons had evoked even more interest than usual. Everybody was wondering what kinds of goods and supplies would be in the vehicles. Hardy teams of ten mules apiece pulled the wagons, and the drivers were wiry, dour men in dark clothes and heavy capes. They rode on the wagons or walked beside the mules carrying long looped whips that they flicked and snapped when the beasts showed signs of faltering.

  Just as the train was about to stop, two things happened. Ebenezer Creel came riding into town on Garn Landar’s stallion. And Horace Torquist, along with five farmers, arrived too. They looked grim. Emmalee noted, to her amazement, that Torquist was wearing a big, long-barreled revolver in a holster on his hip. His dislike of weapons seemed to have been overcome.

  The crowd cheered when the head driver called his final “Whhoooooaaaa!” and asked if anybody on God’s earth had a smile, a kind word, and a long drink of good whiskey.

  “We got the whiskey,” called Cloris Hamtramck.

  Almost everybody laughed. Except Ebenezer Creel, Torquist, and his little group of men.

  “You got what I came for?” Torquist demanded of the head driver.

  “Yup. Rear wagon.”

  “All right. My men and I will take it over to my farm and unload while you do what you have to do here in town.”

  “Suits me,” said the driver. “You can unload as well as me an’ my boys. Just see that the wagon and mules get back here by noon.”

  “Deal,” said Torquist. His mouth was hard, his eyes were icy, suspicious slits. A big hat partially matted down his wild, white hair. In one sense, he seemed dominant and demonic, rather as of old but with a sinister aura added. Yet, looking again, Emmalee had the impression of a man embarked on a desperate endeavor. What, for God’s sake?

  She watched as Torquist, Waters, Heaton, and the rest surrounded the last wagon and guided it out of line toward the leader’s farm on the river. It almost seemed, by the way they were acting, as if the wagon were fragile. Then Emmalee realized that Torquist had ordered something of great importance to him and that it had been delivered in the wagon. She also saw that she was not alone in this conclusion and overheard Alf Kaiserhalt muttering to a range hand, “I reckon that’s what they’ve been waiting for. We better ride out and tell the boss.”

  Kaiserhalt was still wearing a cast on the arm Emmalee had broken for him. The fracture ought to have healed by now, but he’d been trying to rassle a dogie down to the ground in order to give it Pennington’s Rocking P brand and the frightened little animal had kicked him in his bad arm, rebreaking it.

  People were still wondering and looking after Torquist and the wagon when Ebenezer Creel spoke up. He’d ridden a long way down from the highlands of Landar’s Folly. Frost coated his new mustache and wispy beard, covered his coat collar with a glistening white film.

  “You bring Quinn along this trip?” he demanded of the head driver.

  “Yes, my good fellow, he certainly did.”

  The voice was cultured and clipped, rather high-pitched, and the few people who snickered openly upon hearing it were joined by quite a lot of others when the man about whom Ebenezer had inquired climbed haltingly down from one of the wagons. He was middle-aged, but slim and dignified. He had strong, capable-looking hands, but his fingernails gleamed. His face was pink and smooth. He wore a smart suit, a stylish cape, soft leather boots, and a derby hat. It was the hat that drew attention most.

  “Looks like we got us a freakin’ dandy in this town now,” commented Vestor Tell, who’d emerged from the store to observe the scene.

  “And you are Mr. Landar, I presume?” asked the man, approaching Ebenezer and extending his hand.

  Ebenezer shook it. “No, I ain’t. We work together.” He observed the new arrival carefully and without great enthusiasm. “You are Jacob Quinn?”

  “Of course I am, my good man. Mr. Landar hired me to—”

  “In these parts, it’s better if a man don’t discuss his business in public.”

  Quinn turned and saw all the eyes on him. “Oh, I see your point. I quite agree.”

  “Glad you do,” said Ebenezer. “Now, you got ’em with you?”

  “Yes. They’re in the wagons.”

  “I hope they can walk. We got a fur piece to go, up into them there hills.”

  Ebenezer pointed to the Sacajawea Range, north of Arcady.

  “Oh, my,” exclaimed Quinn, in a high-pitched tone that made people laugh, “that’s quite a distance.”

  “You can ride with me,” said Ebenezer.

  “Oh, I’m not concerned about myself.”

  “Well, I figured your boys was tough enough, for what we have in mind for them.”

  “They are.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “It’s just that I brought my niece along with me. I had no idea this area would be quite so…bucolic,” he finished.

  The townspeople did not laugh this time, but stared at one another, wondering what “bucolic” meant. They were also wondering exactly what this fancy stranger with the funny hat was talking about.

  He proceeded to show them. Walking to the lead wagon, he drew aside a piece of the canvas flap and said, “Delilah? Are you ready? We’ve arrived in Arcady. Come on out and have a look.”

  Emmalee and the rest were just beginning to take their measure of a lovely, dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman who stepped charmingly down from the wagon on her uncle’s arm when Jacob Quinn turned slightly and shouted something in a strange tongue. Then the reason for the extra supply wagons was revealed. Canvas coverings were flung aside and dozens of alien-looking men leaped from the wagons and onto the ground. Jacob Quinn said something else, and the men fell into a column in front of Ebenezer Creel.

  “Chinese!” exclaimed Vestor Tell.

  Emmalee stared. She knew that Chinese were working on the expanding railroads in the west and in the ports along the Pacific coast. She had seen a few in Denver. The Olympians gaped at these foreigners, amazed as much by the visitation as by whatever new folly Garn Landar had apparently dreamed up in his head. The Chinese stared back, in a manner that was rather gloomily observant, sharp-eyed yet giving nothing away, no signs of interest or curiosity or surprise. If these were hired men, Emmalee thought, they were also hard and proud. One of their number, who wore a yellow headband, began speaking to them in abrupt, almost brutal tones, then ceased. He seemed their foreman.

  “They’re ready to march whenever you say,” Jacob Quinn announced to Ebenezer.

  “I’ll have to borrow a horse for you and the girl,” said Creel.

  “I can walk,” Quinn responded readily.

  The crowd laughed. There he stood in his soft boots and fine clothes, next to his demure, sweet-looking niece. Emmalee envied her clothes: a woolen traveling suit of dark blue. Buttons that appeared to be of real gold ran down the front in two decorative rows. And Delilah Quinn wore the grandest hat Emmalee had ever seen; a three-cornered affair with ribbons, feathers, and a little silk chin-strap. Emmalee wished that Lottie Pennington was there to see how a real lady dressed. There was something so friendly, direct, and just ever-so-slightly vulnerable about Delilah that Emmalee liked her right away.

  Delilah’s large brown eyes widened apprehensively as Festus Bent took it upon himself to step out of the crowd and approach Jacob and his niece.

  “Did I hear you say you was gonna walk all the way up to Landar’s Folly?” Bent chortled, turning and looking at the Arcadians to make sure they got the joke.

  “That’s right,” answered Quinn calmly.

  “Hell”—Bent laughed—“you can’t even stand!”

  And with that he pushed Jacob Quinn to the ground.

  “Tenderfoot!” he roared, laughing.

>   “Come on, Fes, hold up!” some said. But many more laughed along with him. Disdain for the “tenderfoot,” for the cultivated, civilized newcomer was born more of envy than actual animosity, but it was real. Pioneers whose lives were unvaryingly and often almost unendurably hard were simultaneously proud of themselves yet deeply aware of the crudeness that colored their lives. This awareness produced a complicated mix of emotions, among which scorn for the tenderfoot was one result.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Delilah, stepping toward her uncle. “Are you hurt?”

  Quinn shook his head, grinned, and began to get up.

  “Stay down ’less you want to go down again,” Bent barked.

  “Stop!” cried Delilah.

  But her uncle got readily to his feet. Bent wound up and got ready to throw a big haymaker, laughing at the newcomer’s lunacy in taking on a pioneer as tough as he was.

  Before his arm got halfway around, before he had the slightest chance of striking Quinn, the tenderfoot shot three straight left jabs into Bent’s lantern-jawed face. One jab broke his nose, the next removed four teeth, and the third shattered the big hanging jaw itself. Festus Bent was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  There was a collective exhalation of breath from the Arcadians. Emmalee felt like cheering. Quinn stood casually over Bent, massaging the knuckles of his left hand.

  “I’ll walk,” he said to no one in particular. “Dee, you ride with Mr. Creel. Here, I’ll help you up. How long is this trip, anyway?”

  “Oh, three hours at least,” said Ebenezer.

  “Good. I could use some exercise.”

  Torquist’s wagon, while not forgotten in the always well-heated atmosphere of Olympian politics, immediately dropped to a low second place beside Garn Landar’s Chinese and their traveling companions, the Quinns. The rumors flew thick and fast, like sparrows to an open granary door.