“…and I just want to assure you that you’ll know before long. It will be a boon to all of you, to Olympia, and to the entire west.”
“If that’s true,” interrupted Torquist, “why don’t you just go ahead and tell us what it is?”
“I would, except then I’m sure we’d get a lot of visitors, and we’re working too hard already to deal with an invasion. In due course, everyone will be able to come up and see what we’re doing. If things progress as they have, I would expect we’d have the situation pretty well in hand by autumn. Then you’ll be able to see what Mr. Landar has wrought for the welfare of Olympia.”
“Yeah, an’ I recollect how Mr. Landar got us to Denver ahead of Burt,” shouted Fes Bent, in half-drunken high spirits. There was another kind of laugh now, and while it didn’t seem to bother Garn, Jacob Quinn began to realize that his remarks weren’t having the desired effect. Rather than continue, which might turn the situation in a direction he did not intend, Jacob gave a final, brief assurance that folly had never been the right word for Garn’s claim and that everyone should go ahead and have another drink. The momentum of the celebration remained unbroken, and after some curious, disjointed murmuring. Arcadians returned to recreation. The band that had played in the hotel at Christmas launched into “Turkey in the Straw.” The whine of fiddles filled the air and voices were raised in happy song.
On impulse, Emmalee went up to Garn Landar. She felt a little nervous and wondered why, since she’d been brave enough to risk many things, approaching him seemed so hard.
“Emmalee,” he said, looking down at her with surprise. “It’s nice to see you again.”
The last time they’d spoken had been Christmas night, outside Hester’s hotel.
She stood there for a moment, wondering what to say. At least he wasn’t asking her how she felt about Randy and Delilah getting married!
“It’s nice to see you too,” she admitted, knowing as she spoke that it was true. “I have to say that Jacob’s little speech made me curious. What are you doing up in the hills?”
“I’d hoped to reveal it today, but the situation didn’t seem quite right. The people aren’t ready for the news yet. It would only upset them. Jacob thought so too.”
She gave him her biggest smile. “You could tell me, though, couldn’t you?”
“After all we’ve been to each other?” he retorted, with a hint of his old, mocking grin.
Damn! He wasn’t going to say anything.
“Maybe I’ll ride up to see for myself,” she threatened playfully.
“You can try. Yo-Bang and his men are pretty alert, though. They might not let you through.”
“They would if you told them I was welcome.”
“Emmalee,” he said, after giving his answer a moment of consideration, “you’ve always been welcome.”
She watched his expression carefully, heard again the low, intimate, husky tones of his wonderfully caressing voice. She did not perceive a hint of irony. And she was emboldened. Recalling her resolution to establish a relationship with him again, Emmalee decided to take the risk and press on.
“I’d like to talk to you…” she began.
“About what?”
“Maybe…us.”
“Us? I thought you didn’t want an ‘us.’”
She glanced around at all the people. Not a few—the Bent sisters. Myrtle, Cloris Hamtramck, even Otis and Lottie—were watching them. Garn noted this, too, and saw also how uncomfortable the onlookers were making Emmalee. “You must want to discuss something very confidential,” he said wryly. “We could go somewhere else. But are you sure you want to go off alone with me? It’s always gotten us into trouble in the past.”
“This is just as…friends,” she said lamely.
“Okay, Em. Want to walk down to the riverbank?”
She was sure now that he was mocking her about the time he’d seen her with Otis, but if there would ever be an opportunity to discuss her feelings with him, it was now.
“All right, let’s go,” she agreed.
They left the party, walked through Arcady, and soon came in sight of the river. Children were shouting, splashing, and swimming in it.
“Some people got here first,” Garn said.
They’d just passed the new schoolhouse. Not yet painted, the square little building smelled fragrantly of pine. It was cool and quiet inside. Four rows of small desks were bolted to the plank floor. Portraits of, Washington and Lincoln hung on the wall along with two maps, one of the United States and one of Olympia Territory. A globe rested on the teacher’s desk in the front of the room.
“I hope no one saw us come in,” Emmalee said nervously.
“Would it matter to you if someone did?”
“I—I guess not,” she said bravely.
“Why not?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Why wouldn’t it bother you to have been seen?”
There was a slight smile playing about his mouth, but his eyes were dark and serious, boring into her. It was the same way he’d looked at her in church.
“I don’t know,” she said.
He seemed disappointed.
“Did I say the wrong thing?” she wondered.
“Yes. You ought to have said that it didn’t make any difference because you wanted to be with me.”
For an instant, she wanted to flare up at him, as she’d always done in response to his similarly arrogant remarks in the past. But this time she held herself in check. She was above fencing with him now, too grown up for that kind of game at last. And she did want to talk to him, to tell him how mixed were her feelings about the way they’d behaved toward one another in the past. His closeness was having the old effect on her again, yet it was neither his appearance nor his physical magnetism that seemed to freeze her tongue.
What’s wrong with me? she thought. All I have to do is say that I’m sorry for the past, I’m ready to set it aside. All I have to do is ask him if he’ll at least think of seeing me again. That’s what I decided to do on the day of the storm.
But the words would not come, even though she had prepared them, even though she was ready to say them.
Garn did not make it any easier. He stood before her, still smiling slightly, as if he knew the struggle she was going through and knew, too, the reason for the struggle.
“You’re not too often at a loss for words, angel,” he said finally.
The tender term of endearment, his use of which she’d protested so fiercely in the past, stirred her now. It showed, she thought, that he felt deeply for her. But she still couldn’t put her mouth on the words she wanted, the words that would tell him that she cared.
“I’ve said all I wanted to already,” Garn was telling her. “I’ve done all I could. So you see that it’s up to you now…”
Emmalee remembered the first time she’d seen him, on the docks in Cairo, Illinois, recalled her first suspicious impressions of his casually reckless indifference. He was a man of grand gestures and pronouncements, facing the world alone and unafraid. In her mind’s eye, she saw him climbing aboard the roulette table in the swirling Mississippi current, temporarily bested but undefeated, not even needing to be defiant, totally undaunted. She remembered—her body remembered—how he could set her passions aflame, like a flash fire sweeping through the fields of her heart. And she hoped that she had the power to set a similar flame in his soul.
So she stepped forward, put her arms around his neck, and pulled his head down for a kiss. Her lips sought his mouth, found his lips, and in an instant she was lost. He would not need her words at all; he would be able to understand this kiss. She had never kissed him, nor anyone, so fervently before, never initiated the kissing, and it seemed as if every tender word she might be able to recall or invent would pass unhindered from her mind to his, every promise of physical sensation would be there to grasp and hold. Other kisses with other men had always left an emptiness greater than anything a mere kiss could have fil
led, but this was not true with Garn. She wanted everything from him, with him, and realized now that she didn’t care one hoot if the price of having it would be the surrender of her body and soul…
But, gently, he pulled away from her, looked down at her almost with sadness.
“I did love you once, Emmalee,” he said, in the cool quiet of the little schoolhouse. “Perhaps I will again. You’ve come a long way, but not far enough.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe this!
“You’ve learned many things, but not the whole of the lesson. You see, you have to offer me as much as I once offered you.”
“But I don’t understand.” What did he mean? That she had to prove Alf Kaiserhalt a liar? Disarm Vestor Tell? Trade a silver hatband in order to save him from Araphaho Chief Fire-On-The-Moon? It occurred to Emmalee that he had, indeed, done a great deal for her, quite selflessly for a man she’d so often accused to being self-centered beyond redemption.
“You know where to find me,” he was saying, loosening her fingers from the back of his neck, pulling her arms away. “I’ll be there when you understand my meaning, when you find the words…”
It was hard to meet his eyes. They seemed so disappointed and…accusing.
Outside, over the sounds of people at their pleasure, Garn and Emmalee heard the sharp crack of a pistol shot. Garn bounded to the window. Emmalee followed. A lone horseman was riding across the prairie toward Arcady, waving a pistol in one hand. As they watched, the rider fired a second time.
At first Emmalee thought it might be someone who’d had a bit too much to drink, a plowhand or cowboy engaging in a bit of dangerous revelry. But then why would he be riding toward Arcady from the north?
“Trouble?” she asked, putting her hand on Garn’s shoulder.
“Afraid so,” he replied, turning abruptly from her and running out of the school. “That’s Ebenezer Creel.”
Ebenezer headed straight for town, reining his sweat-flecked beast to a stop under the picnic cottonwoods just as Garn and Emmalee arrived on the run. The pistol shots, along with Creel’s agitated appearance, brought partying to a shattering halt. Music died, dancing stopped, glasses were set down upon tabletops. Another horseman, riding more slowly, could be seen coming toward Arcady. The old man glanced fearfully back toward him.
“What is it, Ebenezer?” demanded Jacob Quinn, who’d run up to see what the matter was.
“Big trouble, I’m afeerd.”
“Well, out with it, man,” demanded Garn.
The second horseman drew nearer and nearer.
“It was this way,” babbled Ebenezer, scratching his head. “We had a few trespassers. They hid in the bushes for a while an’ then-fired on Yo-Bang and the boys.”
“Fired on?” Hester Brine asked. “You mean ‘shot at.’ Why on earth?”
“An’ Yo-Bang, he done shot back. He kilt one of ’em.”
“Killed?” repeated Garn, as if he could not understand, as if a great dream had suddenly come tumbling down. “This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to avoid, this was the reason for all the secrecy.”
“I know, boss.” Ebenezer moaned. “But that’s what happened.”
The second horseman, in the person of Leander Rupp, came into town now and slowed his mount. Behind Rupp, draped behind the saddle, across the horse like a sack of flour, was another man. He was obviously dead and he was just as obviously Alf Kaiserhalt.
Emmalee wondered briefly why one of the farmers and one of the ranchers would have been out together spying on Garn Landar’s property.
“Oh, Jesus…” Jacob Quinn said.
Delilah, the bride, was white-faced. Randy, looking stricken and puzzled, stood beside her.
Rupp came up and halted his horse. He didn’t exactly have tears in his eyes, but a lot of sweat ran down. Nor was he bothered that every eye was on him.
“They shot old Alf!” he yelled. “Me an’ old Alf was up in the hills an’ that Chinaman with the yellow hankie in his hair done shot him. Wouldda shot me, too, if I hadn’ta been so quick.”
“I came as soon as I could,” Ebenezer was telling Garn and Jacob. “I wanted to explain what happened before he”—the old man jerked his thumb toward Rupp—“got here with his version of the story.”
“There ain’t but one version,” yowled Rupp. “Alf got shot and I wouldda, too, if they’d been able. You see, they’re keeping something secret up there, an’ it ain’t gonna do none of us any good. It’s gonna ruin the lot of us, farmers and ranchers alike.”
Kaiserhalt and Rupp, Emmalee reflected. Did their cooperation in this spying mission presage a realignment of forces in Olympia?
Garn Landar leaped onto a picnic table.
“All right, everybody,” he said. “There’s been an accident here.”
“Alf’s been shot through the head,” observed Vestor Tell, grabbing the dead rancher’s head by the hair and examining it. “That doesn’t seem like much of an accident to me.”
“He was a trespasser!” shouted Ebenezer. Emmalee hadn’t seen the old man so upset since his wife, Bernice, had died in Denver.
“They’re buildin’ a dam up there is what they’re buildin’,” yelled Rupp above the rising din of horrified and outraged commentary. “Landar and Creel and Quinn and them foreigners mean to contol the river, the main thing that gives life to all of us in Olympia.”
“A dam?”
“A dam!”
“It’s not that way,” pleaded Garn, still up on the table. “You don’t understand…”
But the Arcadians thought they understood all too well. He who controlled the river would subdue to a considerable extent the ravages of heavy rain and spring flood. But he who dammed the Big Two-Hearted would then be able to hold back or release the water at will, and upon such power would depend the welfare of the entire plain.
Emmalee realized that Garn Landar was on the verge of becoming the most powerful man in the whole region.
If he lived.
“Tell, I want Landar, Quinn, and Creel charged with complicity in murder!” demanded Burt Pennington, as the women dropped back and the men came forward toward Garn and the others.
“Yes,” agreed Torquist. “It’s got to be done.”
Tell looked a bit hesitant. He had faced Garn’s weapon before, and Garn’s revolver hung right there on his hip.
“I’m going back up the mountain and ask Yo-Bang what happened,” Jacob Quinn began.
“I already done told you what happened,” protested Rupp.
Emmalee looked around, studying the situation. Ebenezer was still on his horse. Garn was atop the table and Jacob stood next to it. She saw Garn’s black stallion tied to a cottonwood not far away, its great head high, ears perked, as if he sensed the tension of the moment. She slipped away from the crowd, ducked behind the tree, and untied the horse. Puzzled for a moment to find himself free, he backed away from her and reared slightly.
“Garn!” she called sharply over the noise of the crowd. She ducked back behind the tree, but he turned and saw his horse free and unfettered. The men were closing in on him fast. There was little time, so he stuck his fingers against his teeth and let out a shrill whistle, a summons. The black stallion lifted his head high, saw his master, and set off at a fast trot toward Garn. Nothing and no one would get in his way.
Emmalee peeked out from behind the cottonwood and watched. Garn saw the horse approaching, yanked Jacob Quinn up on the table with him. When the stallion passed, the two men leaped aboard. The crowd fell back. Ebenezer took his cue. Two horses and three men broke from the crowd, galloping out of Arcady, people scattering every which way as they fled. Guns were drawn and a few errant bullets were fired, but with all the women and children around no one could get off a good shot.
Emmalee didn’t even know if Garn realized that she’d been the one to untie his horse and make his escape possible. She contented herself with the fact that, at least, she’d done something to save him for once, in partial r
epayment of all the times he’d gotten her out of hot water.
The Arcadians, farmers and ranchers alike, were livid in their rage and florid in their curses. There could be no dam, not now, not ever. No one man—or even two or three men—could ever be allowed such power.
And someone had been murdered!
“Now, I ain’t all so sure that charge’ll stand up,” drawled Vestor Tell blandly. He was not about to go poking around in such an affair, after all, it didn’t affect him directly yet, did it? “Trespassing’s a pretty serious offense in these parts. A man’s land is sacred. You all bring me proof,” he told Pennington and Torquist.
“Come on, Horace,” Burt Pennington said to his former enemy. “We got to consider this. I understand it’s also a tradition in these parts for men to take care of their own problems.”
Darkness Falls
The sun turned against them all in mid-July, just when the clover was beginning to blossom, the ears of corn beginning to form, the kernels of wheat and rye starting to grow full and fat upon the stalks. No one divined this great betrayal at first, because it came so insidiously. An ally may become an enemy overnight, but it usually takes a while longer before the victim realizes what has happened.
Each day the sun came up over the Rockies to the east, burning brightly, coolly at first, then rising in a proud, hot, merciless arc above the land. All day long it blazed down, sinking finally into the west and leaving the Arcadians gasping in hot, muggy twilights. Sleep came hard in sweatsoaked bedrolls. People rose tired and cranky, the high summer sun already hot on their faces.
Very soon, people began to awaken worried as well. As July wore on into August and there was neither breath of wind nor sign of rain, the once-green leaves of corn sagged pale and limp from their sun-blasted stalks. A faint smell of burning leaves rose from the fields of wheat and rye. Even the prairie grass began to turn brown, and the ribs of hapless longhorns grew more visible every day.
Drought.
Garn had been all too right, Emmalee reflected, when he’d once told her that merely getting to Olympia would be the easy part.
The Passionate and the Proud Page 31