Powder River (5 page)

They rode against the wind. The snow took the form of sharp splinters of ice that stung the skin and eyes. Dixon wished he had thought to bring his sun goggles, not standard equipment for a winter journey in the dead of night. The trip took longer than Dixon anticipated. By the time they arrived at August Schmidt's small but tidy farmstead, the sky was beginning to lighten.

They went directly to the barn. Only one lamp was burning, and the interior was dark and cold as the grave. A woman sat on the floor in a circle of lamplight, a man's head in her lap. She was stroking his hair and speaking in a low voice.

Dixon walked to them and looked down on August Schmidt's lifeless face. His eyes were at half-mast and the front of his shirt was black with blood. The chest wound alone would have been fatal, Dixon saw that at once, but Schmidt had suffered a second injury, a vicious blast to the side of his face that exposed broken, bloody teeth. With a groan, Carl dropped to his knees beside his father's body. His mother, stone faced and dry eyed, did not acknowledge him but continued smoothing her dead husband's hair.

“Who did this?” Dixon said. The woman did not respond.

“Mrs. Schmidt, who killed your husband?”

Finally, she raised her eyes to his. Her face was drawn and gray as Mrs. MacGill's oatmeal. Ordinarily, Doriselaine Schmidt was a good-looking woman, but she was not good to look at now.

“Faucett,” she whispered. “The devil.”

Dixon thought he misheard. Lord Richard Faucett was the wealthiest man in Johnson County, possibly in the whole of the Wyoming Territory. Why would a man with so much kill a hardworking German farmer who barely managed to keep his little farm a going concern? “Lord Faucett shot your husband?” he said.

She smiled grimly at the disbelief in his voice. “He didn't pull the trigger—he doesn't have to, he's got his killers to do that for him—but he's behind it, sure enough. I warned Gus, I told him to sell like Faucett wanted, but Gus was stubborn. He wouldn't listen.” She lowered her eyes to her husband's face. “Now, look at you.”

The barn was bitterly cold, and Dixon was hungry and tired after his long ride. He wanted a cup of hot coffee but doubted he would get one anytime soon. The woman was distraught and, he suspected, unhinged. A long and difficult day lay ahead.

“We'll have to notify Sheriff Canton,” he said. “I'm sorry about what's happened to your husband, Mrs. Schmidt, but I would be careful before making any accusations without solid proof. You don't want to make things harder for yourself and Carl.”

She shook her head. “You're still fairly new around here, aren't you, Doctor? What, been here four or five months or so?” When she looked up at him he was startled by the contempt he saw on her face. “You've got a nice new house, your good work, you don't know how things are in Johnson County. You're not trying to make your living off the land like me and Gus. You don't know how Faucett and them claimed land that ain't theirs by rights and thumbed their nose at the rest of us.” Her eyes filled with tears as she threw his words back at him. “‘Notify Sheriff Canton' you say! Ha! Fat lot of good that'll do. You've still got a lot to learn about how things work in Powder River country, Dr. Dixon.”

He could think of nothing to say. Although he had come to help, he sensed he had only added to the woman's distress. He wanted to comfort her, but he felt clumsy and useless.

“Carl,” she said, “take the doctor into the house. Make a pot of coffee and give him some of last night's corn bread, then let Dr. Dixon get on home to his family. You and me can handle things here.” She placed her husband's head gently on the barn's earthen floor and got to her feet, smoothing her blood-soaked apron. “Good-bye, Doctor. There's nothing for you to do here. I am sorry for your trouble.”

When he finally arrived home, Dixon was surprised to see Sheriff Canton's horse, Fred, tied to the porch rail. He'd had plenty of time to consider Doriselaine Schmidt's words of reproach on the long, lonely ride. Though his first impulse had been to dismiss her allegations as the rantings of a grief-stricken woman, her calm dismissal of him had altered that perception. Could Canton be one of Faucett's hired killers? She had not mentioned him by name, but still . . .

He entered his house to find the sheriff sitting at the table in the warm kitchen, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand and a plate of Mrs. MacGill's pancakes in front of him. Harry and the twins were at the table, too.

“Hello, Doctor,” Canton said as Dixon took off his hat and brushed the snow off his shoulders. “Your boy Harry was telling me about some trouble over to the Schmidt place. Is that so?”

Dixon did not answer at once but crossed the room to hang his coat on a peg beside Canton's. The sheriff's demeanor was friendly, but Dixon felt a worm of unease. When he turned back to the table, Canton was watching him attentively.

“Harry,” Dixon said, “see to the horses, will you?”

“But what happened at Carl's? Did you save his pa?”

“No, I did not. The man was dead when I got there. Now Harry, please see to the horses as I said. Cal and Lorna, give your brother a hand cleaning the tack.”

Reluctantly, Harry and the twins obeyed. Dixon poured himself a cup of coffee and sat at the table, waiting until they were out of earshot before answering Canton's question.

“Someone murdered Gus Schmidt,” Dixon said. “Shot him in the stomach and the face. He'd been dead for hours by the time I got there.”

“Murder you say?” Canton's eyes locked on Dixon's, and there was no surprise in them. “Doriselaine or her boy have anything to say about who might've done it?”

Dixon hesitated. Something told him not to repeat the woman's allegations. “No,” he said. “If she has any ideas, she didn't share them with me.”

Canton sipped his milky coffee, wetting his long mustache and cleaning it with his lower lip. Dixon found this habit disgusting.

“They didn't see anything?” Canton said. “Well, that does surprise me some. I don't know the boy, but Doriselaine is a sharp woman. She don't miss much.” He maintained a cordial smile.

“No, not that she said. She was upset, of course. I didn't want to press her.”

“I guess not.” Canton finished his coffee in one long draught. “Reckon I better get on over there. You know my deputy, don't you? Jim Enochs? If he shows up here, send him along, over to the Schmidt place. Could be I'll run into him on the way.”

Dixon watched Canton put on his hat and well-tailored wool overcoat, obviously new. Johnson County must pay its lawmen well, he thought.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Canton said, “the reason I came out here in the first place. Lord Faucett wants you to come to a dinner party at his house this Saturday night. He says it's time you met. You seen The Manor, Doc?”

“No, I haven't.”

Canton smiled. “It's quite a place. You'll understand why folks around here call it that. Bring a bag, he wants you to come on Friday and stay over till Sunday. Lord Faucett won't have his guests traveling at night. It ain't safe, too many road agents and cutthroats around nowadays.” Canton winked. “But that's about to change.”

After he had gone, Mrs. MacGill turned from the sink where she had been washing breakfast dishes. “I wouldn't trust that man, Doctor,” she said. “That one's a right devil, and no mistake.”

Lord Richard Faucett's home was south of Buffalo, on a flat, grassy meadow near the place where the three forks of Powder River came together. The short, balding Englishman was on the piazza, smoking a cigar, when Dixon arrived. Despite the cold, Faucett wore only a long silk jacket, tied at the waist, trousers, and velvet smoking slippers. He bounded down the stairs to shake Dixon's hand.

“Lady Faucett cannot abide the smell of a cigar, even the fine ones I smoke. Takes a cruel woman, Dixon, to force a man out into this beastly Wyoming cold just to enjoy a smoke.” He tossed the burning cylinder into a snow bank where it sank with a hiss. “It's almost enough to make a man swear off cigars! Come, let's get inside.”

A waiting servant, a Chinese man, opened the heavy, oaken double doors, and Dixon stepped into a gleaming world of grandeur and richness beyond anything he had ever seen. They stood in a great hallway that ran the length of the house and was open to the two-story roof. Roaring fires burned in giant, stone fireplaces at each end of the hall, heating the vast space and lending it the look of a medieval palace. Indian artifacts, tanned buffalo robes, and the preserved heads of bison, elk, deer, and mountain cats hung on the walls. A curving staircase of solid walnut, highly polished, led to the rooms of the second floor. Just below it was a gallery level, furnished with potted plants and hanging vines. “That's where the musicians will be tomorrow night,” Faucett said, pointing to the gallery. “I can fit a full orchestra up there. Works brilliantly. The acoustics are splendid and putting the musicians up there leaves more room for dancing. My idea. Brilliant, if I do say so myself.”

They toured the ground floor, which included a dining room—large enough, Faucett said, to accommodate twenty diners—a library with all four walls lined in leather-bound volumes, a pantry, and a kitchen. Faucett's office was equipped with a telephone, a device Dixon had read about but never seen.

“The first in Wyoming Territory,” Faucett said of the instrument with obvious pride, “hell, maybe the only one for all I know. It connects me to my store, supply depot, and post office twenty-four miles away. I tell you, Dixon, that gadget saves me all sorts of time and trouble. It's expensive to keep the lines up, man hours you know, especially in the winter, but it's damn well worth it.”

In the summer and fall, Faucett said, he and his wife, Odalie, liked to keep the place full of relatives and guests from England. “I take them on hunting trips, fishing, that sort of thing. Only the best people—here, take a look.” Faucett led Dixon to a guestbook in the great hall, standing open on a pedestal. Dutifully turning the pages, Dixon saw the signatures of lords and ladies, dukes and earls.

“Very impressive,” Dixon said, wondering how a man so young—Faucett looked to be about thirty or thirty-five—had accumulated such a fortune. Dixon also was curious as to why Faucett had invited him and what he wanted. When he looked up from the guest book, he saw his host smiling, as if he read Dixon's thoughts.

“Come, Doctor,” he said, “let's sit by the fire, have a drink and chat a bit before dinner, shall we? Chang, take Dr. Dixon's bag upstairs to the blue room.”

They settled into comfortable leather armchairs before a warm fire. Chang served them whiskey, a fine, single-malt, in cut-crystal glasses that sparkled like diamonds. They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes, then Faucett said, “So, what do you think of all this, Dixon?” He waved his hand about the room.

“As I said, it's most impressive. I admit, I am wondering what brought you here all the way from England. The people, the country, it must seem very primitive.”

Faucett smiled into his drink. “It does, rather. It's ironic, I came for my health—weak lungs, you know—but in fact, the country almost killed us. By us, I mean my brother, Dick, and me. It was in seventy-eight, mid-November, and we'd been on a hunting trip. Started out from Fort Washakie. Make a long story short, we ended up crossing the Big Horns in the dead of winter. When we finally reached the headwaters of the Powder River, everything was buried in deep snow and no landmarks were recognizable. Our guides couldn't find the pass and brother Dick was gravely ill. Well, I thought we were finished when our chief guide, Jack Hargreaves, brilliant fellow, came up with a solution. He stampeded a herd of buffalo, knowing when they started running they would instinctively make for the pass, which is exactly what they did. Not only that, they pounded the snow down, making a hard, smooth road that we followed right to a place called Trabing. Perhaps you know it?”

Dixon nodded. Trabing was a rough ranch and way station on the Bozeman Road at the Crazy Woman Creek crossing. The spot had been notorious for Indian attacks in the 1860s, when Dixon and Rose first passed that way. He thought of her, and how she would have loved this palatial home. Rose had never had much herself, but that didn't stop her from appreciating, without jealousy, the fine things in life.

“Well,” Faucett continued, “Trabing and his clientele were astonished when we staggered in. At first, they didn't believe our story, they thought we must be fugitives from the law or some such, but when Hargreaves and I went out the next day for poor Dick—we'd been forced to leave him behind in a deserted shack, you see—and brought him back on a travois, thin as a skeleton and barely alive, they finally believed us. We may be the only white men ever to have made that terrible journey in winter. Hargreaves believes it, and I rather suspect he's right.”

Dixon nodded, remembering his own, hellishly cold rescue ride from Fort Phil Kearny to Horseshoe Station in December of 1866. He and Portugee Phillips, a civilian employee of the post quartermaster, had left the night of the massacre, traveling at night and hiding in bushes and ravines during the day. The first sixty-fives miles to Fort Reno had been the worst. Many times Dixon thought the subzero temperatures would kill him if the Indians didn't. The army had paid each man three hundred dollars for his efforts.

“Did your brother recover?” he asked Faucett.

“Yes, matter of fact, he did. Old Dick was tougher than I thought. He chose to remain here in Wyoming when I returned to New York for the winter. When I came back in the spring, he'd already started building this place, already ordered furnishings and fittings from Chicago. That summer I bought my first herd, from a rancher on the Sweetwater. Now I have thirty-nine thousand animals, including horses, all bearing my brand. I don't mind telling you, Dixon, my range runs from the headwaters of the Powder River south to Teapot Rock divide. That's ninety miles north and south, and east thirty miles from the Big Horns. Soon, I'll have two more ranches, one on Crazy Woman Creek and another on Tongue River. I'll need a good man on each to help run my outfit, an intelligent man, one who already knows something of the cattle business. You did some work for Nelson Story up north, didn't you, Dixon? How'd you like to come work for me?”

Faucett gestured to Chang, who refilled their glasses. Dixon had begun to suspect Faucett was working up to such an offer, though he had no intention of accepting. Story was a good man and a friend, and Dixon had been happy in Paradise Valley, but he'd had his fill of working for another man, of spending his time and energy looking after someone else's interests. He was ready to be his own boss. Beyond that, the isolation of ranch life was hard on children. The twins especially needed school and civilizing.

“Money is no object,” Faucett said, misinterpreting Dixon's hesitation. “I need a man I can trust, and one who can start immediately. Name your price.”

Before Dixon could answer, they were interrupted by a woman's voice from the curving stairway.

“Oh, do be quiet, Richard,” she said. “Our guest isn't interested in becoming another one of your cow servants. Leave the poor man alone.”

The two men got to their feet as she entered the room. The woman was tall, taller than her husband, and striking, with pale hair worn in a gleaming chignon and skin that was white and unblemished. She wore a silk brocade dress, cut low in the European fashion, of an ivory color that accentuated her cool, bloodless beauty. Unlike her husband, Lady Faucett was not English. In her speech, Dixon heard the languorous lilt of the American South.

“My darling,” Faucett said, “come meet our neighbor, Daniel Dixon, the physician. I've no intention of making him one of my cow servants, as you say. I want him to join me as a kind of partner. Dr. Dixon, may I introduce my wife, Odalie?”

When she offered her hand, Dixon, because of her exoticness, was not sure whether to clasp it or raise it to his lips. He chose the latter. As their eyes met, he felt a shock of recognition, a stirring he had not experienced in years. He knew these eyes; they were large and blue, rimmed with long dark lashes. What moved him most was not the beauty of those eyes but the delicate, dewy skin below them, faintly blue or maybe silver, that made them so remarkable. Rose's eyes.

“So nice to meet you at last, Doctor,” she said. Dixon saw surprise and amusement on her lovely face, and he realized he was still holding her hand.

“The pleasure is mine, Lady Faucett,” he said, finally releasing her hand.

* * *

The meal began with chicken gumbo soup, served with a crusty, French-style bread, followed by a broiled leg of lamb bathed in an oyster sauce made rich with sweet butter and cream. After this, a fricassee of veal, served with mashed potatoes and asparagus points, and, to finish, English plum pudding with brandy sauce. Chang served the food, cleared the plates, and kept the wine flowing throughout.

“Lady Faucett, I do believe that was the best meal I've ever had,” Dixon said without exaggeration. As a young man growing up in Lexington, Kentucky, and later as a physician-in-training in Cincinnati, he had patronized the finest restaurants those sophisticated cities had to offer, but nothing to compare with this. “Where did you find such a cook?”

Odalie smiled happily, revealing dimples in both cheeks. “Arnaud—he is a treasure, isn't he? I discovered him last year on a journey home. I poached him from a Mississippi steamer. I'm worried though; I don't know how long I'll be able to keep him. We pay him handsomely, God knows, but one of those railroad tycoons in Denver will woo him away soon, I fear. It's already been attempted.”

“I'm not surprised,” Dixon said. “And where is home?”

“New Orleans. Do you know it?”

“Yes, though I haven't been there since before the war. I remember it as a lovely but strange city, like being in another country.” In fact, though it would be impolite to say so, Dixon had been happy to leave the place. He and his traveling companion had made the mistake of visiting in summer, and his friend, a fellow medical student, had fallen ill with yellow fever and very nearly died. When Dixon thought of New Orleans, he saw jaundiced skin, yellow eyes, and pools of bloody vomit.

Odalie's smile faded at his mention of the war. “Yes, well, it's all quite different now,” she said bitterly, “thanks to the Yankee beast Butler, a vile pig.” Her eyes clouded as the specter of General Benjamin F. Butler entered the candlelit room.

Lord Faucett cleared his throat. “Yes, well . . .” He searched for a change of topic. “I am by no means expert in these matters, but I like to think I have a keen ear for language. Are you, Dr. Dixon, by any chance a child of Dixie, like my wife?”

Dixon smiled. “I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, though I haven't been back to the Bluegrass Country for many years. I hope you won't hold it against me, Lady Faucett, but I fought with the Union during the late war. My family and I disagreed on the subject of slavery, and it caused a rupture that has yet to heal. Someday, I hope to change this, but so far, I have not found an opening.”

Odalie sighed, abandoning her previous gaiety. “Yes, a story that's all-too-common, I'm afraid. No, Doctor, I don't fault you for your wartime allegiance. What's done is done, though I do hope you can heal the rift. Family is so important.”

She smiled sadly at him and, again, Dixon felt a throb of powerful emotion. Other than the eerie similarity about the eyes, Odalie Faucett did not resemble Rose in any way. Still, in some strange way, Dixon felt his departed wife's presence in the room. He had almost forgotten how much he loved her, until this lovely woman reminded him.