The Bold Frontier (8 page)

“I understand,” he said. “I sort of feel the same. There’s a lot of territory in California. A man could make a good start.”

She nodded. “A good start, that’s important. I made a mistake, I guess. So did you. But now there’s a chance for both of us to make up for that. I’m not asking you if you want to. I’m just telling you the chance is there, and I’d like to see if what I think of you is right.”

“I’ve been thinking the same,” he said.

They sat in silence the rest of the evening, but it was a silence filled with a good sense of companionship that Tracy had seldom known. For the first time in several years, he felt things might work out right after all. Right according to the way it had been before the war, not since.

The next morning, they doubled back.

It was a five-day ride to Wagon Bow. The job was carried off at around four in the morning. Tracy rode through the darkened main street at a breakneck gallop and flung the satchel of money on the plank walk in front of the bank. By the time the sun rose he and Lola were miles from Wagon Bow. The only troubling factor was Pawker, somewhere behind them.

He caught up with them when they were high in the mountains, heavily bundled, driving their horses through the lowering twilight while the snow fell from a gray sky. Actually, they were the ones who caught up with Pawker. They saw him lying behind a boulder where he had been waiting. A rime of ice covered his rifle and his yellow boy’s beard. His mouth was open. He was frozen to death.

Tracy felt a great relief. Pawker had evidently followed them, knowing the route they would probably take, and circling ahead to wait in ambush. It would have fitted him, rearing up from behind the boulder with his mouth open in a laugh and his avenging rifle spitting at them in the snow.

They stood for a time in the piercing cold, staring down at the body. Then Tracy looked at Lola through the veil of snow between them. He smiled, not broadly, because he wasn’t a man to smile at death, but with a smile of peace. Neither one spoke.

Tracy made the first overt gesture. He put his thickly clad arm around her and held her for a minute, their cold raw cheeks touching. Then they returned to the horses.

Two days later, they rode down out of the mountains on the trail that led to California.

T
HE LAND HAD A
familiar rolling quality about it. Rome rode westward in the early dawn, a big, stocky man in his early thirties. He followed the movements of his horse easily, his clear gray eyes sweeping over the vast prairies. Those eyes suggested a quick mind, and his whole bearing said that he knew his mind could often help him just as much as the pistol strapped to his right hip.

It was a sort of homecoming. He followed the tracks, two bands of iron stretching ahead of him. The business was well taken care of, the morning air had a cool crispness, and he was in high spirits. The sun glinting from the rails seemed to symbolize the future, alive with pleasant prospects.

His mood changed abruptly around noon when he rode into the end-of-track of the Kansas & Western. The place had an air of idleness. Here and there, groups of section hands sat near piles of ties, drinking coffee and playing cards. He heard no clang of hammers on spikes, no curses of men sweating under the sun. Work had stopped. The rails no longer crept inevitably toward the Rockies.

As troubleshooter it would be his job to iron out whatever was slowing up the work. His mind moved rapidly over the possible causes as he dismounted and tied his horse to the platform rail of the office car. He took the steps two at a time and slammed the door behind him.

Ben Hamilton, the wiry, white-haired head of the Kansas & Western, sat behind his desk, staring at Rome over the top of a coffeepot. His eyes were red with sleeplessness. Rome waited for him to speak, sensing defeat in the slump of Hamilton’s shoulders.

At last the older man sighed. He switched his gaze to the coffeepot and poured himself another cup. “Hello, Mark. You want some coffee? It’s cold …”

“No, thanks,” Rome answered. He swung his leg across a chair before the desk, resting his arms on the back.

“You don’t look very good, Ben.”

Hamilton laughed in a cracked tone and gulped some of the coffee. “I guess not, Mark. How’s things in Saint Louis?”

Rome gestured. “All cleared up. The hitch was coming from back East. We’ll be getting rails and spikes to spare in a couple of days.”

“Don’t know as it’ll do us much good,” Hamilton commented sourly.

“Ben, you might as well spill it. It’s my job.”

The older man sighed again. “All right, dammit. It’s simple enough. We’re stopped. Turns out we don’t have the right of way we need through three of the spreads. The owners refuse to sell. So we can’t meet our contract. It’ll mean an extra week if it turns out that we have to bypass Warknife.”

Rome sat up abruptly. “Warknife!” He hadn’t realized they were that close.

“Yeah. You know the town?”

Rome nodded. “I was born there. Lived there until I was eighteen, before I went East.”

“Fine.” Hamilton’s tone was sarcastic. “You must have a lot of friends there. One hell of a lot of good that’ll do us.”

Friends. The word stung Rome. More than friends. Cathy Thompson. He remembered her, painfully. Remembered how much he’d been in love with her, how many times they had ridden together, hunted together—and laughed at the antics of the young calves together.

Rome knew then it wouldn’t work. The cattle were in her blood. They were her life and her heritage. She could only see cattlemen, and no one else. For him there had been another call, from the East, from the world where the iron horse was beginning to move and bellow as it cut the continent in half. Since that morning, years ago, when he saw locomotives standing on the wharf of Saint Louis, the railroad had captured him.

Sitting before Hamilton in the shadowy car as the older man stared at him, Rome thought about each of the two dreams. The iron horse. He had caught that excitement as a small boy and never lost it. Then came Cathy, when he was older. The two couldn’t live side by side, not then. The smokestack, the churning pistons, the wheels westward, the whistle-scream … the railroad won. He left Warknife and Cathy and went East.

Now he was here again. One dream had been fulfilled, but the other still left its empty ache within him.

“Why all the trouble?” he asked at last. “I thought our buyers had the land contracts sewn up a year ago.

“So did we,” Hamilton exclaimed. “Why, dammit, we were set to lay track all the way to the mountains, picking up the contracts as we went along!”

“Didn’t our buyers get anything on paper?”

Hamilton shook his head. “They should have. That was where we slipped.”

“Everybody slips once in a while,” Rome told him. “We’ve got to correct the slip, that’s all.”

“Look!” Hamilton exclaimed. Rome realized that the man’s nerves were frayed. “We’ve been trying for the last four days. Somebody’s stirred up the three ranchers—most of the town, in fact—and they’re dead set against the railroad coming through. Or at least that’s the way it stacks up.”

“Any particular reason?”

“God knows. A lot of hogwash about too much too quick. I’ve got a pretty good idea who’s behind it. An hombre named Bruce Gashlin. He’s got his main office in Warknife.” Hamilton paused. “Central Kansas Overland Company.”

“Stages, eh?”

“Yeah, and we can’t fight ’em, not legally at least. It’s all in folks’ minds, the way it appears to me. Progress is comin’ too fast. The coaches have worked for them well enough for a long time, so why change? A little fast talking here and there, and we’re blocked.”

“You had any trouble?”

“Not much. Couple of boys got in an argument at the Emporia and got cut up a little, but that’s all. But I think this Gashlin has it in him to make serious trouble for us if he wants. He has one boy working for him named Yancey who looks like a real killer.”

Rome picked a cigar out of the inlaid box on the top of the desk. He struck a match to it and inhaled the strong smoke. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you want me to do.”

“Thought you would.”

“I’d like to know the names of the ranchers with the land we need for the right-of-way.”

Hamilton pulled out one of the desk drawers, shuffled through a sheaf of papers, and drew one out, laying it on the desk before him. He scanned it a moment. “Harry Drew, Giles McMaster, and Job Thompson.”

Once again the knife of memory and regret twisted. Job Thompson … Cathy’s father, big and powerful and rock-faced, with his voice like velvet thunder. When the children of the Warknife Congregational Sunday School had thought of God, they thought of Job Thompson’s voice.

And Cathy … The prospect of seeing her again worried Rome. By now she must be married. Any number of younger ranchers with small spreads near Warknife would have found her a fine wife. And a beautiful one at that.

Rome eased himself to his feet and looked straight at Hamilton, trying not to show his tangled emotions. “I’ll ride in and see what I can do.”

“You’re a good talker, a damned good talker. Maybe you can get ’em to change their minds.”

“I’ll try.”

Hamilton jabbed a warning finger at him. “Let me tell you something, Mark. I know you’re never anxious to use that gun of yours, but I’ve met this Gashlin, and, believe me, he’s somebody to watch out for. He hates us. And Yancey’s nothing but a paid killer. Gashlin’s got a bunch of them working for him, but this Yancey’s the worst. He hung around Dodge City for a long time, I hear.”

“I’ll watch out,” Rome promised. With a brief farewell wave, he left the office car and swung up into his saddle, moving at a brisk trot out through the end-of-track camp.

It still lay quiet under the burning yellow of the noon sun. The sound of a harmonica lifted mournfully from somewhere beyond the cook car.

Outside the camp, Rome kicked his mount to a gallop. Warknife lay less than a half mile away. He felt ashamed that he had forgotten so much of the territory in the years he’d been gone.

Warknife itself hadn’t changed greatly. The board fronts were still there, some with new coats of paint, some worn even more from the weather than he remembered. He rode slowly through the main street, noticing the new druggist’s shop, the new name posted over the livery stable. A hundred boyhood incidents flooded back: memories of warm summer evenings near the stable, of the excitement of the first rolled cigarette, the first church meeting. His father, his mother … They were vague figures; sad-faced people broken by years of work in the general-store business. Someone named Hopeman now owned the store, he saw.

No one recognized him. He rode slowly through the main street. People bustled on the sidewalks doing after-dinner shopping. Cattlemen were in the saddle on various errands. The loungers on the front porch of the Emporia Saloon paid no attention to him. He spied the Reverend Paxton, who peered at him from the sidewalk for a minute. Rome stared back impassively. Paxton’s eyes took in the gun on his hip, the rawboned body, the determined face. No expression of recognition appeared. Rome felt a little lonely then.

The Circle JT lay three miles on the other side of Warknife to the northwest. Rome caught his breath angrily as he saw that the land would make a perfect right-of-way. Except for a deep cut in the midst of a stretch of uncleared timber that would have to be bridged, construction would be relatively easy.

The yard of the ranch house was empty. Most of the hands, including Thompson himself, would be out on the range. Rome tied his horse and walked across the porch, conscious of the loud sound of his boots. He knocked.

Mrs. Thompson, a stout woman with a retiring manner, came to the door. She stared at him with the gaze she must have reserved for strangers, Rome thought. She made no attempt to recognize him. They had all forgotten. …

“Yes, sir, good afternoon,” she said, “what can—?” She caught her breath abruptly. “Why, my goodness! Is it … Mark Rome? Is it?”

Rome grinned. “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

Mrs. Thompson opened the front screen quickly. “My heavens, boy, come in!” She ushered him into the parlor, a musky place smelling of handmade lavender sachets and adorned with the customary motto,
God Bless Our Home,
on the wall. “Sit down, Mark,” she said affably. “I’ll call Cathy.” She raised her voice. “Cathy? Cathy, come see who’s here.”

Rome turned his hat in his hands. In a moment Cathy appeared from the kitchen. She stared at him, a slender woman with brown hair, frank brown eyes, and a faintly sensual mouth set in an oval face. She was still very good to look at, he thought.

“Mark Rome!” she said, smiling, and Rome felt the inner glow of warmth that always came from seeing that smile. She shook his hand with just a hint of pressure. He saw that she wore no wedding ring.

“When did you come back to Warknife?” she asked.

“Only today. I’ve been in Saint Louis doing some work for the railroad.”

“Railroad?” Mrs. Thompson stiffened perceptibly.

“Yes, ma’am, the Kansas & Western.”

Cathy laughed in a forced way. “It always was the railroad, wasn’t it, Mark?”

“Yes, I guess it was. I came to see about the trouble over the right-of-way.” The moment was broken. The wall had been erected; they were strangers again.

“Dad isn’t going to sell,” Cathy said evenly. “Bruce Gashlin’s stages work well enough. You know that.”

“I’d like to talk with Job, if I could,” Mark said.

“You’ll have to wait for him,” Mrs. Thompson told him. “He’ll be in about the middle of the afternoon. If you’ll excuse me, I’m putting up pickles in the kitchen. Sure was nice to see you again.” Her smile carried no feeling.

He and Cathy talked for an hour or so, exchanging news of what they had both been doing in the intervening years. Cathy didn’t mention anything of marriage, and Rome avoided the subject. Then they talked of the East, where Cathy had never been.

“Everything’s too fast there,” she declared. “Always trying something crazy before it’s proven.”

“There are plenty of railroads in operation,” Rome said with a trace of sharpness.