The Fire of Greed (24 page)

Chapter 44

“HOW ABOUT A COLD BEER, MR. WALDRON?” SIWARD SAID
as the train shivered to a stop in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It was the last scheduled stop before they neared the state line at Raton.

“That is an appealing suggestion, sir,” Waldron said, leaning back in the upholstered seat. He watched as Siward crossed the platform toward the man with a galvanized wash pan filled with melting ice and beer bottles, and thought about New Mexico, the two years he had spent here, and how he had never really felt at home.

He thought about how he missed his old life in the hubs of the financial world, and about how, given the present circumstances, he really should not go back to the East. He needed a new start, preferably in a place where he wasn't known, and this is what he planned.

“How were things in Las Vegas?” Waldron said, more than asked, as Siward returned with two bottles, still damp and slippery to the touch from the tub.

“Didn't see more than the platform,” Siward said. “Talked to the agent for a minute. He said the telegraph line is down somewhere between here and Santa Fe. “

“How'd that happen?”

“He reckons the storm last night. There was a lot of lightning.”

“Are they getting it fixed?” Waldron asked, realizing as he did so that telegraph lines and railroad lines were no longer subjects that should concern him.

“He said they found the break and they're gonna get it patched up.”

“Good,” Waldron said, without really caring.

He held the pleasingly cool bottle in his hand and studied Probst and Kirchner's maker's mark on the label.

“Without the railroad, this wouldn't be possible,” he told his companion. After a professional lifetime in the railroad business, he was unable to distance himself from the notion of taking pride in that mode of transportation. “Without the railroad, it would simply not be possible to walk across a platform in Las Vegas and buy cold beer made in Santa Fe.”

“Here's to railroads and cold beer, Mr. Waldron,” Siward said, touching his bottle to that of the man whom he still considered to be his boss. “Without the railroad, there wouldn't be any civilization
at all
in places like this.”

“To new beginnings,” Waldron said, closing his eyes to savor the frothy, amber liquid rolling across his tongue.

As the contents of the bottle gradually slipped away, Waldron gradually slipped into that condition of half slumber that is the nearest facsimile of sleep available to most patrons riding a rhythmically jostling railcar.

In that condition of semi-siesta, gauzy curtains parted and the marvelous Nicolette de la Gravière appeared, her lips the color of chilies and her smile more radiant than ever.

He watched her face turn and her jaw go slack in terror as it had last night.

Was it only just last night?

It seemed like days, at least a week, since the trembling revolver of the grotesque Ben Muriday had turned the flawless face of Nicolette de la Gravière into a mask of horror.

Waldron awoke with a start.

There were beads of sweat trickling down his cheeks, and the skin beneath his collar felt unbearably clammy.

“What did we do?” Waldron said.

“What do you mean?” Siward asked.

“Did we really almost kill a woman?”

Siward looked around. Fortunately, the adjacent seats were empty, and in the clatter of the train, voices did not carry far.

“Not so loud,” he cautioned Waldron nevertheless.

“I'm not that kind of person,” Waldron insisted, loosening his collar. “
Am I?
”

“What's done is done, Mr. Waldron. Nobody will ever know.”

“I suppose,” Waldron said, not articulating his fear that
he
would always know.

“I don't like knowing my own part in it, but what's done is done,” Siward said. “I don't like it any more than you do, but you said it was necessary. You kept saying that all the loose ends kept getting in the way of the plan . . . so I reckon we did what had to be done.”

“But, a
woman . . .”

“Not so loud,” Siward whispered. “But she ain't dead, so you just have to get over it.”

“I keep seeing her face in my mind,” Waldron complained.

“You'll never see her again. You're near two hundred miles away from her now, and getting farther every minute . . . and you're never going back.”

“You're right. I'm just exhausted from lack of sleep.”

Waldron was just about to doze off again when the train suddenly jerked, shimmied, and quickly wheezed to a stop.

“What the hell is going on?” he sputtered, the hissing of his voice mimicking that of the air brakes

“May I have your attention, please,” the conductor said as he came into the car. “We are making a flag stop in Wagon Mound. We anticipate a layover of about thirty minutes while we take on passengers and water. Feel free to step outside, but don't wander too far.”

“How far is it to Raton?” Siward asked.

“We are exactly sixty-five and seven-tenths miles from Raton,” the conductor replied, proud to know the distance down to the nearest tenth of a mile. “I anticipate our arrival in one hour and forty-eight minutes.”

“Reckon it wouldn't hurt to stretch my legs,” Siward said, standing up.

Waldron took out his pocket watch, as though handling and winding it would make time move more quickly.

He looked out the window, at Siward wandering about the platform, and at the rocky cliff in the near distance that was the landmark and namesake of this desolate outpost.

He thought about Siward's choice of words, when he had said that without the railroad, there wouldn't be any civilization in places such as Las Vegas.

To this, Waldron added that in places such as Wagon Mound, and other whistle-stops through which they had just passed—such as Watrous, Shoemaker, Optimo, Bond, and Cibola—the railroad constituted the
only
civilization.

* * *

THE MAN WITH THE PAN FILLED WITH BEER HAD REFRESHED
his ice by the time the second eastbound train of the day arrived in Las Vegas, but Bladen Cole was not buying. It was not that he wasn't thirsty, but that he was a stowaway without a ticket.

His letter from Joseph Ames authorized him to come aboard an Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe train to remove one Ezra Waldron, but it did not authorize him to stay aboard for a ride. Depending on the agent or the conductor, he might be able to make the argument that it did, and he could always offer to buy a ticket now that he was already aboard, but he did not want to take a chance on being tossed off
this
train.

He knew that he should have gotten Ames to issue one of those railroad passes that allowed you to ride comfortably in a passenger car—but that would have applied only if the train stopped to let him aboard.

Between the cars, Cole rode anonymously. No one noticed him, and for the moment, no one would bother him. However, as he well knew, a man sitting between cars would stand out like the trespasser he was the moment the cars came to a stop at the station in Las Vegas.

Where could he hide?

Would he be noticed on the roof?

What about beneath the car? He could slide under there and hang on when the train was in the station. No, he would not. He could imagine no more terrifying place in the world than hanging beneath the train, and becoming trapped there as it picked up speed. He'd take a chance on his powers of persuasion and the letter from Ames before he'd do
that
.

As he pondered this dilemma, sitting in the space between the two baggage cars, with the cacophonous din reverberating all around him, he stared at the baggage car rattling along, six feet opposite where he was seated, and studied the door. It would be nice to get inside, but a locked door was as useful as the solid wall on the car where he was sitting.

He could probably force the door, but not without doing noticeable damage, and he did not want his presence to be noticed. Thinking that he might try to pick the lock, he began looking around for a suitable tool. The best he found was a piece of stiff wire wrapped around one of the railings.

Having unwound it, he stepped carefully across the chasm where the two cars were coupled and grabbed the handle nearest the door. This handhold wobbled slightly as though it was coming loose, but it held.

Taking a deep breath, he began exploring the inside of the lock with the wire. He felt the tumblers. They were old-fashioned ones, large and sturdy, which reminded him of the old locks that he and Will used to pick for kicks when they were boys.

Will.

It had been less than twenty-four hours since the ten-year road to the avenging of Will's death had come to its end, but Cole had been too obsessed with the avenging of the near-murder of Nicolette de la Gravière to pause for reflection.

Picking a lock was a matter of the subtleties of sound and touch, and in the clamor and lurch of the train, neither of these senses was available to him.

The tumblers were stubborn and resisted his efforts.

Finally, one desperate twist and he could feel with the wire that they had moved.

Stepping inside the musty interior of the car, Cole closed the door and relished the relative quiet. The noise was still deafening, but no longer did it threaten to rattle the teeth from his skull.

The way that the baggage and freight were positioned gave indication of the order in which they were intended to be removed, so Cole fashioned himself a place of concealment that was likely to be disturbed last, possibly as far down the road as La Junta.

It was here that the two trains would be joined as one, and Cole could step out of this car and simply walk up to the passenger car where he would astonish Waldron with an unexpected surprise—or at least that was his plan.

Chapter 45

“WHAT . . . WHERE . . . ?” EZRA WALDRON SAID, WAKING
up suddenly. He felt the jerking and hissing of the braking train as the demons that had haunted his catnap fluttered away on leathery wings, back to their hiding places in the recesses of his subliminal mind.

“Must be Raton . . .
at last
,” he said, opening his eyes.

“My recollection was of a town that was a lot bigger,” Siward observed, looking out the window at a handful of dismal little shacks, which cast long shadows in the late afternoon sun.

“This is probably just the edge of town,” Waldron said, leaning back. “Maybe there's another train in the station. The engineer is letting it clear before we pull forward. We'll be moving in just a minute.”

A minute came and went, and then another. Soon, these two were joined by several more.

“We
aren't
moving,” Siward observed.

His was not the only such observation. Several other passengers in the car were grumbling and remarking. One man pushed down a window and leaned out.

“Hebron,” he said.

“Hebron?” someone asked incredulously.

For some, the first thought was of the ancient city of Israelite refuge, which was mentioned in the Book of Joshua. Waldron knew it as the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe whistle-stop a dozen miles south of Raton.

“How long are we going to be stuck here?” someone shouted as the conductor came into the car.

“All I can tell you is that the station agent received a telegraph message requesting that the train be stopped and held here,” the conductor explained.

“Why?” another man shouted.

“I don't know that,” the conductor admitted, clearly chagrined not to have the answer.

“How long?” Waldron asked.

“That I don't know either.”

“I'll see about this,” Waldron said, standing to detrain.

Followed by Nathaniel Siward, he stepped onto the platform and strode purposefully to the stationmaster's office inside the small depot building.

“I'm Ezra Waldron,” he announced. “I'm an executive of this road with important business at the home office. I insist on knowing the reason for this delay. Is there something wrong with the tracks ahead?”

“Not that I'm aware of, sir,” the man said, rising in the presence of a superior.

“Then why are we stopping?”

“I received a wire from Santa Fe, sir. Orders to have this train stopped until further notice.”

“I thought the telegraph wires were down,” Siward said.

“They were. All night and until about an hour ago. They've gotten them repaired.”

“Who ordered the train to stop?”

The man put on his spectacles and picked up the telegram.

“Mr. Joseph Ames, sir.”

“Ames?” Waldron said angrily. “What is that damned fool playing at?”

Waldron cursed under his breath and paced the stationmaster's office, making the other men nervous.

“I herewith countermand that order,” Waldron said at last. “Get this train running.”

“I can't do that, sir,” the man said.

“Why the hell
not
?” Waldron demanded.

“The rules state that no order issued by any main office can be countermanded in the field except in cases of imminent loss of life . . . I'm very sorry, sir.”

“Damn you, man,” Waldron shouted. “Get that train running!”

“Can't do it,” the man said firmly. “I'd lose my job.”

“Then I'll send a wire to Ames and tell him to order you to do it,” Waldron said, stomping out of the office with Siward at his heels.

They went to the telegraph desk, where Waldron scratched out a message and exhorted the agent that it be sent to Santa Fe without delay. Waldron had no idea that
he
was the reason for Ames ordering the train to be stopped. He assumed that Ames still wanted him on his way to the home office as expeditiously as possible.

“Wish they had beer for sale here,” Siward observed after having watched Waldron pace the platform for nearly half an hour.

His boss simply glowered.

In the distance, they heard a train whistle and looked down the track behind the stationary train on which they had arrived in Hebron. There was a tiny smudge of smoke on the horizon. With the earlier train having been delayed by lengthy whistle-stops, the later train was finally catching up.

“That's the through train,” Waldron observed with a sense of relief. “They can't stop the through train. We'll just transfer our baggage to the through train and be on our way.”

“That's easier said than done,” Siward said cautiously. “There's no siding here in Hebron. Our train is in the way. It would be impossible for another train to pass ours. If
we're
stopped . . . they have to stop.”

“Damn it,” Waldron muttered, launching into a tirade of curses as the second train came into view.

“Now you have the through train stopped,” he said to the agent as he appeared in the depot doorway. “Surely you'll have to move this train forward to a siding to let the through train pass by.”

“Sir, my orders are to let no trains proceed past this point on the line,” he replied as they heard the hiss of the through train's air brakes.

“I've already wired Ames, telling him to rescind this damned fool order,” Waldron said.

“Sir, when I hear from him, I'll waste no time in releasing
both
trains,” the man promised.

He then turned to go back to his office, leaving Waldron and Siward on the platform with the smattering of travelers from their train who were also pacing in frustration as they watched the through train pull into the station, its brakes hissing loudly.

* * *

“YOU LEFT SANTA FE WITHOUT SAYING GOOD-BYE.”

Ezra Waldron turned quickly at the unexpected sound of a familiar voice.

It was Nicolette de la Gravière.

“You left so
quickly
last night,” she continued.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “Why are you here?”

“When I learned that you had left on the morning train without saying good-bye, I knew I must catch up to you. There are so many things that were left unsaid between us. Mr. Ames was so kind to give me a pass . . . and to arrange for me to be driven to Lamy to catch the through train.”

He blinked his eyes in speechless disbelief.

“You left so quickly last night that I did not have a chance to ask you why the man's gun was pointed at
me
,” she said, her tone more stern than angry. “Do you know why, Ezra? Did this have something to do with a certain letter that you left on your desk . . . a certain letter from the Denver & Rio Grande?”

“You had no call disturbing my papers,” Waldron said as the small woman in the dark blue traveling dress walked steadily toward him on the platform.

“Had
you
a call to scheme a robbery against your emloyer for your own personal gain?”

“You can't understand . . .”

“Your letter was quite clear,” she said.

“What letter?” Waldron retorted with a nervous chuckle. “You said you saw a letter, but can you
produce
such a letter?”

“There was also the matter of a certain brokerage statement,” Nicolette said pointedly. “Do you find the names Ripley, Storey & Bledsoe familiar?”

“Many people have accounts with them.”

“How many people working for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe purchased shares of the Denver & Rio Grande a month before a robbery on the former caused the shares of the latter to nearly triple in value?”

“Where's the statement that shows this?”

“You left
last month's
statement behind,” Nicolette said. “Everyone knows what happened to the value of the shares, and with
that
statement, everyone knows that
you
own shares in the other railroad.”

“I don't believe you.”

“If you don't believe me,” she said slowly, “you may ask Sheriff Sandoval in Santa Fe. He's keeping the statement safe for you in his office.”

“You've made your point,” Waldron said quietly. She had now approached to a point just an arm's length away. “Let's just put this whole misunderstanding behind us. Come away with me. I have plenty of money. We could recapture some of the magic that we had . . . that you
know
we had.”

“You still haven't answered my question,” she said, ignoring his invitation. “But I think I
know
why that gun was pointed at
me
last night.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Waldron insisted.

“
He
does,” Nicolette said, nodding to Siward. “I can see it in his eyes. As I remember, when that evil, ugly man lay dying, I demanded that he tell me who hired him. He started to say something that started with the letter ‘S.' I thought he was just hissing, but he was saying ‘Siward,' wasn't he? You're part of this too,
aren't you
?”

Siward blinked and looked away.

“What do you want?” Waldron asked, almost pleading. “Come with me. Come away with me. I have money, lots of it. If you came, we could have a . . .”

“I'm not going anywhere with you but
back
to Santa Fe,” she said. “I want
you
to tell Sheriff Sandoval why that gun was pointed at me . . . I want you to tell him the
truth
.”

“Did
you
bring a gun, Nicolette?” Waldron said, continuing to back away. “Are you going to
force
me to go back?”

“I have no gun,” she said, matching each of his backward steps with a forward one of her own. “I only came to ask that one question, and to tell you that you can never escape the
truth . . .
no matter how far you go . . . no matter how much money you have.”

By now they had passed from the platform and away from the station to the threshold of the wilderness that had been cleaved by the steel rails.

He looked down at her beautiful face, bathed in the deep light of the sunset, and thought of their happy moments together. He looked down at her lovely features, exaggerated by the deep shadows of the edge of night, and thought of his haunting dreams.

He turned and walked away.

“I'll never let you forget me, and I'll never let you forget the gun that was pointed at my head,” she promised, deliberately walking after him.

“Get away from me,” he shouted. “Just leave me alone, you harpy.”

“I've been called worse,” Nicolette said with a taunting chuckle.

In the gathering darkness her voice came to him with the same texture of his nightmares. Maybe it was the exhaustion of having gone so long without sleep, or perhaps it was the weight of thinking of all his gold, languishing in accounts that lay waiting for him, but which were still just outside his reach.

If only Muriday had succeeded in killing this damned wench, she would not be here pointing her accusing finger at
me
, Waldron thought.

As he stared into the evening that was closing in on this desolate whistle-stop, an idea swam out of the darkening shadows of his mind.

After Siward had said that the railroad had brought civilization to Las Vegas, Waldron had the thought that in these whistle-stops, the railroad was the
only
civilization.

If a killing took place
here
, there would be no Sheriff Sandoval to investigate it. The railroad was the
only
civilization, and Waldron was, for the time being at least,
still
the railroad.

They were now well away from the station, and the people back there had more pressing concerns to preoccupy them. Nobody was watching. It was getting dark, and nobody was looking their way.

What if
Siward
tried again to kill the girl?

What if he succeeded
despite
Ezra Waldron's attempts to save her?

What if Waldron succeeded in killing Siward in the tussle for the gun, this being Waldron's own desperate struggle for his own life?

Two loose ends, two last loose ends, would be loose no more.

“Just shoot her, damn it,” Waldron demanded of Siward in a low voice. “Finish her off.”

The hotter the fire burns, the more likely it is to consume the finer qualities of rational thought, and to tip the greedy toward the cauldron of madness.

“No, sir,” Nathaniel Siward said. “I can't. We've done enough. We just have to stop. I can't . . .
We
can't . . .”

Ezra Waldron lunged angrily, grabbing the gun from Siward and wheeling around to point it directly at the beautiful face of Nicolette de la Gravière, the exquisite Nicolette de la Gravière, the enchantress, with her deep, dark eyes and her lips the crimson of chilies.