THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER (3 page)

Tony followed him into the freight office. The spool of wire sat in the middle of
the big room. He read the label. "Tarnation! This is the wrong gage. And it's iron, not
copper. How do I send it back? And I'll want to send a telegram to the supplier, to see if
they can ship the right wire before they get this." He looked into the lobby, to tell Lulu he'd
be a few minutes, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Just as well. Maybe they wouldn't have to fraternize during her visit. He sure
hoped it was to be a brief one.

As soon as his back was turned, Lulu went to the baggage claim counter and
picked up her small valise. Until she knew where she would be lodging, there was no sense
in bothering with the rest of her luggage.

Tao Ni!
What on earth was he doing here? And how was she going to
avoid him in a town this small?

Not that it mattered. Now that she'd seen him, all the old memories had come
flooding back, making it impossible for her to go on thinking of him merely as one of her
almost-cousins. Now she'd have to start all over again, teaching her unruly heart not to
yearn for him.

Outside only a small dogcart remained at the hitch rail. An elderly Chinese sat
dozing in the seat. She went to the side of the cart and cleared her throat. He looked up.
"I'm supposed to be met by someone who will take me to the home of Mrs. Jacob Teller.
Are you he?"

He woke with a start, then jumped down to bow before her. "Yes, Missie. I take.
You have trunk?"

"No, not at this time. I have everything I need in here." She handed him her valise.
Shortly she was on her way to meet the woman who'd arranged for her to come to the
Wood River valley. She wasn't sure living here was a good idea. Hailey seemed awfully
out of the way, and she'd been told to expect to travel extensively.

"I am Miss King. You are?" she said to her driver as they rode along a bumpy road
heading north.

He glanced sideways, but said nothing.

"Oh, come now, sir. I'm sure you understand English very well. All I asked was
your name."

Again that sideways glance. In a soft voice he said, "Lee Shi Dan. But Missus call
me John."

"Some people call everyone of your race 'John.' But I will not, Mr. Lee. You are as
entitled to your name as I am to mine."

This time the glance that came her way held just a hint of friendliness.

She spoke little to her driver on the hour-long journey, for he was plainly
uncomfortable to be conversing with her. Just as well, because she was busy gazing at her
surroundings. This long, narrow river valley was nothing like Cherry Vale, where she had
grown up. The mountains here were sagebrush-covered, for the most part, although she
could see pines on the higher slopes. The river meandered through the bottomlands,
swerving from side to side, now cutting away at the foot of a mountain, now splitting to
create a cottonwood-covered island. As the valley narrowed, they crossed the river and its
tributary streams more often, on echoing wooden bridges often made of unpeeled logs
paved with rough-cut planks.

The Teller holding, some miles north of Hailey, was near a little settlement named
Gimlet. As they approached, she noticed that most of the pastures along the road held
sheep, instead of cattle. Her mother had written, some while back, of the growing sheep
industry in Idaho Territory and the importation of Basque herders to tend them. She
wondered if the Basques were any more welcome than the Chinese. Or the Negroes.

If this were a perfect world, there would be no work for me to do.
How
wonderful it would be to live in a world where every human being was valued equally and
accorded the same rights.

"There pretty quick," Mr. Lee said, as he turned the cart off the main road and into
a winding lane leading toward the west. They forded a creek and passed along a drive lined
with young Lombardy poplars. Obviously the sheep industry was profitable.

The Teller house was not ostentatious, being constructed of logs, with a plank roof
still half devoid of shingles. Five or six rooms, she estimated, with glass in all the
windows. Despite its size and touches of extravagance, it somehow reminded Lulu of the
first home she had known, bringing a sentimental lump to her throat.

The woman who came to the door as the dog cart drove into the yard was about
her age, with braided blonde hair and a body rounded with pregnancy. She waved, but
waited at the top of the steps for Lulu to climb from the cart. "Welcome, Miss King! I'm so
happy you're here. I am Imajean Teller."

"I'm happy to be here." Lulu took her valise from Mr. Lee's hands and gave him a
dime. "Thank you very much," she told him, smiling at his look of surprise.

"You shouldn't tip him," Mrs. Teller told her as she ushered Lulu inside. "His
salary covers all he does for us."

"He provided the same service that the porter did," Lulu said, keeping all emotion
out of her voice. "I felt he deserved the same tip."

"That was very nice of you." She led the way into a large parlor, furnished with
modern sofa and chairs and several skirted tables. "I have water hot. Would you like some
tea?" When Lulu admitted she was thirsty, she clapped her hands. A young Chinaman
came to the door. "Tea, John. For two."

He bowed and disappeared.

She really does call them all 'John.' How very peculiar.
Obviously Mrs.
Teller did not view the Chinese in the same light of equality as she did members of her
own sex. "I understand you have been active in the suffrage movement for some years. Tell
me more about it," she said, putting aside the urge to educate the other woman in the
doctrine of equal rights for all. Many of her sister suffragists were incredibly short-sighted
and narrow minded.

* * * *

Knowing he would brood about the past if he stayed in his room that evening,
Tony went downstairs to the Kansas Headquarters Saloon. Frank Correy was there, sipping
at a beer and watching some checker players. When he saw Tony, he waved.

Tony went to join him. The two checker players were obviously well matched, for
neither could gain an advantage, and they cogitated for long minutes between moves. After
a while Tony grew bored. "How about a game of cribbage?" he asked Frank. "I believe the
bartender keeps a board."

"As long as we play for points. I'm not much of a gambler," Frank replied in a soft
Scots burr.

"Me neither." He fetched the board and they took a small table near the back wall,
far enough from the piano to be able to talk without shouting. For a while they played
quietly, speaking only to count points.

Then Frank said, "Who was that ravishing young woman who got off the train
today? She didn't seem happy to see you."

"She's..." He wasn't sure how to describe Lulu. As children they'd been family.
Until one night everything changed. "She's just someone I knew as a child. I think she was
more surprised than unhappy that I was here."

"So she's not your sweetheart?" Frank moved his peg twelve holes, putting him
almost thirty points ahead.

"Not at all." Carefully Tony picked up the cards Frank had dealt. Before he could
decide on a winning strategy, someone spoke behind him, "Hello, Frank. I've been looking
for you."

The young man who, uninvited, pulled an empty chair from the next table and sat
at theirs was a stranger to Tony. Frank introduced him.

"Pleased to meet you, Dewitt," Patrick Newell said, holding his hand out. From
his tone of his voice, he was anything but pleased.

Tony took it, wondering what it was the fellow found distasteful. In the next
instant, he told himself he was imagining things. Newell's smile seemed genuine. "You
must be new in town."

"I arrived just last week, and am already feeling at home. Hailey is an
up-and-coming little burg."

"Are you another banker, like Frank, here?"

"Not on your life. I'm in mining. Great future." Newell waved the waiter over and
asked for a beer. "Join me?"

"I've had enough," Tony said.

Frank nodded, and Newell ordered for the two of them. Tony and Frank played the
hand with Newell looking on. Tony found his presence distracting. Glumly he laid down
his cards, knowing he'd played poorly. "Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen six, and a pair for
eight." Frank pegged fourteen points. Tony was skunked.

As they gathered up the cards, Newell said, "Frank tells me you work for
Eagleton. My boss calls him a sharper, always coming up with get-rich-quick schemes."
There was a note of challenge in his voice.

"I've found him honest and straightforward. So far the schemes I've seen seem to
pay off, so maybe your boss is wrong."

Newell didn't quite sneer.

If I didn't know better, I'd say he was trying to pick a fight.
Tony pushed
his chair back and rose. "I've got a big day tomorrow, so it's time for me to turn in. Good
night, Frank, Mr. Newell."

He had the strangest feeling Newell had deliberately set out to make himself
disliked.

The Committee of Arrangements of the Fourth of July celebration...have concluded to
hold the literary exercises at Dorsey's Grove...Mr. Dorsey has agreed to have a seating
capacity of at least 1,000, to enlarge the music stand, and to have the grounds in apple pie
order...The distance to the grove is hardly more than half a mile...

Wood River Times

~~~

"The vision of our founding fathers was of a nation free from tyranny, free from
oppression," Lulu said. "A woman who cannot vote is a slave, subject to the whims of her
master. She has no rights, save what her father or her brother or her husband grants her.
She has no say in her fate, no choice of residence, no opportun--"

A tomato hit her on the cheek. A very ripe, somewhat spoiled tomato.

She gripped the edge of the lectern and forced herself to remain outwardly calm.
This was not the first time she'd been a target of assorted missiles thrown by less
sympathetic members of her audience, but the experience was one she'd never grow used
to. After a couple of deep breaths, she pulled a lacy handkerchief from her sleeve and
wiped away the dripping juice with a shaking hand.

"No opportunity to determine how the city, the state, the nation she lives in will
care for its citizens, will educate its children, and will conduct itself when--"

She saw the next fruit launched, and nimbly stepped aside to let it sail past.
"...when dealing with the rest of the world.

"I ask you, fellow Americans, will you allow this inequity to--"

"That is quite enough of this nonsense. Sheriff, I demand that you stop this...this
person from spreading her seditious doctrine."

Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw a large woman dressed in black
ascending the steps as she brandished a furled parasol.

"Now then, Mrs. Axminster, I don't reckon you want to make a fuss," the sheriff
said, blocking her advance. His interference earned him a swat on the shoulder as the
woman tried to force her way past.

The sheriff clearly didn't want to lay hands on the woman, who must be someone
of consequence. Lulu was wondering if she'd have to run for her life, when a lithe young
man in a linen suit leapt to the edge of the platform.

His outstretched hand warded off the parasol as it whistled past the sheriff's head.
Grabbing Lulu's hand, he said, "We're getting out of here. Now!"

"This is none of your affair," she said, keeping her voice low. "Let me go!" She
jerked her hand free.

Turning to face the audience, she said, "Thomas Paine, one of our Founding
Fathers, said, 'The only ground upon which exclusion from the right of voting is consistent
with justice would be to inflict it as a punishment for a certain time upon those who should
propose to take away that right from others. The right of voting for representatives is the
primary right by which other rights are protected.'" Her voice, shaking at first, strengthened
as she spoke.

"'To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in
being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of
representatives is in this case, a slave.'

"Is there among you anyone who would not fight to keep your right to vote?"

The reply started as a murmur, but it soon grew to a roar. Clearly the men in the
audience valued their right to vote and would indeed fight to retain it.

Lulu leaned forward. "Then why are you not fighting for us?" she cried. "Do you
seek to keep us enslaved forever?"

She heard a
yes
from far back in the crowd. Then another, from closer.
Again the audience roared, the majority clearly in favor of the subjugation of their women.
Another tomato came her way, splatting against the lectern, then a rotten potato. She
smelled its fetid odor as it disintegrated. Sick and scared, she stood still, listening to the
sheriff yelling for silence. An egg broke at her feet, releasing sulfurous gas. Then the
lectern rocked as something heavy and hard struck it. Lulu saw a good-sized cobble roll
across the stage.
What if that had struck me?
But she could not move, for there
was no safety anywhere.

This time Tao Ni simply tossed her over his shoulder and pushed his way past the
sheriff, who was urging Mrs. Axminster down the steps to safety.

The abrupt pressure of his shoulder against her diaphragm drove all the air from
her lungs. "Put me down," she finally found breath to say when he was several paces from
the speakers' platform.

He simply kept pushing through the crowd.

"I want me some of that," a rough voice said.

Lulu tried to twist around to see what had brought him to a halt. Before she could
do more than lift her head, she felt herself slipping to the ground.

"Leave her alone. She's a lady," Tao Ni said.

Her hair half-covered her face so Lulu swept it back. She and Tao Ni were
surrounded by men who looked as if they'd come directly from the mines. Big men. All
wore anticipatory grins.