Iron Ties Page 35

“I was. But she closed the shop when she left with the railroad man.”

  “Railroad man?” Alarms went off in Inez’s mind. “What railroad man?”

  The blat of a sour trumpet drew Terry’s attention to the street. She looked back at Inez, startled. “What? Oh. It’s all right. Susan knew him. She introduced him as ‘the professor.’ Anyhow, he said there was some new evidence and Mr. Preston Holt wanted her to come down right away and take a look at the place where the accident had been. He said it was very important. I know she didn’t want to miss the parade, but he promised to get her back by nightfall. I offered to go too, but the little dogcart he brought would only hold Susan and besides—”

  “The professor?” Chills started at the base of Inez’s neck and spread over her shoulders and down her arms like a contagion. “He said Preston Holt had questions? Now? Today?”

  “Well, yes. Isn’t that the Mr. Holt we met at the restaurant?”

  “Miss O’Loughlin. Terry.” Inez seized her hand. “Preston Holt is dead. He died several days ago.”

  Terry’s mouth fell open. She looked down at the envelope in her hand. “I don’t understand. The professor, he asked if I knew you and if I would deliver this.” She thrust the envelope at Inez.

  Inez seized the envelope and ripped it open so violently that the paper inside almost escaped. She gripped the single page:

  Mrs. Stannert,

  Heed these words carefully. It’s my guess our journey has become clear to you, and we cannot take a chance of you telling others. Your friend is well. But, we travel a dangerous road. It’s best for all if you keep your qualms to yourself. When we succeed, and you’ll know when we do, your friend will return. If we are intercepted and our journey’s cut short, pray for your friend’s soul.

  The note was unsigned, but Inez knew that tiny, cramped script as well as she knew her own.

  Something is about to happen, and he thinks I know what it is. Something that impelled him to take Susan to guarantee my silence.What? What is it?

  Her mind raced frantically, searching out connections she’d somehow missed.

  What did she know for certain about Brodie Duncan? That his father was from Missouri. His mother from Tennessee. That he was in Tennessee at the war’s end, went to Scotland for a time, and returned to Missouri to teach in the same small town where he’d been raised. That he knew the Holts and Eli and Lillian Carter. That he traveled out with Hiram and Reuben to Colorado, and was privy to Rio Grande business through his job. That he’d bought a prospector’s kit, but took only the rope, pickaxes, and giant powder.

  And she knew his destination, if that much of his story to Susan was true. A big “if,” she had to admit. But it made sense that he’d tell Susan the truth of that so she would not raise an alarm on the journey. But if she becomes suspicious of his motives, what will he do to her? Kill her, no doubt.

  Inez shoved her panic aside and forced herself to picture the view from Disappointment Gulch. The landscape opened before her, in her mind’s eye. The main railroad track. The siding and cars. The abandoned charcoal kilns.

  The trestle.

  Certainty dawned like the white-hot morning sun.

  “Oh my God!” Inez said aloud.

  He’s going to blow up the trestle and the incoming train. The train that’s bringing General Grant to Leadville.

  She fixed Terry with a hard stare. “I’ve got to go. Right now. Thank you, Miss O’Loughlin. And please, tell no one about this message. No one!”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Inez spotted the bend that heralded the approach to the gulch and the kilns, and pulled Lucy to a stop. Lucy’s sides heaved, the near flat-out run from Malta having taken its toll on her.

  Back at the saloon, she’d pulled Abe aside and thrust the crumpled note at him. “From the professor. He obviously doesn’t know me very well or he’d never have sent this note to me. I will not sit here obediently, faint and trembling like some hysterical woman, while he rides off with Susan to….You know, I didn’t see clearly what he was up to until this note. If he’d just snuck off to do his dirty work and left us alone….Unfortunately, he didn’t spell out his plans or even sign the note. So it’s going to be hard to convince anyone of the danger, based on what this note says.”

  She then provided Abe with the briefest of explanations, along with her ultimate destination.

  “Damn, Inez. You can’t go alone.” Abe looked around the crowded bar. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No! The note says he’ll kill her if….Abe, I won’t chance anything until Susan is safe. After that, I’ll find a lawman to deal with him properly. Keep the note. Show it to no one but Reverend Sands, should he come by. But tell the reverend, we must be careful. For Susan’s sake.”

  Inez had dashed upstairs to change into the same dusty men’s clothes from the previous week. She grabbed her pocket revolver and, with only a moment’s hesitation, the Sharps rifle and its box of linen-jacketed cartridges. I need something for distance. I doubt very much that, if I’m right, the professor will simply allow me to stroll up and stick my pistol in his back.

  His back.

  Preston Holt had been shot in the back.

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and she scrubbed them away roughly.

  Inez pushed Lucy hard down the oddly vacant road. Travelers and residents along the Arkansas Valley, she thought, most likely were gathered at the stations where Grant’s train might stop. Every one of them no doubt hoping to get a glimpse of the great man or shake his hand.

  But the folks in Malta and Leadville may not get that chance, if I’m right about the professor and no one stops him.

  She clenched her teeth, the grit of dust grinding and drying her mouth, and pushed on. Lucy’s hooves pounded in a beat that turned into a chant in her mind: Brodie Duncan. Brodie Duncan. Brodie Duncan.

  Other thoughts clipped through her mind, making, breaking links, harmonizing or clashing like lines of music, the linkage of one note to the next, one small detail to the next.

  The professor had taken the Whitworth rifle from under Preston’s bunk—the very rifle Hiram had employed as a Confederate sharpshooter. But remembering the whispered conversation outside the bunk car, she was sure he’d retrieved it for someone else.

  Reuben.

  Hiram would have taught his son how to shoot, just as Hiram and Preston’s father had taught them. A skill passed on from father to son.

  And did Hiram also bequeath his hatred of the North to his son?

  Inez faltered.

  Suppose Reuben is there? That it’s not just the professor, but Reuben as well? I must be very careful. The stakes are so high. I must be sure of all the players, before I enter the game.

  She remembered again Frisco Flo’s comment that Reuben had a girl sweet on him. Inez thought back on the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl who shrank into the shadows when Reuben had entered the door behind her…and she bet she knew who the girl was.

  And I’ll bet that girl opened the window for him and the professor.

  Why had he shot at her from the window? Because she’d thrown him out of the saloon? Because they’d figured out she had been hidden under the bunk when the professor had come for the gun? Or maybe they were afraid Susan had told her something about the deaths on the tracks, something that pointed back to them? And she had been asking lots of questions, circling around them, closing in.

  It could be any of those, or some combination.

  They probably wanted to get me out of the way.

  And the professor had told Preston that Delaney was dead, that Reuben was to blame. A ruse to kill Preston.

  He was getting too close. So who pulled the trigger? The professor? Or Reuben?

  The part she couldn’t figure was why Brodie Duncan was involved. There was something about him that rang true when he’d said, “It’s not my war.” He’d said not a word about Grant. The only general she’d heard him rail against was Palmer. Was
Palmer on the train? The professor, with his position in the Rio Grande, would know. The invisible man—delivering missives, taking notes, walking a step behind the important men.

  At the kilns, she stopped, dismounted, and listened. At first, all she heard was Lucy’s labored breathing.

  Suppose I’m wrong? Suppose he’s somewhere else, that Susan is already dead.

  Dread, dark as midnight, spread its wings inside her.

  Pushing her fears aside, Inez laid a hand on Lucy’s lathered coat and strained to listen.

  Then she heard them. Men’s voices. One shouting, one replying.

  Two of them. The professor and Reuben?

  She pulled Lucy around the cluster of kilns, looking for a place to tie her, and spied the dogcart and horse. Then, another horse as well.

  Inez moved farther up Disappointment Gulch, to the very outskirts of the kiln field, and tried to tie Lucy to a crooked stump behind one of the towering, beehive shaped structures. Lucy snorted and pulled back, rolling her eyes. “Lucy!” she hissed, tugging on the reins. “Now’s not the time.” Then Inez became aware of the cloying sickly smell of rotting flesh.

  In the westering sun, Inez saw the cloud of flies clustered around the mouth of the kiln, crawling through the cracks in the makeshift wood door blocking the entrance.

  Holding her breath, expecting the worst, Inez grasped an edge of the door and pulled hard.

  The door gave way. The dying sun picked out two misshapen lumps inside, blackened by charcoal dust, flies, and squirming vermin. Inez made out a hand, bloated, cracked, nearly eaten away except for a gold ring.

  It was the only detail she gathered before turning away and vomiting on the dirt.

  Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she retrieved Lucy, who had backed away, and led her horse further up the gulch.

  She pulled out Eli’s Sharps rifle, thinking what pleasure it would give her to use it on the men who killed Eli and Preston, then moved toward the path up the side of the gulch.

  Inez toiled up the short hill to the shoulder of the gulch where Susan had originally tied her horse and burro. If she was right, she’d see the professor and Reuben down by the riverbank, preparing the trestle for its destruction.

  And I’ll be above them, taking aim. Just like they did at Eli Carter.

  At the top of the shoulder, she moved forward in a crouch, finally dropping to her belly at the sloping edge. She adjusted her slouch hat to shield her eyes. The sun rested on the peaks of the Sawatch Range across the Arkansas Valley. A bank of towering clouds hovered above, as if waiting for God’s hand to push them down and crush the sun’s fire against the peaks.

  Down in the shadowed ravine of the river, she spotted a single figure, pacing on the bank. Revolver in hand. And a small campfire, smokeless, mostly coals and embers.

  She shaded her eyes to be sure.

  The professor.

  Wearing a dark, military-style greatcoat, far too large for his frame. The greatcoat, she’d wager, off Preston Holt’s back. A flash of anger seared her, quick as lightning. In its wake grew a steel cold resolve.

  She opened the cartridge tin and set it to one side. The linen-shrouded bullets lined up like soldiers in the tin, waiting for their orders.

  She poured the percussion caps into the top of the tin.

  Loaded and readied the Sharps. Positioned a nearby flat-topped rock under the rifle barrel. Pulled the hammer back with her hand. Propped herself up on her elbows.

  And waited.

  The professor stopped pacing, turned his face downstream, cupped his mouth and shouted. “Have ye taken care of the Rebel hussy, soldier? We need to prepare for the coming of the gray coats!”

  Inez frowned, perplexed. Rebel hussy? Gray coats? What is the professor doing, pretending to be a Union soldier?

  Weston Croy emerged around a bend in the streambed, moving slowly, cradling an unidentifiable burden tenderly in his arms.

  Weston! Inez almost bolted upright with the shock of seeing him. Is the professor playing to Weston’s madness? But for what purpose?

  “She won’t bother us,” he said. His voice, so jittery and manic before, now sounded calm, rational. A white cloth around one arm was stained red.

  It looks like Addie Croy shot true with her revolver. Pray Heaven that I do the same, if it comes to that.

  “Good! We’ve got to thaw that giant powder out fast, if it’s going to be in place before the train arrives. Those Rebel generals’ll learn a thing or two about the might of the Union Army and its men when they’re standin’ at Hell’s gates!”

  “Yes sir.” Weston slowly bent his knees and placed a bundle of long red tubes on the ground.

  Giant powder?

  The hairs prickled on her neck.

  “We can’t hurry the thawing, sir. Could be dangerous.” Weston sounded all business, which Inez found far more frightening than his crazy talk.

  “It’ll be even more dangerous if the Confederate train gets through!” shouted the professor. “Ye successfully fired that nest of Rebel sympathizers in town. Now we’ve got to stop the reinforcements from arriving! Ye’ve a chance to kill the enemy’s generals, man!”

  Weston set fire to the livery?

  Even as the professor shouted, Inez noticed he was backing away from the unstable dynamite as far as the riverbank and the walls of the ravine would allow.

  Weston set two tubes in a fry pan and placed it over the coals. Inez hesitated, wondering if Reuben might be there.

  If he is, he must be guarding Susan. But they’ve said nothing about him. I’ll wager he’s not part of this, for whatever reason. It’s time for me to enter their game and up the stakes.

  She lifted her head slightly and shouted, “Duncan! Croy!”

  They froze. Their faces, white under their hats, turned upward toward her voice.

  Inez continued, “Drop the gun! Put your hands up where I can see them. And stand aside.”

  The professor screamed in rage, “Damn you! Ye can’t stop us. And if you kill us, the lass will never be found!”

  “How do I know she’s not already dead?”

  “The Union army doesn’t kill women! When we’re done, we’ll release her. But if you interfere—”

  Inez screamed back, “I thought it was not your war, Brodie Duncan.”

  “It’s not the war. It’s Palmer, damn his eyes! And what he did to us in Tennessee!”

  The last note. The final refrain. The look on Brodie Duncan’s face when Doc had refused to pass judgment on Reuben in the bar. She nearly came to her feet in the realization. “You were the boy in Tennessee! The bushwhacker who nearly killed Palmer!”

  “I had him! In my sights. Pulled the trigger. And missed! I missed!” He almost cried. “I was no bushwhacker. I was fifteen! We tried stayin’ neutral. Left Missouri. Went to Tennessee, my mother’s clan. But his cavalry, Palmer’s damned cavalry, burned the barn. Took the animals. Even ripped out the fence posts! Left us nothing. In winter! A death sentence. Why, why did they take everything, leave us not even a crust? My mother always said, ’twas not our war. I cared naught for which side won. But I swore, if I ever got another chance at Palmer, my hand would not waver!”

  His own voice, rebounding off the rock, seemed to bring him back to the present.

  He stopped, looked at Weston.

  Weston was motionless, on his knees by the fire.

  Is Weston listening to this tirade? Is it getting through?

  “You made it your war!” She made sure her words carried. “When you killed Elijah Carter. By the tracks. Or did you kill Hiram Holt? Then, Preston Holt! And you shot at me! You’re at the center of a bloodbath!”

  “Reuben shot Carter, for killing his own father! I had nothing against the man. I was never part of their little cabal of the flag. ’Twas only for the best, who didn’t miss their targets. Me, I was a disgrace in their eyes. But here, they were happy to let me be their eyes and ears, to tell th
em of Grant’s coming and learn of Palmer’s bloody ways. Reuben, he’d not listen to me with Hiram gone. He wanted to kill you, and the lass. We didn’t know what she saw, what she might remember. And you, we were never sure. What she might have told you in her injury. What you heard and saw. All your questions, gettin’ closer to the truth of it. Then Preston and his suspicions. Oh, that was the worst. Reuben said he’d kill his own father’s brother, if I’d lure him out. But then, he vanishes, takes off with that young whore. Leaves me to do the killing, which I’ve no choice but to do, though no stomach for it. And leaves me to fight the final battle!”

  Reuben’s vanished?

  Inez risked a quick glance behind her, then to the side, where the promontory above Susan’s ledge jutted out, high above her, cutting off her view to the south.

  Eyes. She could feel them everywhere. Watching her.

  The professor whirled on Weston, as if only then remembering he was there. “Soldier! The enemy, they’re tryin’ to confuse us! The men who died, they were secessionists, all! Missouri scum. We’re protectin’ the Union.”

  Inez’s full attention reverted to the scene below. “Weston Croy, don’t believe him! Brodie Duncan is no soldier, he’s an impostor! Preston Holt, the man he killed, fought for the Union. Like Reverend Sands, the Leadville minister who tried to help you.”

  The professor jumped as if she’d scorched him with a branding iron. “Reverend Sands?!” A note of fear braided through his rage.

  A bare slice of the sun hovered, spreading along the mountain tops, dyeing their peaks gold, gilding the clouds with the gleam of precious metal. A final ray shot into Inez’s eyes, then slid below the range, surrendering to the coming gloom.

  The clouds lowered, claiming victory from the light.

  A faint flash over the mountains preceded the distant roll of thunder.

  A solid plop of rain fell on Inez’s gloved hand.

  She hastily drew the tin of cartridges and percussion caps closer, to shelter them from the rain. The linen cloth, the powder within, will they fire wet?

  She tried again. “Weston Croy! General Ulysses S. Grant is on the train you are preparing to destroy!”