Iron Ties Part 37

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 h.e.l.l's gates!"

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

Giant powder?

The hairs p.r.i.c.kled 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, "d.a.m.n you! Ye can't stop us. And if you kill us, the la.s.s 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, d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.s 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 d.a.m.ned 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 them of Grant's coming and learn of Palmer's b.l.o.o.d.y ways. Reuben, he'd not listen to me with Hiram gone. He wanted to kill you, and the la.s.s. 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 wh.o.r.e. 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 sc.u.m. 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!"

The professor swung toward Weston. "Soldier! Do not listen to her. That's a direct order."

Weston remained on his knees. Then, he lifted his face, searching the hillside. He said in wonderment, "Addie? Is that you?"

The professor cursed and aimed his pistol at Weston.

From her vantage point, Inez could see, far down the valley and approaching, a pinpoint of light.

On the sighing of the wind, she heard the faraway whistle of an approaching train.

The professor heard it too.

"Dammit! Men-including engineers-are shot in the Union army for disobeying orders, Private Croy. If this explosive is as unstable as you say, let's use it to our advantage. Tie it to the track! When the train runs over it, we'll be victorious."

Weston removed the fry pan from the fire.

Inez pulled the set trigger. "Stop! Or I'll shoot!"

"Ha!" It was not a laugh so much as a shriek. "Shoot Private Croy, and ye'll blow us all to bits. And if you can shoot me or him from the top of that hill then you're a better shot than that pup Holt, who missed you when he had plenty of time to aim. I'm no gambler, and I say you cannae do it."

She ripped the glove off her right hand with her teeth and set her eye to the sight. If I stop him, I stop Weston. At least, I pray so.

A gust of cool wind bearing the scent of rain brushed her cheeks.

Another drop hit her bare hand.

Her finger rested, light as a lover's touch, on the hair-trigger.

Let it end now.

She heard a scuff of boot on the rocks behind her. Heavy breathing of someone coming up fast.

Her finger tightened.

The boom of the Sharps nearly deafened Inez to the shot from behind her.

Below, the professor clutched his arm with a cry, dropped his gun.

Weston, arms full of unstable dynamite, stumbled.

The flash lit the riverbed, a sun born in a thunder of sound.

A heavy weight fell on her back, knocking the wind from her. A man's body covered her; a hand forced her head to the ground.

Dirt and debris, heaved up from the riverbank by the explosion, fell around her.

Pebbles, dirt, struck her hat, pattering like rain.

Then, silence reigned.

Sound emerged once more, m.u.f.fled as if through cotton wadding.

The ground trembled again. This time with a rhythmic vibration.

Inez lifted her head.

The engine's headlight, which before had been a p.r.i.c.k in the distance, was now a solid lantern, the body of the train snaking behind in the dusk. With a shriek, the train thundered across the trestle bridge, to the west and away to Leadville.

She felt, more than heard, the breathing of the man still resting on her back. One hand holding her arm to the ground. The other, holding a rifle to the side, protecting her, sheltering her from harm.

Then, a fervent voice in her ear: "I thought we'd be blown to kingdom come."

It was Reverend Sands.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE.

Around the bend of the riverbank, Inez and Sands discovered a small cave dug into the side of the steep stony ravine. It held what remained of the cache of giant powder. Susan, blocked by a partially filled box, was in the back.

Susan peered out over the top of the box, her wide frightened eyes visible even in the coming twilight. Working on the theory that the rest of the giant powder might be sensitive, Sands carefully pulled out the box and set it in the dirt to one side. Inez and the reverend helped Susan wiggle out. She was trussed up with the stout rope the professor had bought from Evan's mercantile and gagged to boot.

When they removed the gag, Susan's first words were "Inez! Reverend Sands! Thank heaven it's you. I heard an explosion. Did they blow up the bridge? But I thought I heard the explosion first, and then the train." Her next words were "If I'd put that gun in my pocket like you told me to, Inez, maybe this wouldn't have happened."

"If you had tried to use it, the professor might have overcome his reluctance to doing his own killing and you wouldn't be here to talk about it," Inez answered.

As they searched for a way up the steep bank, Inez explained what had happened.

Susan's teeth were chattering, but she refused the overcoat Sands offered, insisting she would be fine. "It's just I was afraid I'd be stuck here forever or that maybe they'd changed their minds and....Well. I recognized him. The professor. Only by then, it was too late. The closer we came to this place, the more he talked and talked and the more nervous and uneasy I felt. Then, we arrived in the kiln field and he said, 'Wait, I need to move these.' He was referring to a couple of bags in the cart. But his words brought it all back. He was the one who said he needed to move the bodies before blowing up the tracks. I never saw him then, but his voice....Why I didn't remember before, I don't know. Maybe because I wasn't really listening to him when he came to my studio for a portrait. Or maybe returning to this place brought it back." She shivered.

"You must have been frightened," said Inez.

"I didn't want to let on I knew who he was. I thought I'd make a dash for the road and yell for help, once I'd gotten out of the cart. But Weston Croy was here. Waiting. And they had guns. The professor told me if I didn't make trouble, they'd let me go, but if I made so much as made a peep, they'd kill me. There wasn't much choice. Weston bundled me into that little cave and told me if I even wiggled a toe, the powder would explode. He said crazy things. That he didn't want me to die, just wanted me to stay put until they'd destroyed the bridge, killed the Rebel generals, and the engineering unit got away."

"Well, from what the professor said, it's pretty clear that Reuben was the man on the ridge top above you that morning," Inez said. "And Elijah Carter and Hiram Holt were the original men on the tracks. I think Eli wanted to stop Hiram from carrying through on his plans to kill a general-whether Palmer or Grant, or both. I know Eli tried to find Marshal Ayres shortly before he left town, without success. Maybe he was hoping to enlist help from him."

Sands nodded. "Could be. We'll never know, now."

"And then, when Eli's business partner, Bart Hollis, followed him to Malta, Eli drove him away. I suppose he didn't think Hollis would help him stop Hiram."

The three of them straggled up the riverbank, giving a wide berth to the site of the explosion, and pa.s.sed through the silent kiln field to fetch the horses and the cart.

Inez paused, some distance from the kiln she'd opened earlier, and said in a low voice to Reverend Sands, "I believe Elijah Carter and Hiram Holt are in there."

"Reuben seems to have disappeared." Sands kept his arm firmly around Inez's waist. "He's proved the most elusive of the bunch."

Inez thought of Duncan's remark about Reuben and a young prost.i.tute. "A certain dark-eyed, dark-haired girl at Frisco Flo's might know his whereabouts."

When they reached the cart and animals, Susan said, "If you two ride in front of me, I think I can manage the cart."

They tied the lead of Weston's horse to the back of the cart, crossed the river, and set on the road to Leadville.

"Do you think we're too late to see General Grant?" Susan sounded wistful.

"Maybe not," said Sands. "He's planning a long stop at Malta. I think many of the Rio Grande crew are hoping he'll say a few words and shake some hands. He'll probably oblige."