Montgomery - The Awakening Part 26

Amanda blinked at her mother. "You wrote the book about Ariadne and that man?"

"I needed something to occupy myself while stuck away in that room. There are royalties from the sale of the books, and you and your young doctor could live quite well on them." Grace leaned forward. "And see that Reva is taken care of, would you, please?"

Amanda squeezed her mother's hand. "When this is over may I read all your novels? I need to make up for lost time."

Grace smiled at her daughter and they were quiet the rest of the way to the fields.

It had been easy to find Whitey Graham; he was on the little dance platform at the south edge of the field, giving one of his speeches about the evilness of the employers. There were bonfires all about and the people's angry, tired eyes reflected the fiery heat. As Whitey led the crowd into one of the inflammatory ULW songs, Amanda stepped to the edge of the crowd, got Whitey's attention and motioned for him to follow her.

Reva and Grace had stood by silently, too scared, too astonished to speak, and watched while Amanda pointed the gun at Whitey's head and demanded to know where Hank Montgomery was.

Whitey was a cool one, Reva had to give him that. He said he didn't mind telling Amanda where Hank was as it would take her too long to get to him to do any good. "It's going to happen tomorrow. Caulden's refusal to listen to us was the final straw. This place is going to explode within the next twenty-four hours."

Amanda shoved the shotgun closer to his nose. "You are going to explode within the next two minutes if you don't tell me where Hank is."

He looked at Amanda with a bit of respect and told her that his partner, Andrei, had taken Hank away, up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to a shack where Whitey and Andrei had hidden for a few days before entering Kingman. At Amanda's urging, he gave her complete directions. He seemed to think her concern was amusing.

"You rich people stick together, don't you?"

"Rich?" Amanda said. "Hank spends all he makes on the union."

Whitey laughed at her. "The professor's family is so rich they make you Cauldens look like paupers. We tried to get the workers to strike his father's company, Warbrooke Shipping, two years ago but..."

"You weren't successful," she finished.

"Amanda," Grace said, "you could stop this whole thing now. We'll take Mr. Graham away from here."

Amanda hesitated and weighed the possibilities. "People have a right to protest, and only my father could stop it now-and only Hank could persuade my father."

Whitey laughed again. He knew Amanda wouldn't shoot him, and it didn't matter if she went after Montgomery-she'd never get him back in time. They'd had to get rid of the doc or he could have ruined everything. He turned his back on Amanda and her shotgun and went back to the crowd.

"That man really doesn't care if he lives or dies," Reva whispered.

Amanda didn't waste time thinking about Whitey Graham. "I have to go get Hank," she said and started moving quickly toward where the Mercer had been hidden.

So now the women had removed the torn hop vines that covered the car and stood staring at it. "Can you start it?" Reva repeated.

"I hope so," Amanda said. "No, I will start the thing." She went over every movement she'd seen Hank make when he started the car. She pulled out the spark and the choke, then ran to the front and turned the crank. It took her four tries before the engine came to life, then she had to deal with the gears. The shifting was hard, the steering was so difficult her arms felt as if they were coming out of their sockets, and when she put on the brakes the car didn't stop. She mowed down six feet of hop vines before she halted.

"Amanda, I don't think-" Grace said fearfully.

"I've got it now," Amanda said, putting the car in reverse. "I'll be back as soon as I can." She hadn't counted on the steering being a mirror image when in reverse and took out more hop vines before she got onto the road. She waved to Reva and her mother, then headed east, her foot mashing the accelerator to the floor.

Both Hank and Taylor had said she was an apt pupil, but she'd never learned anything as quickly as she learned to drive that car. After fifteen minutes she began to feel that she was born to be behind a steering wheel. She had studied Hank's driving so intently that she knew from the sound of the engine when to shift gears.

It was the middle of the night and there was no traffic on the wide dirt road leading up into the mountains, and she let the car go, the wind blowing in her hair. The speed of the car, being able to control such a machine, made her feel powerful.

She had only one bad moment on the trip and that was when two farmers with wagons decided to stop in the middle of the road for a chat. Amanda kept her head, tried to calculate the width of the road, the distance it would take her to stop, knew she'd plow into a wagon if she did try to stop, so she did a neat left turn that sent her skidding sideways toward the wagons.

The farmers stopped talking long enough to turn and look at a pretty girl in a little yellow car come toward them, the nose of the car pointed toward the roadside fence, rocks and gravel spitting everywhere. One pair of horses started acting up, but the farmer controlled them.

When the car stopped sliding, Amanda was just under the body of two horses, one animal's eyes rolling wildly, the other one too frightened to move. The three people on the road were speechless. Amanda recovered first. Her heart was pounding but she was awfully proud of having avoided a crash.

"Good morning," she said to the farmers. There was a wilted hop vine on the pa.s.senger seat and she offered it to the horse's head hanging over hers. The animal began crunching and calmed down.

The two farmers helped her get the car turned back around and wished her luck wherever she was going. She waved as she drove away again.

She had to get gasoline once, then she was off again, up into the mountains. She prayed Whitey hadn't lied to her about where Hank was, and the closer she got, the more she worried. When she came to the deserted mountain cabin with half the roof caved in, she was almost out of the car before she could get it stopped. She hauled on the heavy hand brake, shoved a rock behind the back wheel and went running.

The cabin was empty. For a moment she panicked and was sure Whitey had lied, but then she saw a stain on what was left of the floor near the back wall. She went to it and examined it. Blood. There seemed to be a great deal of it on the floor, as if a wounded person had slept there all night.

For a moment she wanted to cry. She was tired and hungry and scared -and there was dried blood on the floor.

"Looking for me?"

She looked up to see Hank standing in the doorway. With a cry, she leaped up and into his arms. "You're alive! Oh my darling, my love, I was so afraid." She began kissing his face and neck.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Hank said, drawing back from her. "What's going on and could you ease up on my arm a little?"

She pulled away from him and saw the blood on the right side of his body. "They shot you? I'll kill them! I'll use Mr. Eiler's shotgun and-"

Hank put his fingers to her lips. "Could we save this until later? I'd like to know what's been going on. I'm afraid I've been knocked out all night. I just woke up when I heard the car. Who drove the Mercer, anyway?"

"I did. Hank, darling, I've been worried sick. I was afraid you were dead."

Hank was weak from loss of blood and a cold night without food or water, and he was afraid he might have enough fever that he was dreaming this. It couldn't be possible that Amanda was calling him darling.

He knew he needed to get back to the ranch to prevent what could happen, but right now all that seemed to matter was Amanda. He put his fingertips to her hair. "Why are you here, Amanda?"

"To get you. I've come to take you back." Embarra.s.sment overcame her. The last time she'd seen him he was blaming her for the living conditions of the workers.

"To help with the union? Couldn't you have appealed to Taylor?"

She opened her mouth to lie, to say that she came for him to prevent violence, but she stopped herself. "Yes," she said softly, "I came to get you for the unionists but, more than that, I came because I love you."

Hank didn't say anything at all, just stood there and stared at her for so long that Amanda knew she'd made a fool of herself. "Excuse me," she said and pushed past him to go outside. She kept her back to him. "If you're ready, I'll drive you back to the ranch. Whitey presented a list of grievances to my father yesterday, and my father, of course, wouldn't agree to a pay raise, so Whitey threatened him and my father slapped Whitey. The sheriff plans to arrest Whitey, probably today, and so you can see that-"

She broke off because Hank turned her around, dug his uninjured left hand into her hair and kissed her so hard her toes curled up inside her tight little shoes.

"I love you, Amanda," he said. "I've loved you for so long I can't remember not loving you. I think I've been waiting for you, waiting for you to make up your mind."

"I have made up my mind," she whispered. "I want to leave Kingman with you. I want to go with you wherever you go. I want to be with you always."

He smiled as he caressed her cheek. Her arms around him were hurting his shoulder, but physical pain was nothing to the pain he'd felt since he'd met her. When he first saw her he'd thought she was the woman for him, but it was as if an automaton were inside the body of the woman he wanted. But it was a woman, a flesh and blood woman, who had come for him.

"How did you get Whitey to tell you where I was?"

"I held a shotgun to his face."

Hank smiled. "How did you learn to drive the car?"

"I've been watching you."

He smiled broader. "What about Taylor?"

"I suggested he spend more time with Reva, and Reva asked for him so I gave him to her."

"Oh, you did, did you?" Hank laughed. "So you and Reva divided us up. I guess I should be glad you didn't flip a coin."

She pulled away from him. "If you are through laughing at me, I suggest we go."

He caught her arm. "Did you really mean it, Amanda? Have you realized at last that you love me?"

She didn't quite like the way he put it, but truth was truth. "Yes," she said. "I have finally realized it."

He drew back a little, a grin splitting his face. "I guess all this stuff about you'll go with me wherever I go is a marriage proposal."

Her embarra.s.sment was returning. Wasn't this a time for champagne and diamond rings? But he was standing here in a b.l.o.o.d.y shirt, lines of tiredness around his eyes, and she was filthy and tired. "I guess so." She looked down at her hands.

"Wait until I tell our grandkids about this," Hank said. "They'll never believe their grandmother did the asking."

She squinted up at him. "You ever tell anyone about this and you'll never beget children with me, much less grandchildren." She turned on her heel and walked away from him.

He caught her and pulled her against him with his one good arm. "I apologize, baby. I just wanted to give you some of what you've given me. You can't imagine the h.e.l.l you've put me through, knowing you were mine yet having you fight me. I died some every time you looked at Driscoll. I gave up hope once that you'd ever realize that you belonged to me and I walked out, but then you came strolling into the Union Hall. You have made me completely miserable."

She smiled against his sweaty shirt. "I'm glad. You've upset my life too."

He kissed her forehead and held her a moment. "I think we better go. My arm's beginning to bleed again and it'll be hard driving back with one arm."

"I'll drive back," she said.

He pulled away from her. "You?" He grinned. "Amanda, do you realize what the steering is like on the Mercer? And the brakes? Why, you couldn't even-"

"Who do you think drove up here?" she asked angrily.

"That was different, that was..."

"Was what?" she demanded.

"Necessary." He wasn't smiling any longer.

"And now it's not necessary? You think you're a better driver with one arm and a fever than I am with two arms?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

She stepped back. "All right, it's yours," she said, gesturing toward the car. She stood aside and watched as he worked on the intricate starting procedure. His wound opened and he looked dizzy a couple of times, but he kept turning the crank.

She went to him. "Please, Hank," she said. "Please let me help."

Hank looked at her. He'd always known he'd do whatever she wanted if she asked him with a please. He knew it was one of the most difficult things he'd ever done, but he let her drive. She was worse than he'd imagined. She drove too fast, her steering was erratic, she pa.s.sed other cars when she couldn't see around them. She kept asking him questions about when Whitey and Andrei had kidnapped him. He mumbled that Andrei had never meant to shoot him but a tree on the mountainside had fallen and scared Andrei so much that the gun had gone off. Hank ducked, but not quick enough. Andrei thought Hank was dead and pulled him into the cabin to get the body out of sight, then he'd left him. Hank had slept until Amanda arrived.

"Does it hurt much?" Amanda asked, looking at him.

He got a little sick every time she took her eyes off the road. "Not as much as death would."

Amanda thought she heard him say something else, but it sounded too much like, "Taylor had the right idea about women: keep them locked up," so she was sure she was wrong.

They stopped for gas twice and bought sandwiches and coffee, then were on their way again. They didn't reach the Caulden Ranch until sundown.

And by then it was all over.

As soon as Amanda pulled into the service road near the pickers' camp they could see that many of the people were gone. Hank was pale and weak, and Amanda wanted to get him to a doctor but he wouldn't go. "I want to see your father," he said. Amanda nodded, took his hand in hers and they started walking.

Joe Testorio saw them and came running with the news. Everything had happened within minutes. Whitey Graham had been giving one of his speeches when two cars drove up, one containing the sheriff, the district attorney and a deputy, the other car containing four deputies. The D.A. made a request for peace, but one deputy pointed out Whitey and said they had a warrant for his arrest and were taking him. The officers started making their way through the crowd.

But then something happened, Joe wasn't sure what, but later someone said that a bench with some men standing on it had tipped. The noise and the men's yells were enough to send the crowd into pandemonium. A deputy fired a shotgun over the crowd's heads to quieten them. It had the opposite effect.

Three minutes later the crowd began to pull back, and on the ground lay the sheriff, the D.A., a deputy and two workers, one a boy of thirteen, all of them dead.

If possible, Hank grew a little paler when he heard the news. Amanda tightened her grip on his hand.

Hank walked into the Caulden house without knocking and strode into the library, Amanda beside him. J. Harker sat at his desk, looking as if nothing had happened.

"Come to threaten me?" he asked, looking at a b.l.o.o.d.y Hank and a defiant Amanda. "So much for your campaign against violence. The governor's sending the State Militia out. They'll shoot your unionists on sight. You've lost, Montgomery, you've lost."

"You don't realize it, but you're the loser. All you had to do was give the workers a decent pay raise-money you could well afford-and you could have prevented this. Now the world will hear about the Caulden Ranch."

"Hear how your unionists killed the D.A. and the sheriff," J. Harker said. "The country will tear your union apart. The D.A. was a loved man, with a wife and kids."

"What this country will hear about is the inhuman conditions that caused them to riot. And I'm going to be the one to tell them. I'm going to describe in detail what went on here, what pushed these people over the brink."

"And I'm going to help him," Amanda said.

J. Harker snorted. "You can go to your room. I'll get someone to replace Taylor."

"Has he left you too?" Amanda said softly.

"Ran off with that two-bit Eiler b.i.t.c.h," Harker muttered. "But he can be replaced."

"Now you have what you wanted: you have this enormous ranch all to yourself. You have no wife with a past to embarra.s.s you, no daughter to play childish pranks and make people think you're less than perfect, no future son-in-law to intimidate. But you've lost something else too: you don't know it yet, but you've lost control of this ranch. You've shown your greed to the world, and you may be willing to let people die so you can make money, but the world's not going to let you. Your day is over, and Hank and I are going to help see that it's finished."

"Are you through now?" J. Harker said, his eyes angry. "Then you can get out. I don't need any of you." Even as he said it, he knew he was lying, but pride had ruled his life and he was too old to change now.

"Goodbye, Father," Amanda said and turned to look at Hank. "Ready, darling?"

Hank nodded and they left the library, but he stopped her in the hall. "Amanda, if I wasn't sure before that I loved you, I am now. Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she whispered, then smiled. "And our son will be a king."