Iron Ties (3 page)
Inez cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Susan!”
The wind snatched the word away.
Dread curled around Inez’s spine, icy as the air.
Inez left the main road and crossed the river, urging Lucy up switchbacks on the side of the gulch as fast as she dared, finally arriving atop a small plateau covered with dusty sagebrush and firs. She looked around, and her heart fell at the sight of a horse and burdened-down burro tied off under the trees. The burro had dislodged a box of glass photographic plates from its panniers. Glass slivers glittered in the dirt and spare grass. The horse’s eyes were wide and wild, its reins thoroughly tangled in the brush, its coat caked with dried sweat.
Inez wound Lucy’s reins around the trunk of an anemic evergreen and gazed across the slope to the broad ledge.
The temperature had dropped throughout the afternoon, and dark clouds now loomed. A snowflake fell. Another. The wind picked up, blowing dust and desultory bits of snow over the ground.
Taking a deep breath, Inez plunged onto the narrow trail faint across the talus slope. Where the slope steepened into a cliff, she stepped onto the path. With the ledge only ten feet away, she stopped. The rock avalanche that had destroyed the cabin, littered the ledge with boulders, and sent rock and dirt hurtling to the tracks below had brushed the last of the path as well, covering it with loose rubble. Inez gazed at the ledge. So close.
She bit her bottom lip hard and scrutinized the rocks concealing the path ahead.
I’ll keep a firm hand on the rock face and stay away from the edge.
Three steps in, her boot slipped on loose rubble.
Inez screamed, leaped forward, and grabbed a sharp-edged outcropping.
Her scream rang in her ears, mixed with the clacking of stones as they fell to the ground far below. Blood pounding, Inez waited until the small avalanche ceased, then she steeled herself and bounded the last few steps to firmer footing.
Once on the large shelf, Inez sprinted across the stone-littered area to the shack. Jagged boulders and slabs blanketed what was left of the cabin. Inez’s breath caught when she spotted a glint of metal that resolved into a mangled, half-buried camera.
“No,” she whispered. “Please, don’t let it be.”
She glanced around. The only spot that offered even a modicum of protection was the mine itself.
If she had time to get there.
The portal gaped, its entrance partially blocked by debris.
Angling around a massive boulder, Inez spotted a dust-covered lump of rags just inside the mining entrance.
“Susan!”
She was curled into an unresponsive ball, face buried in her arms. Her green skirts and bloomers were streaked with red rock dust—at least, Inez hoped it was only dust.
Inez hurried forward and knelt at her friend’s side. She touched Susan’s shoulder and, when there was no reaction, rolled her onto her back. Susan’s hat was knocked askew, ribbons still tied tight, her face streaked with dirt and blood. A nasty purple bruise swelled at the hairline.
“Jesus,” Inez whispered. Then louder, “Can you hear me?”
No response.
Inez ripped off a riding glove, cupped her hand close to Susan’s nose, and was relieved to feel the stir of breath.
Inez pulled a flask from her jacket and soaked her kerchief liberally. She gingerly dabbed at her friend’s face.
Susan’s eyes fluttered open, confused, then wild with fear. She screamed.
Inez jumped. The contents of the flask sloshed. “Susan! It’s me!”
Susan struggled to focus. “Inez? I thought you were….”
“Who?”
She took a shaky breath. “The killer.”
“What?”
“Dead men…on the track. Shot.”
“Men on the….” Inez thought of the enormous pile of debris covering the rails.
A clatter sounded high above them. Inez ducked instinctively. Fist-sized rocks bounced onto the terrace, accompanied by blowing dirt.
Inez stood, trying to force strength back into knees gone rubbery. “We’ve got to get off this ledge. The slope above us isn’t stable.”
“My camera.”
“It’s smashed up. We’ll end up the same way if we linger.” Inez grasped Susan’s arm. “Can you walk?”
Susan shakily stood. “Ow!” She lurched. “My ankle!”
Inez winced in sympathy and thrust the flask at her. “Drink this. It’ll dull the pain. You have to walk. At least to the horses. I can help, but I can’t carry you. The first few steps are the worst. We’ll need to move fast.”
Susan took a small sip and spat. “Ugh!”
“That’s my best brandy!”
Another rock clattered down.
“We’ve got to go. Here, lean on me.”
Inez wrapped an arm around Susan’s waist, taking some of her weight. Together they lurched to the path. Inez half-carried, half-dragged her friend across the rubble, propelled forward by a harrowing vision of the two of them tumbling down the slope and landing like crumpled dolls at the bottom.
They finally reached stable terrain and picked their way back across the talus field. Susan moved like one half awake. Inez felt as if her arm would pull from the socket with the strain of holding her friend upright.
At the horses, Susan collapsed on the ground. Inez checked the animals, wondering whether her friend would be able to ride at all. She turned to ask and saw a fresh trickle of blood ooze down Susan’s cheek. Susan brushed at her cheek, then stared at the wet smear on her glove.
Inez pulled out her flask, took a sip to burn the dust from her mouth, and thrust it at Susan. “Finish this. Now, I want to have a look at your head.”
She untied hat ribbons, peeled off the blood-soaked felt, and parted Susan’s sleek brown hair. The gash, she was relieved to see, didn’t go to the bone. But the swelling and Susan’s hazy state of mind concerned her. Nonetheless, she pushed her worries aside and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “Looks like you might need some stitches in your scalp. Now, what’s this about men on the track and a killer?”
Her friend began shivering. Inez stripped off her own jacket and vest and snugged them around Susan, silently cursing herself for not bringing a waterproof coat or at least a blanket against inclement weather.
Susan forced out words between chattering teeth. “T-two men were below. They argued about…killing generals? There was a s-strip of colored cloth. Red, blue, and white. Important, I think.” She covered her face. “Someone above me, I didn’t see who, shot at them. What happened to me? I can’t remember.”
Someone above.
The back of Inez’s neck prickled with apprehension. She rose from a crouch and examined the landscape. Nothing stirred in Disappointment Gulch, on its slopes, or in the kiln field. The only sound was the hiss and roar of the river. The ridgeline above the gulch looked empty. A thumb of rock capping the cliff thrust skyward toward the threatening clouds as if to emphasize the need to get off the hill and back to the main road.
An inhuman screech drew her attention to the entombed rails. The carrion birds had landed. One flapped its wings and screeched again as if staking a claim on what was buried beneath.
When the railroad camp came into view through the mist of rain, Inez felt like singing hallelujah. She’d been riding double on Lucy for what felt like hours, holding Susan in front of her and trailing a pack string of riderless mounts—Susan’s rented horse and burro plus two other horses Inez had found by the river, reins dragging on the ground. Mindful of Susan’s story, Inez had spent precious minutes calming the animals and adding them to her string.
Canvas tents drooped in a field next to new-laid tracks and railroad cars. Some of the cars were two stories high and looked like frame shacks on wheels, complete with doors, windows, and stovepipes. A limp line of wash sagged along a rooftop. Inez spotted a long line of men waiting by what she guessed was a payroll car.
A huge bay horse stood patiently by one of the two-story cars while its rider, shrouded in waterproof, conversed with someone inside. For a moment, Inez forgot her frozen hands and aching arms. She half-stood in the stirrups, shouting “Mr. Holt!”
Preston Holt turned.
Inez closed the distance. “My friend, Miss Carothers, needs a doctor. She was caught in a rockslide by Disappointment Gulch. It buried your rails and perhaps a couple of men as well.”
As Holt dismounted and headed toward the women, a figure swayed into view through the open doorway: shirttails out, waistcoat unbuttoned, near empty bottle hanging loosely from one hand. Pencil-thin black mustache and inkwell eyes to match. “What the divvil’s this about?” he slurred. “Rockslides? Buried men?”
He pointed the bottle at Preston Holt. “Dammit, Holt! You’re hired t’ keep trouble from happening! The general doesn’t pay you and your kind t’—”
Susan struggled to alertness. “They talked about a general….” Her voice drifted off.
Holt took in Susan’s condition in a glance, then addressed the drunk in the car. “It’ll wait, Delaney. An injured woman needs help.”
Delaney squinted at Susan and Inez. “Woman?”
“Mrs. Stannert and Miss Carothers are from Leadville,” Holt said, emphasizing the words Mrs., Miss, and Leadville.
Delaney passed a hand over his face. “Christ. Women. From town.” When he looked up, he appeared almost sober. “Get a wagon and get them out of here. See t’ the rockslide. Get the men t’ clear it out tonight. With lanterns, if necessary. McMurtrie can’t hear about this.” Delaney retreated to the dark interior, muttering.
Holt gazed after Delaney and shook his head. He addressed a driver lingering nearby with an empty wagon. “Fetch Reuben. Leave the wagon here.” He turned a somber gaze to Inez. “Steady, Mrs. Stannert. We’ll get you and your friend back to town.”
Inez nodded and held Susan tighter.
Holt disappeared inside the nearest shack-on-wheels and reappeared moments later with several blankets. After arranging them in the empty wagon, he lifted Susan from Inez’s saddle as if she weighed no more than a sack of flour and carried her to the wagon bed. He was rigging a canvas cover against the rain when Reuben rode up, looking like a half-drowned pup that had been rolling in mud. Close on his heels and no drier was a short, wiry man also wearing a waterproof coat and sporting a soaked derby, dripping spectacles, and a Lincolnesque beard. He clutched a briefcase tight as if afraid someone might take it from him.
“Mr. Holt!” the short man called. “I was by the payroll car when your message was delivered to the young man here. I thought, if a hand was needed helping folks to town, I’m heading that way with papers for Snow from Palmer and the board.”
Holt nodded. “Much obliged.” He made the introduction. “Mrs. Stannert, this is Mr. Duncan. Works for the Rio Grande lawyers and such.”
The short fellow removed his hat in courtesy, hastily replacing it as the rain pattered on his already plastered hair. “Most call me Professor.”
Reuben stood stock-still, eyes glued about a foot south of Inez’s face. Glancing down, she saw her flannel shirt was plastered to her breasts like a second skin.
Inez grimaced and plucked at the soaked shirt. It pulled away with a sucking sound.
“Reuben!” Holt’s voice held an edge. Reuben tore his gaze away from Inez’s chest. “Fetch my jacket. In the saddlebag.”
Face flushed, Reuben brought the jacket to Holt.
Holt handed it to Inez. “It’s a fair piece to go in the rain.” As she gratefully thrust her hands through sleeves the size of tunnels, he continued, “I’d take you myself, but sounds like I’ve got marching orders from Delaney. Professor and Reuben will see you safe to town.” He spared a sharp glance at the boy, before turning to her string of horses. “Where’d you find these?”
“The gray and the burro are Miss Carothers’. The other two were wandering loose by the river, about half a mile this side of the gulch.”
Holt put a calming hand on the pinto and examined its markings. He grunted. “This one’s ours.” He stood, hand on the horse, head bowed in thought. Finally, he looked at Reuben. “You stay here.”
“But—”
Holt cut him off. “Rockslide might’ve buried some men. Professor’s fixin’ to go to town as it is.”
Reuben’s face darkened, taking on the aspect of the clouds overhead.
Holt walked to the wagon for a last look at Susan. “When your friend’s feeling better, I’ve got some questions for her.” He squinted up at Inez. “And for you, Mrs. Stannert.”
Her heart skittered at his steady gaze. “Certainly, Mr. Holt. I believe you know where to find me.” Inez said the words with a distant politeness she didn’t feel. It was the heavy wool of the oversized jacket, she decided, that was causing her to perspire.
The professor hopped into the wagon and picked up the reins. As Inez turned Lucy toward the road, she heard Holt say to Reuben, low but pointed, “…questions for you, too.”
Inez rode close to the wagon, one eye on Susan, the other on the muddy road.
After some time, the professor cleared his throat. “Poor lassie. I heard about her accident. Did she say what happened?”
Inez sighed. “Miss Carothers gave me some garbled story about men arguing on the tracks below her. I’m worried about her head injury, she’s not very clear in what happened. Apparently there was a rockslide afterward onto the tracks. She thinks the men may be buried there.”
He seemed to ponder her words, then nodded somberly. “Cliffs can be treacherous by the tracks. The surveyors and engineers, they do their best picking routes and blasting them out, but afterward the slopes can be unstable.”
The terrain flashed briefly in Inez’s mind: near vertical above the shelf, sloping to tracks and river below. “It didn’t look like the route had to be blasted,” she ventured. “And my impression is the rockslide came from above her.”
“Ah well. I’m no engineer.” He shrugged. “I dinnae think the crews’ll be seeing a day off until the track’s cleared.”
Inez pulled Holt’s jacket closer about her. The damp wool collar brushed her lips. “That Mr. Delaney. Will he truly make the crews work all night?”
“Delaney.” The professor weighed the name in some invisible balance. “He’s a section boss. Supervises a portion of the crew and the layin’ of the track. But fact is, he’s only some poor and distant cousin of the chief construction engineer, J.A. McMurtrie. When Delaney’s in his cups—which is often, I hear—others step in and take charge. Or sometimes he just promotes the nearest body to do his job.”
“Such as Preston Holt?” Inez raised her eyebrows. “He’s a payroll guard, true?”
The professor grimaced, as if caught out. “Holt is a man of many parts. I don’t pretend to know the half of them, even though I’m privy to meetings of the Rio Grande’s board and its lawyers. But I believe Holt’s charter is somewhat wider than just guardin’ the payroll.” A drop rolled off the tip of his nose. “A straight-shooter, Holt is, by all accounts. A company man. With Delaney as he is today, Holt might even lend a hand in takin’ the men back to where the trouble is. Look over the scene.”
“A payroll guard running a construction crew and a professor working for lawyers.” Inez shook her head.
“Degree from University of Edinburgh. Did some teachin’, here and there. Even took a spin as an inkslinger not too many years back, when I was a sprout of twenty.”
At this, Inez took a closer look at him. She’d pegged him first at about forty. But the dust that had settled into the creases of his face and muddied his aspect had fooled her. She now realized he was closer to her own age, about thirty. “You were a member of the fourth estate?”
“I’ve a way with words. Won’t deny it.” He deflated. “Ah well. Dinnae last.”
“A newspaperman.” She rolled the possibilities around in her mind like a smooth marble in her hand. “Did you like the work?”
“’Twas far more satisfying than taking notes at meetings and delivering files from Denver and the Springs to the end of the track and beyond.” He sighed. “America. Land of opportunity. Seems everywhere I’ve gone, opportunities have vanished. Glorified errand boy is what I am now. Things have not turned out like I was expecting at all.”
“Hmmm.” She eyed him. “Not to downplay the seriousness of the circumstances that brought us together, but this could be your lucky day, Professor. If you’re interested in returning to your previous profession.”
“Some silver baron needing a tutor for his bairns?” He grimaced. “I gave up teaching for good.”
“No, no. I was thinking along the line of journalism. You know the railroad
and
the newspaper business. Those are the more interesting parts of the equation.” She allowed herself the briefest of smiles. “Give me a week, Professor. Then, if you’re interested in slinging ink in Leadville, come see me at the Silver Queen Saloon.”
“And why would you bother with a poor soul such as myself?”
“I see a way to help a friend and make a friend. Easy as that.”
For the balance of the trip to town, Inez thought on Jed Elliston—publisher, editor, and sole reporter of
The Independent
—and resolved to say no more until she’d had a chance to sound him out.
Could be useful to have a newspaperman or two in my debt.
She spied the tailings at the town limits shadowing into view through the misty rain and growing dusk. Inez led the professor through Leadville’s back streets, which had liquefied into rivers of mud, to St. Vincent’s Hospital at the north end of town. A nun whose determined expression whitewashed a face lined with exhaustion and years met Inez on the porch. At Inez’s request, a small boy was sent to fetch Doctor Cramer. Inez and the professor helped Susan from the wagon, while the nun, who introduced herself as Sister Mary Bernard, took quick measure of Susan’s condition and told one of the other good Sisters of Charity to prepare a private sickroom on the second floor.
Once Susan was settled, the professor melted away, with many apologies of errands to run and papers to deliver and well wishes for Susan’s speedy recovery. Inez pulled a chair up to her bed and took Susan’s hand, keeping an eye on the doorway for Doc’s appearance.
The minor key murmurs and moans of the hospital’s residents were rent by a chilling scream, seemingly on the other side of the wall from Susan’s iron bedstead. Inez saw two Sisters of Charity sweep by, a rush of black shadows.
Sister Mary came in and shut the door firmly behind her. “Doctor Cramer is on his way. He’ll be here shortly, Mrs. Stannert.”
The door flew open, and another sister, who looked barely old enough to be out of school, nearly collided with Sister Mary.
“Yes, Sister?” the older nun said with a touch of irritation.
The younger woman’s face was taut with fear beneath her wimple. She held out an envelope with a shaking hand. “Another anonymous note, Sister Mary. They said they’ll set the place afire this time, if we don’t sell the land—”
Sister Mary cut her off. “Let’s not burden visitors with hospital matters.” She glanced at Inez.
Footsteps approached, echoing down the hall. Inez recognized Doc Cramer’s limping gait, counterpoint to the thump of his cane.
Inez, stood, hastily brushed the front of her trousers and shirt, feeling out of place in men’s garb, and hurried toward the door. Sister Mary was out in the hallway with the young nun, and Inez heard her say, “Deliver the note to Father Robinson, he’ll handle the situation. It’s not the first threat the hospital has received from lot jumpers.”
“Mrs. Stannert!” boomed Doc Cramer, his face a map of wrinkles and concerns. He stopped before Inez and the sisters, set his medical bag on the floor, and removed his stovepipe hat, glistening with rain. “I came as soon as I heard about Miss Carothers. Good evening, Sisters.” He added a little bow. “I’m glad you had room for a female patient tonight. As soon as I’ve seen to Miss Carothers, I might as well attend to those pneumonia cases I’ve been following in the ward.”
A scream followed by a stream of curses at top volume emanated from the room next door. Doc’s shaggy eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline. “Perhaps, Sister Mary, I should attend to that fellow first.”
“I think that’s best, thank you, Doctor. Room Sixteen.”
Doc retrieved his medical bag and hurried to Room Sixteen.
Inez returned to Susan’s bedside and examined her friend’s face in the light from the coal oil lamp. The sisters had cleaned Susan’s face, and the bruises looked nearly black against her pale skin.
Sister Mary joined Inez in observing Susan, her head tilted critically to one side. “I believe Miss Carothers will be fine, given time to rest and recover.” She bestowed the smallest of smiles upon Inez. “Your friend is in good hands. There’s no need to stay. I’ll keep her company if you must leave.”
Inez nodded reluctantly, thinking of the horses waiting outside and Abe at the saloon, no doubt wondering what had happened to her. “Thank you. Would you please tell Doctor Cramer to come see me when he’s done?”
“Certainly.” Sister Mary claimed Inez’s vacated chair.
Inez cleared her throat. “Sister, if I may ask?”
The sister looked up, eyes dark and calm as the sky at midnight.
“The note. I thought lot jumping was confined to downtown and the mining areas. Why would anyone want to seize the hospital’s land? You’re on the very edge of town.”
Sister Mary folded her hands in her lap. “After the railroad purchased lots a few blocks north, we began getting letters insisting that we move our hospital to another location. Ridiculous, of course. We have absolutely no intention of doing so. Lately, the letters have become more threatening. But we trust that the Lord and Father Robinson will take care of the situation.” She bestowed another tiny smile on Inez. “Not to mention the local parishioners, who have no qualms about reinforcing the Lord’s will with their own considerable firepower. Whoever wrote the note will find we give no quarter to land thieves.”