The Passionate and the Proud (34 page)

“Please. Let me out. I must see Mr. Landar. He’s in danger. You’re all in danger.”

The laughter ceased, but not because of her warning. Emmalee heard footsteps approaching, then a curt conversation in Chinese. The door was pulled open noisily and abruptly. She was staring into the inquiring eyes of Yo-Bang.

“Dan-ger?” he asked, pronouncing the word carefully. “From you?” She caught a glint of humor in his clever eyes. He recognized her from all of his trips to church with Delilah.

“I’m Emmalee Alden. You know me. I’m a…a friend of Mr. Landar’s. Please take me to him. You’re ail in terrible danger. So is the dam.”

“Dam?” repeated Yo-Bang, with a quick glance in the direction of the river. He did not seem to believe her. “You. You step on trip-wire, give alarm. You stay here for night. In morning we see. Go to Missah Landar in morning.”

He started to close the door.

“Don’t!” Emmalee cried, flinging herself against it. Yo-Bang, the good servant, did not wish to disturb his master now, and she, an unarmed and patently peculiar
woman
babbling about danger and the dam, posed no threat to anyone. Let her cool off in the shack overnight. There would be plenty of time for more amusement with her in the morning.

“Dam!” she shouted one last time, gesturing frantically with her hands. “Blow up!
Boom! Boom! Boom
!”

Yo-Bang understood. “We go see Missah Landar and Missah Quinn,” he said.

“Jesus, Emmalee!” exclaimed Jacob Quinn, standing sleepily in the door of the cabin to which Yo-Bang had rushed Emmalee. He was wearing a pair of reddish-colored longjohns. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

Even as he spoke, Garn appeared behind him, similarly attired and equally surprised to see her.

Breathlessly, she blurted her message. “Torquist and Pennington and a lot of others are coming here to blow up your dam. Hurry. There’s not a moment to lose. They could be planting the explosives right now.”

“Explosives?” wondered Jacob incredulously.

But Garn did not hesitate. He barked a quick order at Yo-Bang, who ran off calling to his men. Garn and Jacob, ignoring Emmalee, pulled on the trousers and boots they’d brought from the cabin, grabbed rifles, and raced off in the direction of the dam. Emmalee ran after them.

Night was well along the way toward morning. The wind had shifted to the west and Emmalee registered its cool, pregnant dampness without joy. What good was rain if a score of Olympians were fated to lie dead in it? Running down the trail that led from the cabin to the river, Emmalee saw in gloomy pre-dawn haze all of Quinn’s Chinese lined up behind concealing bushes on the riverbank above the dam. They were armed and ready to fight. She made out the structure of the dam now, too, a broad wall of boulders, earth, and masonry spanning the canyon. Jacob Quinn had built well. He, Garn, and the Chinese, whose sweat and toil had wrought the structure, were not about to let it be blasted to kingdom come.

A single shot rang out from the woods on the hills below.

Emmalee saw Garn standing on a rise of ground overlooking the dam. He was staring downriver, peering into the morning mists for the first glimpse of the Arcadians. Shyly she went to him.

“Get back,” he said. “Get down.”

“No,” she said. “Not after I came all this way to be with you.”

He looked at her closely for a moment, then reached out and pulled her down with him behind a thicket of hazel.

“Well, let me thank you now,” he said, smiling and holding her face between his hands, “just in case I don’t get a chance later.”

“Then I have to tell you something now,” she said.

“Can’t it wait?”

“No. I’ve waited too long already.”

Emmalee felt the words rising. She had learned the words now, finally, and she believed in them with all of her heart and soul, which she offered in joyous surrender.

“I came here because I love you, Garn,” she said. “And I’ll ask this of you once, or twice, or as many times as it takes to get the answer I want: Will you love me too?”

“That’s a question you only have to ask once,” he replied, smiling and kissing her. “The answer is yes.”

The blast of a shotgun roared out, echoing against the canyon’s rocky walls.

“For as long as we live, anyway,” Garn said.

“Landar? Landar, are you up there?”

“That’s Torquist,” whispered Emmalee. “He sounds nervous.”

“He has reason to be.” Garn had one arm around Emmalee and in the other he cradled a rifle. Buckshot from the shotgun blast had whistled near them and scattered in the dirt at their feet like tiny pellets of hail.

“I’m here,” called Garn, in a clear, resonant voice that carried in the eerie morning air. “Put aside your weapons. Come on up and let’s talk.”

Jacob Quinn crawled belly down along the ground, coming to join Emmalee and Garn. “All our men are in position,” he said. “And as closely as I’ve been able to determine, they haven’t planted their explosives yet. It’ll be terrible. We’ve got to head off a shootout. We could tear to pieces a battalion of the best soldiers in the world.”

“That’s exactly what we have to avoid,” replied Garn cheerlessly. “If that happens, there won’t be anything left in Olympia for any of us. Emmalee,” he said, “you’d better go back to the cabin and wait there.”

“No.”

“Please. Do as I say.”

“I might in some cases. But not in this one. I’m with you now.”

“Well, I can see that you’re still as unreasonable as ever,” he said. But his voice was full of love.

“All right, here goes.” Garn lifted himself carefully, scanning the trees below.

“Torquist, Pennington,” he called. “Don’t do anything foolish. You’ll all be killed. We have firepower and the high ground. We don’t want a fight. Come up and talk.”

“Aha, Landar! You can’t trick us.”

“I’m not trying to trick anyone. I’m trying to get us all out of this mess. Will you tell me why you want to destroy my dam? It’s no threat to you.”

A burst of bitter laughter came from the woods below. But there was no immediate answer to Garn’s question. Emmalee pictured Torquist and Pennington, old enemies become unlikely allies, conferring with each other. She remembered how desperate and determined they had sounded in the tent. She was also worried about Randy.

“How do we know you can be trusted, Landar?” Pennington called. “Speak your piece from there. We’re listening.”

“Fair enough,” said Garn, his voice clear and commanding. “That’s all I ask.”

He stood up and walked out in front of the bushes, the better to be heard. A shot rang out, the sharp crack of a deer rifle. Garn dropped heavily to the earth. The bullet whined away into the canyon.

“Lying bastard!”

It was Otis.

“Lying bastard, Landar, that’s what you are.”

“Oats, for Christ sake!” Pennington yelled.

“The bastard hasn’t said a word about Emmalee. He’s got her up there. We found her mule. She warned him, or some damnfool thing, an’ we don’t have the slightest idea…”

Garn, unharmed, was lying face down in the dirt, trying slowly to crawl back toward the shelter of the hazel bushes.

Emmalee acted. “I’m here and I’m fine,” she called, standing up suddenly so that she could be seen. “It’s all right, Otis.”

“Em, get down!” shouted Garn. Jacob Quinn tried to pull her back into concealment. She ignored Garn and pushed Jacob aside.

“Shoot me, if you want to,” she called scornfully. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? Yes, I came here to sound a warning! Who wouldn’t, if she had a right mind? Have you forgotten what it cost us to get here? Have you forgotten what it was like on the prairie last summer, when only the dream of
being
here kept us moving? Because if you have, then you don’t deserve this place! How are your children going to feel when they see you carried back down the hill dead? How are your wives going to feel? Randy, are you down there?”

A moment’s pause. “Yes.”

“How will Delilah feel, Randy? If you ever loved me, think of that.”

“Put the gun down, Otis,” Randy could be heard saying. “Put it down now.”

There were sounds of a scuffle, grunts and curses.

“All right,” Randy called. “Landar, speak your piece.”

Garn, standing up again, obliged. “You’re afraid of the dam and what you think it will do to Olympia,” he said. “But you’re all wrong and I’ll tell you why. What makes this land so rich is the river. But it is also the river that can bring destruction unless it is harnessed. If you people fail, what use is this dam to me? I want you to succeed. I want us
all
to succeed. And when the dam is completed, man, not the Big Two-Hearted, will control Olympia. Certainly I will charge you to mill your flour and saw your logs. Certainly I will find the ore that lies beneath these hills of mine. I admit that I did live for a time by the gun, but I have new ambitions now.” He glanced tenderly at Emmalee, who was listening intently, admiringly. “But I tell you all that I have not come to Olympia to bring ruin upon it, or myself, or anyone else. This dam is the first step in making our territory a promised land. We stand together, or we all fail. Now, that’s what I have to say, and I’ve said it. You must make up your own minds. I’ll fight, but I don’t have the stomach for it. I hope to God that you don’t either.”

He fell silent and waited. The sound of a rising west wind whistled in the high branches of pines. Emmalee felt a few cold drops of rain on her face, sweet as nectar with their promise of deliverance.

After what seemed a long time, there were sounds of movement down in the trees.

“What’s your decision, Torquist?” called Jacob Quinn. “Pennington, what’s it going to be?”

“We’re all going home,” Horace Torquist called back. “Landar, we’ll see you in town one of these days. Seems we’d better be making new plans for Olympia.”

“For all of us,” Garn responded.

It was quiet in the woods after a time, and quiet on the rim of the canyon above the dam. The Chinese relaxed and began to speak softly among themselves. Jacob Quinn sighed and stood up. He and Garn shook hands, then Garn took Emmalee into his arms, looking down at her lovingly, getting ready to give her the kiss that would seal their new life with promise and wonder.

“Hey, why the hell is everybody up so early? Emmalee, what are
you
doing here?”

Ebenezer Creel, in boots and longjohns, came stumbling down the trail from the cabin.

“Did I oversleep, or what? Say, I think it’s fixin’ t’ rain. Come on over to the cookhouse. I’ll fix us up some flapjacks an’ grits.”

“Good idea,” said Garn. “The rest of you get started on breakfast. Emmalee and I will join you a little later.”

Then he took her by the hand and led her toward the cabin.

He kissed her for a long time, and her body remembered what it knew and what it wanted to know again.

“Let’s,” she said.

“Let’s now.”

“I’m not sure we should,” he replied, teasing her. “Every time we’ve been together before, something’s always happened and it’s turned out badly.”

“That was then.” Emmalee sighed, pressing against him, molding her body to his. “This is now. I didn’t realize it clearly then, but you were doing most of the giving. It’s not going to be that way any more. I’m going to pay you back. I just hope you can keep up with me.”

“I’ll try my best,” he said, slipping off her trail jacket and unbuttoning her shirt. Emmalee felt the cool air on her skin while, kissing him again, she tore buttons in her haste to make him naked. They unfastened each other’s belt buckles. He fell to his knees, slipping her riding breeches down, kissing sweet flesh, then stood again as she did the same for him. He was strong and throbbing in her hands, and when he pulled her back upward for an embrace, when her breasts met the smooth, bronze skin of his chest, she quivered and shuddered at the contact.

“Something wrong?” he whispered.

“Oh, my God, no!”

She felt the beat of his blood where the length of him pressed against her, each pulse enhancing her anticipation, each pulse promising the spasms she wanted inside herself. Need shook Emmalee; her legs trembled; Garn’s entire body quivered in her embrace.

“Now I’m yours,” she said. “I surrender.”

All but overcome by passion, he managed the hint of a smile. “Angel, you know I don’t ask that. I never have.”

“Stop arguing. I just wanted to say it once.”

She cut off his laugh with a kiss. He lay her down on his narrow cot in the mountain cabin, the cabin a palace and the cot a bed as wide as time. He kissed her throat where the blood beat fast, and her breasts and all of her, pausing to give her the further sweetness of anticipation, and she said “No, no,” which did not mean stop but rather meant no, do not pause do not stop, and then she had him and felt him, over and over and over, as if a million lavender lights flickered in her very flesh. It was gorgeous, gorgeous, and she beat at the air with her arms, trying to escape an ecstasy that could not be endured or relinquished, until pleasure was so great that it consumed him and her and even itself…

They came out of the cabin and walked to breakfast through sweet falling rain. The earth was reborn. Garn and Emmalee, their arms around each other, looked down from the mountains upon the living fields of Olympia, which would yet be paradise for them.

After the ceremony, Pastor Runde offered a special prayer of thanksgiving. For, indeed, there was much for which to be grateful.

“Lord,” he said, “bless these thy children, Emmalee and Garn, as thou has blessed us in thine own way and time.”

The harvest was in, barns and granaries filled, cattle fat on the range and in the farmyards, all of Olympia thriving. A bank officer from Salt Lake and a new land official from Washington had cooperated to straighten out the mess left by Vestor Tell. Tell himself was behind bars in Sacramento, where he’d been arrested.

At the wedding party in Hester Brine’s hotel, Emmalee sought out Ebenezer Creel. “I have a bone to pick with you,” she said. “Remember all those times that you told me I wasn’t right for Garn?”

“Yep,” he said.

“I never admitted it, but it bothered me to hear that. Why did you think such a thing?”

“Shucks,” the old man said, hoisting a mug of corn likker to toast her, “don’t a fellow have the right to be wrong
once
in his life?”