The Union (34 page)

"Appreciate your concern, sir." Dietz sounded too polite, like his own personality had gone on vacation and now he operated on manners long ago drummed in.

"No time for jawing, General. We've seen President O'Brien and his henchmen hiding out in Mrs. Hollihan's cellar. You better get them before they move out."

The General smiled with genuine delight. "What I've heard about your agency appears to be true—you are the best damned detectives in the world." The General called for one of his aides and dispatched a company of men to bring in the rabble-rousers. Then he turned his attention back to Patterson and Dietz. "Can I get something for you fellows? You look tired."

"Oh, hell, we are, but that's nothing new." Patterson looked at Dietz. The boy looked more than tired. He looked empty and defeated. "A rest sounds good, but not before I offer my services. I was recording secretary for the Gem Union for nearly a year. I know most of the men involved in the action by sight, whereas your troops don't. Let me help finger the fugitives."

The General nodded. "I accept your offer."

"Just part of the job."

"Count me in, too." Dietz broke his silence. "I haven't been in the Valley as long as Patterson, but I know a few villains myself."

Patterson couldn't let the boy do it. He couldn't let the boy stay. If he did, the agency would lose one of its best detectives. Patterson knew all about loss. The boy had to mourn and not in plain view of Keely Byrne. Why add salt to the raw and bleeding wound? Besides, Patterson liked the girl. She needed her own chance to recover.

"No," Patterson said. "I can do all the fingering. Dietz needs a rest. I'm sending him back to the main office as soon as we can arrange for a ticket to Denver."

"The hell you will." Dietz spat the words out and gave Patterson a look meant to intimidate. The boy looked ready to swing at him. Fortunately, the kid knew better. Patterson watched him clench his fist next to his side.

"I'm the senior agent on this assignment. I make the decisions." He had to phrase this carefully. "You've done some fine detective work, risked your life for the job. I'll make sure McParland knows what a fine job you did. But there's no cause for the agency to pay two men to do the job of one. There's nothing but cleanup left here. I'll handle it."

Dietz swore under his breath. The boy looked haggard and beat.

"What are you afraid of, Dietz? That you'll be written out of the history books on this one?" Patterson smiled. Hell, he liked the kid.

Chapter 20

October 1892

Dietz collected his mail and retired to his hotel room, his "home" in Denver. He'd just returned from his latest assignment—"testing" conductors on the western railway system through Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri. Though the agency assigned half a dozen operatives to it, the job was a piddly one and not to his liking. While an interesting study in human nature, riding the rails left too much time for solitary thoughts and introspection, two things he tried hardest to avoid. Not to mention testing conductors was boring as hell.

Superintendent McParland either intended it as punishment or rest, Dietz couldn't figure out which. To say McParland had not been happy about his "marrying" Keely Byrne would be to understate the case. McParland had been a hornet.

As Dietz opened the door to his hotel room, he scanned the letters in his hand. Ah, one from Patterson. He recognized the handwriting. Patterson had been a regular correspondent these last tortured months, sending news of the proceedings, carefully omitting any mention of Keely, or any other upsetting personages. Not that it did a damn bit of good—Keely Byrne never drifted far from Dietz's thoughts.

Admit it—Dietz had been despondent. Still was. He'd even been too depressed to sample the wares of the whores who regularly traveled the rails, though God knew he probably needed a good lay. But he needed Keely more. Damn it all anyway!

Dietz never knew what he felt about Patterson's letters. Patterson wrote in a humorous, entertaining style. His letters sounded like the man. But the information Patterson conveyed was not always pleasant, certainly not funny.

Dietz kicked his boots off and plunked down onto the bed before ripping the letter open with his fingers.

Dietz,

Thought you might like to be apprised of the goings-on up here. Our good friend Geo. Brown has recovered from the injuries he suffered when he lit the fuse that blew up the Frisco Mill. I guess the silly fool never went to school, or if he did he slept through class the day they taught about concussions. Anyway, seems though he can mete out union justice with the best of them, he couldn't scent out a boomerang in the making.

After he lit the long fuse they'd sent into the mill, he stayed in the flume with his ear to the penstock, listening for the joyous sound of an explosion. Course, you and I know that the shock of the explosion would come back up the penstock. I guess he found out. His companions pulled him from the flume he'd fallen back into after being blown out. Lucky fellow to suffer only a fractured wrist and a few other minor injuries, all, as I said, now on the mend. Too bad some of the others, the scabs killed in the mill, weren't so fortunate.

John Monihan has returned now that the military has taken over the Valley. He escaped the massacre at Cataldo Mission, where the scab hostages were taken, by swimming to a small island in the middle of the river and hiding out. Last count the missing scabs, most presumed dead, totaled fourteen. Bill Black is in prison for leading the bloody attack and mass robbing. I doubt some of the scabs will ever be found. One scab witness reports Black and others robbing bodies after the shootout, then slicing their stomachs open so they'd sink when dumped into the river.

I've made numerous trips to local hospitals trying to identify more perpetrators of the violence, and encouraging the victims. Seeing men with their heads split open, beaten to jelly and fighting for life makes me want to fight this kind of union terrorism to the end. It makes the threats I've received seem worth the risk.

Several occasions I've had to use my old Colt's 45 to get me out of scrapes. I've been trying to avoid taking any lives, but I tell you, at times it's tempting. When I went to the bullpen, the big temporary jail compound where they're holding the miners, the prisoners rushed me. The miners aren't forgiving types, I guess. Many of them are still angry with me, guess they always will be.

As you know, I've been in Murray giving testimony in the trials of some of the terrorists. That in itself has been an adventure. I've got me a nice bed in the local hotel, but I haven't slept there one night. The local deputy has been worried over rumors that 300 unionists plan to take over the town to stop me from testifying against the union leaders. He's warned me many times that he can't protect me. There are no soldiers in Murray. I don't feel particularly safe there myself. Which is why I don't sleep in my bed. Every night I act like I'm going to my room, then I sneak out the back and up the mountain and sleep under the stars. At least that way I'm fairly confident I'll see daylight.

Dietz chuckled. Clean up indeed. The assignment still called for courage, honor, and cunning. Dietz owed Patterson a big debt for sending him away. Dietz turned back to the letter.

That brings me to the main point of this correspondence. I regret to inform you that Lunn Gaffney has been cleared of all murder charges.

Dietz nearly dropped the letter. It began shaking in his hands so violently that for a moment he couldn't read it. They let Gaffney go? Much to Dietz's relief, Gaffney had been arrested just after the soldiers took possession of the Valley and charged with the murder of Ivory Bean. He took a deep breath, forced his hand to still, and took up the letter again.

Though we got numerous indictments against the union rioters, no one believed we'd have a chance of a fair trial or a conviction here in the mining district. To test their theory, the prosecutors tried the most conclusive case in Murray, with the stated result. We had many witnesses who testified that they saw Gaffney shoot Bean. If I would have thought your testimony would have made a difference, I would have summoned you. But I don't think any amount of proof would have swayed the jury, so biased were they.

Because of this debacle, the trials for the union leaders have been moved to Boise City. Lunn Gaffney walks free now, but...

Dietz swore beneath his breath using every curse and oath he knew. Would Keely marry Lunn now? He could hardly believe she would marry a known murderer, but if she believed he was innocent, that the trial had been fair...

Terrible doubts assailed Dietz as he remembered former reports he'd received from Patterson. Before Gaffney's arrest, he'd held off a mob that threatened to kill a local newspaper man for his part in writing inflammatory articles about the union and accompanying the General on his missions to seek out rioters. Dietz wondered when Gaffney had become so particular about other people's rights. Had it been to impress Keely? Had she been present at the scene? He swore again and returned to the letter.

... with your help I'm hoping we'll nail him. We can't retry him on murder charges for Ivory Bean, but you and I both know he was one of the union's hired guns. Thing is, I think you were closer to the information than I was.

Look, I must be frank about this. Boise City is not in the Valley. Memories and some people you wish, for personal reasons, to avoid should not be present. But the situation is far from safe. The union has put a price on our heads with the murderous Irish crime gang the Clan-na-Gael. Of course, this probably is in effect no matter where we are, but they'll be looking for us particularly in Boise City.

I think we can arrange with McParland to reassign you to this. Will you come?

Charlie Patterson

Dietz dropped the letter and watched it float to rest in his lap. Would he come? Hell, yes. Indignation at the lawless terror wreaked by the union aside, he owed that much to Keely. He'd be damned if he'd let her marry Gaffney.
 

Gem, Idaho

October 1892

Lunn pressed Keely tighter against the boardinghouse wall, sandwiching her between it and him. Why did he feel it necessary to trap her when she didn't fight or block his advances? Maybe her acquiescence spoke for itself, told him of her absolute lack of passion. But how could someone as dense as Lunn realize that?

His hands massaged the soft round of her breasts too roughly. Though both of them were fully clothed, he ground against her in a rough imitation of mating. Mating—that described it, like animals did, rutting, urgent, selfish. Not making love like people in love did. He tried to insinuate himself between her legs and encircle himself in the folds of her skirt.
 

Try, Lunn, but I will not give you that.
She kept her knees locked, legs squeezed together. Through the fabric of her skirt his hardness assaulted her.

His mouth closed over hers.

Nothing
. Try as hard as she could, she felt nothing. Shouldn't some instinct take over? Shouldn't his very maleness arouse something in her? Had John Dietz killed her so completely? Dangerous territory, thinking of him. She pushed her thoughts elsewhere, but the turn they took didn't please her, either, and didn't stray from the detective agent.

Could she disrobe in front of Lunn, strip as she had on her wedding night, hoping only to please him, ready to take Lunn into her body? Could she sleep curled next to Lunn, bear his children, handle far more intimacy than this time and again? Could she at least tolerate his attentions?

Disgust overwhelmed her—too much bumbled groping. Her breasts ached. Her experiment had failed, or maybe it hadn't, depending on how she looked at it. She had discovered most of what she had wanted to find out—it just wasn't the answer she'd hoped for. She pushed Lunn back from her. Her sudden action took him off guard. He fell back easily.

"The men will be coming home soon, expecting their supper." She ran a hand over her hair. Drat Lunn for mussing her up. "I don't want them viewing what they shouldn't." She stepped neatly around him into the body of the kitchen.

"I'm leaving for Boise City tonight. You still haven't given me your answer—are you marrying me?"

"I don't know, Lunn." She really didn't. Marrying him would solve many of her problems. But no doubt it would create as many as it fixed.

Her indecision didn't appear to set back his confidence. "Set the date, Keel. We'll be married as soon as I get back from Boise City."

She ignored him. What else could she do? But his confidence irked her. Was she indeed trapped?
 

"Why are you going?" Not that she cared for herself, except that it bought her time, just as his arrest had done before.

His smile gave little away. "The union needs me there. I go where I'm told."

The words chilled her. Word around the Valley had the Clan-na-Gael active again. She stopped herself short of warning him off of involvement with it. She wanted the choice to be his, then maybe she could make hers.

He stepped into her and pecked her cheek, giving her bottom a squeeze in unison. "When I get back." He winked and left.

She picked a dishrag up off the table. She shuddered as she wiped his spittle off her face, then slapped the rag back on the table and sat, mindlessly washing circles on the table.