Training Ivy [How The West Was Done 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

“Absurd!” roared Mr. Hudson, lurching to a sideboard to pour himself some booze. “No daughter of mine will ever be seen operating a telegraph! Do you know what sort of low types lounge about telegraph offices? Your mother would turn over in her grave to witness that! Laramie City is a lawless frontier town peopled with a bunch of hangers-on. A prairie dog town!” He twirled to face Mr. Tempest, pointing at him with his glass. “You tell her, Neil! You’re head of security—you tell her about the daily shootings.”

“Yes, indeed,” Neil said seriously. “We have a new rag in town, and there’s a column entitled ‘Last Night’s Shootings,’ that’s how many there are. It’s very rough-and-tumble, miss, right in the middle of what they call Hell on Wheels.”

“I’ve heard of Hell on Wheels,” Ivy said hotly, following her father to the sideboard. “I’ve been chasing those ramshackle tent towns the past several weeks—the Overland Stage Route follows the trail of those rowdy hangers-on. I tell you, it’s far more exciting than playing whist in Hyde Park with a bunch of old Mrs. Grundys. I can take care of myself, Father!”

Her father didn’t fail to notice that she poured herself a tumbler of booze, too. He whisked the glass from her hand and shouted, “Besides, we already
have
a telegraph operator! Neil, who is that fellow? Bradley something?”

“Bradley Mack. And he was shot dead three nights ago.”

Ivy shot Neil a triumphant glare. When she saw he actually
was
laughing this time, she felt a camaraderie with him that gave her the courage to say, “See, Father? There’s a position open that I can fill.”

Mr. Hudson waved his arms so stridently the whiskey sloshed from his glass and onto the gleaming floorboards. Stepping in the puddle, he cried, “I don’t want to hear another word about it! In fact,
I
am going to the telegraph office now to wire your sisters and arrange for your return journey. I can’t be burdened with a daughter, not in this lawless mire that passes for a town!”

“If I may add, sir,” said Neil, apparently emboldened, “the telegraph office is in the same building in the Union Pacific complex where I have an office. The head of security,” he added needlessly.

Ivy graced Neil with a grateful smile. How she wanted to squeeze his hand! A warm glow eased up her spine and stiffened her nipples, and she knew her cheeks were flushed. Why was he taking her side? Perhaps he merely wanted more women in town so as to have someone to dance with at the fandangos. That must be it.

“Yes,” said Mr. Hudson, “but where was Bradley Mack shot?
In his office?
And where were you when that happened, might I add? No, this simply will not work. I’ll wire your sister Liberty—she always has a sound head on her shoulders! Zeke, come with me. I’ll need you to tap out the message, or whatever it is they do. And don’t tell me Allie has turned down that other fellow I betrothed her to! Have none of you girls wed yet? I need a male heir, dammit!”

Zeke now stepped forward and said eagerly, “But her arrival is the sign we were discussing, Simon!” He gestured dramatically at Ivy. “Witness, her earrings! Her
emerald
earrings. She nearly lost one just now, on the front porch, but Neil here managed to find it.”

Ivy was grateful to Zeke for bringing this up. Her father had always been interested in things of a psychic nature—he had followed mesmerism and spiritualism along with his friends Alcott and Emerson until he realized it was probably getting in the way of amassing a large fortune.

Now, Simon even put down his empty tumbler and waxed thoughtful. “Yes, yes, Caleb’s vision of the earrings. Those earrings, my dear, those were your mother’s, were they not?”

“Yes!” Ivy declared eagerly.

As she came forward, holding up her hair with one hand to display the earrings to her father, Neil suddenly cried,
“Ow!”

At the exact same instant, a sharp, loud bang like a rifle shot exploded directly behind the head of security, and everyone turned to see him brandishing a six-shooter at the wall behind him.

“What was
that?
” Neil demanded.

Zeke was the first to step forward and root out the offending object on the floor behind Neil. He stood straight, gingerly holding out a shiny round object about two inches long.

“Why,” cried Mr. Hudson, “that’s my paperweight! From my desk—ten feet over there!”

Zeke’s jaw near about touched the floor. “I saw a streak in the air as it zipped by! Neil! It was trying to hit you! What was the last thing you said before it hit you? Let’s see, let’s see…Something about how fine it was for Miss Hudson to stay in town! That’s it! It’s a sign! A sign that she should
leave
town!”

Neil holstered his gun and smacked his own forehead. What jackasses these Americans could be. He felt he’d been making progress impressing the beauteous Miss Hudson, and now all the affection he’d built was being ruined by sheer idiocy. “Oh, great balls of fire, Zeke! What are you, an Admiral Lushington? A pickled rummy? It’s a goddamned
paperweight
.”

“Yes,” Zeke agreed in a hushed voice. “A paperweight that doesn’t like you.”

Miss Hudson had taken the globe from her father and was examining it. “No,” she said, clear and loud. “It’s his paperweight emblazoned with our Hudson family coat of arms, depicting a castle. Zeke, what were you saying earlier about our coat of arms? Why were you asking?”

“Caleb’s vision!” the buffoon cried. “The bison was standing over a shield depicting a coat of arms with a castle!”

That was the final straw. Storming toward the door, Neil fumed, “Caleb, Caleb. Don’t you understand? That invert is nothing but a half-witted blacksmith who lives with a ragtag band of Sioux, powwowing with Indian spooks, ghosts, and hobgoblins. I’m going back to the office to check on the state of
real
criminal activity.”

As he reached the doorway, though, Ivy called out, “Wait, Neil!”

Of course he waited. Ivy Hudson was the most bountiful, intelligent, and delightful creature Neil had run into since leaving New South Wales a year ago, when he’d realized that country had nothing left to offer him. “Yes?”

Fear and desire swept across Ivy’s pleasing face. “You’re going into town? Let me come with you. There are a few items I wish to find.”

And, like the headstrong woman Neil was beginning to realize she was, Ivy followed him down the hallway without requesting her father’s permission.

Mr. Hudson did yell out, “Daughter! Will you send your sister that telegram?”

“Yes, Father. I will tap it out myself, since I know how!”

However, Ivy paused in the foyer to take some coins from a carpet bag, giving Zeke enough time to bellow down the hallway, “Caleb told me ‘the steel magnetism is coming.’ There’s some psychic fire that’s charging the atmosphere.”

Neil wasn’t normally a drinking man, but at the moment he felt like dropping into the Bucket of Blood saloon, that was for sure. He yelled back, “Of
course
there’s some goddamned steel magnetism coming, you out-and-out dummy. It’s called the railroad!”

Zeke shouted, “Caleb also said before the end of today a large amount of water would fall from the sky and an everlasting imprint would be made! Oh,” the clown added as an afterthought, “and an Indian will find the peaches he’s been looking for!”

Not with the damned Indians again.

Neil was immensely relieved when he was finally alone in the windswept street with Miss Ivy Hudson. Laramie City had been thrown up near Fort Sanders in advance of the railroad track, two thousand men encamped on the alkali plains in tents and board shacks. Neil was afraid Ivy would dislike the treeless, uncivilized wilderness, especially after having lived in New York her entire life, so he hoped to take her to Freund and Brothers. In addition to providing rifles and shotguns made to order, Freund carried India rubber blankets, quinine, cigars, and Bibles. Well, perhaps she wouldn’t desire the cigars so much. But Neil had found a passable sextant there one day.

“That Zeke is an odd character,” Ivy said. The dyed green ostrich feather in her jaunty cap jiggled alluringly as they walked down Garfield Street. Neil was thankful the street was no longer a muddy mire as it had been two weeks earlier. “But you honestly don’t believe his friend Caleb? They might be onto something. You’ve got to admit, all of those things happening were a mighty odd coincidence.”

So she really had faith in Zeke and his stories about the “visionary” Caleb? Neil had to step lightly or risk alienating this stunning beauty. He knew her father was a believer in Transcendentalism, a sort of utopian movement where they lived with nature and hypnotized each other or some such nonsense. Simon Hudson had been known to spew mystical Far Eastern claptrap, something about bathing his intellect in the fruits of—well, apples, as far as Neil could recall. He wished he could recall more, since now it suddenly seemed important.

“Well, I don’t find it so shocking, really,” he said confidently. “Objects have been flying through the air all around me lately. It’s quite consternating. Just yesterday I was sitting in my office near the depot when a rather heavy Spanish peso coin zipped past and hit the wall behind me. For a moment I thought I’d been shot.”

This appeared to excite Ivy, for she clasped his forearm and held it close under her bosom. Oh, if only those galoots at the fort could see him now! Walking down the avenue with a fair belle dressed to the nines in green velvet, the daughter of the chief businessman of the city, to boot. Neil proudly tipped the bill of his army cap to Mr. and Mrs. Fowler as they boarded their buggy. But he’d left his gold-buttoned frock coat back at his office, and his waistcoat didn’t begin to cover the burgeoning erection that rose against his thigh.

“But it’s so obvious that you’re the channel for this magnetism the seer said was coming. Just now, the paperweight didn’t hit anyone else—it made straight for
you!
”

While Neil was perfectly willing to be the channel for anything this lady wished, he thought he’d play devil’s advocate. “But what do you make of his vision that a large amount of water would fall? Why, it’s the end of the rainy season. All that’ll fall from now on is—” He was going to say “a large amount of pickled rummies,” but he refrained. Instead, he said, “You should be the channel for the magnetism, since you learned how to work the telegraph.”

She hugged his arm even tighter under the buoyant shelf of her bosom. “But you never know in what form this water will exhibit itself. I mean, look at the bison thing. It obviously referred to
me
, although now that I think on it, I don’t like to be compared to a large shaggy animal. Now, tell me, Neil. What part of England are you from?”

“Ah, not England precisely. Australia. New South Wales. Sydney.”

“Australia? How fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from there. That explains your accent. I suppose many Australians have recently come to the States? You say such amusing things, like calling Zeke ‘Admiral Lushington.’”

Neil knew he’d made a mistake in calling Zeke an Admiral Lushington. That was strictly flash slang, a term hobbled chums used, government men who knew life. Simon Hudson, Zeke, and many officers at the fort knew of his history, but out here on the frontier, that history was to his advantage. No one minded what he’d done in New South Wales. Now, however, he was already quite nuts upon this woman, so he tried to laugh. “Yes, we speak oddly in Australia. I’m sure it’s all British colonial talk. Now, tell me, Ivy. What will you do about your father? He seems to want you to return to New York.”

She was even more luscious when she pouted, and she hugged his forearm as though cuddling a kitten. “Oh, damnation, Neil. I hate to say it, but…” Her heavy sigh sent a surge of sperm up the underside of Neil’s prick, stiffening it so boldly against his hip he was certain he’d have to think of the most recent dead body he’d viewed.
Who was it?
Oh, his fellow office-mate, the telegraph operator Bradley Mack. “I worked—slaved is the more proper word for it—for over a decade caring for my mother, who was dying of consumption. All of my sisters did. That’s how we came to be spinsters at such an advanced age.”

“Yes, I recall Hudson mourning when his wife passed.”

“Oh, yes, to be sure. She was a good woman and all of that. But I think it really drained the youth from us. Now we are all, in our own separate ways, very keen to experience aspects of life we were never allowed to see. She had quite a lingering and demanding illness.”

“That’s a shame.” Neil placed his free hand over hers on his arm to keep her close to him. “You seem like such a vibrant woman, with such a lust for life.”

She shrugged. “Who knows if I am? Frankly, I don’t even know anymore. But I do know I could never marry that John Prahl dullard. I’ve disappointed Father, but when the only topic a fellow can think to discuss with his fiancée is the price per share of his stock on the New York Exchange, well…”

“Valves and ledgers,” Neil said warmly.

Ivy paused briefly, looking up at Neil with what could only be called fondness. “Yes,” she agreed fervently. “Valves and ledgers.”

Her fingers walked down his forearm until she was actually holding his hand—like lovers! And they proceeded to turn the corner onto First Street in this manner! Neil could only hope he’d run into McCormack, who owned the Frontier Hotel, Jack Quinn the assayer, or Ace and Con Moyer of the Bucket of Blood, although he’d never bring Ivy there. He just knew his fearsome reputation would be enhanced even further by jealousy when townspeople saw him escorting this out-and-out stunning judy.