Betina Krahn (33 page)

Sikes and Carrick looked at each other, then back at him.

“Tonight?” Sikes asked.

“It’s kinda late …” Carrick said.

“Of course it’s late … and dark … and quiet,” Beecher said with ominous control. “That’s when sabotage gets done—when it’s late and dark and quiet and nobody can see what you’re doing!”

“Whadda we do?” Carrick asked, scratching his head, thinking.

Beecher nearly strangled on his own tongue. “What will the bastards be using to work? Whatever the hell it is,
get rid of it
!”

Two days later, down two miles of new track, Bear jumped down out of the sliding door of the kitchen car and noticed the sound and steam from the crane’s engine—which had started up only a short while before—was all but stopped. The crane had been moved in front of the engine and was now the leading car of the train. In its present position, it was being used to lift rails from the closest flatcar, swing them forward, and lower them onto the track bed.

Hurrying to the work site, he found a dozen men standing around and sitting on the stacks of wooden ties dumped beside the track bed. A thin, rhythmic clanging was coming from two men pounding a steel spike into the tie that would hold a rail segment in place … while the others in the crew watched.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Yeah,” the foreman of the crew said, coming down off the stack of ties, scowling. “We’d be makin’ dimes aplenty
on them spikes—except, we ain’t got tools to do it with. Our spike mauls are gone. All except them two.”

“That can’t be, there were plenty of—” Bear looked back at the two men who were working, and at the men who were standing around empty-handed. The tools! He bolted for the equipment car with the foreman close at his heels. Half an hour later, empty barrels, wrecked crates, and strong language were all flying from the open door of the ransacked tool car.

Spike mauls—the sixteen-pound hammers used to set spikes—weren’t the only things missing. There were only a handful of picks and no shovels left in their cache of tools. The logging chain, rail tongs, puller bars, and gauge bars were missing, and all but a few of the bolt wrenches, ballast forks, and replacement handles had been taken. Several of the wheeled barrows were missing … as were the wheels intended for the half-assembled handcar stored in the second boxcar.

“Who the hell was on watch last night?” Bear demanded of Halt, who scratched his head then remembered.

“That’d be Carrick. He had to take a second night of watch when that fella on th’ forward crew mashed ’is foot.”

Bear tore through the camp looking for Carrick and found him lounging on a pile of wooden ties on the far side of camp. “Where the hell were you last night?” he roared, seizing Carrick by the shirt front and hauling him upright. “While you were on watch, somebody broke into the tool car and made off with half our equipment!”

Carrick paled slightly under his sunburned skin. “I-I-I—didn’t see n-nothin’.”

“The hell you didn’t!” Bear loomed over him and gave him a shake.

“I’m tellin’ ya—I didn’t see ner hear nothin’.” He swallowed hard. “I
swear
.”

Bear searched the man’s sullen face for a long, acrid moment. If the bastard was involved in the theft, would he be stupid enough to still be lounging around camp? Bear sensed that the wretch wasn’t as dull-witted as he seemed, but that was no proof that he had stolen the tools … or helped Beeeher do so. He released Carrick.

“If you didn’t hear or see anything, it was only because you were asleep on watch. I won’t keep a man on the payroll, that I can’t trust. Pack up your gear and clear out.”

Carrick jumped to his feet as Bear turned away. “It wasn’t my fault I got stuck on watch two nights runnin’. Ever’body nods off now an’ agin—it ain’t fair, McQuaid!”

Bear paused but refused to turn around. “Collect your pay, Carrick, and clear out!”

Diamond had just visited the kitchen car, poured a cup of coffee, and was carrying it up the track for Bear. It was a desperate measure; much too desperate to suit her. For two days she had hardly seen or spoken to him. He had come back to their car after she had retired for the night and left at daybreak each morning. Since he made it a practice to take meals with the crews, she was left with only rare public glimpses of him as he rode back and forth between the crews preparing the roadbed and the crews laying track.

She knew he was desperate to see progress and their first two days had not been especially encouraging. Two miles in two days … at this rate they wouldn’t make Billings for six months. And they had less than three months before they would have to deal with the threat of snow. And, if Beeeher was to be believed, the government land office might even now be moving to deny the MCM the land it was promised, because the track those land grants had been promised on wasn’t finished. Bear had to
lay track in record time and begin rail service. His only hope lay in picking up the pace as the men settled into a routine.

She had just surfaced from her preoccupation with calculating just how many miles they would have to lay each day, to look at the pile of empty barrels and crates that lay beside the tracks. She didn’t see the wooden crate sailing out of the open boxcar door. It shot across her path, hitting the cup she held and pouring hot coffee down her front.

“Owww!” She lurched back and frantically pulled the hot, wet fabric away from her skin. “Ooooh—hot—owwww!”

Bear appeared in the open door and in an instant was on the ground. “Are you all right?” He hovered awkwardly as she fanned her blouse. When it was clear she wasn’t badly injured, he vented his accumulated tension in the worst possible way. “What the hell were you doing out here, anyway? You’re not supposed to be—”

“Bringing you a cup of coffee,” she said, with more than her scalded skin stinging. “You can be sure I won’t make that mistake again.” She thrust the empty cup into his hands and started back down the track to their car.

“Diamond, wait! I didn’t mean—” He hurried after her and pulled her to a stop just as Halt jumped down from the tool car, along with the crew foreman.

“Not a single maul left!” Halt called irritably. “Whoever took ’em knew right what would shut us down prop—” He caught sight of Diamond’s stained blouse and red face and Bear’s taut grip on her and stopped.

“Somebody broke into the tool car and stole our hammers, rail tongs, pull bars, and gauge bars,” Bear said, his grip softening. “I was angry and I didn’t see you out there. I’m”—he took a deep breath—“sorry about your clothes.”

She looked from Bear to Halt, nodded, and headed for the car. A short while later, after she’d changed her blouse,
she heard Halt and Bear enter and head for the desk at the far end of the car. When she stepped out of the sleeping compartment, finishing her buttons, she stopped dead.

Bear was strapping on his revolver.

“Ye cannot do this, lad.” Halt planted himself between Bear and the door with his fists on his hips. “He’d like nothin’ better—the lyin’ thievin’ bastard—than to have ye drop everythin’ an’ come gunnin’ for him.”

“I’m not going gunning for him,” Bear said with a growl. “I’m going to get those tools back. They had to have left tracks.”

“You’re no Indian or army scout,” Halt said, gesturing to the rocky prairie. “Ye could waste weeks out there searchin’, and still find nothin’. Except trouble.”

That reasoning seemed to take hold as Bear struggled for control. “Fine. Then I’ll go into town and see if I can find some more tools.” Halt blocked his way yet again.

“Ye don’t need barkin’ steel to find hammers.”

“This is just in case.” Bear’s gaze hardened as he rested a hand on the walnut handle of his revolver.

“In case what?” Diamond asked, though she already knew the answer. “In case you run into Beecher and his hired guns?”

“A man has to protect himself and what is his,” Bear said, eyes narrowing.

“Well, I may be just a silly, sentimental female … but in my opinion, a few hammers—an entire
trainload
of hammers—wouldn’t be worth dying for.”

“She’s talkin’ sense, lad.” Halt felt Bear ease and released his grip on Bear’s arms. “I’ll go to town instead … talk to the stationman at the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul, see if they can spare a few mauls an’ gauge bars. You got a bigger job right here … findin’ a way to make sure Beecher don’t sneak up on us agin.”

“I’ll come with you,” Diamond said to Halt. When Bear
looked at her with a scowl, she folded her arms and would not be denied. “I have a blouse to take to the laundry.”

“He’s the most arrogant, stubborn, insensitive man alive.” She continued her enumeration of Bear’s shortcomings to Halt as they bounced and rattled along-beside the tracks in a wooden freight wagon that had definitely seen better days. Halt glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

“And inconsistent,” she added, gripping the wooden seat to steady herself. “One minute he’s reasonable and logical and the next he’s a raging wild man—a barbarian—ready to battle the whole world, hand to hand.”

“Now, there I have t’ disagree,” Halt said. “Stubborn, yes. Arrogant … maybe. Insensitive … well, ye’d be a better judge of that, I suppose, bein’ a wife an’ all. But inconsistent? He’s as reliable as sunrise, Bear McQuaid is. If he gives ’is word, the job is as good as done. And he’s fair-minded to a fault. Treats all men—great an’ small—like he’d want to be treated.”

“Ahhh,” she said with an arch look. “Then there’s the problem. He treats
women
a good bit different … as if we can’t be trusted to use the right end of a spoon.”

Halt chuckled and shook his head. “He does seem a bit pigheaded, where females are concerned. But that’s jus’ him, ye see. Independent as a hog on ice. Determined to do things fer himself. The Central and Mountain is ’is life’s dream. He saved ever’ penny for years … ate corn bread an’ beans three times a day … slept out under th’ stars … worked till he dropped an’ then worked some more. It means more to ‘im than anythin’ in the world.”

Quiet descended as each of them looked out over that rolling sea of prairie grass and conjured images of Bear’s determination … one from memory, one from imagination. She sensed there would never be a better time or a
better person to ask the questions that had been weighing on her for two weeks now.

“The MCM appears to have potential … to be a sound investment. Why was everyone so reluctant to lend you and him money?”

Halt sighed. “Bankers. They want control. Bear wouldn’t give it up.”

“Not even to get the money he needed?”

He chuckled. “Not even then. He’s … 
peculiar
 … that way.”

“Peculiar.” She clamped a hand on her hat to keep the wind from taking it and said a mental “Amen.” “Halt, how long have you known him?”

Halt thought for a moment. “Seven, eight years. Long enough. I’m not sure I should tell ye this … but … he’s not been much of a ladies’ man.”

She huffed disbelief. “I saw him and that Silky woman together.”

“She’s a friend, pure an’ simple.”

“As I’ve said before, nothing involving Bear McQuaid is pure or simple.”

“Except you,” Halt said, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

“Me?” She looked away, but her ears were burning for more.

“With you, it’s about as simple as it gets b’tween a man and a woman.” He leveled a look of amusement on her. “He wants ye.”

She reddened and stiffened, hoping he couldn’t tell that her heart was thumping. “Well, of course. By marrying me, he acquired a huge fortune.”

“I’m not talkin’ about yer money, lass. He told Vassar straight up, th’ first time Vassar suggested ye as an investor, that ’e wouldna romance a woman for money. And he’s a man o’ his word. More’n once he went to make ye a
business offer … took ye our maps and plans. Somehow, he never got around to it.” He shook his head. “I think ’e just didn’t want to ask ye. It scalded ‘is pride to have to ask ye for somethin’. Th’ man does have pride.”

“In abundance.”

Two words were all she could manage. What Halt was saying about him seemed to mesh with her own observations. Proud. Independent to a fault. And he had indeed brought her their maps and plans … the very ones she had seen that last night … With the slightest nudge, she could believe that he might have intended to ask her for a loan but got tangled up in his own stubborn pride and independence instead.
He wanted her
. She stared at the wooden buildings appearing over the next rise, desperate to trust what Halt was telling her and terrified that if she did, she would just be asking for more heartache.

When they reached Great Falls, they went straight to the train station and located the stationmaster. He was a wiry, nervous sort of fellow who kept his hand pressed to his stomach as if he were always on the verge of dyspepsia.

“Sorry, can’t sell any tools … against regulations.” He slowly backed away. “Have a devil of a time keeping our own crews supplied.”

“That’s horse—” Halt said, stalking after him. “You got tools, man. I seen ’em in the roundhouse.” He glanced at Diamond. “We’ll pay top dollar.”