Betina Krahn (38 page)

“It’s manly to be stubborn and independent?” she said. “To risk your fool neck to bring in a few calves that will fetch no more than ten dollars a head.”

“Yep.”

“That’s crazy.”

Silky chuckled. “I never said it wasn’t. It’s just men. They gotta do what men do. Wreck things. Build things. Protect things. Make things work. Then make things work
better
 …”

That was what Bear was doing, she thought. Building a railroad. Making things work better. Making Progress. She glanced back down the track his crews had laid. Suddenly, along those tracks she could see future farmsteads and towns and mines and industries. She could see people coming to new lives and fresh starts … bringing their ideas, hopes, and dreams with them. And it was Bear’s cursed stubbornness and tenacity that would someday make it all possible. The vision, determination, and promise she had seen in him that day in the library had been real.

The last of her doubts about him—his truthfulness and his motives toward her—dissolved. Halt said he had brought maps and papers to speak to her about their railroad
 … she had seen them with her own two eyes. He had wanted to ask her. He had tried to approach her, but his pride and independence had kept him from mentioning it. Now it was that same pride and independence that threatened to keep them apart.

For two days he’d been chasing his tail, Bear realized as he rode back to the main construction camp. He’d been missing things … felt as if he’d been looking through a dirt-brown haze. A night out under the stars had helped settle the dust clogging his faculties.

They had looked for an alternative route for the track and found that their closest suitable land would take them well out of the way and would involve a bridge they weren’t equipped to construct … not in such a short time. Now, after an entire day in the saddle and a long night of sleeping on rocky ground, they were back to Jim Danvers.

“What would make a man pull out his old shotgun and threaten total strangers?” he asked Halt as they rode along. “We weren’t threatening him.”

“Then somebody else must ’ave,” Halt responded with a troubled look.

“Beecher.” Bear’s features hardened to ruddy granite. “Damn his hide. He got to Johnson … got to our tools … now he’s made sure we can’t buy land to reroute our track.” He rubbed his hand up and down his thigh and slid it onto his gun holster. “I’ve had about all of him I intend to take.”

That evening Bear watched Diamond helping to clear away the serving tables and put away the kitchen equipment. Her hair was pinned up in a simple but fetching swirl, her face was moist from the heat, and her eyes were
bright with purpose. She looked like the prettiest, sweetest girl he’d ever seen.

He had been a little taken aback at first by the sight of her with an apron on, hauling trays of biscuits and dishing out plates of stew. He knew how she had been raised; she’d never set a table or carried a dish in her life. But then, she’d always been one to give and to help, and he supposed—testily—that she probably saw this as another form of charity work.

Then, as he watched her carrying around heavy pots of coffee to refill the men’s cups, he saw the way the men responded: their smiles, shy nods, and respectful comments. They seemed to stand or sit straighter when she approached. They could tell she was a lady and responded accordingly.

Suddenly he thought of Danvers and Danvers’s overburdened wife. He was learning just how much influence a woman could have on a man. When Diamond came toward him with her big enameled-tin coffeepot, he held out his cup with a smile.

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “put on your riding boots and your best bonnet.”

“Whatever for?” she asked, leaving aside for the moment the fact that she didn’t own a bonnet and wouldn’t have worn one even if she did.

He smiled. “We’re going visiting.”

The Sun and Diamond’s spirits were both rising when she, Bear, and Halt set off the next morning on horseback, headed for the Danvers farmstead. Despite her tension, she was optimistic that they could change the farmer’s mind and felt that a new level of trust had finally been reached between her and Bear … for him to be including her in such a vital business transaction.

The prairie was painted with pastel morning colors and the breeze was pleasant. As they came over the last rise, they spotted the farmstead laid out in the hollow below … small wooden house, modest barn, three shedlike outbuildings for animals, two corrals, and several grain fields in varying stages of maturity.

Mrs. Danvers, a small, wiry woman with a sun-weathered face, was out in her kitchen garden with her elder children, hoeing. As she spotted them, she straightened and held her hand up to augment the shade of her sunbonnet. After a moment, she gave one of the children a shove in the direction of the barn. Just as Diamond, Bear, and Halt rode into the yard, Danvers himself emerged from the barn … without his trusty shotgun.

Bear called a greeting, dismounted, and quickly helped Diamond down from her horse. At the sight of her with the two men, Danvers and his wife exchanged nervous looks and came forward to meet them.

“Barton McQuaid.” Bear tipped his hat. “My wife, Diamond McQuaid. My partner, Halt Finnegan. Of the Montana Central and Mountain Railroad.” He held out his hand to Jim Danvers. The farmer looked most uncomfortable as he stuffed his hands into his pockets instead of meeting Bear’s handshake.

“If you come about th’ land, th’ answer’s th’ same. It ain’t for sale.”

Danvers’s wife reddened and spoke up with what Diamond suspected was a rare bit of nerve. “Jim, ye can’t be rude t’ these folk. They come all the way out here. We kin at least be hospitable.” She looked at Diamond and self-consciously wiped her hands down her apron. “I can offer ye some coffee, Miz McQuaid. Would ye come inside an’ sit a spell?”

“I’d like that, Mrs.—”

“Don’t mean to be rude, missus,” Danvers said grimly,
stepping over to take hold of his wife’s arm. “But ye can’t stay, neither.”

Bear stalked forward to Diamond’s side. “Look, whatever Beecher offered to pay you not to sell … we’ll double it.”

“We’ll triple it,” she said on impulse. “We have significant cash reser—”

“Diamond—” Bear seized her arm and when she looked up his eyes were bright with anger. “Why don’t you see if Mrs. Danvers will show you her garden … or maybe get you that cup of coffee.” Combined with his hand tight on her arm, it wasn’t a suggestion, it was a command. And a dismissal.

She felt as if she’d been slapped.

“My land ain’t fer sale,” Danvers said, clearly nervous. “Not even at triple th’ price.”

“Jim,” Mrs. Danvers said anxiously. “We could use th’—”

“Dammit, Luanna, git in the house!” Danvers barked out in exasperation. “An’ take the kids. This ain’t none o’ yor bizness.”

Diamond watched Luanna Danvers wilting as she shooed her children into the house and felt an awful kinship with the woman. Bear had just done the same thing to her—put her in her place, albeit more subtly.

“How much did Beecher offer you?” Bear said, searching the man’s haunted gaze, stepping in front of Diamond, effectively blocking her from both sight and participation. Through the turmoil inside her, Diamond scarcely heard Danvers’s anguished reply.

“He offered to let my fam’ly live t’see another season.” Danvers’s voice thickened. “And I ain’t gonna pass up that offer.”

“Look, you need this railroad … it will make your land and your wheat and oats that much more valuable.
You can’t allow him to threaten and bully you,” Bear declared. “Once he starts, there’s no telling where he’ll stop.”

“He won’t do us no harm … long as I don’t sell to you,” Danvers said.

Bear tried again. “We can give you protection … see to it you have help.”

“Fer how long, railroad man? A week, a month, all the way t’harvest? An’ what about next plantin’ season?” He glowered and said through his teeth: “I said I ain’t sellin’ to you. Now git off’n my land an’ leave us be.”

There was a crackling moment of silence, then Bear turned and seized Diamond by the arm and ushered her forcefully back to her horse.

Through a red haze of anger she managed to find the stirrup and to climb into the saddle, jerking away from his hands the instant she was on board. By the time they rode over the first rise, she had cooled enough to see his action in its dismal context. He hadn’t brought her along as a partner, he’d brought her along as a prop … something to help him convince Danvers that he was a family man himself and worthy of trust … or perhaps something to pacify Danvers’s poor, lonely wife. She was supposed to smile prettily and keep her mouth shut …

They rode a while in silence and when they came to the trail leading toward Great Falls, Bear looked at Halt.

“Take Diamond back to camp. I’m going into town.”

“Don’t bother, Halt,” she said icily. “I’m not a child. I am perfectly capable of finding my way back to camp from here
by myself
.” She kicked her mount into a gallop and raced off without even a look at Bear.

She rode hard and fast for a time, bending to her mount’s exertion. She wanted to taste the wind, feel her mount working beneath her, and hear the fierce pounding of hooves … hoping the speed and power of riding would purge the hurt from her. But in the end, all it did
was postpone the ache in her heart and aggravate the fire in her lungs. She finally had to slow and realized that her urge to action was not yet over.

She had to do something that would force Bear to deal with her … something that would make him respect her presence in his life … something that would make him admit her to partnership in his precious railroad. Whether she liked it or not, the Montana Central and Mountain was the very core of his life. Until he could grant her a vital and permanent place in it, until he could share it willingly with her, she would always he on the fringe of his life and kept in a small locked chamber of his heart.

She reined up with her chest heaving and her blood pounding in her head. There was one thing the Montana Central and Mountain needed right now more than anything else. Right-of-way. Danvers land. If she could arrange some sort of deal with the Danverses, he would have to see that she intended to help, and that she could be of some value besides money. She had arranged tougher deals than this. A smile and a calm, caring demeanor often made headway where shaking fists and making threats—and riding in with a gun on your hip—had failed.

Filled with fresh resolve and determined to fight for Bear in the only way she knew, she turned her horse and started back up the trail to the Danvers farm.

Great falls was quiet that hot summer afternoon as Bear and Halt rode in. They left their horses in front of the dry-goods store and made their way down the dusty main street toward the Sweetwater Saloon.

“Are ye sure ye want to do this?” Halt said, scanning the street.

“Somebody has to face him down,” Bear answered. “Might as well be me. May as well be now.”

“Mebee if we talked to th’ sheriff—”

“He’s probably still sleepin’ it off.”

The unpainted swinging doors of the Sweetwater Saloon creaked as they entered, but there were only a few patrons at the dozen or so tables and none bothered to look up from contemplating their bottles or their cards. The air reeked of the sawdust used to sweep up spills from the floor, and flies buzzed lazily around the soured remains of beer that had soaked into the unvarnished wooden tables. Bear’s boot heels smacked the bare wooden floors and the sound echoed eerily through the mostly empty saloon. He and Halt strode over to the long oak bar and leaned against it. The fleshy, hard-eyed bartender behind the counter mopped his way down the water-ringed surface to where they stood.

“What’ll it be, gents?”

“Beecher,” Bear said. “Where is he?”

The bartender looked Bear over as if sizing up what sort of threat he might pose. “Don’t know where he is. Or when he’ll be back.”

Bear met the man’s sullen glare. “We’ll wait.”

Every time footsteps were heard on the wooden walk outside or the swinging doors creaked open, Bear felt his gut tighten. But time and time again it proved to be a townsperson walking by or a farmer in town for supplies coming into the Sweetwater for something to quench his thirst.

One hour, then another went by. Near the end of the second hour, a fellow wearing a pair of ivory-handled revolvers entered and headed for the bar. He looked to be straight off the range—his shirt was stuck to his back with sweat and from the brim of his hat to the toes of his boots he was covered with dust. Bear nudged Halt; both of them
recognized him from the train station. They tensed and watched the front of the saloon. Soon Beecher appeared in the window, walking toward the doors, his ever-present cheroot glowing a dull red.

Bear scooted his chair back from the table so that he faced the door and then flicked the leather loop off the hammer of his revolver. His every sense came alert; he was suddenly aware of the ticking of the clock on the far wall, of the dusty shine of the huge mirror over the bar, and of the scrape of chairs as two men that had been passing time with cards, near the window, decided to call it quits. He sat rod-straight, his gaze trained on the door.

Beecher entered with three more of his men, all of whom were wearing guns and layers of dust. The three fanned out and dropped down into chairs, calling out to the bartender for a bottle of whiskey. Beecher strolled to the bar, removed his hat, and began to dust his long black coat. As the bartender returned from serving the others to pour Beecher his usual drink, he engaged Beecher’s gaze and flicked a meaningful glance in Bear’s direction, Beecher turned and stiffened at the sight of Bear rising from a table against the rear wall.

“What?” Beecher said, recovering. “Has hell frozen over already? I must have missed it.”

“I’m sure they’re keepin’ it warm enough for you, Beecher,” Bear said quietly, strolling forward. From the corner of his eye, he could see Beecher’s men coming to attention, and he heard behind him the unmistakable sound of Halts revolver sliding from its leather holster. “I didn’t come to discuss your plans for eternity.”