Lady Gypsy

by Crooks, Pam

  How could he do either?

  The fuses grew shorter, gobbled up by the match flame.

  “McCrae, you're a damn fool!” he yelled.

  A splintering crash drowned out his words. Beneath the fur trapper's weight, a timber gave way, hurling him toward the edge of the bridge. McCrae bellowed a surprised curse and fought for solid footing. The sticks of dynamite fell from his fingers and arced into oblivion somewhere behind him.

  He danced a macabre jig to stand upright, but failed. As helpless as a ragdoll, he hurtled over the side with a scream that shredded at Reese's core, the buffalo coat floating out behind him like suddenly sprouted wings.

  In a blinding light, the dynamite exploded. The force yanked at Reese like a clawing ghost, jerking him from his feet and flinging him to the ground. A spray of gravel and debris pelted his body. Pain coated him. A low groan squeezed from his throat, and he fell unconscious.

  Liza tucked her toes beneath her skirt hems and sat tautly on the step of Nanosh's wagon. Her fingers clutched at the amulet hanging about her neck, and for the hundredth time, she poked her gaze toward the road outside of their camp.

  Reese should not have gone alone. Certain trouble awaited him in Skull Canyon, and she would not rest easy until he returned.

  Most of the Gypsies had retired to their wagons for the night. They did not concern themselves with skirmishes in the Gaje world, but Liza could not be so carefree. She loved her husband too much. She had learned to love his railroad as well, and all that concerned it, even its bridges.

  Several men lingered around a campfire, quietly smoking and finishing the contents of a whiskey bottle. Nanosh sat with them, his features somber and preoccupied as he stared into the fire. Near him, Hanzi whittled at a chunk of wood. He would not sleep until Reese returned, Liza knew, for he was honor-bound to make good his promise to stay with her and keep her safe.

  Behind her, the wagon door opened with a faint squeak.

  “Liza?”

  She turned at Putzi's timid voice. He peered around the door as if afraid she would send him scuttling back to his bed.

  “Come sit with me, little one,” she said softly, opening her arms to him.

  Still warm from his eiderdown, he came to her eagerly. Liza made room for him on her lap, snuggling him against her and absorbing his warmth. Her chin rested on the top of his tousled head.

  “Liza, why are you out here when it is so late?”

  “I am waiting, little one.”

  “For your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Away. For a little while.”

  “Why?”

  A sad smile touched her mouth. The innocence of a child. She hoped to keep him from the harsh realities of the adult world, for soon enough he would learn them.

  “He is working very hard for his train, sweetling.”

  “Will I get to ride on the big engine someday? Do you think he would let me?”

  Unexpected tears burned Liza's eyes. She could not tell him of Silas McCrae's evil intent to destroy the N & D, of the terrible explosion and what it must have done to the trestle bridge. He would not understand her fear that the old fur trapper may have already demolished the magnificent Number 929 engine and the cars it pulled.

  “Perhaps someday,” she said quietly. “When it is safe. And then Reese will be very proud to give you a ride in his train.”

  A lazy, mournful whine drifted over the camp, so faint in the distance that Liza's troubled mind gave it little thought. But Putzi sat up, his angelic features bright with hope. “Not 'til then, Liza? But the train is coming now. Do you hear the whistle?”

  In the flash of a second, she recognized the whistle that had always fascinated him, and in the next, another explosion rocked the earth, this one as terrible and frightening as the first.

  Talons of terror gripped her. She stabbed a glance past the tops of the wagons to learn the direction the train traveled. The whistle sounded again, closer this time, and she knew the 929 traveled at a healthy clip, as strong as ever as it drew nearer to the Gypsy camp.

  And the trestle bridge.

  Her heart stopped. The train would not know of the explosions. It would not know of the trouble that lay ahead. And this, this, was the terrible evil that Silas McCrae had planned.

  She bundled Putzi off her lap and thrust him toward the wagon door.

  “Paprika, come quick!” she cried. “Take Putzi to bed. I must go.”

  The door flew open, and her younger sister's face appeared. “Go where? What is happening?”

  “I will explain later.”

  Liza bounded down the wagon step with Putzi's protesting wail filling the air behind her. From the campfire, the Gypsy men bolted to their feet and called out to her, but she ignored them. She had not a moment to waste.

  She ran to the horses. A bay mare lifted her head, nickering softly, and without fanfare, Liza unhobbled her. She halted at the firm grasp on her shoulder.

  “I have promised your husband, Liza,” Hanzi said.

  “I must help him. I cannot stay here and do nothing!”

  “The Gaje have their troubles, yes, but you are not to leave the camp, as Reese said,” he warned. “No matter what the reason.”

  Frantic, she clutched his shirtfront in her fists. “I fear for my husband, Hanzi. His train comes. And the bridge is down. Do you hear me? The bridge is down. And his train will not know!”

  “Let her go.” Nanosh's deep voice came between them. “This she must do for her husband.”

  Liza's breath left her in a grateful rush. If Nanosh had never showed her compassion before, he did so now, when she needed it most. She spun about and snatched a bridle, slipping it on the mare.

  “I will come with you,” Hanzi declared.

  “No, I can go myself. But you must ride into town and get Bram Kaldwell. Ask anyone you see and they will tell you where to find him. He will know what to do.”

  He responded to the urgency in her tone and disappeared into the shadows of the remuda for his own horse. Nanosh found a sturdy branch and wrapped one end with a rag soaked in kerosene. He dipped the torch into the campfire, and flames erupted.

  “You will need light to find your way in the dark,” he said. “God's luck be with you, my daughter.”

  Liza leaped onto the mare's back. Without a word she took the torch in one hand, the reins in the other.

  In the next moment, she was gone.

  Reese came to, disoriented and burning with pain. As if through a foggy tunnel, his brain registered the call of a whistle, faint but insistent. In bits and pieces, it all came back to him.

  He groaned. His eyes opened, and he struggled to focus on the dark shape surfacing near him. The shape drew closer, nuzzled him on his shoulder, and nickered softly.

  His horse. Relief stole over him that at least the stallion had survived the blast when he had very likely lost everything else he had ever worked for.

  He grimaced and shoved aside the self-pity, forcing himself to sit up. Blood trickled from his forehead down his temple. Pain lanced his knee. Every bone in his body hurt.

  His gaze shot to the bridge. Nothing was left.

  Sickened, he searched for McCrae, half-expecting him to materialize out of thin air, taunting and cackling with fistfuls of dynamite. But the night was hauntingly quiet, save for the persistent howl of the whistle.

  The whistle.

  No. God, no.

  Reese's mind screamed the words. A darkened form lay in the stream bed. Reese sucked in a breath and tried to stand, but his leg buckled beneath him, the knee useless, too far gone for even Liza's loving heat treatments.

  He crawled like a half-wit, dragging the leg behind him in the dirt, cutting his palms on splintered steel and jagged rock tossed by the explosions. By the time he reached the stream, he was breathing heavily, his battered body begging for respite.

  The whistle called again. Closer. Louder.

  No. N
o. No.

  He clamored into the shallow water and yanked at McCrae's crumpled body.

  “I should let you die right here,” he ground out through clenched teeth. He clutched the sodden buffalo coat and tried to roll him over. “I'd love to see my train fall into this canyon and crush every inch of you. Only God knows why I don't let it. C'mon, you son of a bitch. Wake up!”

  He managed to flip him over. Water splashed onto them both. McCrae coughed and moaned.

  The dynamite's explosion had torn off half of the fur trapper's face. Blood and muscle dripped onto the scraggly beard. Reese swallowed down bile.

  “Leave me be, Carrison,” McCrae rasped, his one remaining eye crazed with the threat of death. “I got what I wanted. I got . . . your railroad.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but you're going to live and pay the price.” Reese clutched the wet coat and gave him a vicious shake. “Come on, damn you! The train'll come barreling down here any second. We have to get out of here.”

  “Leave . . . me.”

  “I'm not going to give you the pleasure.” He yanked again and barely maneuvered him out of the water. How would he ever get him out of the canyon? Reese's lungs heaved. “Silas, please.”

  But McCrae didn't answer. His head rolled back. A strangled gasp escaped from his throat, and he breathed his last.

  The mighty locomotive made a commanding sight thundering down the track toward Liza with unfathomable power sheathed within its iron belly. Clouds of steam hurtled from the funneled smokestack. The whistle blew again and again, a nagging cry soaring over the prairie.

  Liza's chest heaved with a rush of adrenaline. The whistle was meant for her, a frantic warning to abandon the rails for safety, for her life and that of her horse. But she remained on the tracks and desperately swung the torch from side to side, pleading a message of her own.

  Skittish and uneasy, the bay mare pranced over the cross ties. Liza controlled her with a taut grip of the reins. The ground rumbled with the train's ferocity, its claim to the land and tracks. Yet again, the whistle blew.

  On a panicked sob, Liza glanced over her shoulder. A gaping emptiness reigned where once the trestle bridge stood. Somehow, somewhere, Reese was there among the rubble. Liza longed to go to him, to search him out, but first the train must be stopped. She could not allow it the same untimely death as the bridge.

  Down the ribbon of track, the engine's headlight swelled larger. Liza's gaze fixed on the beam, her heart pounding, her lips mouthing a fervent prayer that Clements would see the waving torch and stop in time. The V-shape of the cowcatcher parted the night, loomed ever closer and glinted brighter with every roll of the iron wheels.

  And then, behind the glare of the headlight, Clements appeared, his body leaning out the cab's window, his arm furiously motioning her away. Liza defied him, keeping her stance on the tracks when every fiber of her being screamed to jump aside. She waved the torch with renewed fervor.

  Abruptly, Clements disappeared inside the cab. The 929's throttle worked its magic. With a loud chiiiff-ff, the locomotive began to slow.

  Liza gasped in relief. She loosened the reins, and the mare leaped from the crossties in a frenzied run along the tracks of the train. As she neared the tip of the cowcatcher, Liza jerked the horse into a sharp turn, reversing her direction so that she traveled the same as the 929.

  Again, Clements leaned from the window. The rush of air whipped at his hat. His eyes widened. “Mrs. Carrison! Is that you?”

  “Stop!” she cried. “You must stop! The trestle bridge--”

  Clements didn't wait to hear the rest. He lunged for the brake handle and pulled. With an ear-splitting whine and hiss, the engine wheels squealed to a slow, agonizing stop. Harley, his foreman, scrambled to set the manual brake to keep the train from going another inch.

  “Lord Almighty, what is it, Mrs. Carrison?” Clements demanded out the window.

  She allowed the mare only a moment of rest.

  “Silas McCrae,” she said, her pulse racing, her hair a wind-tossed mane down her back and shoulders. “You must not go any farther. The trestle--my husband--”

  But the mare broke into a hard gallop before she could finish. Horse and rider charged toward the bridge, their outline shrinking into a pinpoint dot of torchlight, until it, too, disappeared altogether.

  Clements and Harley stared after her for a long moment; in the next, they hustled into action.

  “What d'ya reckon that was all about?” Harley asked, opening the cab door.

  “Reckon we got trouble. Like she said, somethin' about the trestle bridge and Silas McCrae and Mr. Carrison. I don't like the sound of it.” Clements climbed down the ladder in great haste and set off for the trestle bridge, leaving Harley to hurry after him.

  The buffalo hide slipped from Reese's fingers.

  A man had never died in his hands before. The starkness of death numbed him, left him bereft of emotion. Silas McCrae had been a sore spot, a real pain in the ass, but Reese had never wished him dead.

  He drew a shaky breath and sank to the ground. Defeated by the harshness of reality, bone-chilling exhaustion set in. His eyes drifted closed, and he wished for McCrae's oblivion, that all-encompassing solitude that would take him from the cruelties of life.

  Only then did it hit him. The night was quiet. No whistle. No hissing chuff of the train engine. No impending crash.

  His eyes flew open. He whirled, his glance flying to the top of the canyon.

  There, on the ridge, bathed in the glow of a single torchlight, stood Liza, her skirts full and swaying in the breeze.

  She stood motionless, as if she stared into the deepest recesses of Skull Canyon, searching for him and afraid of what she might find.

  Someone ran to her side. Clements, swathed in torchlight, and then Harley, all of them together, their gazes scouring the canyon. For him. For the bridge.

  Emotion clogged in his throat. Only Liza had known. She had saved their lives. She had saved the Nebraska-Dakota Railroad.

  Epilogue

  Paprika knew a secret. Liza had not yet figured out what it could be, only that it would be revealed very soon, and that whatever magic it held drove Paprika to near madness.

  Her sister could hardly sit still. Liza knew it went far beyond her first ride in a Gajo buggy, even one as shiny and grand as Reese’s. And she knew, too, that the team of horses could not pull the rig fast enough to suit Paprika.

  But Liza could wait. Reese had not left the house since the surgeon ministered his knee, and in the days following, had grown steadily stronger as the cuts and bruises he suffered from the dynamite explosion gradually faded. Beneath the bandages, the knee would heal. But his worries for the N & D railroad would not go away so easily. Liza hoped today’s outing held those worries at bay, at least for a little while.

  “Young lady, I’d warrant you had a hornet up your skirt the way you keep scootin’ around on that seat,” Reese said, his tone mildly exasperated. “This buggy is hardly big enough for the three of us. You’re going to wiggle me and Liza right out of our own seat if you don’t settle down some.”

  “You will understand soon enough,” Paprika said, the promise shining in her black eyes. “It is a good thing I did not bring Putsy with me today. He would have told you long ago.”

  “It must be a very special thing you are taking us to see,” Liza commented softly, the buggy’s ride rocking her body against Reese’s.

  “It is.”

  “Has Nanos painted his wagon a new color?”

  “No.” Paprika smiled and smugly clasped her hands in her lap.

  “Then Hanzi has taught Rollo a new trick. A fancy somersault perhaps?”

  She giggled. “No, no. You will never guess, Liza. Do not even try.”

  Liza sighed dramatically. “I give up.”

  “She enjoys torturing us with the suspense.” Fondness shone in Reese’s features. He and Paprika had grown fast friends from the moment of their introduction. They adored each other. />
  Liza’s heart warmed. “She is a terrible tease. It is probably nothing.”

  Clearly offended, Paprika clucked her tongue. “Stop here, Reese. There is something I must look for.”

  They had reached a fork in the road, with a right turn taking them into Niobrara City, a left leading them out into the open prairie. Reese did as she bade. Paprika hopped from the rig and ran ahead.

  Grateful for the quiet moment, Liza peered up at Reese, handsome and robust in his gray cotton shirt, open at the throat, his faded Levi’s snug against his muscle-hard thighs. Her breast swelled with a surge of love.

  “Does your knee bother you?” she murmured, leaning against him and curling her arm around his.

  “I am not an invalid, sweet wife. The knee is fine.” He bent low and touched his mouth to hers, taking his time to savor the kiss.

  “I do not think you are an invalid.” She nuzzled his jaw with the tip of her nose. “God’s saints, the surgeon had hardly put away his needle before you took me to bed and exhausted me with our coupling.”

  His low chuckle surrounded her. “I’ll never hurt too much to make love to you.”

  “You are insatiable.”

  “Aren’t you glad that I am?”

  Paprika cleared her throat loudly and reclaimed her place on the bench seat. With a mingling of reluctant sighs, Reese and Liza drew apart.

  “Sit back, you two. They say we can come now,” Paprika said, reaching for the reins draped across Reese’s leg. “I will drive the rest of the way. But first, you must put on these.” She reached into the large pocket on her skirt and withdrew a pair of kerchiefs. “Quickly now.”

  Liza frowned. “Paprika, this is foolishness.”

  “No, I think the Gaje call them blindfolds.” Her impish expression danced with excitement.

  Liza exchanged an uncertain glance with Reese.

  He grinned. “Best do as she says. I doubt she’ll budge this rig an inch until we do.”

  He reached for one of the kerchiefs and pulled it over Liza’s eyes, knotting it behind her braid, then repeated the procedure on himself with the other. Unable to see anything, Liza felt his hands on her, pulling her against him as he slouched back in the seat. She snuggled against him for the duration of the ride.