Casebolt headed for the cafe to get some lunch before he set out on his mission, and Cole went on to the marshal's office. As usual, the land office that was also located in the building was doing a brisk business.
Several immigrant wagons were pulled up in the street in front, and Cole saw wives and children waiting eagerly while their menfolks settled deals with the clerks who worked for Simone.
Cole was torn between welcoming them to the area and telling them they'd be a hell of a lot smarter to go back where they had come from. So he did neither and just pushed past an overall-clad farmer who was shaking hands in the doorway with one of Simone's assistants.
When the clerk stepped back inside, Cole called out to him, "Do you expect Mrs. McKay to be in anytime today?"
"She usually stops by sometime during the afternoon, Marshal," the man replied. "I would think you'd have noticed that by now."
"If I'm in the office when she does come by, tell her I want to see her," Cole snapped, annoyed by the clerk's attitude. Of course, he had known that Simone usually checked on the land office during the afternoon hours, but with everything else that was going on right now, it had slipped his mind.
Breaking up fights and hauling drunks to the smokehouse to sleep it off were relatively simple, although sometimes dangerous, tasks; dealing with Chinamen and Indians and proddy Texans and folks who got their ears cut off by mysterious attackers was entirely different.
* * *
Casebolt stopped by the office about an hour later to tell Cole he was leaving. Cole wished the deputy well and stepped out on the boardwalk to watch Casebolt ride out of town. He went back to the desk and sat down. Not ten more minutes had passed when Simone McKay appeared in the doorway. "You wanted to see me, Marshal Tyler?"
Cole stood up hurriedly. Simone had that effect on men, he supposed. A fella just naturally jumped to his feet when she was around. That was because she was undeniably every inch a lady.
Today she was wearing a dark green skirt and jacket, with a ruffled shirt of a lighter green under the jacket. A hat with a feather dyed the same shade of green as the shirt was perched on her dark hair. The first time he had seen her close up, she had been in his hotel room, asking him to take the job of marshal. Cole had thought then that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
Now that he had spent quite a bit more time around her, she struck him as even more attractive than he had first thought. Simone McKay was like a fabulous gem, beautiful in its own right but even more so because of its scarcity. Cole would have been willing to bet there was no one like her nearer than San Francisco.
He realized he was standing there gawking. "Please, come in and sit down," he said hurriedly, moving around the desk to hold one of the ladder-back chairs for her. "Sorry I don't have a more comfortable seat."
"This is fine, thank you," she said as she settled into the chair with a rustle of fabric. "What can I do for you?"
"I just wanted to know how that Chinese fella you hired is working out." Cole went behind the desk again and sat down in his own chair.
Simone smiled at him. "Well, it's a bit early to tell. Wang Po and his family only began working for me this morning. But we not only had a full dining room for breakfast, we had townspeople waiting for a table at lunch. I suppose the word is getting around quickly that the food at the Territorial House has improved."
"I reckon so," Cole said. "Wang Po's boys are helping him out in the kitchen, are they?"
"Yes, they are. I think there will be plenty for them to do, Marshal, so you can stop worrying about them disrupting work on the Union Pacific."
Cole held up his hands, palms toward her. "I wasn't the one who was worried about that," he said. "But I was afraid having some Chinese around after all those rumors was really going to stir up some trouble. Things ought to quiet down now." It would be a relief, he thought, if one of his problems went away, and this one seemed to be the most likely.
"Of course," Simone went on, "I have to supervise things fairly closely. These people can't be entrusted with too much responsibility."
Cole nodded, a little puzzled by the comment but not wanting to show it. He had never heard Simone refer to any group as "these people" before.
He didn't have an opportunity to follow that line of thought very far, because in the next moment he heard shouting outside in the street. The commotion was coming closer, and Cole stood up and muttered, "Excuse me," to Simone. He moved to the window so that he could see what was going on. It sounded like more trouble, and that was one sound he didn't like these days.
Striding down the boardwalk toward the marshal's office was a short but impressive figure followed by a group of townspeople and railroad workers. Cole recognized Jack Casement, the construction boss of the Union Pacific. He seemed to be bound straight for the marshal's office, and from the look on his face, he wasn't happy, not by a long shot.
Cole turned away from the window as Casement passed in front of the glass, and a second later the front door of the building banged open. Casement appeared in the doorway. "Marshal," he said briskly, "there's trouble."
Cole wanted to tell him that this came as no surprise at all. Instead, he asked, "What's wrong, Mr. Casement?"
"Indians slaughtered five of my men this morning," Casement said bluntly, drawing a gasp of horror from Simone. "They were shot and scalped about ten miles west of town, and the savages rode off to the south. Toward Shoshone country, if I need to remind you."
Cole didn't need the reminder. "Billy," he said softly to himself.
If Jack Casement was right, Cole might have sent his deputy right into the heart of danger.
He shook off that apprehension and said, "I'm sorry to hear about this, Mr. Casement. What do you want me to do about it?"
"I'm not asking you to do a damned thing. I'm just notifying you of my actions as a courtesy, since you constitute the authorities around here, Tyler. For now at least."
Cole stiffened. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded.
Casements teeth clenched on the unlit cigar in his mouth. "I mean that soon there'll be somebody else here to handle this problem," he said. "I've wired the army, and a troop of cavalry is being dispatched immediately from Fort Laramie." The former general grinned humorlessly. "Just wait until those horse soldiers get here. We'll see some action then, by God!"
Chapter 8
Cole stared at Casement for a moment, not sure he had heard him correctly. He said, "You've already sent for the army?"
"That's right," Casement snapped. "They'll be here in about three days. Until then I'm putting extra guards on the work trains just in case those red devils try to attack again. Once the cavalry arrives, it won't take long for them to be run to ground. We can't afford to be delayed. Every mile of track the Central Pacific lays and we don't means less money for the UP."
Casement was taking an awful lot for granted, Cole thought. He was leaping to conclusions to blame the Shoshones for the deaths of his men. The finger of guilt did seem to point to the Indians, though. Cole had to admit that much.
"A couple of my men and I witnessed the end of the battle," Casement went on. "We weren't close enough to help, however." He took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed at Cole with it. "Forgive me for speaking bluntly, Marshal, but you should have already wired the army yourself. I'm told by the stationmaster here that a band of savages attacked a farm north of town last night and wiped out a family of settlers."
"That's what it looks like," Cole said slowly. "I don't have any proof that's what happened."
Casement just stared at him contemptuously and put the cigar back in his mouth.
Cole understood the way the construction boss felt. Time was, he'd been a man of direct action himself—and it hadn't been that awful long ago. But he had gotten in trouble more than once for jumping into something before taking the time to ponder on it.
If this marshal's job had taught him anything so far, it was that things often weren't as c
lear-cut as they seemed.
"Like I said, I was just doing you the courtesy of notifying you," Casement said curtly. "I've got to get back to my people." With a brisk nod, he turned and walked out of the office.
Simone looked at Cole with a worried frown on her face—which, Cole noticed, didn't seem to make her any less pretty. "This is terrible," she said. "Do you really think the Shoshones are going to go on a rampage, Cole?"
"I'm not sure what to think anymore," he told her honestly. "But I sent Billy out to find Two Ponies and talk to him, and I'm starting to wonder if that was a bad mistake."
Billy Casebolt had left town only a couple of hours earlier, Cole recalled, and if he himself rode out now, he might be able to catch up to his deputy and call off the mission. That would leave Wind River temporarily without a lawman, and this was a situation Cole tried to avoid.
Some more shouting from outside made him postpone the decision. He stepped to the window and looked out, saw Jack Casement surrounded by a dozen or more angry, red-faced railroad workers. Casement was jawing back at them, the cigar clenched in his teeth bobbing up and down furiously.
"What now?" Cole muttered as he turned away from the window. To Simone, he said, "You'd best go on back to the land office, ma'am. Looks like there might be some trouble outside, and I'd better tend to it."
She stood up as he moved past her, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm. Cole felt the warmth of her touch even through the sleeve of his buckskin shirt. "Be careful, Marshal," Simone said. "I don't know what the town would do without you."
He would have rather heard her saying that she didn't know what she would do without him, but Cole was willing to take what he could get. He gave her a tight smile. "Don't worry, Mrs. McKay. I figure I'll be around for a while yet."
While Simone went down the hall to the office of the land development company, Cole stepped out through the foyer and onto the boardwalk. The shouts coming from the men surrounding Casement were even louder now, and Cole heard the words "damned Chinamen" more than once.
Cole grimaced. He had hoped the problem with the Chinese was over, but obviously these men hadn't heard—or didn't believe—that Wang Po and his family were in Wind River strictly to work for Simone at the Territorial House. The railroad men were still worried that their jobs were in jeopardy.
"I'm telling you, I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" Casement barked back at the men. "I don't have anything to do with any Chinamen!"
"He's lying!" yelled one of the workers. "I know damned well the UP's goin' to hire hundreds of those heathens to take our place!"
"Where did you hear that scurrilous lie?" Casement demanded, but the question was drowned out by more shouts.
More men were joining the crowd all the time, swelling its ranks until it was practically a mob. Not all of them were railroad workers, either, Cole noted. Some were hard cases and drifters eager for any sort of excitement, even if it didn't concern them at all. Unless he moved to break this up, Cole thought, it could turn ugly in a hurry.
The railroaders were more courageous in a group than they might have dared to be otherwise. One man prodded Casement in the chest with a stubby finger and thundered, "If it's coolies ye'll be wantin' to hire, Jack Casement, go ye right ahead! We'll not work for ye any longer! Just see how much track ye get laid with the likes o' them. From this moment forward, we're on strike!"
"Strike! Strike! Strike!" The crowd took up the chant, leaving Casement looking furious and befuddled at the same time. The press of men around him jolted him back and forth, and since most of the workers were taller than Casement, Cole had trouble keeping sight of him. It was time to pull Casement out of this mess before things got really bad.
"Break it up! Break it up, damn it!" Cole bellowed as he forced his way into the crowd, shouldering some of the men aside and taking hold of others to shove them out of his way. He drew some angry looks, but no one struck out at him. Cole Tyler had already started to develop a reputation as a tough lawman, and some of these men who remembered him from his days with the Union Pacific knew he was a dangerous man to cross.
As Cole reached Casement’s side he became aware that someone else was forcing his way through the mob from the other direction. The newcomer was barreling men aside even more efficiently than Cole had. He was tall, with massive shoulders and arms, and his legs were like the trunks of young trees. The man wore a leather apron, and his round face was red from the heat of his forge. Cole was glad to see Jeremiah Newton, Wind River's blacksmith and part-time preacher. Jeremiah was a good friend, and in the absence of Billy Casebolt, he was the next best thing to an official deputy.
"Move back!" Jeremiah thundered with the voice that called down hellfire and brimstone every Sunday morning at services. "Stand fast, Brother Tyler! I'm here to help you."
"And I'm glad of it, Jeremiah," Cole told the blacksmith. He placed himself on one side of Casement while Jeremiah planted his feet solidly on the other side.
"Blast it, the day I can't handle my own men—" Casement began over the continued chanting of the mob.
"Nobody's getting hurt in my town if I can help it," Cole cut in. He took hold of Casement's arm. "Come on."
Together, he and Jeremiah bulled their way through the press of angry men and reached the boardwalk with Casement still between them. Cole stepped up onto the planks, followed by the railroad boss and the burly blacksmith. He swung around to face the shouting mob.
Amazingly, nobody had thrown a punch or pulled a gun yet, and Cole wanted to keep it that way. He lifted his hands for quiet, but the crowd kept yelling. It took Jeremiah Newton shouting "Be silent!" in a voice like an earthquake to shut them up.
In the grudging silence that fell, Cole glared at the mob and began, "I don't know exactly what's going on here—"
"We're on strike, that's what going on!" called one of the men. Some of the others echoed the cry of "Strike!"
"It's none of my business how you handle things with the Union Pacific," Cole went on in a loud voice, "but there's not going to be any more trouble here in Wind River! You boys go on back to your barracks and cool off, blast it!"
"We'll not go back to those hellholes!" protested the man who had first called for a strike, referring to the railroad cars that had been outfitted as barracks for the workers. The accommodations were pretty spartan, Cole knew from experience, but he wouldn't go so far as to describe the cars as hellholes. The mob's spokesman went on, "We're not workin' for the UP anymore, and we'll not have anything to do with the connivin' rascals!"
Casement bellowed, "You can't go on strike, you damned Hibernian! You agreed to do the job, and you've got to keep your word!"
"The hell we do!" more than one man shouted back at him.
This situation was rapidly getting worse, Cole thought wearily. He said to the blacksmith, "Jeremiah, take Mr. Casement into my office and keep him there until things quiet down."
"You can't do that!" Casement objected. "I've got things to do—"
"It's for your own good," Cole told him, "and besides, if you force me to, I'll arrest you for provoking a riot. Now get him out of here, Jeremiah."
Casement still protested, but Jeremiah had hold of his arm, and trying to pull out of that grip was like fighting an avalanche. There was no holding back such power. Jeremiah led Casement across the boardwalk and into the marshals office while a few members of the mob yelled insults.
"So ye've taken the side of the UP, have ye, Marshal?" the group's spokesman demanded.
"I haven't taken anybody's side," Cole snapped. "But I'm not going to let any harm come to Casement from a mob. The way I see it, you men don't have to worry about the Chinese—"
More shouting overwhelmed his words at the mere mention of the Chinese, and he had to wait for it to quiet down before he could continue, "There's only one Chinese family here in Wind River, and they're working in the hotel. They don't have anything to do with the railroad."
"It's a lie!" somebody cal
led from the back of the crowd. "They're just the first! There'll be more of them, hundreds of 'em! You just wait and see!"
Cole tried again. "I have Mrs. McKay's word—"
"She's workin' with the Union Pacific!" This was a different voice, but it also came from the back of the crowd. "Her husband was thick as thieves with the railroad, and we all know it!"
Cole couldn't deny that. While not having any direct interest in the railroad, Andrew McKay and William Durand had had spies within the Union Pacific, and a complex network of bribery and chicanery had tied the two men to the railroad.
To these workers who feared for their jobs, it was at least conceivable that Simone McKay could now be in cahoots with the Union Pacific to bring in Chinese laborers.
"If you want to strike, go ahead and do it!" Cole said in frustration. "But if you cause any trouble here in Wind River, you'll answer to me, and you've got my word on that!"
He stood there glaring stubbornly at the crowd until it began to break up. Most of the men headed for the saloons, and that didn't bode well for what might happen later. Once they got liquored up, there was no telling what they might do.
Cole knew he needed to get Jack Casement out of town and back to the work train as quickly as possible. At least out there Casement would be surrounded by workers who were still loyal.
Cole hoped that was the case, anyway. If this strike spread to the rest of the railroaders, there was no telling what might happen. To his surprise, he found that he was now almost glad the army was on its way.
If things kept going to hell around here the way they had the past two days, he was liable to need all the help he could get . . .
* * *
Delia Hatfield looked up as the sound of angry shouts drifted in through the open window of Dr. Kent's office. She pushed back her red hair, and a frown creased her forehead. "Do you hear that, Doctor?" she asked.
"Yes, indeed I do," Kent replied, "but I'm not going to concern myself with it right now. I already have a patient."
Thunder Wagon (Wind River Book 2) Page 8
