The Lady and the Robber Baron

by Joyce Brandon

  He realized with frustration that he couldn’t live with Jennie, and he couldn’t stand to live without her. He’d seen what hell looked like when he’d thought Jason had killed her. Now he felt trapped in a life he couldn’t live.

  Vaguely, he knew there was something wrong with his mind—something that stopped him from forgiving and moving forward—but he had no idea what it was. This was the mind he’d always had. It used to work properly. But ever since Jennie had betrayed him, it had been oddly out of kilter, and he had no idea what to do about it.

  He feared she would die from despair over his inability to forgive her. And still, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. The part of him that could have told her how he felt wasn’t the part in control of his mouth. His inability to communicate terrified him and frustrated him and filled him with guilt, but none of that mattered.

  Jennie looked at him, waiting for him to speak. Her eyes were soft and beautiful and asked so damned little that he could feel himself bleeding inside. He looked down, and she knew nothing had changed. She didn’t appear angry about it, though. She just closed her eyes and slept again.

  He sat for an hour beside her bed, too immobilized to do anything else. When the gong for the noon meal sounded, he trudged out of the Pullman coach and walked to the telegraph shed. He sent a telegram to Tom Tinkersley’s parents in Texas to tell them the sad news that their son had been killed.

  That afternoon, they buried Tom in a sheltered, level place on the side of the mountain. Jennifer had no business being out of bed, but she insisted on being carried there. Filled with regret and sadness, feeling as bad as if her own brother had died, she cried quietly and bitterly the whole time.

  Alarmed that Jennie was making herself sicker, Chane cut the ceremony short and took her back to the Pullman coach.

  “Were you in love with Tom?” he asked finally.

  Jennifer opened her eyes and sniffed back tears. “No. I feel awful because he was a decent, respectful, deserving man, and we treated him in the most awful way…” Tears flooded her eyes, and she had to gulp back sobs. “I am so ashamed of the way we used him.”

  Chane nodded. At least they agreed about that.

  He stayed by her side until she cried herself to sleep, then he went outside to check on the work crews. Most of the men had come back. Hammers rang out against iron. Men dropped ties and rails into place, and the sounds echoed down the mountainside.

  That night Jennie developed a fever, and Chane’s fear increased. He stayed by her side, fed her water and beef tea to keep up her strength, and put cool, wet cloths on her forehead. But she lay still as death, and Chane panicked at the thought that she might not recover. Instead of loosening the words stuck inside him, Jennie’s sudden turn for the worse added to his rage. He was furious with her for taking the knife that was meant for him.

  Her fever rose and fell. Three days passed with agonizing slowness. Chane died a thousand deaths. Finally, on the morning of the fourth day, she opened her eyes and seemed lucid for the first time. And Chane finally allowed Lance to lead him off to bed, where he collapsed and slept the day through.

  It was a beautiful day. Birds sang noisily overhead. Sunlight filtered through the pine trees. A cooling breeze took the edge off the sun, high and hot overhead.

  Lance and Chane rode up and witnessed the laying of the rails at the base of Raton Pass. On the way back to the base camp, Lance said, “Well, I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

  “Why so soon?” Chane asked.

  “I’m going to Dodge City to meet Angie. She’s working on a picture book of that little metropolis.”

  “When you finish there, bring her back with you. I think Jennie would like your Angie.”

  “I’m sure she would, but I don’t bring Angie anywhere. She comes and goes as she pleases.”

  Chane nodded. Complacent women probably didn’t exist anymore. The memory of Jennie, spear in hand, standing on that rock like Joan of Arc, flooded over him. She had been magnificent. She’d also saved a lot of men’s lives.

  Lance received a letter from Angie when they got back to camp. He read it in silence, grinning a few times, and laughing outright once. Then he folded it and leaned back in his chair.

  “How’s your wife?” Chane asked, chafing at the need to think up polite questions, when he burned inside with a fever that felt like it was killing him.

  Lance grinned. “Mouthy, intelligent, stubborn, beautiful, hot-tempered, sweet, bitchy, sensuous, wise, interesting, talented, and mouthy. Definitely mouthy.”

  Chane scowled. “Sounds like you miss her.”

  Lance gave a deep sigh. “I never thought I could miss constant turmoil as a life-style, but I do. She’s been gone a month now, and I’m real sick of not having her around.” He smiled proudly. “Likes Dodge, she does. Feels it’s in its heyday now, but on the verge of a big decline. She’s excited about catching it while it’s still going strong.”

  Chane realized that although he loved his brother, he was ready for him to leave. Lance’s contentment only turned the knife in Chane’s heart.

  Jennie could feel her strength returning. Chane looked like a man in torment, but he still didn’t say a word to her about his feelings. She didn’t blame him, though. Before, she’d been angry and impatient, but now, strangely, she was content to sleep and rest and wait.

  Jennifer’s recovery was going so well that she decided to accompany her replacement bookkeeper on payday. The men were in a jovial mood. Chinese and whites joked with one another in a way they never had before. In the past they’d formed two separate lines, Chinese in one, non-Chinese in another. Now they formed one line, Chinese and non-Chinese intermingled. She was so happy to see the men and to receive their happy smiles that she would have stayed to the end, but after only an hour or so Chane came and led her back to bed.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?” he demanded angrily.

  He seemed angry so often that she was getting used to his being out of sorts and just ignored it. “I’m fine. What’s that?” she asked, noticing the telegram in his hand.

  “Good news for once,” he said. “Tom Wilcox discovered that Simone left New York shortly after we did. Apparently, she’s gone to join your brother, wherever he is.”

  “Thank goodness,” she said. It was the first proof he was still alive. “Do they know where she went?”

  “No, but her mother told a neighbor they were going out West. So, we know two things. Your brother is alive. And Simone is probably with him.”

  “Maybe he’ll write. Would his letter reach me here?”

  “It should. There’s more. In the course of the investigation, Wilcox offered a reward for any information about your brother. The reward flushed out a woman who remembered the Van Vleet name. She claimed that her former, live-in friend, Edgar Noonan, was flashing some big bills about a year ago. They got drunk one night and he told her he’d eliminated a couple of problems for a rich and powerful woman. He mentioned Latitia Laurey and the Van Vleet name.”

  Jennifer’s heart dropped. Chane caught Jennie’s arm to support her.

  “Latitia hired Noonan to kill your parents.”

  “My parents? Why in the world?”

  “Tom thinks, after more research, that it was a lovers’ quarrel.”

  Jennifer’s face turned white. “But I knew about all of Reginald’s affairs. Everyone knew.”

  “Apparently, Latitia wanted to keep this one secret, and she wanted it badly enough that she would kill for it.”

  Shaken, Jennifer took Chane’s hand and gripped it tight. He waited a moment and continued. “Now for the good news. The lawsuit has been settled against my grandfather’s estate. We’ll have all the money we need to finish the railroad. The Colorado legislature has unanimously approved the land grants we earned, and the Commodore has filed for bankruptcy protection.”

  “But what’s going to happen to Latitia?”

  “Well, the witness we found—the woman—isn’t too rel
iable, so we have no real evidence there. I sent the letters we found on Fletcher to Tom Wilcox. He said he turned them over to the district attorney, but not to hold our breath. The Commodore has a lot of influence in New York, where she’d have to be tried. She may or may not be punished, since you didn’t die. But at least we’ve neutralized her.”

  “But you’re not happy,” Jennifer said softly.

  “Of course I am,” he growled.

  “Well, I’m happy for you,” she said, searching his face.

  Chane started to say “for us,” but he couldn’t. The words caught in his throat. “There’s more. I wired Mr. Halbertson and told him everything that had happened. He wired back today and confessed that Number One had hired Jason Fletcher.”

  “Your grandfather!” Jennifer said, astonished. “But why?”

  “To keep me from marrying you.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No.” Chane didn’t know how he felt about this latest news. His grandfather had probably meant well, but he’d almost gotten Jennie killed. Knowing Fletcher had been in New York as well and had undoubtedly been following Jennie—and that she’d told him and he’d ignored her—filled him with shame.

  Fletcher and Latitia had been trying to kill Jennie all along, and Chane had ignored her comments about his enemies, refusing to believe that he had any. He’d made a lot of mistakes himself—Latitia being the biggest one. He knew he should forgive Jennie, but something still stopped him. And that, too, was a cause for rage. He seemed consumed by it.

  They reached the Pullman coach in silence. Jennifer took a nap, and Chane went back to work. When she woke up, Cooky had prepared a feast. He told her that Chane had ordered it, because it was Mr. Lance’s last night with them.

  Jennie put on one of her prettiest gowns, the amethyst one she hadn’t worn since the celebration in Thatcher. She wondered if he’d notice.

  Lance looked crisp and handsome in one of Chane’s suits. Even Chane had taken special pains with his appearance. He looked slimmer and tougher than he had six months ago, and he smelled of the bay rum aftershave he’d worn when she first met him.

  Steve and Marianne joined them, and Jennifer could tell by the way they kept sneaking looks at one another that there was likely to be another celebration soon.

  Chane opened a bottle of wine, and Lance made a toast to Jennifer’s full recovery and the railroad’s success against amazing odds. After dinner they sat outside. Marianne and Steve took a walk, holding hands. It was nice to see them so obviously and happily in love.

  The unusually warm evening was one of the most beautiful she’d ever seen. There was a medley of birdsong, and crickets and frogs provided a perfect background harmony to the sounds of the laborers playing cards, doing their household chores, and settling down for the night. Fireflies flickered on and off in the distance.

  Jennifer was so hungry for good times like these, she’d learned to cherish them even while they were happening.

  At bedtime Jennifer, Chane, and Lance walked toward the Pullman coach. Jennifer saw a baby lamb that had strayed a little too far from the herd. “Oh,” she said, “Maybe I should take it back to its mother.”

  Chane laughed. “Its mother will find it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Chane grinned. “As sure as I am that you’ll find some other small, helpless creature to worry about.”

  Lance nodded. “I understand completely,” he said ruefully. “In the spring, life becomes unbearable for Angie. I guess every woman who wants a baby goes through that. It must be hell. I can tell she can’t help herself. She just starts collecting little living things…”

  Surprised and caught off guard by Lance’s amazing conclusion, Jennifer glanced at Chane. He clamped his jaws and looked away.

  “We had a bed for you inside,” Jennifer said. “I feel terrible that you’re sleeping somewhere else.”

  “I don’t want to embarrass myself by snoring in front of my beautiful sister-in-law,” Lance said, smiling at Jennifer. She knew it was because he didn’t want his presence to keep them from making love, now that she was well. But she had no hopes in that direction. It was obvious Chane hadn’t forgiven her.

  “You’re very gallant,” she said.

  “Just smart. I’m trying to keep all my shortcomings to myself. Angie may kick me out, and I wouldn’t want word to have gotten around.”

  They reached the Pullman coach.

  “This is good-bye,” Lance said. “I’ve packed my things and I’ll be leaving early in the morning. I gotta go see what that woman’s doing. I expect they’ll have a petition started to get Angie out of town while they still have a decent hellhole there.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting your wife.”

  “And she you. You don’t need to get up to see me off. I’ll just walk my hoss down the tracks to the first station I run into.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Jennifer insisted. “We’ll send a work train into Starkville. You can catch a train from there that’ll take you into Dodge.”

  Chane nodded. It was settled.

  Lance went off to his own bed. Chane nodded to her and went to his sleeping compartment. Jennie went to her lonely bed and cried herself to sleep as silently as she could.

  Jennifer got up early the next morning to see Lance off.

  “If Chane doesn’t shape up, you keep me in mind,” he said. “I’m always about six minutes from being thrown out myself,” he drawled, leaning down to hug Jennifer good-bye.

  “I’ll do that,” she said, sorry to see him go. He was soft-spoken, and one of the finest men she’d ever met. And he had a humanizing effect on Chane.

  That afternoon, the work crews tackled an enormous rock that squatted in the middle of the right-of-way. Chane went up in one of the baskets to place dynamite for blasting. He set the dynamite, capped it, and lit the fuse. She kept waiting for them to lower him down, so he could find cover, but the basket kept swinging there.

  Below, men yelled and fought with the equipment, and Jennifer figured out that the rope-and-pulley arrangement wasn’t working. For a tense moment she watched Chane hanging there beside the lit fuse while the men struggled to free the twisted rope that was keeping the pulley from working. When she could contain herself no longer, she yelled out, “Put out the fuse!”

  Chane heard Jennie, but he knew there was no urgency yet. He craned his neck back to see if they were going to be able to clear the lines in time. He had two minutes before the dynamite blew.

  “Put out the fuse!” she yelled again.

  Chane waved her away.

  At last the men cleared the lines and lowered him down to the ground. They all took cover behind one of the enormous rocks dotting the mountainside. Seconds later the dynamite blew.

  When the explosion was over, and only the dust cloud remained, Jennifer ran across the intervening space. “You could have been killed,” she said furiously, holding her side, which had begun to ache.

  “And you could tear something open and die,” he growled, standing up to brush dust off his clothes. “I was watching it.” Anger sparkled in his eyes.

  “You were watching the fuse burn toward the dynamite!”

  “I knew what I was doing,” he said grimly. It was obvious he didn’t appreciate being yelled at in front of his men, who had suddenly gotten busy enough to pretend they weren’t listening.

  “I did, too,” Jennifer said, turning to stomp away. She thought about their problem all the rest of that day. She felt it was no accident that he’d almost killed himself.

  No matter what she was doing, her mind kept going back to that. Finally, she knew what she had to do.

  Jennifer put aside her ledgers and went to the palace car to pack. She didn’t know why, but suddenly she knew it was over. Chane was stuck. He couldn’t go forward, and he couldn’t go back. Only she had the power to release him, and to do that she had to give him up.

  Marianne was away, so Jennie sent Cooky to the st
orage car for her trunks. While he was gone she started going through all the closets to gather her things. In Chane’s closet, she noticed that one of his frock coats had a spot on the sleeve. She pulled it out to give it to Cooky so it could be cleaned. Automatically, she went through the pockets. In the top right inside pocket she found a letter. She started to place it on his nightstand, but she noticed that it was addressed to her. Puzzled, she opened the letter and read it.

  It was from Latitia Laurey. She had to read it three times before her mind would accept it. Then she sat down on Chane’s bed and let its message sink in. Her mind felt entirely blank for a long time, then it formed an image of Chane and Latitia naked together, kissing and making love. The tears started, and then the pain came. It started slowly, building to such intensity that she knew why Chane could never forgive her. Nothing in her life had ever hurt like this. She felt sick in every cell of her body, sick enough to die.

  She staggered to her bed and just lay there for a long time, crying and praying for death. Anything would be better than this terrible pain. Cooky returned with the first trunk, and she realized she wasn’t going to be lucky enough to die, so she got up and began to pack.

  Through the window of the Pullman coach, Chane saw Jennie moving around inside. He walked up the steps and opened the door. She didn’t turn to greet him, even though he stamped his feet on the small throw rug in front of the door. Jennie had a trunk thrown open on the sofa and was carrying things to it. He walked over to watch her pack. His heart sank at the sight of her clothes and possessions going into the trunk.

  “Are you leaving?”

  Jennifer stopped, her back to him. “It’s time.”

  “Time?”

  “You’ve reached the Pass. It’ll be easy sailing from here, and my foot is healed now. It’s time to get back to work before I forget how.” Her voice sounded muffled by pain. This was what he’d thought he wanted to hear. Except now he was hearing it, and it didn’t feel like liberation. It felt like a weight crushing his chest.