Dark Territory

by Terrence McCauley

  As Mrs. Campbell sat back in her chair, Grant could see a degree of calmness had come over her. She had weathered the storm of initial shock and indecision and had managed to right herself once more. Grant had already lost the element of surprise, but was very much still in the game.

  She said, “Your idea of handsome might be very ugly to me, Mr. Grant.”

  Grant admired her spark. “Name your price, then, and let us reach an accord.”

  “But I’ve already told you that I’m hardly in a position to do so. Any sum I give might be too low or too high without having the time to give the matter its due consideration. I appreciate your need for urgency, but the sale of my home and business is not something I take lightly. If you press me for an answer, I’m afraid that answer will have to be no.”

  Grant had been hoping she would say that. But he persisted for the sake of his performance. “A fair number today is better than no number tomorrow, Mrs. Campbell.”

  He watched her think it over. The deflated shut-in acting very much the Bostonian lady of culture. “A lady could be forgiven for hearing a measure of dark intent in your words. Surely, I must be mistaken.”

  You’re not mistaken, Grant thought, but said something quite different. “I apologize for my tone, as threatening you couldn’t be further from my mind. All I meant to convey is that tonight I can afford to be generous. Next time, should there be a next time, this may not be the case.”

  “But if I refuse your offer on your terms, why would I think there would be a next time? After all, men don’t like to be rebuked, especially by a woman.”

  He watched her look out the parlor window at the late afternoon strollers and wagons moving along the boardwalk and thoroughfare just outside the hotel. My hotel, she was undoubtedly thinking.

  Grant could not let her think too long. “Mrs. Campbell, I need . . .”

  She continued as though she had not heard him. “I am curious about the sudden urgency to acquire my hotel, Mr. Grant. I find it rather odd and, for the life of me, I can’t understand the reason why. It wouldn’t have anything to do with Sheriff Mackey being out of town, would it?”

  Grant held his ground. “I’m trying to make you an offer to purchase your hotel at a fair price, Mrs. Campbell. I have no idea what role the sheriff’s absence or presence could possibly play in this negotiation.”

  “Is that what this is, Mr. Grant? This feels less like a negotiation and more like an ambush, like something that would happen to a stumblebum who finds himself dragged into an alley beside one of the saloons you chose to build rather than constructing houses where the newcomers could live.”

  Heads I win, Grant thought, and tails you lose. If she had accepted his offer, he would own the hotel. But she appeared to be choosing anger instead. He could use that against her when the time was right. “Mrs. Campbell, I meant no offense.”

  “I believe offense is the sole reason for being here. I believe you came to either push me into selling this place or to frighten me. You may rest assured that neither tactic will work. If and when the time comes that I decide to sell my hotel, I will do so. Until then, I will hold on to it and run it as I see fit, although I’m still considering changing the name to Campbell House per your suggestion.”

  She stood up and so did Grant, out of politeness. She added, “Now please leave before I have you escorted out.”

  Grant smiled as he slowly turned his hat by the brim. “By whom, Mrs. Campbell? The Sandborne boy Aaron hired to play deputy while Aaron’s out of town? I wouldn’t give much for his chances.”

  “I don’t need anyone to help me throw anyone out of my own hotel.” She pointed to the door. “Get out. Now.”

  He bent slightly at the waist and made his exit, slipping on his hat as he did so.

  In his mind, he saw which way the coin had landed. Tails, Mrs. Campbell. You lose.

  Chapter 21

  In the warm luxury of his private railcar in Butte, Mr. Frazer Rice, Chairman of the Rice Van Dorn Company, reread Swain’s sworn statement about his part in the train robberies. When Rice was finished, he looked across the desk at the man who had given it to him. “And you’re sure this is legal?”

  “As legal as it can get,” Mackey said. “That’s his sworn statement made in front of me. Got an attorney who was a passenger on the train to witness it. That Pinkerton named Lagrange witnessed it, too.”

  “Sounds like that Pinkerton man I hired came in handy after all,” Rice said. “I wasn’t sure he would. I’m glad he was of some use.”

  “I may have use for him still. In fact, I’d like to have him return with me to Dover Station, if you don’t mind the added expense.”

  Rice waved off the idea of money. “I don’t care about cost. I care about your reasons for needing him.”

  “Lagrange has never been to Dover. No one knows who he is. I’ve got a feeling that could be an advantage for us, things being what they are.”

  “It’s the way things are in that town that concern me.” Rice frowned as he tossed the affidavit on his desk. “Place has turned into a goddamned mystery to me since I left.”

  “I thought you might be feeling that way,” Mackey admitted, “when you sent that telegram directly to me. But I didn’t want to say too much over the lines, since there was no way of telling who might be reading it later on.”

  “Prudent as ever, sheriff. I keep forgetting you’re not a shitkicker like the rest of them out there. You’re a West Pointer, by God, and I’m grateful for it. I think you’re the only man in that whole damned town I can trust.”

  Mackey waited for Rice to say more, but watched him drum his fingers on the desk instead. Mackey figured it was best to just sit quietly and watched him brood. Sometimes, silence was a great teacher.

  Mr. Rice was older than the sheriff by more than twenty years, though he bore none of the expansions or frailties that often occurred with advancing age. A bald head and silver muttonchops gave him the sophisticated air befitting one of the wealthiest men in America.

  Rice stopped drumming his fingers “Do you know I haven’t heard from that bastard Van Dorn in a month? I send him requests via the mail train on a weekly basis and never get a response. And even before then, the responses were so damned terse, they were hardly worth the time it took to send them.”

  Mackey was surprised. “You mean you’ve had no contact with the town except through me?”

  “Oh, I get plenty of construction reports and information on our holdings,” Rice said. “A package shows up on the train each week like clockwork. But whenever I ask Silas a direct question about something or tell him I want something done, he never replies. Just sends another report. The damnable part of it is that he makes any changes I tell him to make, but my questions go unanswered.”

  Mackey had an idea why things had gone that way, but he needed to be sure. “Was Mr. Van Dorn always like that?”

  “Never. That weasel never had the spine to defy me like this before,” Rice said. “Hell, he used to go overboard by giving me too much information. Now I can’t get a word out of him. Makes no damned sense.”

  “Unfortunately, it makes plenty of sense if you consider James Grant is Van Dorn’s right hand.”

  Rice took a cigar from the humidor on his desk and bit off the end of it. “I heard he’d hired an assistant of some kind.” He spat the cigar end into a cuspidor by his desk. “I even encouraged him to find the right person to help him. Silas is a brilliant man, maybe the smartest man I’ve ever known, but getting things done is not his strong suit.”

  Rice held the cigar but did not light it. “What can you tell me about this Grant fellow? Silas was awfully vague when I asked him about Grant’s particulars.”

  Mackey told him what he knew. “He’s about forty or so. Nice looking and easy to like. At least that’s how he comes across at first. I heard he spent most of his life knocking around the Midwest. Ran a stagecoach line and a telegraph office here or there. Managed ranches, owned a bar. Even was a
lawman for a time in Nebraska according to some stories, but I don’t believe everything I hear.”

  Mr. Rice grunted. “Unfortunately, Silas doesn’t have your discerning character. Or personality. Hell, I don’t think the man even has a personality. He’s a bookish, quiet little man who’d never venture outside his house if I didn’t make him come to the office every day. But given Silas’s awkwardness and gullibility, I think it’s damned likely that he has allowed this Grant character to have more influence over our investments than he should. But that shouldn’t preclude him from responding to me, especially when I sent him a private letter inquiring about Grant’s position in the enterprise.”

  Mackey had come to this meeting prepared to convince Mr. Rice of Grant’s plan to take over Dover Station. He was glad it didn’t look like he’d have to work that hard to do it. “I doubt he ever saw the letter, sir. Jim Grant’s got him pretty well hobbled.”

  Rice’s eyes narrowed. “You think Grant would have the temerity to hold back a personal, confidential correspondence I sent directly to Silas?”

  “Silas didn’t reply, so I’d say there’s a good chance he’s intercepting his mail.”

  Rice thumbed a match alive and brought the flame to his cigar. “The impetuous bastard.”

  Mackey kept talking while Rice lit his cigar. “Grant is a smooth operator, sir. He’s gotten pretty popular in a short amount of time. Been smart about it, too. He keeps his name out of the papers, probably on account of he knows you’ll see them, but the quotes you read from Silas are James Grant’s words. He’s done a lot to make your company very popular in town, too. The businessmen like him. The workers like him. The townspeople, too, and they can be pretty fickle with their affections. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like him.”

  Rice pointed the cigar at him. “Except you.”

  Mackey didn’t deny it. “I’m not in the business of trusting anyone. But no, I don’t like him. I think he’s too sweet to be wholesome.”

  Rice puffed away at his cigar, a thin cloud of smoke hanging around him like a dirty halo. “What’s he after? He’s not stealing from us. I have the books checked independently with our bank in town. Everything seems to be in order on that score. He keeps his petty cash reasonable and he doesn’t pay himself an exorbitant salary. The materials are all accounted for, so he’s not stealing from us. My people back in New York think I’m crazy for worrying the way I do. They think I should be over the moon about what’s going on in Dover Station, but I know there’s something wrong, sheriff. I can feel it in my bones, and my feelings are never wrong.”

  Another puff on his cigar, then, “You tell me Grant is up to something, and I believe you. But what is it?”

  Mackey saw no reason to sugarcoat it. “Power.”

  Rice laughed. “Sounds like he’s got all the power he needs right now.”

  “Not for him,” Mackey explained. “A man like Grant always wants more. And with town elections coming up in two weeks, I think he’s going to run for mayor. That’ll give him all the power he needs, at least for a while.”

  Rice slowly lowered his cigar toward the crystal ashtray on his desk. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m not one for jokes, sir.”

  “But he’s an employee of the Dover Station Company. Silas has him overseeing all of our operations. How the hell can he run the town and do his job at the same time?”

  “The office of mayor has always been a part-time position,” Mackey explained. “And the way Grant has charmed the people these last six months, he’s practically the mayor anyway. No one else wants the job, and the acting mayor, Doc Ridley, just wants to practice medicine. No one will run against Grant, and even if they did, he’d win. I imagine he’s going to declare his candidacy while I’m gone.”

  Rice flicked his ash and almost broke the cigar. “He’ll have the town in a stranglehold if that’s the case. I won’t let it happen.”

  Mackey knew he had to proceed carefully. If he did not address the matter exactly the right way, it could send Rice on a disastrous course that would only benefit Grant.

  “No offense, sir, but he’s had plenty of time to solidify his position, and there’s not much you can do to stop him.”

  Rice’s temper sparked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Mackey produced the letter he had taken from the lining of Ernst Mohr’s jacket. “He has taken the time to give himself plenty of options, sir. Take this letter I found on a dead radical in Tent City named Ernst Mohr. I can’t read it because it’s in German, but I can make out enough of the words to show someone wrote to Mohr to come to Dover Station. Probably to raise hell.”

  Rice held out his hand. “Give it to me and I’ll make out all the words for you. Name wasn’t always Rice. It was Rickenbach before my grandfather came to this country. The name might’ve been shortened, but the family’s German traditions remained.”

  Mackey gave him the letter and watched him read it. “Your reading of the letter’s not far off. He was told to go to Dover Station by a Mr. Macum who told him he’d find fertile ground there. It says a train ticket and some money were enclosed in the letter for his trouble.” Rice handed the letter back to Mackey. “Seems damned vague to me. Too vague to get me on a train to someplace in Montana. My guess is that this Macum and Ernst Mohr either already knew each other or Mohr knew he should be expecting a letter. Either way, I don’t like it.”

  Mackey tucked the letter back into his pocket. “Neither do I, sir. But I hate to tell you that your options are limited.”

  Rice’s eyes narrowed. “A man does not attain my position in life without having plenty of options available to him, sheriff.”

  Mackey remembered what Katherine had told him. A man like Rice couldn’t be told what to do. He had to make it seem like it was his idea. “Let’s say you send a letter to Van Dorn to fire Grant. Who will he get to replace Grant? You’ve got half a dozen large buildings being built right now, not to mention managing the ranching, mining, and logging operations your company controls. You say Silas is brilliant, but he hasn’t paid attention to the daily operation of things since you left town. And if I have Grant pegged right, I’ll bet he’s kept just enough from him to make himself indispensable.”

  Rice gritted his teeth. “Cemeteries are filled with indispensable men, sheriff.”

  “Yes, sir, and there are plenty of good companies buried right next to them.”

  The wealthy man thought about it, then said, “I’ll give you a letter to hand deliver to Silas personally, spelling out all the reasons why I want that son of a bitch Grant fired. He might have the rest of the town charmed, but not you.”

  “I’ll happily deliver it,” Mackey said, “but I don’t think it’ll make a damned bit of difference.” As Rice’s face reddened, he quickly added, “Because Silas is in no position to replace him overnight. What’s more, Grant’s been slowly bringing in his own people for the past couple of months to back his play.”

  “People? What kind of people?”

  “Gunmen in the guise of supervisors,” Mackey said. “They’ve kept a low profile and haven’t bullied anyone without cause, but I know the type. They’re on the payroll and they do their job, but one word from Grant and they’ll be at his side in a heartbeat. Armed, too.”

  “How many are we talking about?”

  “At least twenty,” Mackey said. “By the time I get back, maybe thirty.”

  Rice pounded his desk. “Damn it! How did things get out of hand so fast?”

  “He did it smart,” Mackey told him, “and he did it slow, bringing them in one or two at a time and giving them jobs. They’re going easy now, but if Grant gives the word, they’ll take the town by force if necessary. I can try to stop them, but he’s so popular, it’ll be tough even without gunplay.”

  Mackey raised one finger at a time as he counted off everything he believed Grant had done. He spoke quicker than he normally did, because, as he began to speak, more of the
story began to make sense to him. “First, he organized men to rob your trains to dampen enthusiasm about the town. He had access to gold, so he was able to pay them to keep them interested. If the robberies continued, he’d only get more power as he could bring his own people in to open businesses in town. But now that I’ve stopped it, he can take credit for it.

  “Second, he brought in an anarchist to stir up some of the workers, but I put a stop to it. He took credit for it, but he can easily blame me for allowing the man to operate in the first place.

  “Third, he’s popular with everyone, and so is the company. You fire him, he looks like a martyr and he turns public sentiment against the company. They’ll burn straw versions of Silas Van Dorn on Front Street. Hell, my own father’s making so much money off the company, he’ll probably light the match.”

  Rice left his cigar in the ashtray and rubbed a hand over his bald head. “Good God.”

  But Mackey wasn’t done. “Fourth, as mayor, he’s in a position to pass laws and regulations that could slow your development of the town to a crawl, forcing you to pay him off. He knows you’ve invested too much in the town to back off now, and you can’t make a case for incompetence. In short, he’s dug in deep at Dover Station and there’s not much we can do about it.”

  Mackey lowered his fingers into a fist. “I’m just sorry I didn’t see everything he was planning until now. I never bought his act, but I didn’t think he was capable of this.”

  Rice lifted his head from his hand. “You think he’s capable? Well, by God, you’re about to get a lesson in what true capability is. I have friends in lots of places, son. I’ll have the territorial governor send in men to seize the town.”