She didn’t have long to wait. Stroking the soft black nose of the horse in the corner stall, she watched the youth enter the barn. He stopped when he saw her, surprise registering in his eyes. Kate quickly scanned his form. Yes, she’d been right. He couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen years old, and matched her in size, his body not yet filled out.
“Fred,” she smiled, and stepped away from the horse to face him. “How are you?”
Fred glanced over his shoulder, as if wondering if Kate had actually been addressing him, or someone behind him. “I . . . I’m fine, ma’am,” he stammered. Kate boldly walked up to him.
“I have a favor to ask, and I was hoping you could be of some help, Fred.”
“Me?” he pointed at his chest, his eyes growing large.
Kate nodded. “I have an errand to run in town, and I don’t want anyone to know about it. Can you keep a secret, Fred?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered eagerly.
“You see, I am planning a surprise for my dear husband, and you know how maids are apt to talk if they get wind of such things. Gossip abounds, and I’m afraid if I make it known I need to go to Boston without a proper escort, Mr. Devereaux will find out, and the surprise will be spoiled.”
Fred’s youthful face grew serious, and his eyebrows furrowed. “How can I be of any help, Mrs. Devereaux?”
“Oh, please, call me Kate,” she said, flashing a wide smile. She waved her hand in the air dismissively. The boy’s face turned crimson. She swallowed, and took a deep breath. She knew Danica Jensen would be proud of her with what she was about to do. “I need to borrow your clothes.”
Fred’s mouth dropped open. “Pardon me, ma’am?” he asked.
“Do you have a spare pair of britches, a shirt, and a hat perhaps?” she asked quickly. “Oh, and another set of boots?” The youth stared at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. “I don’t want anyone to recognize me, and possibly tell Mr. Devereaux that they saw me in town. It would raise his suspicion, you see. I thought if I disguise myself, I could take care of what I need to do, and no one would ever know. I so want to surprise him.” She batted her eyelashes at him.
Fred’s eyebrows rose, and his gaze traveled up and down her body. “Beg pardon, ma’am, but I don’t think you would pass for a man.” He turned quickly and stared at the ground, apparently embarrassed by what he’d just said.
Damn! Kate didn’t think it would be this difficult to convince him. She was wasting time if she wanted to get to the telegraph and Wells Fargo office today. Should she just abandon the idea of a disguise, and simply hope no one would recognize her?
She sighed dramatically. “Very well. I guess I’ll just take my chances, and hope no one sees me.” She turned to leave.
“Mrs. Devereaux . . . Kate, wait.”
She closed her eyes briefly, and smiled. Had she succeeded after all? Slowly, she turned to face the youth.
“All right. I’ll . . . I’ll be right back with some things,” he said, shaking his head.
“Thank you, Fred,” She reached out and touched him on the arm. “I’ll remember this. If you ever need a favor, don’t hesitate to ask.” He nodded, and hurried from the barn.
An hour later, Kate stood in the telegraph office in Boston, and handed the clerk the note she wished to send. She hoped the tremble in her hand would go unnoticed. The clothes Fred had brought her were too large, but a rope tied around the waistband kept the pants up, and she’d tucked the shirt loosely down the waist. At least it would disguise her feminine form. The man peered down at her over wire-rimmed spectacles. She quickly pulled the cap Fred had given her more firmly over her head, hoping her hair stayed tucked up underneath it.
“Montana Territory, eh?” The clerk said. “Got a cousin out that way. Tried to strike it rich in the gold fields some years back.”
Kate grunted, hoping she sounded convincing. She dared not speak. She had no interest in striking up a conversation with the clerk.
“Cat got your tongue, boy?” the clerk smiled. Kate merely shrugged, and dropped some money on the counter.
The clerk cleared his throat, and readjusted his spectacles on his nose. “Let me read this back to you, and make sure it’s right.” He held the paper in front of his face. “To Mr. Chase Russell, Virginia City, Montana Territory. Stop. I am sending important papers via overland post. Stop. Please advise proper authorities. Stop. Miss you all, especially Kyle. Stop. Kate. “ He peered up over the note. “Is that correct?”
Kate nodded. She wanted to send the telegraph, so that Chase would know to expect something in the mail. She deliberately kept her message short and vague. She had included a lengthy letter, explaining what she’d learned, with the documents she’d dropped off at the Wells Fargo office earlier. She hoped Chase or Samuel would know who to contact, and expose Hiram’s illegal activities. She’d expressed her deep sorrow at Kyle’s death and how much she loved him, and concluded with the hopes that she would see them all again some day. She hurried from the telegraph office. It was getting late, and she would surely be missed soon.
*****
Chase Russell strode into the kitchen, a broad smile on his face. He scanned the room, his eyes resting on his wife, who stood kneading bread dough at the counter. When Sarah looked up and met his eyes, he winked at her. “The package came today.” He stood next to her and kissed her cheek, holding up a thick brown parcel. “From Kate,” he added as an unnecessary reminder. Sarah’s head turned quickly to look at the closed door that led to the living room.
“It came quicker than expected. I wonder what she could have possibly sent,” Sarah said.
“He’s not in the house, Angel.” Chase noticed the direction of Sarah’s gaze. “He’s out with Sam, unloading that shipment of grain.”
“What?” Sarah’s eyes widened. “Why are you allowing him to lift heavy sacks of grain, Chase?”
“Stop babying him, Sarah.” Chase wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her up against him. “He’s fine. A man’s gotta build his strength again sometime. His body’s healing. He needs the exercise.”
Sarah glared at him. “He got shot in the chest, Chase, and God only knows how he survived that wound. And need I remind you that the fall from the window broke both his legs, and his arm. It’s too soon for him to be doing heavy work.”
Chase kissed his wife. “He’s tired of lying around, Angel. He’s heading back east in a few weeks when those hearings in Congress begin, and to get his girl back. You had your chance to coddle him for more than two months.” He rubbed her arms reassuringly when she continued to frown at him. “He’s a grown man, Angel. Let him regain his strength. He doesn’t want to show up on Kate’s doorstep as an invalid.”
Sarah nodded in defeat. Chase gently squeezed her arms. He eyed the parcel he’d thrown on the counter. “Should we open it, or give it to Kyle?” he asked with a grin. “It’s addressed to me, but somehow I think it belongs to our son.”
“Kate thinks he’s dead, Chase. What else could she think? Without an address, we haven’t been able to contact her all this time.”
“It’s like Kyle said, Angel. Best not to send her a letter. Devereaux probably would have intercepted anything she receives. It’s better he thinks Kyle is dead.”
Sarah picked up the parcel, and stared at it. “Let’s take it to him. Anything from Kate will brighten him up.”
Chase followed his wife out of the kitchen and across the path to the depot. A wagon stood parked in front of the entry. Samuel pulled a heavy burlap sack from the back, and looked up. “You could come lend a hand,” he called.
“Be right there,” Chase called. “Where’s Kyle?”
The man in question emerged from inside the depot at that moment. He walked with a pronounced limp, his strides shorter than normal. Chase watched his son. The doctor had given him no chance at survival the day he got shot. He’d removed the bullet that had thankfully been stopped by a rib, or it would have hit his lung.
That wound had healed faster than his broken bones. He’d been bed-ridden for over a month. With a broken humerus, his arm had been in a sling, making it impossible to move around on crutches. Chase and Samuel had built a wheelchair for him to move around in, which had also proven to be difficult.
Chase knew his son’s love for Kate kept him motivated. His sole focus since the first hurdle to his recovery had been to go after Kate. The frustration with his slowly healing body was evident on Kyle’s face on a daily basis. Chase had offered all the help he could think of. Once Kyle’s arm was no longer in a sling, Chase made crutches for him to move around on, in order to get him up and moving. They’d gone to the nearby lake, and Chase told him swimming was the best low-impact way to strengthen his muscles again. In the far corner of the depot, he and Samuel had rigged up a weight bench. Drawing on his experience with rehabilitation from injuries in his younger years - sports injuries from his former, long forgotten life - he’d coached his son on the best ways to strengthen the muscles in his legs and arms using the weights.
Chase had ignored the doctor’s warnings against such activities for his son. If it had been up to the old saw-bones, Kyle would still be lying in bed. Chase knew the speediest road to recovery was for his son to move around, and slowly build up his strength again.
Kyle was growing stronger by the day. He would spend hours on the bench, so much so that Chase had to disable the contraption. “Too much is going to do more harm than good, Kyle,” Chase had warned.
“I need to be ready when I go to Boston in November,” Kyle had said, a fierce determination on his face.
“And you will be,” Chase had patted him on the back. When Kate’s telegram had arrived a little over a week ago, Kyle had acted like a man possessed. Good thing Sarah didn’t know about half the things their son had been doing, or she might tie him to his bed and lock him in his room. If she found out Kyle had been on horseback again, she would have a fit.
“I understand how you feel, Kyle, but slow and easy wins the race.”
To Chase’s surprise, his son sneered at him in anger. “How the hell could you know how I feel, Pop? Everything’s always come easy for you. You’re the great, legendary Chase Russell, the man who outmaneuvered an entire tribe of hostile Blackfoot. No one will ever let me forget that I’m your son, or that I haven’t done what you have. How does it feel, knowing I can never measure up to you?”
Chase stared at his son in stunned silence. “I never knew you felt that way, Kyle,” he said quietly. “I hope your mother and I never make you feel like you don’t measure up. We never talk about what happened that day.”
Kyle’s shoulders slumped, and he averted his eyes.
“Kyle, don’t think for a minute that the work you’re doing as a scout and with Hayden and Langford isn’t impressive. Some day, hundreds of years from now, it’ll be you who will be remembered for doing a great service to this nation for helping promote a national park idea, not my inept attempts at keeping my ass alive.”
Slowly, Kyle raised his head and met his father’s eyes. Chase placed a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “And let me tell you something else, son. It doesn’t always require brawn to prove that you’re a hero. Going up against a powerful man like Devereaux takes guts few men possess.”
Kyle nodded slowly. A new understanding seemed to pass between them.
*****
”Kyle Daniel Russell, I don’t think you should be lifting those heavy bags,” Sarah scolded when she reached the freight wagon. Kyle barely glanced at his mother before lifting one of the sacks from the back of the wagon, and slung it over his shoulder. He couldn’t hide the grimace on his face before he turned and headed back into the depot with his load. Chase squeezed his wife’s arm, and silently shook his head at her. She glared at him, but her shoulders sagged in apparent defeat.
Chase turned the corner into the depot just as Kyle dropped the sack on the growing mound of grain stacks.
“The package from Kate came,” he called. Kyle straightened his back, and stood motionless for a few seconds, before he slowly turned. Uncertainty registered in his eyes. Just like the rest of them, Kyle had to be wondering what Kate could possibly have sent them. Chase held the parcel out to him, and Kyle reached for it. His gaze lingered on the battered package in his hand. He leaned back against the stacks of grain, and looked up. Samuel had entered the depot, and Kyle met each person’s eyes. The air in the building became heavy with anticipation. Slowly, Kyle unlaced the string tied around the brown paper. He revealed a sealed folder, with a loose sheet of paper on top.
The expression on Kyle’s face seemed to change with each word he read. First a barely discernable smile, followed by eyebrows drawn together, and finally, a dark, almost murderous look.
“How’s Kate, son?” Chase was almost afraid to ask.
Kyle looked up at his father, the pain of loss clearly written in his eyes. Chase understood Kyle’s frustration and feeling of helplessness. He was convinced he’d failed the woman he loved. How well he understood that feeling.
Kyle didn’t answer. He picked the wax seal off the folder, and opened it. Carefully, he removed several sheets of paper, scanning each quickly. His dark eyes glowed with rage when he finally looked up.
“That son of a bitch,” Kyle growled. “I knew he was up to no good when he toured the Yellowstone. Now I know why.”
Chapter 31
“I say it again, sir, if we lay tracks into Montana territory, more people will be able to settle there. How absurd is it to disallow individuals from owning plots of land in the Yellowstone region? The government can’t simply lay claim to that land.”
Kyle stood silently at the back of the large meeting room, his arms folded across his chest, listening to the arguments presented by members of the congressional Committee of Public Lands. No one had noticed him slipping into the room. He spotted Nathaniel Langford sitting toward the front of the room, shifting in his seat. He was apparently just as agitated about the argument presented by one Senator Cole. Kyle held the folder containing the documents signed by those congressmen who Hiram had bribed in his hand. Cole was at the top of the list.
Kyle scanned the room. No one paid him any attention, even though he looked as out of place among this group of people as any of them would, sitting around a campfire in the Madison Valley. Langford had urged him to come. He’d said that a testimony by a “native” resident of the area would prove to be persuasive.
Kyle hoped this meeting wouldn’t take too long. He was anxious to get to Boston. He had waited three long months to come east. Three months of wondering on a daily basis how Katelyn was faring. Thinking him dead, had she resigned herself to her former life? A slow smile spread across his lips, and his gaze fell on the documents in his hand. No, she was a changed woman. The girl he met five months ago, the soft-spoken, quiet church mouse, wouldn’t have dared steal these papers from the man she believed to be her husband. Kyle’s chest swelled with pride. Apparently, she had discovered the inner strength he always knew she possessed. At times, he wanted to write to her, tell her he was alive, and would make good on his promise. His father hadn’t allowed him to think he had failed her.
Kyle realized that he, too, had changed. All the self-doubts that had haunted him over the years plagued him during those initial weeks of his recovery. He hadn’t been able to protect the woman he loved. He’d promised her he wouldn’t let Devereaux take her back, and he had failed. His father had been his staunchest supporter. Both the doctor and his mother had advised against getting out of bed and moving around too soon. As was his way, Chase Russell had gone against conventional wisdom, and Kyle was grateful to his father for insisting he move around and build his strength back slowly. Kyle came to understand the truth in his father’s words that he was his own man, and was finally able to step out of the legend’s shadow.
Kyle’s eyes scanned the room. All he had to do now was hand over his evidence to Senator Pomeroy, the man who would introduce the bill f
or a national park to Congress, and he could be on his way to keep the promise he’d made to Kate. He would finally free her of her marriage.
He had hoped that Hiram Devereaux would be here. With as much as he had riding on this meeting, it was a surprise that the man wasn’t in attendance. Kyle would love nothing better than to present the incriminating evidence right here in front of these fine gentlemen.
Kyle smirked. For days now, he had gone with Langford and Dr. Hayden to visit several senators personally, and talk to them about the Yellowstone region. He hadn’t told anyone what he planned to expose at this meeting.
“There is no industrial value to an area such as the Yellowstone, except for pleasure seekers,” Senator Cole continued.
Kyle recognized Senator Walter Trumbull, the senator from Illinois, who had listened with great interest to Kyle’s accounts of the area several days ago.
“Senator Cole,” Trumbull spoke in a loud and clear voice. “The region of the country that holds the Yellowstone area contains the most wonderful geysers on the face of the earth. The Rocky Mountains will most likely never be inhabited for agricultural reasons. Why shouldn’t we protect the land from those individuals who would seek to profit from it by snatching up land grants for personal financial gain? The Northern Pacific Railroad proposes to run tracks through the area, which would forever alter the landscape of this magnificent place.”
Kyle smiled. Cole seemed visibly shaken by Trumbull’s words. It was time to make an impression. He pushed himself away from the wall he leaned against, and slowly walked down the aisle that separated two sections of chairs. Heads turned, and men murmured as he reached the front of the room. Dressed in fringed buckskins, a faded blue cotton shirt, with several leather pouches hanging off his neck and shoulder, his hunting knife and tomahawk hanging off his belt, Kyle knew he made quite an impression on these refined easterners. Most of them had probably never been more than twenty miles from the nearest big city. Langford had told him he would draw attention this way, and that was the intent and purpose.
Yellowstone Awakening (Yellowstone Romance Series Book 3) Page 27
