The Fire of Greed (17 page)

Chapter 30

“OH NO,” NICOLETTE DE LA GRAVIÈRE SAID AS SHE READ
the
Santa Fe New Mexican
. “This is terrible.”

She was supposed to be helping to sort the fresh produce, but the headline caught her eye.

“What's terrible?” Dolores Herrera asked.

“It's the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. Their shares on the stock market back in New York have fallen.”

“Don't those things go up and down all the time?”

“But they fell a lot. According to the paper, they have lost a third of their value.”

“Why is that?”

“It's the robbery,” Nicolette said, reading intently. “It says here that ‘investor confidence collapsed,' when the news of the robbery reached New York.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the financial people are pulling their money out of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and putting it somewhere else.”

“How do
you
know all this?” Dolores asked quizzically.

“Because Ezra . . . Mr. Waldron . . . explained it to me.”

“He is now ‘
Ezra
'?” Dolores laughed. “I didn't think you were courting yet.”

“We're not,” Nicolette said, blushing. “He's just . . .”

“I thought your
corazón
was throbbing for the handsome
vaquero
?” Dolores said teasingly. “And now Señor Waldron is ‘Ezra'?”

“I like Mr. Waldron,” Nicolette admitted. “He is a gentleman . . . Mother likes him. She approves because he is a gentleman.”

Dolores smiled knowingly, reading between the lines as she carefully arranged a group of tomatoes which the cooks would use later to prepare the fresh salsa that afternoon.

“I feel so bad for Mr. Waldron,” Nicolette said as she organized the pots and pans on the grill. “His job is in the financing of the railroad. This will reflect badly on
him
.”

“I'm sure that he knows what he's doing,” Dolores said sympathetically, putting her hand on Nicolette's shoulder. “He is a smart man. He knows more about these things than we do.”

Nicolette nodded.

* * *

AS SOON AS THE MORNING PREP WORK WAS DONE AND THE
boys had come to fill the fireboxes with mesquite, Nicolette pulled off her apron and made her way down the street to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe offices.

Ezra Waldron was at his desk, as were several of the clerks. Joseph Ames, with his overbearing nature and his soft, fleshy hands, was not there.

“Mr. Waldron,” she began, unsure of how one expressed commiseration in circumstances such as this. She noticed a copy of the
Santa Fe New Mexican
on his desk and nodded to it. “I see you've read the news today . . . I was so sad to see this. You must be absolutely devastated.”

“Miss de la Gravière,” he said, looking up, surprised to see her. “What are you doing here . . . I mean that I am very glad to see you . . . but I
am
surprised.”

“When I read this . . . I just had to come to see you and offer a word of . . . empathy.”

“You are so kind, Miss de la Gravière,” Waldron said softly, taking her hand in his. “I certainly appreciate your kindness.”

Nicolette was both startled and soothed to feel her hand in his, and him continuing to hold it, both gently and firmly. It was as though, for a moment, he was consoling
her
, and she felt comforted by his warmth.

“Mr. Waldron,” Nathaniel Siward said, bursting through the door.

“Oh . . . I'm sorry if I'm interrupting . . .” he said when he saw his boss with Nicolette de la Gravière.

Seeing Siward, Nicolette quickly pulled her hand from Waldron's tender grasp.

“No, it's . . . no interruption,” Waldron said, grasping for words as her hand slipped from his. “Miss de la Gravière was just expressing her sympathy for us in the current financial downturn. I was about to explain that these things happen . . . that we hope for a timely reversal of bad fortune.”

“I see . . .” Siward said nervously.

“What were you about to tell me?”

“The prisoners, sir,” he said. “The sheriff is going to Lamy to get them on the day after tomorrow.”

“That's good,” Waldron said, speaking as much to Nicolette as to his employee. “We won't be sorry to see them leave our custody . . . will we?”

“No, sir.”

“Will we have our men involved as we planned?” Waldron asked.

“Yes sir, I'll be riding along myself . . . and I've just hired another man.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Muriday, sir,” Siward explained. “He seems to be just the sort of man we're looking for.”

“That's good to know,” Waldron said, his voice relaxing somewhat.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me,” Nicolette said, stepping back. “It sounds as though you have much to discuss, and I must get back to prepare the Refugio del Viajero for opening.”

She had seen Joseph Ames coming up the street, and he made her nervous.

He reached the door before she did, and his immense bulk seemed to explode through it.

“Ezra, I assume you have read the news?”

“That I have, Joseph.”

“Our worst fears have been realized,” Ames insisted emphatically. “Your foolish decision, a decision which you will recall that I called foolish when I learned that you had made it, has destroyed us.”

“I would not characterize this as having
destroyed
us,” Waldron replied.

“Ezra, you did a
damned
fool thing by trumpeting to the press that we'd had so serious a theft . . . especially after we had
agreed
that it should be kept quiet,” Ames said. “Once again, as I have before, I see the young lady on the premises, and I do apologize to the young lady for the strong language . . . but, ma'am, if you insist on frequenting these offices where men speak freely . . .”

“I was just leaving,” she said, ducking through the door.

“I'll be going as well,” Siward said, following her out the door. “I need to get back to Lamy by nightfall.”

* * *

“THAT WAS RUDE, SIR,” WALDRON TOLD AMES WHEN THE
others had left.

“If you are going to be keeping company with her, you should not be doing so under the pretext that you are not a fool, sir,” Ames retorted.

“Stock prices go down, and stock prices go up,” Waldron said.

“
Correction
,” Ames shouted, thrusting the yellow paper of a telegram across Waldron's desk. “Stock prices go down, and stock prices
plummet
. This just arrived from New York. This will not appear in the
Santa Fe New Mexican
until tomorrow, so the young lady will be spared the embarrassment of being associated with you for that length of time.”

Waldron studied the telegram. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe share price had continued to fall, and the Denver & Rio Grande Western moneymen were reaping the fruits of a tide of shifting capital.

“It is not enough that we are falling like a stone,” Ames said in disgust, “but at the same time, our worst rival is
surging
. What, pray tell, were you saying about your damned fool decision having
not
destroyed us?”

* * *

NICOLETTE DE LA GRAVIÈRE GLANCED AT THE CLOCK.
There was less than a half hour until closing time, but it had already been a very long and exhausting day.

In the beginning of their acquaintance, Ezra Waldron had carried himself with an air of superiority about his being in the lofty heights of high finance, while her own Refugio del Viajero was minuscule by comparison. Now, having watched the fortunes of his mighty railroad tumble, she was thankful for the proceeds that she saw in the cashbox tonight.

Noticing someone enter the front door, she put on her hostess's smile and glanced in that direction.

“Mr. Waldron,” she said, startled to see him. “Please come in. Please, let me get you a table. Right this way. I hope you are feeling better . . .”

“I've not come to dine, Miss de la Gravière,” he said, returning her smile with one of his own. “I have come to offer you this rose, and to ask that you join me once again at the theater two nights from now . . . they're presenting
Macbeth
.”

“I would be most pleased to accompany you to the theater, Mr. Waldron,” Nicolette told him, although in light of the tumult of the day, which was likely to continue, she questioned whether so gloomy a play as
Macbeth
would do much for their respective moods.

However, she remembered his gentle touch, and the empathy which she felt toward him.

She bade him good night, and as he departed, she paused for a moment to admire and to contemplate the single, long-stemmed rose which he had presented to her.

As she turned, Nicolette noticed her mother across the room, watching her with a smile. Therese was pleased with what she was seeing.

As Nicolette put the rose aside and returned to her work, and to a table that was wishing to settle up its tab, she wondered whether she and Ezra Waldron might actually be meant for each other after all.

Chapter 31

BLADEN COLE HAD COME FULL CIRCLE. HE HAD RIDDEN
out of Santa Fe into the mountains and deserts in his search for the trail of the rat-faced man.

Now he was riding back
into
Santa Fe on a fresh trail of a man with a .45 and four dozen rounds who was hell-bent on “setting things right” with a bounty hunter he expected to be lingering in Santa Fe, spending reward money and living it up.

Cole chuckled when he pictured Muriday imagining himself as the hunter, gunning for Cole, not knowing that Cole had been hunting
him
for years. Cole
knew
that
he
was the hunter. He knew that at last, he was closing in on the final resolution of his most persistent nightmare. The rat-faced man was within his grasp, and this time he would
not
get away—because this time,
he
was looking for Bladen Cole.

As he had ridden that full circle that now brought him back to Santa Fe, Cole had tried to picture where Muriday would look for the man who'd cheated him out of the reward money he felt was his due.

Reaching Santa Fe as the sun stood high in the sky, Cole's first stop was the Chinese laundry. The proprietor nodded his recognition as Cole entered. The man remembered him.

“Saw your man,” he said. “Ugly with no chin.”

“That's good news,” Cole said, reaching into his pocket. “When was he here?”

“This morning,” the man said as he heard coins clinking in Cole's pocket.

“How long ago?” Cole asked, placing two gold eagles on the well-worn counter.

“Three hour,” the man said, looking at his clock. “He left here and went to saloon . . . there.”

“Thank you much,” Cole said, gently and almost formally placing another coin on the table.

* * *

BACK OUTSIDE, HE CAST HIS GAZE DOWN THE STREET,
where he could see the Refugio del Viajero. The sign on the front door read
CERRADO
. They would not be open for several hours. He wondered where he would be then, and how long it would be before he glimpsed those dark eyes and those lips the color of chilies.

As he stepped across the street, Cole instinctively fingered his holster. Muriday might still be at the bar. If so, the showdown he had imagined in his mind for a decade could come within a matter of moments.

After seeing that his quarry was not inside, the second thing that captured Cole's gaze upon entering the saloon was the eerie line of kachina dolls presiding over the room from above the mirror behind the bar.

“How can I brighten your day, sir?” the man behind the bar called out in an usually cheerful tone.

“You're in a good mood,” Cole observed, returning the man's grin.

“No reason not to be. 'Tis a sunny day and I'm going to spend it under a cool adobe roof.”

“Well, in that case, I'll stay for a while and let you brighten my day with a cold beer.”

“Good choice,” the man said, maneuvering a glass mug beneath a spigot.

“Good beer,” Cole said and nodded after he'd taken a long, satisfying drink.

“Brewed right over yonder by Probst and Kirchner's,” the man said. “Reckon they make the best beer in town.”

“You got quite a collection there,” Cole said, pointing at the figurines.

“Yep. They serve as a wonderful conversation piece . . . or pieces . . . I reckon that not one person in five who comes in here fails to make mention.”

“Never seen so many in one place before,” Cole said as he savored the frothy refreshment.

“Feller got 'em out at one of them pueblos . . . or maybe at a couple of pueblos. They say they got magic in 'em.”

“Do they?”

“I never seen no magic out of 'em 'cept they get folks a-talkin' . . . and stayin' to buy another drink.”

“Speaking of fellers,” Cole said, putting his half-full glass back on the bar as a signal that he would not be having a refill. “I'm tryin' to catch up with a friend o' mine. I think he might have come in here this morning.”

“Been several fellers . . .”

“This one would've been . . . well . . . kinda ugly.”

“Beady eyes?”

“Yep.”

“No chin?”

“That'd be old Ben Muriday,” Cole said with a smile.

“It seemed kinda funny him callin' my kachinas ugly,” the bartender recalled. “With him being . . . like he is and all . . . not that I reckon he can help it.”

“How long ago did that old rascal head on out of here?” Cole asked.

“Couple hours, I reckon. He only stayed for one drink when I told him about the posse.”

“What posse?”

“You've heard about them two train robbers that everybody's been talking about?”

“Hard not to,” Cole said, pointing to a couple of copies of the
Santa Fe New Mexican
that were laying at the other end of the bar.

“Well, the railroad's got 'em caged down at Lamy, and the sheriff is gettin' together a posse to go down there tomorrow to bring 'em on back up here to Santa Fe to stand trial.”

“So Muriday's gonna try and get himself into that posse?” Cole asked.

“Soon as I told him about the sheriff lookin' for folks, he got all excited and said he was gonna do that. You know, you might want to get your own self over there and try an' get hired on. Least you'll catch up with your friend that way.”

“Much obliged,” Cole said, draining the half-filled glass and heading for the door.

“What can I help you with?” asked the deputy as Cole stepped into the sheriff's office.

“I'm asking about the posse that's being put together . . .”

“Being put together to escort those two train robbers up from Lamy, right?”

“Yup,” Cole confirmed.

“There was just a fella in here an hour or so ago askin' about that,” the deputy explained. “Sheriff told him he's got everybody he needs. Sorry . . . you're outta luck.”

“Thanks anyhow.”

“One thing I can tell you though,” the deputy added. “That being that I seen that fella talkin' to Nathaniel Siward of the railroad. I've heard that the railroad might be gonna have their own posse ridin' along too. You might try gettin' on with them. Between you and me, the railroad is gonna be payin' more than the sheriff would.”

“Much obliged,” Cole said.

* * *

BEN MURIDAY ARRIVED AT THE BIG ATCHISON, TOPEKA &
Santa Fe construction headquarters at Lamy, finding it a chaotic hive of commotion the likes of which he had never seen. For a man used to riding in country lightly populated, if populated at all, to suddenly be surrounded by hundreds of scurrying workmen and massive thundering machinery was both fascinating and unnerving.

He asked around for Nathaniel Siward and was directed to a large tent about a quarter mile away along a section of track.

“Reportin' for duty,” he said when he finally made eye contact with Siward.

“Good,” Siward said. “You're just in time for supper.”

“That's what I was hopin',” Muriday replied.

“Listen, I gotta go take care of something. Lennox here will take you down to the chow line and tell 'em that you work for the road, and you're not just another . . . er . . . fellow walking in out of the desert.”

Siward had considered using the phrase “not just another strange face” to describe Muriday, but looking at the man's unsightly, rodentine appearance, he decided that politeness demanded that he phrase it differently.

“When did you hire on?” Lennox asked.

“Just yesterday,” Muriday replied. “Done got myself on the posse that's gonna be taking them two bandits up to Santa Fe.”

“Ain't that the talk of the camp,” Lennox said. “Nobody never knew there had been a robbery, and here comes this bounty hunter with the banditos . . . and bags of gold too.”

“Sure woulda figured that folks would have knowed about a robbery of that size.”

“Guess the bosses kept it quiet,” Lennox said with a shrug. “Reckon they was wishin' they could
still
keep it quiet.”

“What do you mean?”

“There's talk all over that there's a big ruckus back East about the road gettin' hit with a big old robbery.”

“What kind of ruckus?”

“Don't rightly know,” Lennox admitted. “All I care is that I keeps a-mannin' a boiler wrench, and they keeps a-payin' me.”

“Speakin' of them robbers,” Muriday asked. “Where they keepin' them at?”

“Down at the cages.”

“What's the cages?”

“That's where you get sent to cool your heels if you get caught fightin' or raisin' hell.”

“Can you show me?”

“Sure,” Lennox said. “We can wander on down there after chow.”

* * *

MOUNTED ON A FLAT CAR, THE CAGES HAD BEEN SHUNTED
to a siding far from the main camp, where they were under guard by a man with a rifle.

“What you doin' down here, Lennox?” The man queried as the two men came close and their faces became visible in the light of the lantern. “Ain't nobody supposed to be comin' round the prisoners.”

“The more the merrier,” came a shout from within one of the cages. “This sonuvabitch ain't keeping us company.”

Muriday recognized the nasal voice of Jasper Gardner.

“Shut up,” demanded the man with the rifle.

“Whatcha gonna do? You gonna shoot me?”

“Awful arrogant for a condemned man,” Lennox said.

“Ain't condemned yet,” Gardner asserted. “Ain't never gonna be once I get time alone with that boss of yours up in Santa Fe.”

“What's he mean by that?” Lennox asked the man with the Winchester.

“Hell if I know. He just keeps on a-sayin' that he plans to talk to the bosses. Maybe he figures on killin' a boss or two. Maybe he figures on bein' pardoned . . . fat chance of any of that happening.”

Muriday tried to keep his face in the shadows so that he could size up Gardner and Stanton without being recognized. The contraptions in which the two men were being held were literally cages, like those in which an animal would be kept in a zoo.

“Hey, Muriday? Is that you?”

Damn it
. He realized that he had been made. Perhaps it was just as well. He would have had to cross this bridge tomorrow with Siward watching.

“Looks like you've got yourself caught, Stanton.”

“You
know
these men?” Lennox asked.

“Reckon I do.”

“They friends of yours?”

“Sure would not use
that
word,” Muriday said.

“We're
great
friends,” Gardner said teasingly. “Know him all his life . . . since this ugly toad of a sonuvabitch was a tadpole.”

“Looks like you ain't gonna be knowin' much of anybody from now on 'cept a judge and hangman,” Muriday shot back.

“How is it that you know these two?” Lennox asked.

“'Twas back . . .”

“This sonuvabitch was tryin' to take us in before that other bounty hunter ambushed him and chased him off,” Gardner explained.

“That true?” Lennox asked.

“You think anything this weasel says is
true
?” Muriday laughed.

* * *

BEN MURIDAY WAS RELISHING THE RARITY OF A HOT
breakfast when the sun first peeked over the horizon.

“Hey, Muriday,” Nathaniel Siward called from across the area where about two dozen men were putting away their first meal of the day. “Time to saddle up.”

“Already saddled,” Muriday replied, turning to Siward, proud to be ahead of the game. “Are the sheriff's men down from Santa Fe already?”

“We're gonna meet 'em on the trail,” Siward said. “Say, Lennox tells me that you
know
these two prisoners.”

“Me and my partner ran across 'em a while back,” Muriday confirmed. “New Mexico's a small place. When you got as few people as we got here, it makes sense that you're gonna cross paths with somebody more than once in your life.”

“I reckon,” Siward said, nodding at what seemed to be a reasonable explanation.

As they mounted up and headed in the direction of the cages, Siward resumed the conversation.

“You sure they ain't
friends
of yours?”

“I can guaran-damn-
tee
you that they ain't friends of mine.”

“Reason I ask is this,” Siward said in a serious, confiding tone. “I ask because I want to be sure that if need be, you wouldn't mind shooting these men?”

“You mean if they try to escape?” Muriday asked.

“Yeah,
anything
like that. Sometimes a man hesitates to shoot to kill somebody he knows.”

“You reckon on having to
kill
these two?”