THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER (26 page)

Naked, she turned to the pier glass between the windows and examined herself.
Her breasts were... full-blown was the only word for them. Her belly was round, although
not so large as it would be. As she watched, the shape of it changed, and she felt the
unmistakable movement of her child.

"Oh, baby, what have I done to you?" she whispered, laying her hands on the
small mound. A soft ripple answered her, as if the child understood her confusion. "I'll do
my best," she vowed. "I'll be a good mother, I promise."

And she would, for all her reluctance to be a mother had dissolved the first time
she had felt the life within her body, the life she was responsible for.

It was being a good wife she wasn't sure about. It was a role she had never planned
for, a role she didn't want to play. How could she lay aside the life she had chosen to be a
simple housewife in a small town in Idaho?

A gentle rapping on the door made her realize she had been standing naked before
the mirror for several minutes, long enough to chill. "Just a moment," she called. She
shivered as she walked to the bed where the nightgown of every romantic maiden's dreams
lay.

The delicate lawn fabric was all but transparent. Airy lace frothed around the
deeply cut neckline and along the hem, matching the insertions in the Empire bodice.
When she picked it up, she might have been lifting a fragment of cloud. Where on earth
had Katie found it, on such short notice?

Carefully she slipped it on and turned again to the mirror. "Good grief!" A few
moments ago, standing here naked, she had merely been an unclothed, pregnant woman.
Now she was a voluptuous wanton, a seductress. Heat blossomed in her cheeks, and before
she could reach the bed, she felt as if she was blushing all over. Scrambling under the
covers, she pulled them all the way to her neck. "Come in," she called, her voice breaking
between the words.

Tony stepped inside, set his candle on the table beside the door. He went to the
screen in the corner without looking at her. The sounds of his undressing only exacerbated
the churning in her belly, until she wondered if she might not be sick before he came to
bed.

When he did emerge, he was wearing a nightshirt that strained across his wide
shoulders and barely covered his knees. As she watched him approach from under lowered
eyelids, she had the insane urge to giggle. While she looked like a refugee from a bordello,
he looked ridiculous. "What do you usually wear to bed?" she asked, before she could stop
the words.

"Nothing," he said, as he flipped back the covers and sat on the edge of the
mattress, "and I'll be damned if I'm wearing this any longer." He stripped the nightshirt off
and tossed it across the room.

Lulu felt the bed sag as he lay down beside her and resisted sliding toward him.
When his arm brushed hers, she twitched away from him, then forced herself to relax.

She tried to relax, anyhow. Fully aware of the weight of him beside her, of the
scent of him--a mixture of spice and woodsmoke--and the sound of his breathing, she lay
stiff and still.

When he turned to her, she stiffened. He rose up onto his elbow and looked down
at her. "Would you like me to put out the candles?"

"It doesn't matter," she said. His face, looming over hers, was the face of a
stranger, not the boy she'd known two-thirds of her life. Its planes and angles were
masculine, strong, not the round, childish shape of the small Chinese boy's who'd come to
Cherry Vale, so afraid and unsure. She searched his features, tried to look past his eyes into
his mind, into his soul.

All she saw was her husband. The man she was tied to for the rest of her life.

He came close, until their lips touched. His mouth was hot on hers, his tongue
invasive, tasting of brandy.

She tried. She really did.

After a while he pulled back. "What is it? What's wrong, Lulu?"

"I can't," she whispered. "I can't do this." Rolling away from him, she huddled into
a small ball at the very edge of the bed. "Please--"

She heard his sigh, and his slow retreat. Bedding rustled. "Good night," he said,
eventually.

Lulu couldn't find her voice to reply.
What have I done? Oh, God, what have I
done?

* * * *

Tony was sure grateful to Luke for warning him about the notional behavior some
women exhibited when they were in the family way. Otherwise he'd be torturing himself
over something he couldn't change. He forced himself to pretend everything was just fine
between them, not an easy chore when they were lying side by side in the narrow,
uncomfortable bed that was the best Shoshone had to offer.

He didn't even kiss her goodnight. He was afraid to. She hadn't rejected him,
hadn't repulsed him, and he was determined he wouldn't give her the chance to do it. As
long as she was willing to be with him, to share his bed, he could hope they would
eventually work through whatever crazy idea was stuck in her head.

At least he'd bought himself a decent bed when he'd moved into his house. Years
of sleeping on the ground, often without benefit of any bedding at all, had made him
appreciate nighttime comfort more than most. They wouldn't be crammed together in the
middle of a sagging mattress at home.

He slept, but poorly, and not at all after a freight went through town shortly before
dawn. Rising, he dressed and wrote a note to Lulu, who was completely submerged under
the covers. A quick rub along his jaw, and he decided he could leave shaving until they got
home. One of the few advantages of his racial heritage was a thin, slow-growing
beard.

There was a coffee pot on the stove in the lobby and a stack of newspapers on a
table. He poured himself a cup and sat down, picking up a paper as he did so. The
Denver Post
. Amidst the usual headlines of graft and corruption in government,
the word
Chinamen
caught his eyes. He read the article, growing sicker with each
word. In Alaska more than a hundred Chinese cannery workers had been packed on to a
boat which was towed offshore and set adrift. There was no word of their fate.

Tony crumpled the paper in his fist, then carefully smoothed it out and laid it aside.
The next one in the stack was the
Wood River Times
. He reached for it, then
pulled his hand back. The last thing he wanted was to read more about Hailey's
Anti-Chinese League. He dug in the stack until he came upon a dog-eared copy of
The
Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine
.

He skimmed the table of contents, then flung it aside.
Great God, can't I get away
from it?
A moment later, he picked it up and turned to the article titled "The Chinese
in Early Days," curious to see if the author had anything right at all.

At first the article was reasonable. The author pointed out that early Chinese
immigrants to America were more often than not merchants, and were welcomed. Few
went to the gold camps, and if they did, it was as traders rather than miners. He wondered
if that was the truth, for he knew little about the subject.

He read on. There was no doubt the author of the article was not a lover of the
Chinese, but he seemed to be trying to be fair. At least that was Tony's opinion until he
read:
They absorbed and at times usurped every occupation in which they could work
their way, or press their advantage through cheaper wages and lower rates.
Having
been one of the coolies the author spoke so disparagingly of, Tony snorted. He and
Soomey had worked for cheap wages because they couldn't find work that paid more. So
had all the other Chinese he'd known.

Once again he started to toss the magazine aside, then changed his mind. But
before he could open it again, Lulu came through the door from the hall.

"Good morning," he said, as he tucked the magazine into his jacket pocket.
"Ready for breakfast?" Last night she'd eaten none of the chili that had been the only
offering of the café; next door. He was certain a slice of bread and butter was not
sufficient supper for a mother-to-be, particularly since dinner had been a box lunch on the
train.

"Absolutely. I'm famished." She tucked her hand loosely inside his elbow.

He wanted to pull her close, but was afraid she'd repulse him. Then he was
disgusted with himself for putting up with her coolness.

They finally arrived in Hailey in the middle of the afternoon, their train having
followed slowly behind the snowplow all the way from Picabo. Lulu looked wilted, with
lavender circles under her eyes. She moved slowly, too, as if she'd aged years in two
days.

Two sleighs and one freight wagon met the train, but no carriages for hire. The
sleighs had come to meet passengers, and went back to town full. Tony talked the freight
driver into giving him a lift to town, and ended up helping him load so they could get away
sooner. Lulu made no objection when he promised to be back for her as soon as he could
hire a buggy. She curled up on one of the benches and was asleep almost immediately.

He was worried about her. Where was the boundless energy she had always had?
Ever since she'd told him about the baby, she'd been subdued. Almost as if she had given
up her dreams.

The Lulu he used to know would have challenged him to a footrace to town.

While it is desirable that the country be freed from the presence of the Chinese as
quickly as it can be done by legal and proper means, no form of intimidation or violence
toward them must be permitted, and they must be protected in their persons and rights of
property wherever they may choose to reside. To do less is not only dishonorable, but it is
to lay up an account against ourselves which will be hard to meet when the day of
reckoning shall come...

Wood River Times

~~~

Lulu woke in the depot and for a moment wondered how she'd gotten there. After
a few moments' confusion, she remembered. She checked her watch and saw she'd only
slept about half an hour. Not enough time for Tony to have gone to the livery stable and
rented a rig.

She yawned, and wondered where her energy had gone. This awful lethargy
simply wasn't like her, for all her life she'd had trouble sitting still and doing nothing.
Some of her best thinking had been done while she was knitting, walking, or cleaning.

Yet now she couldn't move. The room was beyond chilly, with the only heat
coming from a small, round stove in one corner, well removed from the uncomfortable
benches. She shivered, but didn't seem to have the strength to move closer to it.

Out of habit, she reached into her reticule for her journal, but when she'd opened
it, her mind went blank. What could she write? That she was now a married woman? Idly
she paged back through it, reading a line here, a few words there. Surprised at how few
entries there were, she thought back over the past few months. When had she stopped
writing daily? After she and Tony had made love, when her emotions and her thoughts had
been in such a turmoil? Or before that?

Here was an entry marking her return to Hailey in September. And another, about
the Grand Ball in Ketchum, on September tenth. Then nothing until one dated in late
October--
Today I walked in the hills. I found a high place that reminded me of the
Aerie and realized I'd never gone back there after Tao Ni went away. Why did I miss him
so, as if a part of me had been lost? And why do I miss him now? The man I know is not
the boy I loved. Has he changed so much? Or have I?

I cannot regret what we did, yet I wish the circumstances had been different. We
were both lonely, distraught. How will I ever know whether we were seeking solace from
one another, or if what happened was because we still love
...
No, that's
impossible. Not after all this time.

We simply gave into lust, a perfectly normal reaction to the
circumstances.

After that, the only entries dealt with her work, as if she had no other life.

Her fingers tightened around the pencil. For a moment she wanted to dig its point
into the pages of the journal and tear them into shreds, to destroy all traces of the mess
she'd made of her life. Instead, she forced herself to calmly and carefully write an account
of everything that had happened since the night in September that had changed the shape
of her future.

She had just closed the journal when Tony returned.

He wouldn't let her help him load their luggage into the buggy, and insisted on
handing her to the seat. Lulu found she needed the help. Her balance had changed along
with her shape.

"Do you want to stop by your apartment?" he asked, as he was turning the buggy,
"or wait until tomorrow?"

"Have you food at the house? Anything I can put together for supper?"

"Staples. Anything fresh would have frozen. Why don't we stop at the Nevada
Chop House tonight?"

"I'm a mess," she said, crossly, realizing he had no idea of the scandal their
marriage could cause. "Let's just stop at the Eagle Market and pick up some potatoes and
eggs--no, it's Sunday. They're closed. Never mind. Surely you have enough supplies for me
to put together something." Cooking was the last thing she wanted to do, as tired as she
was, but anything was better than walking into a restaurant with him.

"There ought to be a flitch of bacon and some flour, but I don't know about
anything else. Sure you don't want to go to a restaurant?"

"I'm sure. Let's go home." How strange that sounded. She'd never even seen his
house, so how could she call it home?

By the time they reached the house, it was past five and the sun had sunk behind
the hills to the west. The owner's residence until Abner Eagleton had bought the ranch, the
small cottage had sat empty for more than a year before Tony had moved in. It needed
paint, but otherwise looked to be in good enough condition. Tony drew the horses up as
close to the back porch as he could. "I'll have to take them back to town in a while," he told
Lulu. "Someone's hired them tomorrow." He took her arm. "Careful. This walk's
slick."