The Passionate and the Proud (18 page)

Tell grinned.

Randy and Emmalee looked at each other, startled and bewildered. It was quite likely that he could meet these requirements, but if she had to devote most of her time to Torquist…

“I never heard of anything like that in the Homestead Act,” Emmalee protested.

“This is a land rush,” Tell drawled. “Strict provisions of the Homestead Act don’t apply. Under the act, you’d have to pay a buck an acre for the land. Here you’re getting it free. Territory of Olympia requires tilling and domicile to prevent shiftless exploiters from claiming land merely for speculation, get my drift?”

Emmalee understood, although she failed to see how it would not be speculation to buy up land from the unfortunates who were unable to meet the requirements. But she’d won her point, to Tell’s displeasure. She would be able to claim her own plot…if she got to a chunk of good land before some other pioneer did.

A canny gleam flickered in Tell’s eyes. He lowered his voice and spoke quickly. “This is just between you and me, but I can arrange for you to have, shall we say, an
advantageous
position when the land rush starts…”

He rubbed thumb and index Finger back and forth, back and forth, the ancient money-counting gesture.

“We don’t have any money,” Randy blurted.

“How can you arrange something like that?” demanded Emmalee.

Tell, conscious that he’d made the wrong suggestion to the wrong people, retreated with an air of assumed levity.

“Hey!” he said. “Just a little joke. You two must have been out on the trail too long, can’t appreciate a little joke.”

“I guess not,” said Emmalee. She was doubly angry now, and impotent to do anything about it. The land rush was being stacked not only in favor of Pennington’s ranchers, who’d gotten to Olympia first, but also for the benefit of those who could—and would—offer Tell a bribe.

Emmalee and Randy, their registration concluded, turned away from Tell. Lambert Strep was behind them in line, looking more jittery than usual. Emmalee understood why when she heard him declare to Vestor Tell that he was “Barnstable, Theodore, of Kalamazoo, Michigan.” That was the young man who’d died beneath his horse. Horace Torquist was proceeding with his plan, which Emmalee was certain would bring nothing but trouble upon them all.

“Well, as long as we’re in here,” suggested Randy, taking Emmalee’s arm, “let’s have a look around. If they don’t sell sarsparilla, I wouldn’t mind a beer.”

“Oh, let’s come back later,” said Emmalee, trying to guide him toward the door before he saw Garn.

Her tactic might have worked had it not been for Ebenezer Creel, chock full of beer and good humor. “Em! Randy!” he cried happily. “Come on over and guzzle a snootful of brew! We got to celebrate our getting here and my getting rich!”

There was no way to avoid the situation. Randy, turning with pleasure toward the table at which Ebenezer sat, recognized Garn Landar immediately. He took a few fast steps toward Garn, almost as if preparing to assault him, but allowed himself to be restrained by Emmalee’s hand and his own good manners. There were ladies present, Myrtle and the one with orange hair. Fighting with only one good arm was also ill-advised. Nevertheless, it was a very tense gathering at the table. Even Ebenezer perceived the extent of his faux pas. Only the orange-haired woman was immune to the stress of the moment. She had no idea what was going on.

“Have a seat,” she invited cheerfully. “Let’s get you both a mug of beer. Just engaged, are you? I couldn’t help but overhear. Well, I do declare. That calls for a celebration…

“Doesn’t that just call for a celebration?” she asked, doubtfully now, her eyes reading the wary, grim faces around her as she tried to figure out what had so suddenly gone wrong.

But she forced a smile and plunged on. “Do sit down,” she said again to Emmalee and Randy. “I’m Hester Brine. Pleased ta meet cha. I run things here at the store.

“You’re just gonna love it here in Olympia,” she said, making one last try.

“What the hell is going on here?” she demanded bleakly. Then she fell silent.

There was a long, long pause.

“Well, here we are,” said Myrtle Higgins.

Garn Landar stood up. Emmalee had been trying not to look at him, but it was impossible to avoid it. His eyes met and held hers, and in his gaze was a depth of seriousness, a searching intensity that she had not seen before. He was Garn but he was, somehow,
different.
Then she understood. Gone was the lighthearted cavalier swagger, replaced by a detachment that was cordial enough but oddly wrong, as out of place on him as a derby hat would have been. This was the man who had said to her: “
I am the kind…who will ask but once for what he truly loves
.” This was the man who had stripped her to glorious nakedness and opened her for loving upon sweet mountain grass, by which love he would have owned and conquered her. This was also the man who had conquered Randy by shattering his arm and who had bargained, shrewd and cool and grinning, with a murderous Arapaho chieftain.

But, looking at Garn now, Emmalee found it hard to believe that he was the same man who had said and done those things. His reckless spirit, which she had always criticized, was nowhere in evidence. She was aware that she missed it and simultaneously puzzled that she should. His ironic, high-spirited enjoyment of the absurd was likewise gone. Just a few months ago, in Cairo or in St. Joe, he would have loved this situation, this triangle: himself, and a woman he had wanted, and his rival for her affections, all standing in a public place with an audience looking on.

Now, however, he seemed neither to be enjoying the situation nor, particularly, regretting it. It was as if there were a blank place in his being, a portion of his energy deliberately shrouded from view.

Emmalee’s heart was hammering away, although she did not quite know why. Everyone else was extraordinarily calm.

“Congratulations on your engagement, Miss Alden,” Garn said in a resonant, sincere voice, absolutely without mockery.

Emmalee remembered the taste of his kiss.

“I hope you’ll be very happy.”

She felt his lips on her breasts, felt his kiss trailing down over her taut and quivering flesh…

“At the risk of bringing up a subject best laid to rest…”

Emmalee felt his body poised above her, her own body hungry for the surging power and length of him.

“…let me say that I regret what happened in Denver.”

“You
regret
it?” snapped Randy Clay. “You’re saying that you
regret
it? If that isn’t a batch of hogwash, I don’t know what is.”

Emmalee said nothing, uneasily aware that her body was betraying her again.

“Clay,” Garn was saying, in a tone that was businesslike without being unsympathetic, “I know you’re at a bit of a disadvantage temporarily, what with that arm. I’ll gladly pay whatever you judge to be a proper reparation.”

“I don’t want your money, Landar. I don’t want anything from you.”

Everyone in the store was watching and listening now.

“Stop it, both of you,” said Emmalee.

“You tell ’em, honey.” Hester Brine stood up at the table. “I don’t give two hoots and a holler what happened to you in Denver or wherever. This here’s my place and you better act your age in it. Now, sit down like civilized folks and have a beer.

“That’s an order,” she added.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” said Myrtle Higgins. “We
all
gotta live here.”

Hester brought mugs of beer over from the barrel and business in the store recommenced. Tell went back to registering land claimants; Emmalee sat down next to Randy, vowing to chat pleasantly for a few civilized minutes; Cynthia, Priscilla, and Darlene Bent launched a hissing squabble over a bolt of cloth, an argument resolved when Festus, their pa, threatened to buy a razor strop and use it on their rumps.

“Reckon even an old sharecropper like Fes Bent has him a good idea on occasion,” Ebenezer commented, trying to lighten the mood at the table.

“Are you going to try and claim land, Ebenezer?” asked Emmalee, to keep the conversation going.

To her surprise, the old man exchanged wary glances with Hester, Myrtle, and Garn. Emmalee recalled how the four had been leaning together conspiratorially when she’d entered the store.

“Well not in a manner of speaking, not exactly…” he fumbled.

Emmalee was amazed. Ebenezer Creel was hardly the type to falter over words. Some promised land Olympia was turning out to be! Horace Torquist was already embarked on a dubious ploy, the purpose of which was unclear, and these four people—including Myrtle, who was no-nonsense honest and hard as nails—were privy to another scheme, most likely Garn’s. In spite of his newly bland manner, Emmalee decided, he must have retained a streak of his old tendency to look for sharp angles to play.

“You know,” Hester said to Randy, “I got farm utensils here you might want to buy. I can extend credit too.”

Emmalee studied the woman. She seemed to be about fifty. Her hair was tinted and her teeth were false, but she had a good, strong figure and a bold gaze. Her eyes showed a lot of experience and more than a hint of wisdom.

“Well, thanks,” Randy replied. “I brought a few tools with me. First thing I’m going to have to do is find chickens and cows to buy, and seed for corn and oats.”

“Seed I can order for you from Sacramento. Best place for livestock is Salt Lake. Burt Pennington’s already sent men down there to buy longhorns and bring ’em back north.”

Randy’s expression darkened at the challenges: money, credit, stock, equipment, seed. He hadn’t even staked his claim yet.

“How much,” asked Emmalee, “for a milking cow?”

“Goin’ rate was six bucks as of last week,” Hester informed her.

Randy gulped. Emmalee tried to seem cheerful.

“Like I said, I do give credit on purchases. And I loan money.”

“Against what security?” asked Emmalee.

“Have to be your land, I reckon. Unless you got something else.”

“Is that your loan sign outside the store?”

“Naw. That belongs to Vestor Tell. He’s fixin’ to do real banking. Big sums. I don’t have that much. But,” she added, squinting up her eyes, “some folks like to know that all the cards are on the table.”

“Are you saying…?” Randy began.

“Anything against Vestor? Son, I don’t say nothing against nobody. Just keep your eyes open, is what I advise. And remember that old Hester might be able to work out something to our mutual advantage in case the necessity arises.”

“I’ll do that,” Randy said. He finished his beer and stood up. “Emmalee?”

She took a final swallow, rose, and left with him. She did not look at Garn. The tension of seeing him again dissipated slowly, and she knew that his presence in Olympia portended future meetings and—because of Randy—future conflicts. Why did Garn have to be there, anyway? Once more, just when she’d thought he was gone for good, there he was again. During the trek through the mountains, she’d almost convinced herself that this time she’d seen the last of him. Well, she would turn her hopes and energies toward a new life.

“Six dollars a cow!” Randy mourned. “I can’t even afford one spavined heifer!”

“Don’t worry. We’ll make it somehow.”

He put his good arm around her and kissed her on the cheek; “That’s what I love about you,” he said. “We’ll make it. I hate to borrow money though.”

“We’ll think of something.” Emmalee had never regretted quite so keenly the bargain she’d been forced to strike with Torquist. “I know! If Pennington is already bringing in longhorn cattle, maybe he’ll need extra land on which to graze them. We could rent him part of our farms for pasture…”

Randy was astounded. “Why, Em! How can you
say
that? In the first place, we don’t even have any land yet. In the second, we’re here to farm. Torquist would never permit it.”

“But we need money and Pennington might pay.”

“It’s out of the question. A pipe dream.”

Emmalee was a little irritated. She hadn’t thought her idea was that bad, and she’d never quite understood Torquist’s detestation of the ranchers. Land was land, after all. To be used as the men and women on it saw fit.

“Might as well sit around dreaming about getting rich like Ebenezer Creel,” Randy scoffed. “I do wonder, though, what he and Landar are up to. Mark my words, they’ll get into trouble. And when they do…”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“You’re right. Let’s not. I’m going to mount up and ride out into the countryside. Do a little scouting around so when the rush begins I’ll know exactly what to claim. I’ll find some good acres for you too. I only hope the land’s not too hilly.”

The long line of Torquist’s pioneers, waiting to register with Vestor Tell, snaked once around the general store and wavered off down toward the river, where children frolicked and some of the women had begun to do laundry. Emmalee was surprised to see Lambert Strep in the line again, since he’d already registered as Theodore Barnstable. Strep was hatless now, he’d shaved and changed clothes. He looked like a different person.

Emmalee drew him off to the side. “Lambert, excuse my prying, but didn’t you register already?”

Strep had a sheepish, hangdog look. “Yup,” he muttered.

“Then why are you standing in line again?”

“I’m not the only one,” he replied defensively. “Jasper an’ Virgil an’ the others is doin’ it too.”

“How come?”

“Mr. Torquist said t’ keep it under my hat. Even though it’s perfectly all right an’ we deserve it.”

“Deserve what?”

“The extra plots of land that would have gone to the guys who died. Mr. Torquist says that they paid for that land with their lives, so some of us are gonna claim two spreads, if we can…”

“…and register it in their names?”

Strep nodded in dull embarrassment.

“But, Lambert, you’re signing falsely. You’re bound to be discovered sooner or later. Your
own
claim might be disqualified.”

Strep swallowed hard. “Mr. Torquist will take care of it. I trust Mr. Torquist. Don’t
you
?” he demanded, taking a feeble offensive. “You wouldn’t even be
here
if it weren’t for Horace Torquist.”