The Passionate and the Proud (25 page)

“Vestor Tell has got some deal to take care of it,” he whispered. “Got it all worked out with Burt.”

“Some kind of deal? What is it?”

Otis paused for a moment and Emmalee feared that he wasn’t going to tell her anything further.

“I don’t know everything,” he said then, “but it has something to do with people Tell knows back east. Yep. He’s got access to big money back there. I understand from what he told Burt that he’s sort of been a black sheep in his family. They sent him out here to make a success of himself.”

“As a claims agent?”

“No, he got that job through politics. His uncle or his cousin was or maybe still is senator from Pennsylvania. No, the claims agent thing is just temporary. He’s really set on banking and property.”

Emmalee knew that Tell was prepared to lend money. But land?

“I don’t think he even bothered to make a claim,” she blurted, then realized that Otis was on the verge of telling her what she wanted to know.

“It’s not his land now,” the foreman drawled. “It’s your land now. The areas you farmers claimed.
That’s
what he’s fixin’ to get his hands on.”

“How?” asked Emmalee, more forcefully than she had intended. “And what has that got to do with your boss?”

Otis laughed lightly. “You sure are a lady that loves to chatter away, ain’t you?”

“Well, you know all these
interesting
things,” she replied. “I was just wondering how everything works.”

“Sure you was. Sure you was.”

Suddenly Otis stiffened and looked around. “Somebody’s coming, damnit,” he whispered harshly.

Emmalee heard the soft, scraping sounds of a horse’s hoofs in the sand along the river.

“I’d better hide,” she said, getting up and looking around. There was a stand of trees fifty yards away and tall grass not far from the river. She decided to head for the tall grass, feeling disgusted with herself for getting into this mess. Otis had only given her the sketchiest kind of information. It meant very little, at this point. She would have to learn a lot more on her own before she knew what Vestor Tell was really planning. And now she might be seen in Otis’s company by someone from Arcady, who wouldn’t wait to blab it all around…

She ducked down and started toward the high grass.

But Otis grabbed her ankle.

“Hey!” he said. “You ain’t got nothin’ to fear. Oats Chandler protects his women. That’s my first rule. Just rest easy here. Whoever it is is gonna go right on by an’ not pay us no never-mind.”

A moment later Garn Landar rode by, heading upriver. The black stallion was moving slowly under the weight of saddlebags and supplies. Garn passed them, riding gracefully, easily.

“Evening, Emmalee,” he said, touching his hatbrim lightly. “Otis, good to see you. Nice night, isn’t it?”

“Real nice,” said Otis.

Garn rode on.

“Well, if he ever tells he saw us,” Otis said, “we can say we’re only friends.”

He did not sound especially happy with that fact.

In the fall of that year, Emmalee lived in a one-room lean-to that had been tacked onto the side of Horace Torquist’s raw, new house. The lean-to, as well as the house to which it was attached, was constructed of pine planks ripped by Willard Buttlesworth from spruce and ponderosa in the Sacajawea range. First the great trees were felled, then their trunks divided into sections, finally wedges were driven into the trunks and mauled with sledgehammers until long sheets of wood planking were ripped from the slaughtered trees, which screamed like living things in the process. Buttlesworth was good; the planks he produced were thick and sleek. But the work went slowly. He had been used to a circular, steel-toothed saw in his former home on a fast-moving Wisconsin river, where falls and dams harnessed the power of water. Here in Olympia, however, the Big Two-Hearted flowed freely across the plain, making it good only for irrigation and drinking.

Houses and barns rose slowly in spite of frantic work in that fall of 1868. Everyone in Olympia was obsessed with the coming of winter. According to those who either knew or pretended to know about such things, the warm Pacific winds might hold off harsh weather until late December, or even January. But inevitably—it was said—the infamous blue northers would come howling down out of Canada, across the Rockies, mingling with the Pacific air to drop tides of snow in man-high drifts upon the land. Those without shelter were certain to suffer bitterly. Thus trees kept falling, to be cut into planks, hauled down from the mountains by ten or twelve-horse teams, and turned into small, square houses, barns, sheds, and corrals.

Slowly, very slowly, with the air growing colder each day, Arcady and the surrounding area began to look like a community. There were a dozen new houses in the village now, and a pine-smelling chapel too. Hester Brine was building a six-room hotel next to her store. A school house was planned, the frame of which had already been erected near the river. Every day the ranchers drove cattle from California, which were stronger than the Salt Lake stock, into the new corrals, and farmers came back from Salt Lake with milking cows, chickens, hogs. All of this furious activity prevented internecine squabbling between the two groups, and even the landless men were kept out of trouble while working for one group or the other. On some days Emmalee chopped firewood from morning till night, breaking off only to prepare Torquist’s meals. Up in the mountains, Festus Bent reported seeing a bear “with a pelt on him thicker than ten layers of longjohns on a fat woman.” This was interpreted to mean that the approaching winter would be rugged.

Emmalee worked hard and unhappily for Horace Torquist. From the time she rose in the morning to fix him a breakfast of coffee, oatmeal with molasses, eggs, and fried fatback, until the late hour when she fell into her cot in the lean-to, listening to Torquist conferring in a low voice with Waters, Heaton, Strep, and the others, Emmalee was on the run. She had to make soap, separate cream from milk, tend the two cows, bake bread, get water, build and maintain the fire in the stove, and carry out the ashes, which she used to make the soap.

And there were constant problems with Torquist. Nothing seemed to suit him. The soap was “grainy.” The bread was underdone or “burned.” The fire was too hot or not hot enough. He thought it took her too long to churn the butter, and that she ought to spend more time scraping and sanding the new wood floors. Torquist was preoccupied, of course, with the fact that many of his farmers had not been able to borrow money—he himself had done all he could for them—and that their chances of surviving in Olympia, even with a substantial harvest in the coming year, were perilous. He was preoccupied and irritable, and he took it out on Emmalee.

The farmers, and Emmalee along with them, had fallen prey to a sudden and unexpected shortage of available capital. Emmalee, who had planned on borrowing enough from Hester Brine to buy her way out of bondage to the wagonmaster, and the farmers who had counted on Hester, too, found that she had stopped lending money.

“I just can’t, honey,” Hester had told Emmalee on a blustery day in late October. The two were seated at a table in the general store, next to the glowing stove. “It’s not that I don’t want to. You know I’ve already lent Randy and some of the others quite a bit of cash. But I have to look out for myself too. I’ve had hard times in my life and I don’t want ’em agin’. I’m going to use what I have left to build a hotel. With Arcady growing as it is, and talk of the railroad coming through in a couple of years, a hotel could put me on easy street.”

Emmalee wondered a little about Hester’s past, but she had her own problems. She thought of approaching Vestor Tell, but he seemed reluctant to lend anything at all to farmers, and besides, she didn’t trust him. The few farmers who had gone to him, practically begging for funds, found that he wanted total repayment within a year’s time, plus a seven-percent interest. His loans to the ranchers, Emmalee had heard, were offered at lesser interest—how much less she hadn’t been able to find out—and with a longer repayment period. Tell, however, refused to discuss the specifics of his business with anyone. “I make private deals with individuals,” he said. “They take it or leave it. If I think farmers are a bad risk, which I do, that’s nobody’s business but my own. I don’t have to loan to anyone if I don’t want to.”

What this amounted to, of course, was a pattern favoring the ranchers at the expense of the farmers, but Vestor Tell just shrugged and announced that it was his prerogative to do what he thought most sound from a business point of view.

People hated him, people loathed him, but no one spoke up to gainsay the enterprising claims agent. Black sheep he might have been to his Philadelphia family, but this was America in the year 1868 and money had vast, indisputable rights. Or so everyone thought. To Emmalee, however, Tell’s procedures seemed innately unfair.

The day she’d been refused a loan by Hester, Emmalee congratulated the woman on her plans for the hotel, wished her luck, and headed for the door of the general store. Tell was hunched over the telegraph machine, keying the dots and dashes of Morse code, sending a message to someplace far away. His mastery of the machine gave him an almost magical aura, adding an element of inviolability to the power of his money. She wondered if he was wiring Washington, D.C., and, if so, what he was saying to them. Torquist had implored Emmalee, several times, to report Kaiserhalt’s attack. But Emmalee hadn’t wanted to start that business up all over again. Besides, the only person in town who knew how to telegraph was Vestor Tell! Mail deliveries were erratic at best and took a long time. Tell was the man to see if one wanted to get a message out into the world, and it seemed impolitic, not to say dangerous, to try to send a message that would make him angry.

Leaving the store, with the clatter of the telegraph keys ringing in her ears, feeling immensely discouraged over Tell’s dominance and her own semislavery, Emmalee decided not to go back to Torquist’s right away. Instead she borrowed Ned from Myrtle Higgins—the old woman was inside her new cabin, sewing curtains for the windows—and rode out to see Randy. Torquist generously gave her Saturday nights off—“Once a week with your fiance is enough,” he pronounced. “I don’t want to be responsible for you getting into trouble.”—so she usually saw Randy at the general store. It was the public gathering place, so the only privacy they enjoyed occurred when he walked her home, held her and kissed her in the shadows outside Torquist’s house, speaking of the future in a voice filled with labor, fatigue, and a fervent hope that better times were coming.

Emmalee urged Ned up over the hills and saw the three pines in the distance. The trees were still there, but on one side of them now was a house made of timber and stone, and on the other side the frame of a barn was rising. She felt a sense of optimism and adventure again. Things were happening; progress was being made; this would be her home. Randy’s arm had healed perfectly and he was up on the roof of the house, nailing shingles. He saw her riding toward him, paused in surprise, then scrambled down the ladder and ran to meet her. She slipped off Ned. Their kiss was affectionate and long.

“Em.” he said, leaning back to look at her. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing serious. Well, yes, a lot of things.”

“What, honey?”

She dropped Ned’s reins, and the mule started nibbling sullenly at the dry grass of autumn. Randy took her inside the house, the rooms of which were large and light, but empty except for the kitchen, which had a stove, a table, and two chairs. His bedroll was in the corner.

“I’ve got some coffee, Em. Want some?”

“Please.”

She roamed around the house, imagining what it would be like when they got it furnished, admiring the big stone fireplace that Randy had fashioned himself. Then they both sat down at the table. The coffee was very strong, but she needed it.

“Hester can’t give me the loan,” she said.

He looked worried. After initial reluctance to go any further into debt, she had convinced him that getting away from Torquist was worth almost anything. Now, however, the goal was in jeopardy.

“Can’t or won’t?” he asked.

“Can’t.” Emmalee explained about the hotel.

“Now what?”

“I think I’m going to try Tell. Maybe I can work something out.”

“Oh, Em, I don’t know. I haven’t even finished the barn. There’s not a sign of activity on your land—I just haven’t had the time—and it’s too late in the year to do much plowing, either on your place or mine.”

“That’s why I’ve got to leave Torquist.” she said. “The rules are clear. We have to put up a shelter and get in a crop by next year, or say farewell to everything.”

“You’re right,” he admitted.

“And the only way we’re going to be able to do that is for both of us to work here.”

Randy stared at his coffee cup. “What if Tell won’t lend you money? I doubt he will. He doesn’t take much to farmers.”

“Then I’m going to telegraph Sacramento or Salt Lake.” Randy’s head lifted in surprise.

“There are other places to borrow from. This land is good security. I can get the money.
Damnit
!” she added, for emphasis.

Randy smiled. “I hadn’t even thought of that! But how are you going to…?”

“I’ll telegraph for information.”

“Do you think Tell will let you?”

“He’d better.”

“But if—”

“I’ll do it on my own, then. If he can learn Morse code, I sure can. We’ve got to rid people of the illusion that Vestor Tell is the be-all and end-all around here, don’t you think?”

“But he pretty well is. A lot of the big ranchers owe him money. Being in debt to someone makes even strong men docile.”

“Well, I just want the cash. Money is not going to change me any.”

Randy laughed. “I surely do believe you, Em. Oh! I just remembered. I have something for you.”

He stood up and walked to the cupboard. “It’s a gift,” he said.

“Oh, Randy, you shouldn’t have. We can use every penny…”

“Hush. It didn’t cost a cent, but it’s pretty and I shined it up for you.”

He opened the cupboard and took from it something small and sparkling. It looked to Emmalee like a jewel, but when he brought it back to the table and offered it to her she saw that it was a small stone, a very extraordinary stone, beneath the carefully polished surface of which glowed a dozen colors, reds and yellows and golds and blues combined. It was like holding a piece of the rainbow when he pressed it shyly into her hand.

“Oh, Randy…”

A small tear came to the corner of her right eye and pearled on the lash. The little stone was gem and symbol. It evoked in her a sudden bittersweet rush of feeling for Randy, for herself, for all they did not have and all they wanted.

“Don’t cry…” he began.

“I’m not. It’s just…oh, thank you…”

He pulled her gently up from the chair and held her close to him, pressing his cheek against hers. Then they kissed and Emmalee closed her eyes, kissing him hard, not caring where the moment led. She felt his hand gently on her breast, yes, yes, but then he took it away, ended the kiss, held her against him.

“Emmalee, Emmalee.” He sighed. “It’s so hard to have to wait, isn’t it?”

Emmalee nodded against his chest, realizing that she didn’t care to wait, hadn’t wanted to, and would have followed his lead joyously wherever he’d decided to go. Once, she remembered, she’d believed that a man who wanted everything from her, body and soul, no holds barred and no questions asked, was dangerous. But now she was forced to admit—and the admission was not distressing—that she wanted to be taken. Just then. Right now. Body, soul, and everything.

But Randy looked at it differently. He was willing to wait for the prize of her purity. That was one of the beliefs that made him what he was, a man she loved. But they were sworn to each other
already
, weren’t they? How would waiting make either of them more pure? They had made their promises and plighted their troth.

True. But she realized that they conceived of love and its prerogatives in different ways. That would change, of course, as they grew to know each other better. And someday Randy would come to learn that physical intensity was not something to resist but to seek. Time would take care of everything.

Yet there was a tiny gulf between them when he took her back outside and helped her mount old Ned. Emmalee felt incomplete, odd, unsettled as she rode back toward Arcady.

“I want to borrow some money,” Emmalee said.

Vestor Tell laughed outright, a casual, good-humored laugh, neither mocking nor ironic. “How much?” he asked.

“Four hundred dollars.”

His eyes widened. “What on earth do you want that kind of money for?”

“I made a bad business deal a while back. I have to buy my way out of it.”

Tell was seated on the stool behind his desk in the comer of the general store. Emmalee stood before him. He placed his hands, palms down, on the desk and smiled at her. A bandage wrapped his right hand.