Twin of Ice (25 page)

Houston, dressed as Sadie, eased the wagon up the hill toward the coal mine and, as she maneuvered the horses around a long, deep rut in the road caused by the recent heavy rains, she thought she heard a sound in the back of the wagon. Last summer, a cat had been caught under the canvas that was tied down so tightly, and she was sure that was what was making noise now.

She flipped the reins to the horses and concentrated on getting up the hill. At the gate, she prayed the cat, or, by the sound, several cats, would be still long enough for her to get past the guards. She’d hate to have the men’s curiosity aroused so they’d feel compelled to search her wagon.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she was past the guards and into the camp. She’d called Jean this morning and, in between Jean’s breathless announcement that Edan had asked her to marry him, Jean had said that Rafe was now working the graveyard shift and would be at home when she brought her wagon. Rafe didn’t know about Houston, but he was willing to introduce Sadie to another woman who’d help her with the distribution of the vegetables and the contraband goods. Jean didn’t know whether the new woman was aware of Sadie’s true identity or not.

Houston pulled the wagon over in front of the Taggerts’ company house and halted just as Rafe came out the door.

“Mornin’ to you,” Sadie called as she struggled to get her fat old body down from the wagon.

Rafe nodded in her direction, looking at her so hard that Houston kept her head down, the sloppy hat shading her face. “I hear you’re gonna find me somebody else to help me get rid of this stuff. Now that Jean’s gone to be a lady, I don’t guess I’ll get to see much of her.” Sadie began to untie one corner of the canvas. “I got me some cats caught under here and I got to get ’em out.”

She glanced up at Rafe as she tossed the canvas back and picked up a head of cabbage, meaning to brag a bit on her fine produce. But when she looked back at the wagon, her knees buckled under her and she grabbed the side of the wagon for support. Under the head of cabbage was Kane Taggert’s face and he gave her a lusty wink.

Rafe grabbed Sadie with one hand and looked into the wagon at the same time.

Kane sat up, food falling over the side of the wagon. “Are you deaf, Houston? Couldn’t you hear me callin’? I thought I was gonna pass out, since I couldn’t breathe. Damn it, woman! I told you not to go into the mines today.”

Rafe looked from one person to the other before he took Houston’s chin and held her face up to the light. If you were looking for it, you could see the makeup. Over the years, Houston’d become an expert at keeping her face down and she’d soon learned that people rarely look at each other critically. They saw at first glance that she was an old woman and they never questioned that first impression.

“I didn’t believe it,” Rafe said under his breath. “You’d better get inside and start talkin’.”

Kane stood beside her, gripped her elbow painfully and half pushed her inside the little house of Rafe’s.

“I told you not to do this,” Kane began. He looked at his uncle. “You know what the ladies of Chandler are doin’? There’s three or four of ’em that dress up like this and they carry illegal things inside the food.”

Houston jerked away from Kane’s grasp. “It’s not as bad as you make it sound.”

“What’s more, Fenton knows about the women and he can prosecute ’em at any time. He must hold half the leadin’ citizens in the palm of his hand, and they don’t even know it.”

Rafe looked at Houston for a moment. “What sort of illegal goods?”

“Nothing much,” she answered. “Medicines, books, tea, soap, anything we can fit inside the vegetables. It’s not what he makes it seem. And as for Mr. Fenton, since he does know and hasn’t done anything about it, perhaps he’s protecting us, seeing that nothing interferes with our trips. After all, we hurt no one.”

“No one!” Kane gasped. “Honey, someday I’m gonna explain to you about stockholders. If Fenton’s stockholders found out about you, and how you’re takin’ profit out of their greedy little mouths, they’d string all of you up. But before Fenton swung, he’d use all you women, and all the daddies and husbands he could, to get himself off. I’m sure Fenton loves what you’re doin’, ’cause he knows that, any time he wants it, he has power over Chandler’s leadin’ citizens—just so long as his investors know nothin’ about nothin’.”

“Just because you’d blackmail a person, doesn’t mean that other people would do the same thing. Perhaps Mr. Fenton—.”

She stopped, because Rafe was shoving her out the door. “I think you better go tend to your wagon. The woman that‘s gonna help you lives next door. Just knock on the door and she’s ready.” With that, he shut the door behind her.

“How long’s this been goin’ on?” Rafe asked Kane. “And what’s she do with the money she’s paid for the food?”

Kane didn’t know all the answers to his uncle’s questions, but between them they were able to figure out most of the story. Rafe agreed with Kane about why Fenton allowed the women into the mine camp.

“He’d sell ’em out in seconds,” Rafe said. “So what’re you plannin’ to do now? You gonna let her keep on drivin’ the wagon and risk gettin’ hurt someday? If the guards found out that she’d played ’em for the fool for a couple of years, they’d act first and ask who was protectin’ her later.”

“I told her she wasn’t to go into the mines today and you see how she obeyed me. The minute she thought I was out of sight, she bought a load of vegetables to bring up here.”

“
She
paid for ’em?”

Kane pulled out a chair and sat down. “She ain’t too happy with me right now, but she’ll come around. I’m workin’ on her.”

“If you wanna talk about it, I can listen,” Rafe said as he took a seat across from his nephew.

Kane had never talked to anyone in his life about his personal problems, but lately, things were changing rapidly. He’d told Opal some of his problems and now he wanted to tell his uncle. Maybe a man could help him.

Kane told Rafe about growing up in Fenton’s stables, about his dream of building a bigger house. Rafe nodded in understanding, as if what Kane said made perfect sense to him.

“Only thing was, Houston got real mad when I told her why I’d married her, and she walked out the front door. I got her to come back but she ain’t exactly happy about it.”

“You say that you’d planned to have her sittin’ at your table, but what about afterward?”

Kane started looking at his fingernails. “I didn’t want a wife and I thought she was in love with that Westfield that jilted her, so I was sure she’d be glad to see the last of me after the dinner with Fenton. I thought I’d give her a box of jewelry and then I’d go back to New York. Damnest thing was, though, I gave her the jewelry, but she didn’t even look at it.”

“So why don’t you just leave her and go back to New York?”

Kane took a while to answer. “I don’t know, I kinda like it here. I like the mountains, and it ain’t hot here in the summer like it is in New York and—”

“And you like Houston,” Rafe said, grinning. “She’s a pretty little thing, and I’d rather have a woman like her than the entire state of New York.”

“So how come you ain’t married?”

“All the women I like won’t have me.”

“I guess that’s the same with me. When I didn’t really care whether Houston married me or not, and thought somebody else’d do just as well, she kept tellin’ me that she loved me, and now, when I don’t think I could live very well without her, she looks at me like I was a pile of horse manure.”

The two men were silent for a moment, the air heavy with their feelings of injustice.

“You want some whiskey?” Rafe asked.

“I need some,” Kane answered.

As Rafe turned away to get the whiskey, Kane, for the first time, looked around at the house. He calculated that the whole place would fit into his dressing and bathing area. The house was dirty in a way that no cleaning could remedy. There was no light to speak of in the room, and the air gave off a smell of the deepest poverty.

On the mantelpiece were a tin of tea, two cans of vegetables and what looked to be half a loaf of bread wrapped in cloth. Kane was sure that that was all the food in the house.

Quite suddenly, Kane remembered the rooms above the stables where he’d grown up. He’d sent his sheets and clothes to the Fenton laundress to be cleaned and, when he’d grown up, he’d coaxed the maids into cleaning his rooms. And there’d always been food in abundance.

What was it that Houston had said she was taking to the miners? Medicines, soaps, tea? Whatever she could hide in a head of cabbage. Never had Kane actually had to worry about food. And no matter where he’d lived, he’d never lived like this.

As he looked up at a corner where the roof obviously leaked, he wondered how his mother, raised with all the finest in life, had survived in a house like this as long as she did.

“Did you know my mother?” Kane quietly asked, as Rafe set a tin cup of whiskey on the table.

“I did.” Rafe was watching this man who was his relative, both familiar and unknown at the same time. Sometimes Kane moved in a way that made Rafe think it was Frank sitting in front of him—and then he had a way of looking at people that made him think of pretty little Charity.

Rafe took a seat at the table. “She lived with us for just a few months, and it was hard on her, but she was a game little thing. We all thought Frank was the luckiest man on earth. You should have seen her. She worked all day cleanin’ and cookin’ and then, just before Frank got off his shift, she’d doll herself up like she was ready to meet the President.”

Kane stared at his uncle for a moment. “I heard she was a spoiled brat and snubbed all the other women and they hated her.”

Rafe’s face showed his anger. “I don’t know who told you that, but he’s a damned liar. When Frank was killed, she just didn’t care about livin’ anymore. She said she was goin’ home to have the baby because she knew Frank would want the best for his child, and she wanted to share her baby with her father. The bastard!” Rafe said under his breath. “The next thing we heard was that Charity and the baby had died and her father had killed hisself in grief. Sherwin and me were glad that Charity’s last moments had been happy, and that her father had accepted her back right away. None of us knew about you, or knew that Charity had killed herself, until years later.”

Kane wanted to ask why Rafe hadn’t done anything about it when he found out, but he put his mug to his mouth and drank instead. He’d told Houston that money gave a man power. What could any of the Taggerts have done when they could barely scratch out a living? And besides, he hadn’t done so badly on his own.

“I was thinkin’,” Kane said, looking down at his cup. “You and me got off to a bad start, and I was wonderin’ if there was anything I could do to help…” Even as he said the words, he knew he shouldn’t have. Houston said that he used his money and used people. He looked at his uncle and saw that Rafe was holding himself rigid, waiting for Kane to finish his sentence. “Ian likes to play baseball a lot and so does Zach, and now I don’t get to see them too much, so I was wonderin’ if maybe I could start a baseball team with the kids here. I’d buy all the equipment, of course.”

Rafe relaxed. “The kids’d like that. Maybe you can come on Sunday mornin’ when they’re not down in the mine. You think Fenton’ll agree?”

“I sorta think he will,” Kane said, finishing his whiskey. “I guess I better go look for my wife. The way she’s feelin’ about me right now, she just might leave me here.”

Rafe rose. “You better let me find her, and I guess you’ll have to ride home in the back of the wagon. If the guards saw you leave when you didn’t enter, they’d get suspicious, and then the other ladies that drive wagons could get in trouble.”

Kane nodded. He didn’t like the idea but he knew the sense of it.

“Kane,” Rafe said as he stood by the door. “If I could give you some advice about Houston, it’d be to just be patient with her. Women have odd ideas about things that men can’t begin to understand. Try courtin’ her. You did somethin’ that won her in the first place, so maybe you can repeat it if you try courtin’ her all over again.”

“She don’t much like presents,” Kane muttered.

“Maybe you’re not givin’ her the right presents. One time, a girl was real mad at me, and what made her come ’round was when I gave her a puppy. Just a little mutt, but she loved it. She was
real
grateful, if you know what I mean.” With a smile and a wink, Rafe left the cabin.

Houston waited all the way back to Kane’s house for his explosion, but it never came. He climbed onto the wagon seat with her after she was out of sight of the guards and, although Houston never said a word, he talked to her about the scenery and some about his business. A few times she started to reply, but she stopped herself. Her anger at him was too deep, and she couldn’t soften toward him. He’d soon realize that she could never love him again, and he’d have to release her from being his prisoner.

At home, he said good night to her politely and went to his office. The next day, he came to her sitting room at lunch time and, without a word, took her hand and led her down the stairs to the kitchen, where he picked up a picnic basket from Mrs. Murchison. Still holding her hand, he led her down the paths of the garden to the very bottom—to the statue of Diana where they’d once made love.

Houston stood rigid while he spread the white linen cloth and the food, and he had to pull her to make her sit on the cloth. All through the meal, which she just nibbled at, Kane talked to her. He told her more about his business, telling her what a difficult time he was having without Edan to help him.

Houston didn’t reply to anything he said, but her silence didn’t seem to bother him.

After they’d finished eating, Kane turned around and put his head in her lap and continued talking. He told her about talking to Rafe about his mother. He told her about how dingy Rafe’s house had been and how his own quarters, when he was growing up, hadn’t been nearly as bad.

“You think there’s somethin’ I could do to get Uncle Rafe away from the mines? He’s not a young man any longer, and I’d like to do somethin’.”