Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (4 page)

      
Then she heard the voices, soft at first, like the soughing of the constant prairie winds. They grew louder. Short swift yips and high, long screeches of bone-chilling ferocity began to fill the air, melded with the pounding of horses' hooves on the hard-packed earth. Roxanna peered cautiously out the window.

      
She gasped at the sight of a dozen or more Indians galloping across the rolling grasslands. As they gained on the careening stage, she could see their painted faces distorted by feral grimaces. Each rider bent low over his horse's neck, as if he were one with his sweating straining pony. Soon they would catch the stage. Dear God, what would they do to her? Roxanna had faced death on numerous occasions since her ugly confrontation with Nathaniel Darby, but even choking to death at the end of a rope was beginning to look preferable to what awaited her at the hands of these savages.

      
Just then a rifle cracked. Two more shots followed in rapid succession before Jack Rabbit tumbled silently from the driver's box, vanishing in the thick dust behind the coach. The savages ignored his body as they closed on the stage.

      
Roxanna cursed herself for ten-thousand-times-a-fool for not carrying the pepperbox pistol in her reticule. A fine lot of good it was doing her packed atop the luggage rack! Two of the savages leaped agilely from their saddleless mounts onto the backs of the lead coach horses, while a third rode alongside the stage itself. It had not completely stopped when he seized the door handle and yanked it open, then reached one bronzed arm inside for Roxanna.

      
She kicked and struggled fiercely, but would not scream. What little she had overheard in route about Indians indicated that they valued courage above all else. She would not cry or beg, no matter what they did to her.
A vow more easily made than kept,
she thought, as her captor dragged her out of the coach and two of his cohorts quickly pinned her arms behind her, effectively immobilizing her.

      
She ceased struggling and stared straight ahead while one of the others ran his dark fingers through her long pale blond hair, exclaiming over the color in what she took to be amazement. He pulled the last pins from it—she had long since lost her hat—and held it out like a silken skein for all to admire. Good Lord, would he scalp her here and now? Her eyes darted to the heavy knife at his belt, but he made no move to unsheathe it.

      
Then it’s to be the other first,
she thought with a shudder. Well, it wasn't as if she were a virgin who had no idea of what to expect. All men must have the same basic equipment. She would endure. Bracing her spine stiffly, she bit down on her lip and stared into the dark eyes of the ringleader as the warriors moved in closer.

* * * *

      
Hell on Wheels. That's what the railroaders dubbed these stops along the Union Pacific line. Cain rode down the wide street of Cheyenne, Wyoming, now silty with pale tan dust that would turn to bog like mud with the next good rain. On the front of a huge canvas tent a banner proclaimed, HAVALAND’S HURDY GURDY. BEAUTIFUL DANCING GIRLS. COLD BEER. In fact, the women were ugly and the beer was warm. A slit-eyed gambler attired nattily in black lounged in the doorframe of a clapboard hotel, rifling a greasy set of pasteboards. The diamond ring on his pinkie finger winked obscenely in the sunlight. Mentally, Cain gave him a week before someone cut his throat in a back alley and relieved him of the gaudy jewelry. The
Cheyenne Leader
ran a daily column entitled “Last Night's Killings.” It was easily the largest article in the paper.

      
“Come ovah heah, darlin’. My, my, ain'tcha a pretty one, longlegs,” a black-haired whore with blood-red lips crooned in invitation, eyeing Cain up and down as if he were a big juicy steak and she a starving coyote. As the portable whores of Hell on Wheels went, she was not bad looking, but Cain was not in the mood for sexual diversion.

      
The sharp pungency of sage and sweetness of prairie clover wafted heady and clean on the ever-present wind as he left Cheyenne behind. Warm sun beat down on man and horse. He watched the great blue bowl of sky, simply content with being, an infrequent occurrence for his restless, soul. How often had his Cheyenne uncle tried to teach him the joys of harmony with nature? But letting his mind go blank and his body simply absorb what lay around him was too alien an act for the white part of his soul. And the white part, he had always felt, was dominant.

      
With his big chestnut's ground-devouring stride, he reached Fort Russell shortly. As the cluster of low adobe buildings appeared on the horizon, he muttered to himself, “MacKenzie's really dumped one on me this time.” He reined in at the edge of the parade ground, where a flag flapped smartly in the breeze. A troop of new recruits was being drilled by a sergeant who could out roar a tornado. Swinging down from his mount, the tall half-breed walked up to the headquarters building and shoved open the door, which protested loudly on rusty hinges.

      
“Cain to see Colonel Dillon,” he said to the young corporal.

      
Before the noncom could respond, the door to the inner office opened and a barrel-chested man with a square, weathered face and thinning brown hair stepped out with a sheaf of papers in one scarred fist. He looked Cain over with eyes that had seen far too much of life. Shoving the papers at the corporal, he said, “Come in, Mr. Cain,” then spun on his heel and entered the small cluttered room. Cain followed, closing the door.

      
Standing in a bright shaft of sunlight pouring in the room's only window, Dillon studied Cain. “So you're the one they call the Scot's Injun.”

      
“I'm Jubal MacKenzie's man,” Cain replied tightly.

      
“You're Jubal MacKenzie's gun,” the colonel countered flatly.

      
Dillon had nerve, he'd give him that. “MacKenzie needs the army's help in town. The thugs and grifters are causing so much absenteeism on our crews, we're falling behind schedule.”

      
“In case you haven't taken note, I have a serious Indian problem out there.” One blunt finger jabbed at the window toward the distant mountains. “I was sent out here to pacify hostiles, not baby-sit a pack of drunken Irishmen.”

      
“You were assigned here to see that the railroad is completed with all due speed. Once we have a transcontinental linkup, the army can move troops fast anywhere hostiles pop up.”

      
Dillon snorted. “I doubt it'll be that easy in the near future, railroad or not. Right now I have fewer than one hundred men to cover thousands of square miles. It's damn hard to surround a dozen Cheyenne with two troopers.”

      
“Then I guess I'll have the Vigilance Committee help me handle the problem.”

      
Dillon knew how vigilantes had filled up the cemeteries in North Platte and Julesburg. “That'll be a bloodbath and you know it.”

      
Cain shrugged, “It's your call.”

      
Dillon stiffened and his face mottled red. “Are you threatening me, Cain?”

      
“Just call it a request. Cheyenne is going to be the biggest railhead between Omaha and Salt Lake, the connecting point for spur lines south to Denver and north into the Montana goldfields. One way or the other, it has to be cleaned up. If you don't do it, I'll have to.”

      
“And you're just itching to unholster that gun of yours and start.” Dillon's eyes bored into Cain.

      
“I don't get paid by the scalp, contrary to what you may have heard.” He could feel that damned scar along his jaw twitching.

      
Dillon suddenly deflated. Placing his palms flat on the edge of his desk, he lowered himself wearily into his chair. “I'll have a detachment in town by nightfall.”

* * * *

      
By eleven o'clock that night the army completed its work. Cain sat in the Calico Cat Saloon sharing a drink with its proprietor, Kitty O'Banyon, in her private office at the rear of the establishment. The Cat was the most elegant pleasure palace in Cheyenne, boasting two mahogany bars, mirrors on three walls and an oil painting of Venus rising from the sea on the fourth. Even the cuspidors were of polished brass, cleaned nightly.

      
Cain sat staring into his drink as if the amber liquid held the secrets of the universe. Kitty, a tall voluptuous Irishwoman with fiery tresses and a disposition to match, studied him. “What's eating you, Cain? It's a fine job Colonel Dillon did, if I do say so meself. With the likes of those Chicago shysters riding the rails east, a hardworking female can earn a dacent dishonest living again.”

      
He raised his glass in salute, then downed the whiskey and leaned back in his chair, “I have two new grading crews to drill tomorrow. If only these damn fools knew how to level a grade as well as they know how to level themselves. On the Central Pacific my Chinese died in explosions and avalanches—here, these yahoos catch cholera drinking water out of the ditches, or the pox lying with diseased women, or they die of whiskey poisoning. Getting rid of the syndicate's scum will only slow the rate of attrition, not stop it.”

      
“You take too much on yerself, boyo. Men can be fools. Usually are. Does MacKenzie expect you to be reforming the kit and kaboodle of ‘em, then?”

      
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and smiled self-deprecatingly. “No.
I
expect it of me—at least as far as it concerns our construction schedule. He's paying me a bonus for every man who works his full shift a month without missing a day.”

      
“You don't drink much. You have the divil's own luck with cards, 'n the ladies don't charge you for sportin' fun. Leastways,
I
don't,” she added archly. “What is it you're figgerin' on doing with all that money when the railroad's built?”

      
“Buying an interest in another railroad.”

      
“It's not power yer wantin, Cain, nor money,” she said, prompting him.

      
“Oh, it's the money, all right, and the power.”

      
“It's showing himself, that's what it is. Yer pa, whoever he may be.” He looked up, startled, his eyes narrowing dangerously. She raised her hand, chuckling. “Now, before you go getting yer backside all lathered, 'twas yerself who told me—the only time I ever saw you drunk.”

      
He cursed furiously. “The night I came back from the raid on Turkey Leg's village.”

      
“It's powerful upset you were, with a fearful thirst for oblivion. Don't like seeing yer ma's people killed, do you?”

      
“They were killing our surveyors, attacking the grading crews. I had to track them for the army. At least they rounded up the right Indians that time.”

      
“Even doin' what they did, the Injuns have the right of it to their own way of thinkin'. The Iron Horse will finish them.”

      
“Progress, Kitty. We can't stop it.” The words sounded defensive even to his own ears. He changed the subject. “What did I say about my father?”

      
She shrugged, meeting his gaze head-on. “Only that he left yer ma and you with the Cheyenne 'n went away. Came back 'n packed you off to some boarding school. But you never gave up trying to win his love.”

      
“I never said that, sober or drunk.”

      
Kitty grinned. “You didn't have to, sugar. I been around long enough to read between the lines.”

      
He scoffed dismissively. “Just stick to the lines from now on, huh? I have to go. The a.m. will roll around before I get my blankets half warmed.” He scooted the oak-barrel chair back and stood up.

      
Kitty looked up at him with appraising eyes. “You want yer blankets warmed, you know where to come, Cain. Anytime.

      
She watched him turn and walk slowly out the door, then murmured softly, “I hope you find what yer lookin' for one day, and that's the Lord's own truth.”

* * * *

      
Jubal MacKenzie was a stern Scottish Presbyterian, a self-made millionaire, and an ardent Abolitionist. He had spent the war years as a high-ranking member of Lincoln's Cabinet. Now his passion had turned west to building the iron rails that would link the Atlantic with the Pacific. The future lay in the West, mineral rich, fertile and awe-inspiringly beautiful to a man who had grown up on the filthy streets of Aberdeen hauling buckets of coal for two pence.

      
Bending over the polished walnut desk in his private Pullman car, Jubal studied the map in front of him with grim concentration, then pushed it aside with an oath and began pacing across the Tabriz carpet. He clenched a fine Cuban cigar between his teeth and stuffed his big gnarled hands in his suit pockets.

      
That was how Cain found him upon answering the urgent summons which brought him from the camp shooting range. One look at his employer told him that the old Scot was furious. “What's happened, Jubal? More mules dying on short notice at number seven?”

      
Mac's heavy reddish brows beetled, rearranging the patterns of large freckles that covered his beefy face. The heavy grooves around his mouth deepened as he grimaced, removing the cigar from his sturdy yellow teeth to speak. “A lot more serious than mules or men.” His voice rumbled deep, with a heavy burr of Scotland still evident in spite of fifty years spent in his adopted homeland. “You remember me mentioning the marriage between my granddaughter and Powell's son Lawrence?”