The Chili Queen (19 page)

Emma could hardly stand still as she and Ned waited on the platform for the train. Ned himself felt easy. This was as simple a job as he’d ever pulled. And a comfortably safe one, too. John Roby wasn’t likely such a damn fool as to kill a fellow for pretending to be married to his sister. Besides, farmers didn’t carry guns.

The day was hot enough to melt Ned out of the broadcloth suit that he had put on to impress John. He sat down on a bench in the shade, while Emma paced back and forth on the platform. Beads of sweat stood out on her brow, although Ned didn’t know if they were from the heat, the exercise, or her nerves. She hadn’t perspired like that riding in the hot sun to Jasper. Half a dozen times Emma came over to him and asked why the train was late. Now she perched for a minute on the edge of the bench beside him and leaned forward to peer down the tracks.

Ned tried to calm her. “You thought any more about what I asked you?”

“About what?” Emma asked, distracted. Then she stopped fidgeting and turned to look at him. “Oh,” she said, “your ranch.” She took a deep breath, but before she could say more, there was the sound of a train whistle far off, and Emma jumped up. She looked relieved, although Ned didn’t know if it was because she wouldn’t have to answer his question just then or that the waiting for her brother was almost over. He preferred the latter explanation, and, indeed, by the time the train pulled to a stop at the depot, Emma seemed like a different woman, much calmer.

Five passengers got off the train. Then Emma gasped, and Ned turned to look at a wiry, beady-eyed man, disliking him at once. But he was not John Roby, because Emma touched Ned’s arm and started toward a black-haired man who was an inch or two taller than Ned and powerfully built. Ned was surprised that Emma’s brother was so uncommonly fine-looking. He had expected an evil countenance, but John Roby had pleasing features. His was the sort of face that would attract a woman, Ned thought. But that didn’t mean anything. Earlie Minder had been handsome, too.

John took Emma’s hands and looked at her a minute. Then Emma pulled away and said, “John, I should like you to be acquainted with my husband, Walter Withers.” Ned thought the word “husband” stuck in her throat, but John didn’t seem to notice. He turned and sized up Ned, starting at Ned’s face and moving slowly down his body. When he reached Ned’s feet, his eyes started back up again until they reached Ned’s extended arm, and he took Ned’s hand. The handshake was firm, but something in John Roby’s eyes chilled Ned. They were vacant, like the eyes of a gunfighter.

“He is called Ned,” Emma told John.

The way the two of them treated each other was indeed stilted, Ned thought. There were no pleasantries. Neither inquired about the other’s health or made small talk. They just stood there, until the other passengers disappeared and the conductor called, “All aboard.”

“Well, I guess you might be wanting a drink. Nalgitas has more saloons than good women,” Ned said, in an effort to ease the tension.

“I do not discuss business in saloons, and I am here to talk business,” John replied, then turned to Emma. “Sister, has marriage caused you to frequent such places?”

Ned was tempted to retort that Emma regularly got as full as a goose, but he held his tongue and let Emma reply. “There is no need to say such a thing to me. I have brought you a business proposition. I believe I deserve your respect for it.” If they spoke like that to each other in front of a third person, Ned wondered, how poisonous was their conversation when they were alone?

John set down his bag and stepped off the platform and scooped up a handful of dirt, smelling it, then letting it sift through his fingers. Ned had seen farmers do that. He’d done it himself when he was a boy. “Not much good for crops,” John said.

“No, but fine for ranching,” Ned told him.

“I don’t know about ranching,” John said.

“I do, enough to know the property in question is a fine investment. I would buy it myself, if I had the money.”

“So you say,” John told him. “I should like to see it for myself.”

“What good would that do? You already said you don’t know about ranching,” Emma spoke up.

“Besides, like Emma wrote you, we can’t show it to you. You’ll have to trust us. If you don’t, the deal is off.”

“I don’t trust
you
worth a buckfart,” John retorted. “I don’t know you.”

“You know me,” Emma told him. “You know I have a head for investment. Father said so, and you have said it yourself. And Ned is a fine rancher. He has built up his ranch”—Emma stopped for a minute and smiled at Ned coyly—“
our
ranch, from nothing.”

John studied Ned so long that Ned grew uncomfortable and looked away. “You come from money?” John asked.

“I come from Iowa,” Ned replied.

“Fought for the North, did you?” John’s face tightened, and Ned wondered if the man’s hardness came from something that had happened to him in the war. Emma’d never said that her brother had gone for a soldier.

“I tried to join up as a drummer boy in Iowa, but my father stopped me. So I ran away and went west instead,” Ned said.

“That would have been more than twenty years ago. What have you done since?” John asked.

Ned wondered what John would say if he told him he’d spent the time robbing banks. But instead, he replied, “I worked as a cowboy in Texas, then up in Colorado some. For a long time, I wasted my money on liquor, on women.” Ned could make himself blush at will, although he couldn’t recall ever having done so for a man. “Then I decided I’d best change my ways if I didn’t want to end up a saddle bum. So I saved up, and five years ago, I bought my land. It prospers.”

“You drink?”

“Some. Not so much.”

John nodded. “A religious man, are you?”

Ned wasn’t sure how to answer—Emma hadn’t said whether John was a churchgoing man—so he decided to be truthful. “Not that anyone would notice. But I endeavor to treat a fellow as good as I can—no reason not to. There’s Catholic preaching here once a month. I can’t say that I go in for it, for I’m not a papist.” Then, inspired, Ned added, “The priest married me and Emma. He’s the only man of the cloth who comes to Nalgitas, and I thought my wife would want a preacher doing the honors, even though he’s not of her persuasion. It seemed proper.” He winked at Emma, who flushed.

As Emma looked down at her hands, John glanced at her, waiting a moment for her to look up, but she didn’t. So he changed the subject. “What’s this about gold discoveries?” he asked.

Ned took off his hat and scratched his head. “There is activity. I myself have not seen it, so I don’t know the truth of it. The price asked for the land is a fair one, more than fair, without the minerals. I am inclined to dismiss the gold talk, as I do not rely on another man’s say-so.” Emma smiled at him, and Ned knew he had said the right thing. From what Emma had told him, Ned did not believe John would dismiss the mineral possibilities at all.

The wind picked up, stirring the dust, and John sat down on the edge of the platform and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He seemed very tired and a little distracted. Emma quickly sat down next to him and began to massage his neck, and Ned was surprised that with the rancor between them, Emma was so solicitous of her brother. “You have had a headache come on,” she said. “We will get you to the hotel at once and see if they can make a raw potato poultice to put on your eye. Ned and I are staying in a boardinghouse, but as there is no additional room there, we have made arrangements for you elsewhere.” She turned to Ned. “John suffers from sick headaches. Bright sun makes them worse. He must have darkness.” Then she mouthed, “The war.”

Ned didn’t care much about John’s headaches, and he hoped they wouldn’t stop John from handing over the money. Then he thought the headaches might be a good thing, clouding the man’s judgment. “We haven’t got much time. We best transact our business right away,” Ned said.

The pain on John’s face was obvious when he looked up at Ned. “Yes, I will do it then,” he said.

“Give me your money now. We have to pay in cash,” Ned said. “I will take care of it while Emma tends to you.”

Pressing his hands to his eyes again, John rocked back and forth a minute. Then he stood up and faced Ned. “I would see your money first.”

“What?” Ned asked.

“Your five thousand seven hundred fifty. If we are each to put up half, I would see the money first.”

“I don’t have it on my person,” Ned stammered. “You wouldn’t expect me to carry it with me, would you?”

“I would.”

Emma looked at Ned with alarm, then said to John, “He has it. I can assure you of that. I have seen the money myself.” She put her hand on John’s arm.

Staring at Ned with eyes that were the pale blue of ice on a river and brushing off Emma’s hand, John took a step forward and asked, “Do you take me for a fool?”

Behind John, Emma looked frantic. “We will show it to you later, John. Ned and I will take the morning train to Jasper, where we will complete the transaction. The seller has a fondness for me and says he likes to deal with me. Give me the money now, and I will add it to Ned’s, and we will show you the whole in the morning.”

“I guess I’ll give you my money in the morning then.”

Emma took a deep breath that calmed her some. “Oh, no,” Emma said. “We would not want to show bystanders what is in our pocketbooks. If you give me the money now, I will pack it securely, so there will be no chance of Ned and me being robbed.”

“I am not concerned about what happens to you on the train,” John said in a voice as cold as his eyes. “I am concerned about myself being robbed before you get on the train.”

“By your own sister?” Emma’s voice was as hard as John’s.

“By a man I met just today. I have agreed to go partners with him. It is too much to expect me to hand over my money to him. In the morning, after I have counted his greenbacks—and he has counted mine—your husband and I will both give the money to you. Then you alone will take the train, since, as you say, the seller likes to deal with you. Ned and I will stay here, until you complete the transaction and return. If your husband goes with you, then he will have the advantage of me.” When he finished speaking, John shuddered with pain and clapped a hand against his right eye. Then he picked up his bag and asked them for directions to the hotel. “I propose we meet here a few minutes prior to the arrival of the train. If you are not here, then I’ll take the next train for Kansas.” Without a word of good-bye, John started off along the road into town, walking past The Chili Queen without giving it a glance.

As John disappeared, Ned sat down on the platform. “Whew!” he said. “I never met anybody I disliked so quick.”

Emma slumped down beside him, tucking her skirt around her, for the wind was fierce. “It was a foolish idea. I should have known John wouldn’t be tricked so easily. If there were a train leaving right now, I would board it, no matter where it was going.”

Ned looked at her in surprise. “You’re giving up?”

“What else is there to do?”

Ned didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “What if your brother goes around town asking questions?”

“Oh, he won’t do that,” Emma said quickly. “He is too private. Besides, the pain will keep him confined until morning. He will try the raw potato on his eye, mustard plasters on his wrists and neck, and hot footbaths. Then he must take to his bed and lie in darkness. He eats and drinks little when he has these attacks, and sometimes the pain is so great, he cannot even talk. Besides, he would not inquire about us for fear someone would laugh at him. More than anything in the world, John hates being made a fool of; that is another reason why our scheme would have worked.” Emma stood up and adjusted her bonnet. “Perhaps Addie will be kind enough to allow me to stay with her just one more day, so that I will not have to face my brother. When we do not show up in the morning, John will take the train home.”

“After all we’ve planned, you’re giving up?” Ned asked.

Emma touched his arm and said gently, “Perhaps John was not clear enough. We cannot get the money until we show him fifty-seven fifty of our own. Unless we can rob a bank of that amount between now and tomorrow morning, we are done for.”

As Ned leaned forward to stare at the ground and think the thing through, Emma suddenly took his hand and squeezed it. “We were foolish to count on the money,” she said, “although it pleasured me to dream about what we would do with it.” She smiled at him. “It will warm me in the years to come to think I might have been by your side.”

Ned took a deep breath and exhaled. “What if I had the money? What if I could come up with all of it? If I had that ranch, you’d come with me, wouldn’t you?” He blushed, but not on purpose this time. “Would you marry me?”

For a long time, Emma stared off into the distance. The hills far to the west had turned blue under the afternoon sky. Emma took off her bonnet and used it to swish the air back and forth in front of her face.

“I never took a chance like this on anybody before,” Ned said when she didn’t answer. “I want the ranch so much I’d kill anybody who took it away from me—even your brother. And I’m asking you to share that ranch with me”—Ned glanced at her slyly—“after we visit a preacher, that is.”

Emma turned to him, studying Ned’s face and replying in a solemn voice, “This had best wait until later.”

Ned gripped her arm. “No, I ask for your answer now.”

Emma looked confused. “What does it matter?”

“This business with your brother depends on it. I must have your answer.”

Emma looked away and thought it over. Then she sighed and said, “Yes, I believe if we could buy a ranch together, I would go with you.” She gave a sad smile. “I thank you for asking. I hope you will remember that I care for you and that you will forgive me one day.”

Ned thought that was an odd thing for Emma to say, but he was suddenly too excited to think about it. “Well, by zam! I have the money. I do. It’s hidden in the barn at The Chili Queen, more than five thousand dollars. I got it in a robbery, and that with what we took from the Minders is more than enough.” As Ned grinned at Emma and gripped her hand, he felt joy come over him. He had proposed, and she had accepted. And they would live forever on a ranch in the Colorado mountains. He pulled her to him and kissed her, lightly and sweetly. Emma kissed him back, then pulled away and looked around. But no one was in sight. Emma leaned forward and kissed him again.