THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER (29 page)

They worked in silence for a few minutes, then Jack said, "Some folks in town
wonder where he got his money. He don't seem to work at anything, yet he's always got
plenty."

"I think he invests wisely," Tony said, not paying much attention. "I'd be surprised
if he didn't have a finger in most Wood River pies." He made one last connection. "There,
that should take care of the line to Bullion." Holding his breath, he rang the mine office
and connected the office line to it. After three rings, a voice spoke in his ear. "Is that you,
Jack? What the devil's been wrong with our telephone service? We haven't been able to
make a call all day?"

"Tony Dewitt here, Mr. Pinnick. We've got your line fixed. The problem was
vandalism. Somebody came in and tried to wreck the switchboard. The sheriff's office is
looking for whoever did it, but there isn't much to go on. Our night operator was knocked
out and he didn't see who did it."

"Seems to me you've had more than one incident like this. Any idea who's behind
them?"

Tony hadn't really considered the line breakages to have resulted from vandalism,
but obviously Pinnick did. "No, but as soon as we get this mess straightened out, I'll be
doing some investigating. Thanks for your patience." He disconnected, but stood there
holding the plug, deep in thought. That break in the line to Bullion, early on. Could it have
been due to vandalism, rather than some natural cause? And those downed poles halfway
to Ketchum. What were the odds that three poles in a row would topple? They'd blamed
wet ground, but still...

To the People of Hailey.

  At a meeting of the Chinamen residing in Bellevue, Ketchum, and Hailey, held in
Hailey last evening, the 5th instant, it was unanimously resolved that the Chinese residing
on Wood River would refuse to "go" by the first of May or any other date arbitrarily fixed
by any party or parties.
  The Chinese have much property that they cannot sell or dispose of in any way, on
which they pay taxes; they obey the laws of the country and pay all taxes the same as white
men; and they do not intend to go until the Government of the United States compels them
to.

For the Chinese on Wood River:
  SANG YUEN,
  TING WO,
  SING LEE,
  HOP CHING,
  SAM WING CHING,
  QUONG WAH CHUNG,
  HUNG WAH,
Of Hailey.
  WING TUNG WAH,
  QUONG LEE,
Of Ketchum.
  SING SURN GEE,
  YEE LEE,
  SAM SING,
Of Bellevue.

Hailey, I.T., February 6.

Wood River Times
- paid advertisement to run for one month

~~~

Lulu hired one of Mrs. Graham's nephews to help her load and unload her
possessions. With his help, she got everything moved to Tony's house that day. "I'll be
back tomorrow to clean the apartment," she told her neighbor when she brought the boy
back to town late in the afternoon. "I've left a bit of food and the bedding, because my
husband may have to sleep in town tonight." She'd already told the woman about the mess
he'd been cleaning up all day. "I have a feeling he won't quit until he gets every one of the
telephones back in service."

"He certainly is a hard worker," Mrs. Graham said, as she closed the door behind
Lulu, who'd consented to stop in long enough to warm up. "It's too bad you had to come
back so soon, instead of having a nice honeymoon somewhere romantic."

Biting her lip, Lulu merely nodded. What would the woman say if she knew the
truth?

"Now you just set yourself down here and drink this tea. I'll bet you're tired. A
woman in your condition has no business overdoing as you have today."

The tea in Lulu's mouth nearly ended up all over the table as she choked. Once she
was done coughing, she said, "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, I know you probably wish no one would notice, but really, there's no
possibility you'll be able to keep it a secret much longer. Does anyone know exactly when
you got married?"

Feeling the heat that must have turned her cheeks rosy, Lulu shook her head.
"Only Mr. Eagleton--my husband's employer. Unless someone in Boise knows we live
here. But we've never let on we have family there, and neither of us gave Hailey as our
residence when we applied for the marriage license."

"Well, then, we'll just let everyone assume you've been married for some time.
Didn't you say you visited your cousin in the fall? Tomorrow's the Altar Society meeting.
I'll just say something vague about family obligations taking you away, but not tell exactly
what they were or when you got married. After all, it's no one's business..."

For a moment Lulu could only stare at Mrs. Graham. At last she said, "I thought
you'd be scandalized."

"I am, just a bit, but more because you put it off so long than for the fact that you
had to marry. You're not the first to jump the gun, you know, nor will you be the last." She
reached across the table and took Lulu's hand. "You've been a good neighbor, Lulu, and
you're a sweet girl. And that husband of yours is a fine man. I'd hate to see you gossiped
about." She shook her head. "There are those in this town who forget we all have our
human failings and expect us to live like saints. And them no better than they should be,
either, making judgments better left to the Lord." She raised her chin and looked down her
nose, looking very like the banker's wife.

"Thank you, Mrs. Graham. You're a good friend. Now, I'd better be off. It's getting
late, and I'm not familiar with the road."

"Have you got somebody out there to help you unhitch?"

With a smile, Lulu said, "I grew up on a farm. I can manage."

"My stars. You don't look like a farm girl. Get on with you, then. It'll be full dark
before you get home." She shook her head, and Lulu knew she was worrying.

* * * *

Tony and Jack finished making all the connections about ten. "It's too late to test
these tonight," Tony told the young man. "Go home and get some rest. I'll see you in the
morning."

Jack, looking as worn out as Tony felt, merely nodded.

They locked the door, and fastened the heavy padlock through the eye of the
strong hasp lock Mr. Eagleton had put on. Tony had filed off the screw heads, so opening
the door without a key would now require a sledgehammer or an ax. "I'll be here about
seven," he said, as they rounded the corner of the building, "to make one last check. You
don't need to come in 'til eight."

"Thanks, Mr. Dewitt." Jack turned left at the corner, while Tony went straight
ahead. The cot at the office would have to do him tonight. He didn't think he'd make it to
Lulu's apartment. He'd rather do a full day's work with a shovel than the sort of trial and
error testing and splicing they'd had to do today. If it had only been a matter of
reconnecting the circuits, they'd have been done much earlier. But whoever had wrecked
the switchboard, had a pretty good idea of what they were doing. Half of the wires had
been cut before they came into the building, and more had been cut between poles all over
town. They still had no circuits at all to Ketchum. Tony reckoned they'd find missing wires
all along that line tomorrow.

Just before he dropped off to sleep, he wondered if Lulu missed him, even a little
bit.

* * * *

...work for better, instead of settling for worse.

Tony's words had echoed in her mind many times since he'd spoken them. With
each iteration, her resolve to strive for the best marriage they could have had
strengthened.

The first step was to make a home for them to share.

Arranging Tony's house for the two of them took very little time, for there was
practically no furniture, and only the kitchen cupboards in which to store anything. Lulu
and Ted Hickson had dragged the mattress back onto the bed, and now the parlor contained
only the shabby chair, the untidy bookcase, and two boxes of Lulu's books. Early Tuesday
morning, once she had made the bed and set bread to rising, she curled into the big, lumpy
chair and started to work her way through the back copies of the
Wood River
Times
, which she had purchased at the newspaper office yesterday.

The first mention of the local Anti-Chinese League, back in mid-January, caused
her to narrow her reading. One by one, she went through the newspapers, seeking articles
on that topic. Some issues had not been available, so she knew she was missing a few
articles, but she had enough to follow the story well.

And to make her furious.

"What fools! What incredible, short-sighted, narrow minded fools!" she muttered,
as she read the details of the League's formation. "'A standing menace to American labor'
indeed! Isn't that what was said about free Negroes? The only jobs the Chinese take away
from 'American labor' are those that white men and women are too stupidly proud to take.
Just because they work hard and save their money, the lazy and the shiftless hate and fear
them." She tossed the paper aside, picked up another.

"What incredible bombast!" she muttered, some while later, as she read on. Then
her eye was caught by a headline immediately following the one she'd just read.
ADVICE TO HUSBANDS
it was titled. Curious, she read.

Don't trouble yourself to be on time for meals...don't mind about sending her
word...when your wife rises in the morning to build the fire and she sees you enjoying the
refreshing slumber of the innocent...don't allow your wife to handle any money...don't be
too interested in your wife's ailments...don't allow your wife to question the propriety of
your drinking with your friends...

The last paragraph caused her to crumple the paper and toss it across the room.
She reached for her notebook, lying on the floor beside the chair. Then she set it back
down again. If the article had been serious, she would make no friends by attacking it. If
people in Hailey subscribed to the advice given, they were not about to be convinced
otherwise. And if the article was meant to be humorous, she would make herself appear
ridiculous by taking it seriously. For the first time, she regretted not making friends in
town, for if she had she would have a better idea of how folks here thought and
believed.

"Perhaps Miss Petersham would advise me," she said. Or would Miss Petersham
even be willing to acknowledge her? As a schoolteacher, she would naturally be
constrained to associate only with people of high moral character. Lulu had often
wondered how she got away with her support of women's suffrage.

She picked up the next paper, resolving to ignore other inflammatory articles, and
only read those having to do with the Chinese issue.

Here was one, on the ninth of February, in which the Chinese were said to have
claimed to own property worth more than $35,000 in the Wood River valley. Reading on,
she discovered that they might have erred in thinking that would change anything. The
article urged the District Attorney to look into back taxes paid on that amount of property,
and all but said the Chinese had lied to avoid paying the full amount. She shook her head.
Of course. Nothing the Chinese could do would please those who hated and feared them.
Just like the South.

A shudder crept up her spine as she once again remembered the awful night when
Reverend Thomas had been killed. Could that happen here?

The articles continued, each one adding to her anger. After a while, she went back
to the beginning and read her way through each paper, using the other news as an anodyne
to fury. She broke away to tend to the bread and to start a pot of soup, and when her
stomach growled, to nibble on cheese and a two-day-old biscuit, then back to her reading,
where she still paid more attention to the articles about the Chinese issue than anything
else. Then, on the nineteenth of February, she read something that made her smile:
No
great social reform has ever been accomplished without the active sympathy and
co-operation of women....

"Good heavens! I can't believe they actually printed a statement like that." She set
the paper aside to keep, and picked up the next. But before she could do more than skim
the headlines, she heard the back door open.

"Lulu? I'm home."

Immediately she rose and went to greet him. "You're filthy," burst from her mouth
before she could stop it. He looked as if he'd rolled in mud, then in grease. Or the other
way around.

Wearily he peeled out of his coat. "Sorry. We had to crawl under the office up at
the smelter in Ketchum. Remind me never to run wires under anything again." Sitting on
the rickety bench beside the back door, he worked the wet and muddy laces of his boots
loose. "Look, I'm going to undress right here, if you don't mind. Could I get you to bring
me the britches on the hook in the wardrobe?"

By the time she returned with the britches and a wool shirt, he was naked. His
back was to her. Muscles rippled as he tossed his Union suit onto the pile of soiled
clothing. Lulu's mouth went dry and something fluttered in her belly. Not the baby. A
needy fluttering, one that would be calmed only by...

He turned. Started when he saw her. "Sorry, I--"

"Here are your britches," she said, her voice thin and hesitant. As soon as he'd
taken them, she turned quickly and went to the stove. But even as she unnecessarily stirred
the soup, her eyes were drawn to him.

How magnificent he was, with narrow flanks and a deep, broad chest. His skin,
more delicately golden where never exposed to sunlight, held a gleam like precious metal.
His sex, unaroused, emerged from a nest of shining black hair. When he pulled the clean
britches on, she swallowed, remembering how he had looked as he'd come to her, that
night in September. When he donned the shirt, she almost regretted bringing it to him.
"Supper is ready whenever you are," she said, once more in a voice unnaturally high and
thin.