THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER (34 page)

Her skirts hiked to her waist and spread around her, his britches tangled about his
ankles, they lay entwined, only peripherally aware of the draft across the floor, of the
flickering lamp.

Until the telephone rang.

"Don't," she said, clinging to him.

"I must." He rolled away and rose clumsily to his feet. "Don't you dare laugh," he
warned her fiercely as he pulled up his britches.

"Of course not," she said, not quite stifling her giggle.

The phone had stopped ringing by the time Tony reached Eagleton's office. He
turned the crank and when Jack answered, he said, "I was in back. What's up?"

"Maybe it's nothing, Mr. Dewitt, but I thought you'd want to know, given all that's
been happening."

"What is it?"

"A rock, that's what. With a note tied 'round it. It come through the window. I
stuffed rags into the hole, but I don't reckon they'll do much good. It's getting real cold
outside."

"Jack, what does the note say?"

"Oh, that. Here I'll read it to you."

Tony winced at the
clank
when Jack dropped the earpiece.

His footsteps faded, then grew louder. "Are you there, Mr. Dewitt?"

"I'm here," Tony said, holding on to his patience. From the corner of his eye, he
saw Lulu at the door. Her hair was standing out in fat corkscrews all over her head, but her
garments were tidy. She was digging in her reticule for something.

"It says, 'Those who traffic with the heathen will be destroyed.' That's all. But
there's some kind of funny words at the end." He recited them, stumbling over unfamiliar
syllables.

They made no sense to Tony. "Spell it, will you?" He leaned over the desk and
wrote the letters in large capitals.

Lulu came closer and looked over his shoulder. When he was in the middle of the
last word, she gasped.

He finished writing. "Okay, Jack. I'll ask around and see what I can find out. In the
meantime, get some boards to put over the window for tonight. We'll do something
permanent about it tomorrow morning."

"Sure, Mr. Dewitt. I'll take care of it soon as Eph gets here." He disconnected.

Tony handed the paper to Lulu. "Does this mean anything to you?"

She looked at it a moment, then crumpled it in her hand. "Yes. Yes it does." Her
face had gone pale. "Oh, Tony, what have I done?"

"You? Nothing. Somebody's got something against Eagleton, that's all. They
smashed a window at the exchange. This was on the paper wrapped around the rock. The
note said something about trafficking with heathens. A lot of hot air, if you ask me."

"No, you don't understand.
Quod Semper. Quod Ubique. Quod Omnibus.
That's the motto of the Ku Klux Klan. Oh, God, they're here, too." Again she crumpled the
paper. "And I brought them down on you, with my good intentions."

He took her into his arms, felt her tremble against him. "Lulu, I'll give you odds
this isn't from the Klan. There's somebody in town who has a grudge against Eagleton.
He's behind this, just as he's been behind all the other vandalism we've suffered."

"You're wrong." Her head moved against his shoulder. "You're wrong. Ru Nan
took me to Mrs. Graham's last night, then returned the buggy to the livery stable. I gave
him a note that said he worked for me, that he was authorized to pick the buggy up when I
needed it. So people know I hired him."

Tony glanced at the clock. Nearly six. "Let's go home."

"But--"

"I know. We haven't settled anything yet. Let's go home. We can leave word for
Mr. Lee and Ru Nan to take care of Eagleton's stock, and not worry about us."

"The house will be cold."

He ushered her out the door. "So we'll bundle. I want you all to myself tonight."
Aside from the fact that whenever they discussed anything, sparks were apt to fly, he
wanted her again. This time they'd be in his bed, where he would live out some of the
fantasies he had concocted through the long years they had been apart.

Fantasies in which she had always been the central player.

* * * *

The house was cold. Lulu kept her coat on while she built a fire in the kitchen
range. The gravy left from the night before last was an unappetizing, congealed mass in its
kettle in the cold box. She sniffed, but it was frozen and gave off no odor. She would make
biscuits again to go with the eggs she'd purchased. They would have to spread them with
bacon fat, for both she and Mr. Lee had forgotten to purchase butter.
I wonder if the
grocer carries that ketchup I like so well. I'll have to ask him.
It would certainly taste
good with the eggs. She wondered if Tony had tried it.

"Remind me tomorrow to order some hay," Tony said, as he came in from the
barn. "Grain, too."

"I meant to do that today and forgot. We should start a list." Giving the gravy one
last stir, she replaced the lid and slid the kettle a little closer to the hot ring. "There should
be paper and pencils--oh, shoot, I forgot my article!"

"Your article?" Tony had seated himself on one of the new kitchen chairs and was
unlacing his boots. "Something you're reading?"

Lulu stared at him, then shook her head. "We really don't know much about one
another, do we? I thought you were little better than a handyman or a mechanic. You have
no idea how I've supported myself for six years. It really is time we talked."

He set his boots in the corner and rose. "We will. First, though, I want to see all
this furniture we bought. Have you been in the parlor?"

One hand went to her mouth. "Oh! I forgot that, too. Yes, let's see if it looks as
good here as it did in the store." Despite herself, she was excited about the prospect of
fixing up their house. "Wait. Let me bring this lamp, so you won't trip over
something."

The furniture had been set around the perimeter of the room. The sofa, one chair
and a small table stood against the wall to her left, the glass-front bookcase was behind the
shabby armchair, and the other chair and footstool were across from the sofa. The round
drum table sat exactly in the middle of the room, just as it had in the picture Lulu had seen.
"Oh, my. It's so...so ornate." The carving across the back and on the legs now looked far
more intricate than when she'd seen it in the store.

"I like it," Tony told her, as he ran a hand over the fabric on the larger chair. He
sat, wiggled around a bit, leaned back. "Comfortable too. Did you get lamps?" He stretched
his legs out in front of him. "Ummm, yes. I do like this."

"I'll see about the lamps," she said. She opened the bedroom door, held the lamp
high. "Oh, no!"

Tony came to his feet immediately. "What?"

"It's too big. There's hardly room for the bed." The wardrobe she'd chosen sat
against the wall opposite the bed, next to the old one. The scarred dresser and their new
bureau sat on either side of the door. There was scarcely two feet to walk between the
furniture and the bed.

Tony stood behind her. "We'll manage. The old pieces can go into the spare room.
But not tonight." His arm went around her middle and he pulled her back against him.
"We've other things to do tonight."

Lulu had a feeling he meant something other than discussing their future. For
some reason, the idea appealed to her. Relaxing against him for a moment, she found
herself wishing she could be spontaneous, as Katie had been when she'd fallen in love with
Luke. "I wanted him," Katie had said, "and knew in my heart I always would. I didn't
worry about anything else."

But Lulu was not Katie. She needed to know the shape of the future insofar as she
could. She pulled away, with not a little regret. "There are the lamps," she said, pointing to
the top of the wardrobe. "Can you get them down?"

By the time they'd filled the lamps and rearranged the parlor furniture, the oven
was hot and the gravy was simmering. Lulu moved it off the hot ring and replaced it with
the skillet, then she put the biscuits in to bake. A quick glance at the clock told her it was
already well past seven. The evening was passing much too quickly. "What time must you
leave in the morning?" she asked him, when he came in with an armload of wood.

"Six-thirty or so. You don't need to get up, though. I've been making my own
breakfast for a long time."

"Of course I'll get up with you. It's my duty."

"Duty? To get up just because I do? That's a crazy idea."

"And I suppose you'd lie abed if I were the one to get up and go off to work?" For
some reason, the thought infuriated her.

"Sure, if I was sleepy. What's wrong with that?"

"Oh, never mind. You wouldn't understand!"

...marriage is a friendship of the sexes so profound, so comprehensive, that it includes
the whole being... Its love is founded on respect, and increases self-respect at the very
moment of merging self in another. Its love is mutual, equally giving and receiving at
every instant of its action. There is neither dependence nor independence, but
inter-dependence. Years cannot weaken its bonds, distance cannot sunder them. It is a love
which vanquishes the grave, and transfigures death itself into life.

Woman's Wrongs--A Counter-Irritant -
Gail Hamilton, 1868

~~~

Lulu could have sworn she heard his temper snap. "Exactly what is it I'm supposed
to understand?" he demanded, stepping away from her.

She turned, reaching for him, but he was halfway across the parlor. At the door to
the kitchen, he turned and looked back at her. "No," he said, as she took a step toward him.
"You stay there. I can't think when I'm close to you."

Since she had the very same problem, Lulu didn't protest. She pulled the bedroom
door closed and leaned against it. "If we're going to work together, it has to encompass our
whole lives. Right now you're in the position of supporting me, but it's possible I might
someday have to be the breadwinner. If that happens, I'd expect you to take over the
housekeeping and cooking. That's as much my job as working for Mr. Eagleton is yours.
So to me, seeing you off for your day's work with a good, substantial breakfast is part of
my job."

"I'd never let you support me!"

"Don't be too sure. What if you were injured? Mrs. Duniway's husband injured his
back and she supported him for some time. I understand he did most of the household
chores while she did."

His very stance showed his resistance to the concept. "It won't happen, so you
don't need to worry about supporting me. And I don't need you to get up and cook my
breakfast."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Tony! I don't care about cooking your breakfast. I'm
talking about the principle here, not a specific instance. We're more than husband and wife.
We're partners. Or we should be."

All of the ideas she had put to paper this afternoon coalesced into certainty.
"Whether or not I vowed to obey you, I owe you respect and honor, as you do me. We
must cooperate in all things, must choose common goals and work toward them, before we
do anything else. If we fail to take that first step, we will spend our entire lives reaching for
something we will never attain, and we will, in all likelihood, make ourselves and our
families miserable in the process."

"You sound like you're making a speech," he said, his tone almost turning the
words into an insult. "Anyhow, I don't know why we're arguing about this. I thought we
agreed that our goal was to make a good home for our child."

"Do you see that as our only goal?"

"I reckon if we do that, everything else will work out. I'll make a decent living for
us, Lulu, and it's up to you to make a comfortable home. As long as you do that, I don't
care if you keep on with your suffrage work, but I won't want you gallivanting all over the
country after the baby's here."

His words made sense, until she looked under the surface. "You're saying my
work for women's rights will make a nice little hobby, as long as it doesn't interfere with
being a wife and mother? Is that it?"

"Don't put words in my mouth. Your work is important, I don't deny. But surely
you don't expect me to approve of you traveling when you have a child to care for?"

Lulu had already given much thought to what she owed her daughter. She knew
her mother would welcome a granddaughter at any time, for as long as Lulu chose to leave
her. She doubted she would do so. Having grown up in the midst of a close, loving family,
with a mother and father always there, Lulu had already made up her mind to give her
daughter the same sort of secure home.

Being told she had no choice, however, raised her hackles. "I will decide when
and if I will travel, Tony, and I need not ask your permission to do so. It's plain to see your
chauvinistic ideas haven't changed appreciably in the past ten years. Now, was there
something else you wished to discuss?"

"You are the most stubborn, contentious, argumentative female I've ever met! Is
this how we're going to spend the rest of our lives?"

She could give in or she could fight. Either way, she'd lose, Lulu realized.
Although it went against the grain, she decided to follow her father's advice. "Sometimes
all fightin' gets you is a whuppin'. Best you look like you're doing what you're told. That
way you can pick the times you want to stand up on your hind legs and get your own
way."

"No, Tony, it's not." Sinking into the shabby old wing chair, she folded her hands
in her lap and forced herself to speak in a moderate tone. "This isn't the sort of
disagreement we need to resolve now. Let's talk about our immediate plans. You said you
intended to stay here in Hailey until you had the telephone business operating smoothly,
Are you planning to go elsewhere then?"

He regarded her suspiciously for a moment, before he seated himself on the sofa.
"When I was in Denver, I talked to the fellows at the telephone exchange in Boise. They'd
like me to work for them. But they don't expect to have a place for me before early
summer."