THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER (45 page)

"Lulu, please do what I say. If things get too rough, go after the sheriff." He gave a
push at the small of her back.

Lulu obeyed. Reluctantly. Once she was free of the narrowing circle of men, she
dashed awkwardly across the street, intending to call the sheriff
before
things got
too rough.

She had just reached the opposite sidewalk when she heard the unmistakable,
sickening
snap
of a breaking bone.

Is this a free country? If it is, others are as free as you yourselves. But all must obey the
laws, as liberty without the law is simply license. Within the law persons, property--all are
safe. Without the law, all are unsafe.

Wood River Times
- Editorial

~~~

Well, hell!

Tony hated fights. People got hurt.

I reckon there's no help for it.
While the seven men waiting for
him--miners from the look of them--hesitated, he rolled his shoulders, reached inside himself for
the mental discipline he had practiced for so many years.

Feet firmly rooted to the earth, shoulders loose and limber, he waited, while time
seemed to stretch interminably. At last one man stepped forward, fists raised. His scowl
was enough to scare a grizzly, the breadth of his shoulders enough to intimidate a logger.
Tony rose onto his toes, kicked him in the ballocks, and danced back while the fellow
crumbled. His high piercing screams were the only sound for many seconds.

Unable to resist a grin, Tony motioned the others forward. "Come on. What are
you waiting for?"

"Fight fair, you sonuvabitch," the biggest one said. He feinted a blow. Tony
warded it off with his left hand. The snap of a breaking bone was loud in the sudden
silence. He gave another fellow an elbow in the gut when he rushed in, kicked a fourth in
the kneecap.

The last three came at him together.

Feeling rushed, Tony managed to avoid breaking the first man's neck when he
struck with the edge of his hand. He leaped, kicking once, twice, and the last two were on
the ground. One lay gasping for breath, while the other retreated, pushing himself
backward on hands and knees. "I've had enough," he whined, as he came to a crouch and
backed off.

Tony stayed ready, but none of the six on the ground showed any inclination to
continue the fight.

Glancing over one shoulder, he saw most of the crowd from the hall gathered on
the sidewalk behind him. He turned and looked at them, meeting the eyes of one after
another of the men in the front row. They all looked away, some quickly, some
reluctantly.

"Somebody tried to kill me yesterday," he said, looking directly at Jim Dalton, the
president of the League. "Probably the same somebody who's been deliberately sabotaging
the telephone system. We've managed to keep service to everyone so far, but one more act
of vandalism, one more attack on me and mine, and I'll shut the whole damn thing down."
Slowly he let his gaze sweep every face. "Is that understood?"

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked across the street to where
Lulu waited. "I thought I told you to go after the sheriff if things got rough," he said, as he
took her hand.

"I would have, if they had. But you looked as if you were managing fine without
any help." Her smile was wide and hopeful. "Will you teach me to fight like that?"

He could only shake his head, exhausted, yet amused. "Let's go home. We'll talk
about it later."

* * * *

Lulu woke in the night, having dreamed of the voice on the telephone. She
knew
she'd heard that voice before. And tonight she was sure she'd heard it again.
Patrick Newell? Maybe. There was an accent, but was it his?

He hates Tony. I wonder why. Did he push me? I'm sure Frank Correy was the
one who spoke to me, and they've seemed inseparable lately.

She turned to her other side, tried to get comfortable, but her hips ached and her
mind wouldn't stop working. Mentally she relived the meeting, listened again to Mr.
Newell spout his condemnation of Tony. His vicious, lying accusations. False, but so
convincing to people already frightened by the specter of a Chinese invasion.

Tony didn't act worried, but she was. Newell's words would find fertile ground in
the minds of petty people. By tomorrow Tony would be, in the eyes of many, a brutal
killer, a demonic heathen who ate babies for breakfast and was the first wave of conquerors
of the civilized world.

"I can hear you thinking," he said, his voice blurred with sleep, "a mile a
minute."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." She scooted over to snuggle against
him.

He turned and put his arm around her. "What plots are you concocting?"

"No plots. I keep thinking there's a pattern we're not seeing. Could there be
someone behind Newell here in Hailey? Someone who wants revenge?" Immediately she
wished she hadn't spoken, for he tensed. "Tony, this is silly. You need your sleep, and so
do I. Let's not worry about it tonight."

"No, I think you've got something. I've been wracking my brain, trying to think
why Newell--or anyone--should be doing this to Eagleton, and I couldn't make sense out of
it. He swore to me he's never made the sort of enemies who'd do harm to any person."

"Maybe," Lulu said slowly, hesitantly, "it's not Eagleton who's the target. Maybe
it's you."

"Why? I've done nothing to...Hell!" He sat up, pulling the covers away from her.
"The bridge! What if--"

"A relative of one of the people who was killed? That doesn't make sense. You
said you were absolved of blame."

"Not before my name was spread all over the papers. God! You should have seen
the headlines in the Dayton
Locomotive.
'Bridge Designer Fails Test.' Or how
about 'A Boy Who Failed at A Man's Job.' My favorite was 'Incompetence or Deliberate
Negligence?'" His attempt at laughter was a pathetic failure. "You know what the really
funny thing was? When they printed the results of the investigation, it was two paragraphs
on an inside page, headed, 'Shoddy Construction to Blame.'"

"So anyone who lost a loved one in that disaster might blame you?"

"I'm afraid so. But to believe what's been happening here is related to that--no, it's
too far-fetched!"

"Do you have any of the newspaper articles? One with a list of the casualties? I'd
like to read them." She couldn't help but think doing so might spark her memory of who
the voice belonged to.

"I did, but they were in the rooming house."

"That's unfortunate, but not irremediable. Tomorrow I'll telegraph Professor
Stelzner and ask him to look up the relevant articles. He can abstract them for me."

"Who's he?"

"He was my professor of American History at Oberlin. Before the War, he was
involved in the Underground Railroad and he is still active in the Equal Rights movement.
I guess you could call him my mentor, too." Her yawn stretched the last word out. "I really
should go to sleep, but I know I won't be able to stop thinking about this."

"Perhaps I can help." His fingers found the buttons of the nightshirt she still wore
to sleep in. "But first I have to get this off of you."

"I'll freeze," she protested, as she raised herself so he could slide the garment from
under her. "Besides, it's the middle of the night." Was that husky, whispery voice
hers?

"And we do need our sleep. I'm only trying to help you relax," he murmured into
her ear, just before nipping at the lobe.

"Cribbage is very relaxing," she told him, while she molded her body even closer
to his.

"Yes, but we'd have to turn on the light. A waste of coal oil."

"By all means," she whispered, as she found him, "let us conserve our coal oil."
She squeezed, then trailed her fingers along the raised vein on the underside of his shaft. It
surged against her hand.

Perhaps it was because they'd both recently felt the chill breath of danger. Or
perhaps they had both come to accept that they were building their future now. Whatever
the reason, Lulu knew this time, this night, was different. She sensed Tony's passion, yet
she knew it would not rule him. Nor would the hot need she felt make her impatient. Not
yet, at least.

With gentle fingers, she teased, exploring the length of him, tangling her fingers in
the sleek, wiry hair whence his shaft emerged, scraping her fingernails lightly against the
inner flesh of his strong thighs.

His breath hissed between his teeth, yet he lay quietly under her delicate probing.
When she had explored as much of him as she could reach with her fingers, she began
kissing him, starting with the angle of his jaw. It clenched under her touch, and she knew
he was fighting his body's demand for release.

His skin was hot, smooth. Under the skin was a layer of muscle she had never
appreciated before. "You don't look like a fighter," she said, tracing the curve of his
shoulder with her lips. It was hard, steely, yet not bulging like the miners' muscles had
been. "You don't even look particularly strong."

"I don't like to fight, and no, I'm not particularly strong. That's why I fight dirty
when I'm forced to."

"Facing seven men with empty hands and winning is not fighting dirty. It's skill."
Her palm flattened against the ridges of his belly, and she realized again what a sleek,
strong body he had. Like a panther, sinuous and lithe. "I've never seen some of the moves
you made. Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Here and there," he said, catching her hand and bringing it to his mouth. One
after another, he took the tips of her fingers into his mouth, nipping, then suckling each one
in turn. "It's a long story, and one I'll tell some other time."

Since she was entirely incapable of rational thought, later suited her just fine.

Tony wanted to explore every delicious, rich inch of her. Lulu slim and supple had
been his ideal, the standard against which he measured every woman. Lulu ripe and fecund
made him feel as if he'd stumbled on a treasure far greater than the cave full of gold he'd
found as a child. Treasure enough to build fortunes for all the families. This--his wife, his
children--was incalculable wealth, beyond anything he'd ever dreamed of.

He kissed her, drinking her soft, breathy sighs. Taking her lower lip between his
teeth, he bit gently, then soothed the tiny hurt with his tongue.

She caught his tongue and sucked it inside the furnace heat of her mouth,
wrapping her own with it. A surge of need rose in his groin, so strong, so imperative that
he pulled back from her. "Too much," he gasped. "Slow down."

She pushed him onto his back and draped her upper body across his. Her eyes
gleamed in the scant light within the room and he saw the flash of her white teeth. "We
have all night, don't we?" A silence, and then, "Tony, I'm sorry. I've fought you every step
of the way. I thought I'd never marry, had made up my mind to let other women be
mothers, while I made the world a better place for them to live in. And I would have, if
you hadn't come back into my life."

He would have spoken, but she put her palm over his mouth. "Let me finish. Last
night, when for an instant I thought you were...were dead--"

He felt the pressure on his chest as she took a deep breath.

"It was like the sun had gone out. At that instant, I knew--
knew
in my
heart and my mind--that we'd been destined for each other from the moment of our
conception. If I hadn't married you, I would have withered away into a sour old maid,
because sooner or later I would have seen what I'd thrown away."

"We should have married ten years ago," he said, believing it no less tonight than
he had then.

She pushed herself upright. "Oh! Won't you ever learn? If we'd married then, we'd
have never grown up. I would have become a docile little wife--"

"Never," he said, with complete assurance. "Not ever."

"You think not? 'A woman doesn't need a college education like a man does.'
That's what you said. I can still hear you saying it, can still feel the sick sensation in my
belly when you did."

"Lulu--"

"Do you realize what you were doing, Tony? You were denying my dreams,
devaluing them because of my sex. I can understand that, because we were both so
doggone young. I'm just glad I had the sense to hold on to them. But let me tell you, Tony
Dewitt, you broke my heart that night, and it was a long time mending."

Part of him wanted to be angry, because she seemed to be blaming him for ten
wasted years. But only part of him. What he regretted was the time together they'd lost, not
the results of that time. "I'm sorry too, Lulu. I admit I was wrong about that. Young and
foolish. Intent on what I wanted and the hell with everything else. But I still believe we
wasted ten years."

Spearing his fingers through her wild hair, he pulled her face so close to his he
could feel the moist warmth of her breath on his mouth. "So now that we've both
apologized, do you suppose we could get back to what we were doing?" To demonstrate,
he stroked the length of her spine and cupped her bottom in both hands. "Or do you need
reminding what it was?"

She tossed the covers back and climbed astride him. Sitting just below his groin,
she spread both hands on his belly, slid them up across his chest, and around his neck.
Lying full length atop him, she wiggled just enough that he sprang to full turgor
instantly.

Tony rolled, pinning her under him. When her legs separated, he slid inside her
welcoming heat. For a long moment, he lay there, content. Until she tightened around him
and moved her hips.

"Oh, God, Lulu! Don't do that. Unless you want--"

"I want, Tony. Now. Please, now!"

He began to move, and she met his every surge with one of her own. Tony held
off the inevitable as long as he could, feeling the force build.