Thunder Wagon (Wind River Book 2) Read online

  "I thought he said he was a ranch cook before he came here."

  "Well . . . I suppose one could call the place he was working a ranch. Actually, though, it was a retreat of sorts for some very wealthy and influential men in California. Governor Stanford, Mr. Crocker, Mr. Huntington, and Mr. Hopkins have all visited there, among others."

  Cole recognized the names of the so-called Big Four, the men behind the Central Pacific Railroad, which was even now building toward the east with the ultimate goal of linking up with the Union Pacific. This fella Wang Po had obviously cooked for some very important men, and Cole wondered how much Simone was paying him to entice him into coming to a place like Wind River.

  "Someday the Territorial House will have an equally fine reputation, I'm sure," Simone was saying. "And Wang Po's wife will assist him and be in charge of the hotel laundry. Guests won't have to send their clothes out to be washed anymore."

  "Sounds mighty fancy," Cole agreed. "But what about their sons? Those boys are going to want to have something to do besides odd jobs around the hotel."

  "You may be right about that, Marshal," Simone admitted. "However, I'm certain they won't go out and seek employment with the Union Pacific. I'll keep an eye on them, you can be sure."

  Slowly, Cole nodded and said, "Well, all right. As long as you know what you may be getting into. Having those Chinese around is likely to keep things stirred up in town."

  "Even when the railroad workers see that Wang Po's family is no threat to their livelihoods?" Simone sounded like she had a hard time believing that.

  "For some of those men, working for the UP, as hard as it is, is the best job they've had since leaving Ireland. It may be the only job some of them have had. Whether they've got any reason to worry or not, as long as they think they do, there can be trouble."

  Simone smiled. "Well, then, I'm certainly glad we have a competent marshal here in Wind River who can keep that trouble under control."

  Cole looked at her for a few seconds, then chuckled. She had sure turned that around on him neatly. "I'll do my best, Mrs. McKay," he said. "But with this Indian trouble maybe starting up—"

  "Indian trouble?" she cut in. "What Indian trouble? I haven't heard anything about it."

  Cole was a little surprised none of the gossip that had to be going around town had reached her ears. He was sure the news of the raid brought by Lon Rogers was a main topic of conversation in most of the saloons tonight, along with the arrival of the Chinese. He said, "It looks like Indians raided one of the farms north of town earlier tonight. The settler and his family were . . . wiped out."

  One of Simone's hands went to her mouth. "Oh, no. Do you know whose farm it was?"

  Cole shook his head. "I can tell you about where it was, though."

  He did so, and Simone's look of distress grew. "That sounds like the land I sold to Ben Jessup. Dear God." Her voice broke a little. "He and his wife had five children, Cole."

  The thought occurred to Cole that if Simone hadn't sold the Jessup family that farm, they wouldn't have been there to be massacred. But pointing out that fact right now would only make her feel worse, he realized, and it wouldn't do a damn thing for the murdered sodbuster and his family. Later on, he would have a talk with her about it.

  He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. "I'd better be going," he said. "It is pretty late. Sorry I had to disturb you at this hour."

  "You're welcome here anytime, Marshal. You know that. We both have a great interest in the future of Wind River, after all."

  Cole looked intently at her for a moment, wondering if her words meant any more than that. Probably not, he decided. Her husband's death was still too recent. He would have to proceed slowly and cautiously out of respect for her feelings, if at all.

  And maybe he was just imagining things in the first place, he thought as he nodded and said good night to her and went out through the foyer. She was a rich, sophisticated woman, and he was just a novice lawman who had never done much else with his life except wander around the West. The feelings he had begun having lately would be better off forgotten, he told himself.

  But that was easier said than done. A woman like Simone didn't come along very often, especially not out here on the frontier.

  Cole shook his head and grinned to himself as he walked back through the night toward the boardinghouse. As if he didn't have enough trouble on his plate already, what with angry railroad workers and proddy Chinese and maybe a full-scale Indian war looming on the horizon. Yep, he told himself, he had enough to worry about right now without mooning over Simone McKay . . .

  Chapter 5

  Michael Hatfield knew it wasn't going to be a particularly good morning as soon as his wife put the plate of eggs down in front of him. The plate rattled loudly against the table, and some of the scrambled eggs fell off the side onto the white linen tablecloth.

  He picked up the pieces of egg as quickly as he could and dropped them back on the plate. Delia wouldn't want a stain on her tablecloth. She was already upset, and something like that might be the last straw.

  The sandy-haired young man looked up at his wife as she went back across the kitchen to the stove. To him, Delia had never looked more beautiful, even though she thought she had gotten positively huge with child.

  With a sigh of frustration, Delia pushed back some of the red hair that had fallen over her face as she began transferring strips of bacon from the frying pan to another platter.

  According to Dr. Judson Kent, Delia ought to deliver the child she was carrying in approximately one more month, Michael recalled. Delia had visited Dr. Kent a few days earlier, and the British physician who had come to Wind River to practice had assured her that the pregnancy was proceeding quite satisfactorily. That assurance, however, did little to ease Delia's mind, Michael knew. She was still frightened, still afraid that something would go wrong when her time came.

  "Eggs!"

  The demand came from Gretchen, Michael and Delia's daughter, who was closing in on three years old now and talking more than ever. Some days, in fact, Michael felt positively sorry for Delia because she had to stay home and listen to Gretchen while he at least got to leave the house and go to work.

  With a smile, Michael turned to the pretty blond youngster and said, "Certainly, you can have some eggs, Gretchen. But what do you say first?"

  "Bacon with em!"

  Michael shook his head patiently. "That's not exactly what I meant."

  "Oh." Abruptly, Gretchen's lower lip came out and she frowned. Pouting was something else she had gotten very good at recently, Michael mused. He waited, and she finally said, "Please." She didn't sound happy about it, though.

  "That's better." He took a wooden spoon and pushed some of the eggs from his plate onto hers. "Mama will have the bacon over here in a minute."

  From the stove, Delia said acidly, "Yes, that's all Mama is good for, isn't it?"

  Michael sighed. A simple comment, that was all it had been. But these days, that was all it took to make Delia angry. Sometimes even less than that.

  Not that she didn't have a right to be upset, he thought as he sipped some of his coffee and began eating the eggs. She had not been pleased with the idea of moving out here to Wyoming Territory from their home in Cincinnati, and her worries had only increased when she found out she was going to have another baby. Then there had been that business with that outlaw called Strawhorn, and Delia had come perilously close to losing her life.

  But all that was over now, and indeed, for a time Delia had seemed happier, more content in her life and confident in Michael's ability to take care of her and their family. No longer, though.

  Surely it had to be the impending birth of the baby that had her so edgy. Once the child was here, she would be too filled with love for it— and too busy taking care of it, to be honest—to spend her days moping around and wishing she was back in Cincinnati. That was Michael's hope, anyway.

  "Here," Delia said curtly as s
he placed the platter of bacon on the table. It rattled almost as loudly as the plate of eggs had.

  "Aren't you going to eat?" Michael asked as she turned away from the table.

  "Not now. I don't feel very well." She wouldn't look at him. Instead she closed her eyes, raised a hand, and rubbed at her forehead as if she was trying to massage away the pain.

  Michael pushed his chair back slightly. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

  "No! No, there's not. Go ahead and eat. You have to get to the paper." Delia turned around and looked at the table. "Gretchen! Eat your food, don't play with it."

  Michael sighed again, picked up a slice of bacon, and took a bite. It was good, very good. Delia left the kitchen, and Michael looked at Gretchen, who was pouting again after the rebuke from her mother. "You can have all the bacon you want," he told the little girl. "Just eat."

  Today, he was even more glad than usual that he had a newspaper to get out.

  * * *

  "There you are, Marshal," Rose Foster said as she put the plateful of ham steaks, flapjacks, and fried eggs in front of Cole Tyler. She placed a second plate, similarly loaded with food, in front of Billy Casebolt. The lanky deputy practically licked his lips in anticipation as he looked at his breakfast.

  Cole reached for his fork. "Thanks, Rose," he told the proprietor of the Wind River Cafe. "Looks mighty good."

  She nodded in acknowledgment of the compliment and went back through the door leading to the kitchen, where the wizened old railroad cook, Monty Riordan, labored over the big stove. Cole had been acquainted with Riordan for several years and knew the fare the old man prepared would be simple but good.

  As Cole and Casebolt ate their breakfasts Rose reappeared, her arms laden with trays she carried out to the tables that filled the main room of the cafe. Casebolt glanced over his shoulder at her and commented in a low voice, "Miss Rose looks mighty pretty this mornin'."

  Cole grunted, swallowed a mouthful of food, and reached for his coffee cup. "I reckon so," he said, without looking around. He was hungry, and he was concentrating on his meal. Besides, he knew Rose Foster was pretty, had known so ever since he had seen her for the first time.

  She had reddish-gold hair worn in thick curls that framed an attractive, fair-skinned face. Her eyes were a deep shade of green, almost startlingly so. Cole judged her to be in her middle twenties, with a bountiful figure that was revealed to her advantage even in the simple cotton dresses she seemed to favor. Rose was a hard worker, too, Cole knew; she was in the cafe from well before dawn each morning until long after dark. But her efforts, along with Monty Riordan's cooking, had made a success of the business. The cafe had more steady customers than any other eatery in Wind River. Cole frequently took his meals there even though he could have eaten in the dining room at the Paines' boardinghouse.

  Maybe he would have to start eating more often at the Territorial House, he thought now, since Simone McKay had hired that Chinese cook from California. If Wang Po's grub was as good as Simone claimed, Cole figured he ought to at least give it a chance.

  That was assuming Wang Po and his family stayed here in Wind River once they realized just how many of the town's citizens were lined up against them.

  Even now, Cole could hear angry, low-voiced conversations in the room behind him. He picked up expressions like "yellow heathens" and "low-down Chinamen" and "run 'em back where they came from." That was only one of two dominant themes around town this morning, however. The other concerned how the army ought to come in and "exterminate all the red-skinned vermin they can find!"

  Cole cut off a thick bite of flapjacks with his fork and used it to sop up some of the grease from the ham and fried eggs. As he ate he listened to the little moans and groans coming from Casebolt, and after a few minutes he said, "You sound like you're in pain over there, Billy."

  "No, sir," replied Casebolt. "This here food is just pure-dee good, that's all. And I've always been one to appreciate good vittles."

  That was true. Cole had seen his deputy pack away prodigious amounts of food, but Casebolt never seemed to gain any weight. He remained his normal gaunt self.

  The front door of the cafe opened, and a tall, bearded man in a black suit and bowler hat came in. He hung the bowler on the hat rack by the door and came over to the counter, slipping onto an empty stool next to Cole. "Ah, good morning to you, Marshal, and to you, Deputy Casebolt," Dr. Judson Kent greeted the two lawmen.

  "Mornin', Doc," said Casebolt. "You're out and about sort o' early."

  "A physician keeps odd hours, much like a guardian of the law, as I'm certain you gentlemen are aware." Kent had an air of dignity about him, despite the genteel shabbiness of his dark suit. His beard was streaked with gray, and his brown eyes were intelligent but somewhat weary. He went on, "I've been treating a man at my office who was injured rather badly in some sort of altercation last night."

  "What happened?" Cole asked. "I hadn't heard about any more trouble."

  "Evidently this fellow didn't report his bad luck to you, Marshal. He was set upon as he left one of the saloons late last night—or early this morning, I should say—and robbed by several men who assaulted him. One of the thieves had a knife."

  "The feller was stabbed?" Casebolt asked.

  "Not exactly. His ear was cut off."

  "His ear!" exclaimed Cole.

  "Yes, indeed. Rather gruesome, I must say. Not only that, but the thieves took the ear with them, as a trophy, perhaps."

  Casebolt shook his head. "I never heard of such. What're folks comin' to?"

  "I tended to the injury as best I could, of course. I think the wound will heal . . . although the poor man will never look quite the same."

  Rose had come up behind the counter as Kent was telling about the bizarre case, and now she shuddered and said, "That's terrible! Why didn't the man report the crime to the marshal?"

  Kent shook his head. "I couldn't say, but when I suggested that he do just that, the fellow claimed that Marshal Tyler here wouldn't care."

  Cole frowned. "That's not true. I try to help out anybody who's in trouble around here. What was this gent's name?"

  "Shaughnessy, I believe he said."

  Casebolt frowned. "One of the fellas we got in that fracas with last night was named Shaughnessy, wasn't he?"

  Cole nodded, remembering the brief fight when the Irish railroad workers had attacked the newly arrived Chinese. "That's right. I guess he figured he was lucky he didn't wind up in jail on account of that little dustup and that it would be all right with me if he got his ear cut off. He was wrong, though, and when I run into him again, I intend to tell him so."

  "He was going back to work, despite my advice that he should take a day or two and rest," Kent said. "You may not see him in town again for a while, Marshal. I'm certain he was on the work train when it pulled out a short time ago." The doctor rubbed his palms together. "Enough of this talk, lads. I'm quite hungry, Miss Foster, and I'll have whatever Mr. Riordan has a sufficiency of on his stove this morning."

  Rose smiled. "Ham and eggs and flapjacks, coming up," she said.

  "You won't be disappointed, Doc," Casebolt said.

  As he finished off his meal Cole thought about the story Dr. Kent had told. Wind River was pretty much a wide-open town, and there were all sorts of shady, dangerous characters around. But this business of not only robbing somebody but cutting off his ear as well . . . that was just downright strange, and Cole didn't like it, not one bit.

  He and Casebolt swallowed the last of their food, drained their coffee cups, and then Cole paid Rose for both meals. As they were on their way to the door, it opened and another familiar figure stepped into the cafe. Lon Rogers, the young cowboy from the Diamond S, stopped and nodded to Cole. "Mornin', Marshal," he said.

  Cole was a little surprised to see him. "I thought you were staying out at that farm with the others, Rogers," he said.

  "Mr. Sawyer sent me and Frenchy into town to pick up a few things at the g
eneral store," Lon explained. "Him and the other boys stayed out there to handle the burying." Lon's voice dropped as he continued, "Just between us, Marshal, that was all right with me. I didn't much hanker to see what was in that burned-out cabin."

  "Can't blame you for that," Cole muttered. He nodded to Lon and moved on out of the cafe, Casebolt trailing him.

  Lon went straight to the counter and smiled broadly at Rose. "Good morning, Miss Foster," he said as he tugged off his hat. "You're looking mighty pretty this morning."

  "Why, thank you," she said, then frowned a little. "Do I know you, cowboy?"

  "I'm Lon Rogers." He looked surprised and maybe even a little hurt. "I ride for the Diamond S. I stop by here for a meal every time I get a chance to come to town. You got mighty fine food, ma'am."

  "Well, thank you. Have a seat, Lon. What can I get for you?"

  "A stack of hotcakes would be nice, and plenty of coffee. Better bring enough for my friend Frenchy, too. He'll be over here soon's he finishes picking up an order at the store." Lon had taken the stool vacated by Cole Tyler, which put him next to Dr. Kent. He looked over at the British medico and added, "Howdy, Doc."

  "Good morning," Kent said. "I heard about the message you carried into town last night, young man. Quite a grisly business, eh?"

  "Yes, sir," Lon replied with a sigh. "I don't know what's going to happen if the Shoshone really are going on the warpath."

  "Plenty of work for me, I expect," Kent said dryly, "and unfortunately, even more work for the undertaker."

  * * *

  Editing the Wind River Sentinel was more than just a job to Michael Hatfield, and newspaper work was much more than just a profession. It was in his blood, it was what he did, and he looked forward to each day's tasks with renewed anticipation that had nothing to do with his desire to avoid his wife's erratic moods.

  This morning he was even more excited than usual, because he had stopped to pass the time of day with several people during the walk from his house to the newspaper office, and he knew some important things were going on in Wind River. As he approached the cafe he saw Cole Tyler and Billy Casebolt emerge from the front door and felt his pulse quicken. Now he could get the facts of the cases from the best source of all.