The Passionate and the Proud (5 page)

“That’s right,” Garn told Emmalee then. “I don’t care. But there will come a time when I do, and when that time comes, you can bet money, body, and soul that I will not lose whatever it is that I choose to care about.”

“All right, Landar,” Mr. Bascomb called. “Double or nothing, just as you wish.”

The crowd cheered, pushed close to the table, then quieted. Even mighty Brutus, whose disdain for everyone and everything had persisted throughout the evening, strode over to watch the spin of the wheel.

“Let’s see,” said Garn, glancing at Emmalee. “Tonight’s a special occasion. I’m putting all my money on number sixteen.”

“As you wish.” The dealer shrugged, setting the wheel in motion.

The entire casino and everyone in it were caught in a hush. In the distance, foghorns sounded on the river. Outside, the paddlewheel churned and water splashed. And, on the table, the roulette wheel spun and clattered, fast at first, slower, more slowly still, until, notch by notch, the numbers passed, each lingering for what seemed an eternity. Nine. Ten. Eleven. The wheel coming down to the end of its spin now. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. “Come on, come on!” cried Garn, now on his feet.
Come on
! prayed Emmalee. She felt as if her heart was slowing like the wheel, as if her heart would surely stop forever when the wheel did. Fifteen. Barely moving, just one more, just one more…

Sixteen
!

The crowd let out a wild, exuberant howl.

Emmalee suppressed an impulse to give Garn Landar a congratulatory embrace. He would be insufferable enough as it was.

Click
!

“Seventeen,” called the dealer in a bored voice. “You lose, Landar.”

The quiet in the room was now as deep as it had been while the wheel was spinning, but the character of that silence was completely different. Then it had been filled with the tension of risk. Now it was colored by the imminence of danger.

“Funny thing,” said Garn. His voice was as taut and certain as he was, filled with an imminence of its own. “I swear I never saw a roulette wheel behave the way this one just did. Maybe it’s got a busted spring or something. Or maybe an
extra
spring. Surely you won’t mind if I have a look?”

Sensing trouble, people started backing slowly away from the table, the men shielding the women. Garn stood on one side of the table, the dealer and Jason Bascomb on the other. Brutus looked on, impassive and glowering.

“I’m sure we can settle this without incident,” said the suave Bascomb.

“Sure we can,” replied Garn, his voice clear and tense now. “Sure we can, as soon as I have a look at the workings underneath that roulette wheel.”

“I’m afraid that’s not permitted, Landar. There is no law providing for such an examination.”

Garn put his hands beneath the edge of the table and started to lift it. Chips and coins slid as the table tilted.

“Stop it, Landar, or you’ll be sorry,” Bascomb threatened.

“No,” replied Garn. “You’ll be sorry at the next port if I find that this wheel’s been doctored.”

The dealer stepped toward Garn and grabbed his shoulder. Garn dropped the table, spun around, and sent the dealer to the floor with a straight right jab. He lay there moaning and twitching.

Bascomb made his decision. “Brutus, get Mr. Landar out of here.”

The black giant had biceps larger than country hams and a breadth of shoulders two axe-handles across. He was monstrous. No man had ever dared challenge him.

Please, no,
prayed Emmalee, as Brutus came around the table toward Garn, who stood his ground.

“Come quiet and no get hurt,” rumbled the giant.

“Stay where you are!” Garn told him. “Don’t come a step nearer.” The danger of his situation had cleared Garn’s head. He showed no traces of alcohol now.

Astounded and bewildered, Brutus stood there for a moment, then looked at Bascomb for instructions.

“I don’t want a fight,” Garn said.

Bascomb made a sound that was like a laugh and a groan. “I bet you don’t. But you’re the one who’s provoked this. Brutus, get him out of here.”

The black giant strode forward again, toward Garn. His tremendous arms reached out.

Garn stepped to one side, drew back his fist, and smashed Brutus right in the nose.

Emmalee heard herself scream, which was quite a feat since everybody else was screaming too. Brutus, unused to pain, not to mention defiance, let out a roar that filled the casino. With his eyes on the slowly retreating Garn, he reached down and lifted the roulette table from the floor…

“Brutus! No!” yelled Bascomb, thinking of his elegant casino.

…and lifted the massive rectangle of mahogany and felt above his head, scattering wheel and chips, coins and greenback and gold. Garn was backed against the wall of windows on the port side of the ship.

“Brutus! Wait!” shouted Garn. He knew he was in trouble, and his clever gray eyes darted here and there in search of an escape route, but his calm was almost insouciant. “Brutus! I bet I can jump through this glass window before you can throw that table at me!”

Garn made a move toward the window.

The ebony behemoth hurled the roulette table at that magnificent wall of sheer glass.

Garn flattened himself to the floor as the table sailed above him, crashed through the glass, out into the night, and down into the Mississippi.

“Thanks, Brutus.” Garn smiled, standing. “I really didn’t want to have to swim all the way to Missouri on a night like this.”

He leaped through the great open space where the window had been and dived to the water below. Emmalee and the others pressed as close as they dared to the rent and riddled side of the casino and peered down at the dark river. For a long, long moment Emmalee held her breath, able to see nothing but the reflected, multicolored lights of festive lanterns on the black, fast-moving current. Then, with a great sucking, plopping sound, the huge gaming table bobbed to the surface, and in another moment Garn Landar could be seen swimming strongly toward it. It was very dark on the river and already the table was drifting away from the
Queen of Natchez,
but Garn had slipped out of his jacket. He was quite visible in his expensive white shirt, and Emmalee saw him clearly as he climbed aboard the table. He was alive anyway, if not totally safe. She realized that she’d been holding her breath and exhaled now in a rush.

Most of the people were cheering and waving at Garn, which they continued to do until he floated out of sight. The mined casino was filled with excited, milling people. Some of the men were remonstrating fiercely with Jason Bascomb. Brutus stood at the broken window, gazing sullenly down upon the river. Emmalee made her decision and left the casino, climbing to cabin twelve on deck three. There, bothered by no one, she spent the rest of the journey to Hannibal. She slept, she looked out at the changeless river and the ever-changing countryside. She nibbled at the food she’d taken with her from the Lutheran home, and she wondered what further exciting adventures lay in store for her. The world outside Cairo, Illinois, had certainly supplied her with a tantalizing prelude.

Also, while on board the
Queen,
she thought of what Garn Landar had said:
“You can bet money, body, and soul that I will not lose whatever it is that I choose to care about.”

She had no idea what he’d meant by that, and for a moment she wished he was there so she could ask him. It was a most unusual thing to have said, but then Garn Landar was obviously an unusual man. She smiled to herself, thinking of him floating away on the roulette table, waving. And she remembered, with a small shudder, the way his very touch had made her feel. Garn was a man; despite his reliability and sweetness, Val Jannings had been but a boy. Yet Garn seemed flawed, his immense attractiveness notwithstanding.

One of the things Emmalee wanted most was to control her own destiny. Garn, with the freedom given by money, appeared to enjoy such control, but he was squandering it! Again, Emmalee wished that he was there so that she could tell him, warn him. It was distressing to think that a man as interesting as he would come to no good end and have nothing but his undisciplined extravagance to blame it on.

So maybe it was better that he was not there after all: Emmalee did not want a reckless person distracting her from her own goals. But her mind roamed inevitably back to his words: “I will not lose whatever it is that I choose to care about.”

“Good luck,” she said aloud, thinking of Garn. “Good luck, and I’m glad it’s not me you’re going to choose. There’d be no end of trouble then.”

Once she arrived in Hannibal, Emmalee went to a bank and traded the piece of hammered Hopi silver for fifty real dollars, less a one-dollar “transaction fee.” Now, with nearly sixty dollars to her name, she felt positively rich.

She bought a canteen, a bedroll, two bright, durable calico dresses, a jacket, and a pair of boots for the trail, and a train ticket to St. Joe, Missouri. The future had arrived. Fortune would take care of itself.

The place was camping ground, way station, overnight stop for thousands of pilgrims heading west. It was a vital, tawdry, raucous, sprawling frontier town on the banks of the mighty Missouri. The maps called it St. Joseph, but to those who lived there and to those who passed through on their way to someplace else it was just St. Joe.

Emmalee thrilled and her heart beat fast as her train chugged into town on a bright spring morning. The dowdy buildings of clapboard and stucco and brick had been washed clean by an overnight shower, settling the dust in the streets and giving St. Joe a bright, snappy look. A white cloud of steam from the engine drifted into a peerless prairie sky; daffodils, violets, and sunflowers blossomed in the tall, wind-bent grass across the Missouri.

“Where you bound for, ma’am?” asked the old conductor as he helped Emmalee down from the train. St. Joe was a place where, it was assumed, one would not be staying long.

“Olympia,” she replied proudly.

He did not tell her how difficult the trip would be, or discourage her at all.

“Good luck,” he said, with a smile that made her feel happy and gave her an extra jot of confidence. Good weather and good wishes: Emmalee felt blessed.

Studying the advertisement she had clipped from the Cairo newspaper, Emmalee made her way to the Schuyler Hotel on Market Street and inquired at the desk as to the whereabouts of Mr. Burt Pennington, wagonmaster.

“That’s him over there at the table in the corner of the lobby,” said a bored, young clerk who was trying without conspicuous success to raise a mustache. “He’s busy now. Better wait your turn.”

Emmalee walked across the lobby and took up a position beside a marble column, from which she could discreetly overhear what was going on. Burt Pennington, seated at the table, was a bald, bullet-headed, vigorous-looking man. Next to him was a very pretty redhaired young woman, who wore a frilly lavender frock that Emmalee envied on sight. The girl was sighing and yawning, obviously bored. Pennington was in conversation with a rangy fellow standing in front of the table. He had the look of a renegade about him.

“…full up and nigh on ready to roll out, Mr. Pennington,” the renegade was saying.

“Good work, Otis. Damn good work. Ever’ day counts. We got to get a head start on Horace Torquist and his party. Damn farmers. If they get to Olympia ’fore we do, they’ll get the best land.”

“Don’t think there’s any need to worry, Mr. Pennington. From what I hear downtown and around, Torquist won’t be ready to roll for a while yet.”

Emmalee’s ears perked up.
Damn farmers?
What was going on here? Why were these people going to Olympia, if not to farm?

“Otis, did that new scout we hired show up yet?”

“Landar? No, sir. Ain’t seen hide nor hair of him.”

Landar? thought Emmalee, startled.
Garn
Landar? Perhaps. He had said that he was headed for St. Joe.

“Hell,” said Pennington, “if he can’t even make it here on time, we can sure get along without him. I didn’t care for the idea of hiring him sight unseen anyway. I like to look a man in the eye.”

Otis shrugged. “Too had he ain’t showed. Had good recommendations on him, and he’s crossed the Rockies eight times with wagon trains.”

Eight times across the Rocky Mountains? Emmalee reflected. If they were indeed talking about Garn, her estimation of him increased. Slightly.

“Well, he should have been here by now and he’s not,” Pennington pronounced. “It was in his contract. If he shows up, fire him.”

“Pay him travel expenses?” Otis wanted to know.

“Hell, no. It wasn’t in his contract.”

Poor Garn, thought Emmalee. He was already broke. Well, it was his own fault. He ought to have been here on time, not off on the Mississippi causing trouble and…

Suddenly she was aware of eyes on her and looked to find the redhaired girl staring her up and down. It was an arrogant, measuring look.

“You want something?” the girl asked, as if Emmalee could not possibly be important enough to bother with.

“I’d like to see Mr. Pennington.”

“About what?” the girl snapped.

Burt Pennington looked over and saw Emmalee. “Lottie, I’ll handle this,” he said. “Otis, that’ll be all.”

Otis tipped his hat to Emmalee, looking her over too, a glance of cool male appraisal, then strode away, the heels of his high, western-style boots clacking on the floor.

“Come over here and sit down,” Pennington ordered Emmalee, in a manner that was both businesslike and courteous. “What can I do for you?”

Emmalee approached the table and showed Pennington the newspaper ad. Lottie looked over, saw the ad, and dismissed the whole subject with a stifled yawn.

“I want to sign up for your train west, sir,” Emmalee said. “Are there any places left?”

“Just for yourself? You alone?”

Lottie showed signs of life now. “You’re not married or
anything
?” she asked.

“Lottie, mind your manners for once. This is my daughter, Lottie Pennington. And you are?”

“Emmalee Alden. And, no, I’m not married. But I want to travel west.”

“Well, I probably could squeeze in a few more fares. You got relatives out there, or what?”

“No, sir. I plan to claim land in the Territory of Olympia.”

Burt Pennington’s incredulity was too great to be concealed, although for the sake of good manners he made an attempt to mute it.

“Pretty ambitious for a girl your age,” he said. “You
are
serious?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, it’s a free country since Honest Abe let the slaves loose. What you want that land for?”

Emmalee recalled Pennington’s derogatory remark about farmers and remembered that his ad in the paper had addressed itself in particular to those with an interest in ranching. “Naturally, I’d fit right in with the other people in your group,” she said.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Lottie said.

“I told you once to be quiet,” her father warned. Then he said to Emmalee, “You intend to
ranch
in Olympia?” This time he was frankly disbelieving.

“Oh, yes,” she lied.

“Where you from?” Pennington inquired suspiciously.

“Pennsylvania. That is, originally.”

“Lots of ranches there,” he said dryly. “What’s a dogie?” he demanded abruptly.

“A-a what?”

“A
dogie.
You say you grew up on this ranch in Pennsylvania, so you must know what a
dogie
is.”

It must be some kind of ranching word, Emmalee realized. Pennington was testing her.

“I think I used to know but I forgot,” she said.

Lottie laughed, and this time her father did not chide her.

“Look, young lady,” he advised Emmalee. “They got
farms
in Pennsylvania. But it don’t matter anyway. You got no business going out across Kansas and Colorado by yourself. Wagon trains are tough stuff, and the trip is even worse. Then you got to cross the mountains…”

If Garn Landar did it eight times, I can do it once, Emmalee was sure.

“…and then you got to claim and settle your land. And there won’t be any farms in Olympia anyways.”

“Why not?”

“On account of us ranchers is gonna get there first and take the place over. We got to. Farmers tear up land, beat it down,
ruin
it. Land is the only thing that counts, and farmers destroy it. Look, take a piece of advice from a man who’s seen a bit in his time. Find yourself a nice young fellow—”

“If she can,” Lottie said, snickering.

“—and settle down here in St. Joe. You must have read too many books or heard too many stories. You’ll
never
make it out to Olympia.”

“Someone else thought so too,” said Emmalee, thinking of Garn. Maybe she would have a test of her own. Those who told her she should settle down here and get married, those who said she wouldn’t survive the trek west, well, they would just
fail
her test, that was all there was to it.

“Thank you for your time,” she said to Pennington.

He stood. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” he said, not ungallantly. “I stand behind the advice, though.”

Lottie could not restrain herself. For whatever reason, fate or chemistry or bad bile, who knew? Lottie Pennington had taken an instant dislike to Emmalee, a feeling that was reciprocated.

“If I owned me a calico dress like that,” Lottie oozed, assaying Emmalee’s serviceable but unstylish garment, “I just bet I could find me a man real easy.”

“It seems you do have that virtue,” replied Emmalee sweetly.

Lottie looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Finding things easy. I understand it is a virtue in some women.”

Burt Pennington could not restrain a snort of laughter. “Lottie,” he said, shaking his head, “I think you met your match for once.”

The redhead fumed and glared at Emmalee.

“Good luck, Miss Alden,” Pennington said, “and if anyone else ever asks you, a
dogie
is a stray calf.”

A stray calf! Emmalee thought, back outside the hotel on Market Street. Well, how was I to know? Would Pennington know what a harrow was? Or when to plant the corn? She thought not. Anyway, it was probably just as well that he’d rejected her outright. They hadn’t even gotten around to discussing the price of the fare! In the long run, it didn’t pay to go where you weren’t wanted.

But it was absolutely essential to get where you wanted to go, and for Emmalee that place was Olympia. She stood outside the Schuyler Hotel for a moment, watching the horses and wagons roll by, enjoying the swarm of women and children, men and cattle and dogs. Then she set out to find this Torquist fellow. Pennington had implied that he was organizing a wagon train composed of farmers.

She found that train on a green plain outside St. Joe, although few observing the chaotic swirl of random activity would have called it a train. There were many Conestoga wagons, true: high-wheeled, canvas-covered vessels built to sail a sea of grass. There were scores of tethered horses, oxen grazing beyond the wagons, and piles of bedrolls, foodstuffs, and other supplies. Children ran all around, shrieking at their play. Harried men and women dashed this way and that, to no particular purpose that Emmalee could discern.

She put her bedroll and bulging portmanteau down on the grass and looked about, trying to catch the eye of someone who might tell her where to locate Horace Torquist. But everyone rushed past her without paying the slightest bit of attention. The Torquist people, she decided, were very energetic, if not entirely observant.

Picking up her gear, she began to walk toward a group of women who were folding and stowing blankets in one of the wagons. In order to reach them she had to cut between a smithy’s forge—she could see the burly, sweating blacksmith hammering a glowing chunk of metal—and a wheel less wagon undergoing repairs. She heard hoofbeats close by, but thought nothing of them until, coming out from behind the wagon, she caught a glimpse of horse and rider bearing down on her.

“
Whoooaaa
!” the rider called sharply, jerking frantically at the reins of a big dapple-gray, which reared and veered sideways, just missing Emmalee. She dropped her gear and leaped backwards, tripped and sprawled in the dirt beneath the wagon. Her head struck one of the blocks supporting the wagon, and for a few moments all she felt was pain and all she saw were stars.

Then, slowly, her world recomposed itself, her vision cleared, and Emmalee found herself gazing into a pair of worried blue eyes. As her consciousness returned, the expression of concern in those eyes lessened, and she was aware of their startling beauty. They were shining, cornflower blue, with glints of golden light, conveying an effect that was at once intelligent and gentle. Then, with her mind beginning to function normally again, Emmalee saw that those wonderful eyes belonged to a strong, square, open face, ringed with damp blond curls that pushed out from beneath the brim of a battered felt hat. She watched as a sparkling smile of relief appeared on the face, and Emmalee knew she had almost been run over by an archangel riding a dapple-gray.

“You all right?” the young man asked. “You seem to be all right, but don’t get up too quickly. You want some water or something?”

“No, no, I’m fine. Really.” Emmalee sat up. She did feel all right.

The man helped her up. He was tall, and broad in the shoulders and chest. His waist was trim and narrow; his hips were lean in denim trousers.

“You got to watch out around this camp,” he warned her with gentle severity. “I didn’t have the foggiest notion you were going to jump out at me from behind that wagon.”

“I didn’t exactly jump out at you…”

“Sorry. Just a figure of speech. Say, I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. I’m Randy Clay.”

He offered his hand, which was well shaped, with long, strong fingers.

“You haven’t,” Emmalee replied. “I just got here. In fact, I was looking for Mr. Torquist. I want to sign up for a place on the train.”

She waited, expecting the half-disbelieving, half-derisive response to her plans that she’d received from Val Jannings, Garn Landar, and, most recently, Burt Pennington. But Randy Clay just grinned and asked what her name was.

“Sounds fine to me, Emmalee,” he said then. “But where’s the rest of you?”

“What do you mean?”

“The others. Ma. Pa. Husband, cousins, kids.”

“There aren’t any. I’m alone.”

This news did not seem to alarm Randy Clay either, but he did inform her that the Torquist wagon train was composed of people who wanted to claim land in Olympia for the purpose of farming.

“So do I,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”

He smiled again. He had a wonderful smile. It made her feel happy and wanted, like a friend.

“Well, let me take you to Mr. Torquist then. He’s the one who can tell you exactly how things stand. I’m signed on as a scout, but I’m really aimin’ to get land of my own once we reach Olympia.”

He helped her up onto the big gray horse, which Emmalee could tell was a sturdy beast, respectable but without lineage. It was the horse of an honest man who needs an animal not for the sake of appearances but for good, hard work. In fact, the dapple-gray wore no saddle, so when Randy swung up on its back behind Emmalee and put his arms around her so that he could hold the reins, the two of them were mounted close together. Emmalee was very conscious of the warmth of Randy’s body behind her.