The Union Belle Read online

  Mark nodded. “What about that redhead Tom Jenkins was courting?”

  Hayden flushed, but then laughed. “Blast your hide, Mark Winslow! Here I get you the best job you ever had, and you start right in showing up my weak character to my girl.”

  Mark suddenly sobered. He reached out and put his hand on Ray’s shoulder and said, “It’s good to see you, Ray, real good.” He hesitated before adding, “I lost so much in that war—and I thought you were gone, too.”

  The real affection in Winslow’s expression moved Hayden, and he nodded, “I’ve missed you. Those were fine days, Mark.”

  “Come along!” Casement yelled. “Train’s going back!”

  The three of them hurried back along the track, and Mark left to go to the crew train for his belongings.

  “You never told me about him, Ray,” Moira said.

  “No, I never did. We had a big row when he left to fight for the South. But afterwards I saw it was the only way a fellow like Mark could fight in the war. I’ve always hoped we’d meet up again.” He watched as Mark came out of the car and broke into a run toward the huffing engine. “Let’s have him to the party tonight.”

  “If you like, Ray,” Moira said. “It might be fun.”

  ****

  North Platte was not equipped to handle genteel affairs. It catered to the Casements’ rough-handed tracklayers, and as Ray led Moira down the wooden sidewalk, he commented, “This won’t be much like your Boston parties, Moira. I doubt if we’ll be served cucumber sandwiches.”

  She laughed and clung to his arm. “It’s fun, Ray. Besides, I never liked cucumber sandwiches anyway.” She tried to hold her dress high enough to keep the red mud from soiling it, but had little success. “Where will this party be?”

  “At a saloon,” he grinned. “The owner was shot two days ago, and Dodge commandeered it for the event. I think that’s the place over there.” He led her to an unpainted frame building with a crudely painted sign over the door: THE EAGLE SALOON AND BAR. There was a picture over the sign, and Moira said, “Is that supposed to be an eagle? It looks more like a buzzard.”

  “Art critics aren’t too plentiful in North Platte, I guess.” Ray looked inside and said, “Come on, this is the place.” He let her go inside, and Sam Reed moved away from the bar to meet them.

  “Welcome to the Eagle Bar, Miss Ames.” He turned to the two men beside him with a wave. “You’ve met Mr. Winslow. Peter Brown, may I present Miss Moira Ames.”

  “Happy to meet you,” Brown said. He was a very tall man with a homely face and a wild growth of ginger-colored hair.

  “These two will be leaving for Indian territory tomorrow, so they may want to turn their wolf loose,” Reed smiled.

  “Well, this is the town to do it in,” Brown nodded. He grinned crookedly, adding, “I’m not afraid of the Indians, but this town scares me. It kills an average of a man and a half a day.”

  Moira commented with a smile, “Then there must be many half men in the place, Mr. Brown. Come along, you and Mr. Winslow. I want to hear all about the red Indians.”

  She led them away promptly to a table along one wall that was loaded with sandwiches and sweets. As she held them there, Reed said, “That’s a vibrant young woman, Ray. North Platte doesn’t know what to make of her.”

  “Who does?” Hayden asked gloomily. “She’s kept me on my ear for two years now.”

  Reed asked tentatively, “Are you two engaged?”

  “No. But we will be.” A stubborn look pulled the edges of Hayden’s lips down, and he added, “She’s almost as ambitious as I am.”

  Reed nodded. “I can see that. Well, the man who marries her won’t be bored, will he?”

  “Not likely.” He watched the three figures at the table moodily, then turned to the bar and got a drink from one of the full bottles. “Will they be gone long on this survey?”

  “A month or so. Depends on the weather and the Indians.”

  Moira was asking the two men the same question. “How long will it take, this survey?”

  “Too long,” Brown shook his head. “I said back there I wasn’t afraid of the Indians, but that’s not really true.”

  “How dangerous is it?” Moira asked. “Hasn’t the Government already paid the Indians for the land?”

  “That’s a lot of hot air.” Brown opened his large mouth, took an enormous bite of a sandwich and swallowed it apparently without chewing, then took another bite. “We’ve broken every treaty we ever made with the Indians, and they know we’ll never keep one. Someone from the Department of Indian Affairs goes out, gives some chief a few dollars, and that settles it in Washington. But the Indians don’t see it like that. They look on that money as rent, not a sale. They can’t understand owning the land. They’re backed up now and ready for a fight.”

  “What about Federal troops?” Mark asked. “The papers say that Custer’s left Fort Hays to sweep the plains clean of hostiles.”

  “Might as well try to clean it of bees!” Brown grumbled. “The Indians just melt away before any significant force arrives, then come back together. They’re hitting at our survey teams all the time. A Sioux war party jumped L.L. Hillis two weeks ago. Killed him and scattered his party.” Brown took a bite of cake, but not to taste it. “He was a good friend of mine, Hillis was.”

  Moira nodded sympathetically, but could not picture the horror of a Sioux raid; it was too foreign to her experience. She tactfully changed the subject, and soon had both men smiling.

  The party was uneventful. Dodge had invited only a dozen people, and all of them were caught up almost at once in talk about the problems of the coming spring. After an hour of this, Moira was bored. She whispered to Ray, “Come on. Let’s wander around town.”

  “Better not,” Ray said. “Or if you must go, let me get Casement to lend us a pair of bodyguards.”

  “I’ve got two bodyguards,” Moira smiled. She took Ray’s arm with one hand and Mark’s with the other. “You two look capable to me.”

  She pulled them with her, and they walked along the sidewalk. As they made their way along, she read the signs that identified the special drinks of the saloons—”Red Dog,” “Blue Run,” “Red Cloud,” and “Pop Skull” were a few of them. Across the gulf of mud she saw the glitter of the saloons and dance halls and business houses stretching away into the night. Over on the corner, the vast shape of a huge tent loomed. “What’s that?” she asked.

  “That’s the Wagonwheel,” Ray said. “Biggest saloon in North Platte. Run by a tough man by the name of Cherry Valance.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ray grinned at her. “I sneaked off last night and had a look. It’s quite a place.”

  Moira’s spirit rose. “Let’s go inside.”

  “Moira! You can’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s a rough place. For another, your father would fire me if I took you to a place like that.”

  “You can blame it on me,” she said. Excitement gleamed in her eyes, and she pulled at the two men. “Come on, bodyguards. Do your duty.”

  “Mark, tell her about this place.”

  Mark grinned at his friend, enjoying his discomfort. “She’s your woman, Ray. You do the telling. Besides, I’ve never been in this one.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a pair of deacons!” Moira said. She let go of their arms and marched toward the Wagonwheel.

  “Come on, Mark,” Ray said in alarm. “She’s got her mind made up, and nothing will stop her.”

  As the three entered the tent, their ears were struck by the enormous clatter of a band, and their eyes by a solid gush of light. All the games were in full blast, and the flash of light on the fifty-foot mirror covering the saloon’s back bar lit the tent like a house on fire. Over on the dance floor the white faces of women and the color of their evening dresses went around and around in a blur. There was no calm, only a surge that swelled more and more vibrantly against the canvas ceiling of the
tent.

  Mark moved in front of the pair, shouldering the crowd aside. He paused beside a small table and waited until Moira and Ray were seated before taking the other chair. A highly painted woman came and looked hard at Moira, asking, “What’ll it be?”

  “What wine are you serving?” Moira asked.

  The woman stared at her in disbelief. “Red,” she said derisively. “You want the whole bottle?”

  “Yes, bring the bottle,” Ray said quickly. When the woman left, he said, “I hope you get enough of this in a hurry.” His eyes swept the room with a worried look.

  Mark saw that Moira was enjoying Ray’s anxiety. He sat there, his elbows resting on the table, considering her as she watched the wild dancers. She was the most beautiful woman he’d seen, or close to it. She was definitely going to be a handful for the man who married her. His glance shifted to Ray, and he felt the same surge of affection that had come earlier at end of track. The memories of their days at West Point were rich and sharp, romanticized, he realized, by the passage of time. He had made no friend so close since then. At least, no friend who had survived the war.

  He was thinking of those days when the woman returned with the bottle of wine and three dingy glasses. Ray poured the wine, laughing at the cheap quality. “We’ll probably taste the feet of the women who stomped the grapes!” he grinned. Then he lifted his glass and said, “Here’s to old friends. And the beginning of good days.”

  Mark lifted his glass, but as he did, someone bumped into his chair, causing the wine to spill over the table. He turned and saw a thick-set man of thirty grinning at him. “Sorry about that,” he said thickly. He had tight curly hair, a square face, and was so muscular that his arms stood out from his body. His small eyes ran over Moira, and he said, “Guess you’re new in town. Maybe I can give you some pointers.”

  He moved around to the fourth chair, and Ray got up at once. His face was pale, but he said evenly, “Move along, fellow.”

  “Fellow? My name’s not ‘fellow.’ It’s Dent Conroy.” He stared at them as if he expected them to recognize it. Then he said, “Let’s just have a friendly drink.”

  Ray said, “I told you to leave us alone.”

  Conroy’s hand shot out and struck Ray in the chest, sending him reeling back into the chair where he collapsed. He was struggling to get up when Mark rose and moved smoothly around to stand between Conroy and Moira. He said nothing, but something in Conroy’s face changed. A quiet had settled on that part of the saloon, and Mark saw a huge man coming across the room. The bouncer, he figured. “Conroy, move out.”

  The words set off a reaction in the muscular man, and he drew his massive hand back to strike. With one smooth motion, Mark picked up the bottle of wine by the neck. He avoided Conroy’s blow, and aiming the bottle at the man’s round head, he brought it down, lifting on his toes to get more force into the blow. The bottle struck Conroy slantingly above the ear, broke, and the ragged remnant scraped down the side of his face, leaving a deep red track of bloody wine.

  Conroy collapsed bonelessly to the floor, and Mark turned at once to face the big man who had come to stand in front of him. He thought he had another fight on his hands, but a slight smile touched the big man’s lips. “Dent never had any sense,” he commented. Then he turned and said, “Another bottle of wine for these folks.” He bent and picked up the limp form of the bully with no apparent effort and gave Mark a curious look. “Be careful. He’ll be after you when he wakes up.”

  Mark turned and saw that Moira’s face was, for once, enormously sober. Her hands were twisting a handkerchief, and there was a slight tremor in her lips.

  “Sorry about that, Moira,” he shrugged. “It goes with a place like this.”

  “Are you about ready to go?” Ray demanded.

  “Yes,” she murmured, getting to her feet. She had been shocked by the explosion of violence, and stole a quick glance at Mark Winslow. He was calm, as though nothing had happened, and she realized that in his world such fights were not unusual.

  Ray said, “Thanks, Mark. I couldn’t get untangled from that blasted chair.”

  “Sure.”

  They were moving through the crowd when a voice came, a woman’s voice.

  “Hello, Mark.”

  Both Ray and Moira halted, for Mark had stopped abruptly. He was facing a woman who was standing beside a gaming table, and now Moira saw that Winslow was not impervious to shock. His face was toward the woman, but Moira saw his jaw tighten and there was a hesitation in his manner that she instinctively knew was not his way.

  “Hello, Lola,” he said quietly. He went over to her side, and Ray said, “Come on, Moira. Let’s get out of here.”

  She wanted to resist, her curiosity once more overcoming her better judgment, but Ray’s hand was firm. When they were outside, she asked, “Who was that woman?”

  “I don’t know. One of the saloon girls, I suppose.”

  They walked slowly down the sidewalk, each of them wondering about the meeting. Finally she said, “I wouldn’t have taken him for a man who was attracted by a saloon woman.”

  Ray defended Mark at once. “He’s had a rough life, Moira. You can’t know how a man feels.” He was silent, then said, “We used to fight over girls all the time at the Point. Oh, not really fight, but we were competitive where women were concerned. And not all of them were in the social register.”

  Moira looked at him with interest. “Who won?”

  He grinned. “Me. I was far more clever than Mark. He was so blasted noble in those days, it was easy for me to work him. But I expect the war knocked those romantic notions out of his head.” A thought struck him, and he said, “Moira, don’t get attracted to Mark. He’s not for you.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly, Ray,” she said with a flash of irritation. “I’ve only known the man two days. He’s off to fight the wild Indians tomorrow—and he’s taken with that black-haired saloon girl.”

  He took her home, but when he tried to kiss her, she turned her head, saying, “Good night, Ray.”

  He stared at her, then shook his head. “I’ll never understand you, Moira. But you’re going to marry me, anyway. And it’s not because you’re the boss’s daughter!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sioux Raiders

  At the battle of Chancellorsville, Mark had rounded a grove of trees while on a scouting mission and found himself face-to-face with a Union officer, no doubt on the same errand. Mark never forgot the shock that ran along his nerves as the two of them frantically grabbed for their pistols—only a fraction of a second’s difference left Mark alive and the Union lieutenant dead.

  Something of that same shock hit him as he looked across the smoke-filled room of the Wagonwheel and saw Lola standing beside a table. He had thought of her every day since their parting, and never ceased to reproach himself for the way he had let his desires close the door on their friendship. More than once the impulse to go back and look for her came to him, but that seemed impractical—he didn’t know what to say to her. He never forgot the hurt look in her eyes when he kissed her, and regretted that one action more than any other in his life.

  He moved toward her, taking in the black sequinned dress, not low cut as most dance hall girls wore, but exposing her honey toned shoulders. She wore little make-up, he noted, and only a single pearl at each ear lobe. Her hair was swept back, and he marveled that she had that same look of innocence he had admired back in Texas.

  “Hello, Lola,” he said, coming to stand beside her. He removed his hat and looked down at her thoughtfully. A faint scent of lilac came to him, even over the raw stench of cigarette smoke and alcohol. “I’m glad to see you again.”

  She gave a quick look around the saloon and asked, “How have you been, Mark?”

  “All right.” He hesitated, not knowing how to speak to her. Mark realized that he should not feel so surprised to find her working in a saloon; she had grown up in one. Yet the days they had spent together had caused that part of
her life to fade in his memory. His mind had formed some sort of picture of her that the Wagonwheel didn’t fit into, and he had to make an effort to adjust his ideas. “I’m working for the UP,” he said, searching for words. Then he said idly, as if it were not important, “This is where you work, I see.”

  “Yes.” She made no excuse, but stood looking up at him with her eyes fixed on his face. “I deal blackjack,” she shrugged.

  He was uncomfortable and showed it, but he came up with a smile of sorts. “I’ve thought about you often,” he admitted.

  “And I have thought of you.” She would have said more, but a man had come to stand beside her. She gave him a look and said, “Mark, this is Cherry Valance. Mark Winslow.”

  Valance shook Mark’s hand and commented in an amiable tone, marked with his Cajun accent, “Sorry about the trouble, Winslow. I’ll have a word with Conroy. But make sure you don’t turn your back on him.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Mark said evenly. “But I’m leaving in the morning. By the time I get back he’ll have forgotten it.”

  “Not Conroy,” Cherry said. “The only thing he’s good at is carrying a grudge. I’ll keep my eye on him for you.”

  Mark nodded his thanks, then said, “Nice to meet you, Valance.” He turned his attention back to Lola. “I’ll be gone tomorrow, but it’s sure been good to see you again, Lola.”

  “Good-bye,” she said, and fought down an impulse to ask him to come back. That part of her life was over.

  “An old friend?” Cherry asked, coming to stand beside her as she seated herself at the table.

  “I haven’t known him long,” she murmured. She took the deck of cards and riffled it, adding, “He did me a good turn, and we could have become closer friends—but things didn’t work out.”

  Cherry studied her thoughtfully. “They usually don’t,” he said quietly, then turned and walked away.

  ****

  Mark rode along the sun-baked earth, sitting loose in the saddle, his eyes moving restlessly along the line of cotton-woods that marked the serpentine course of a small creek. Big enough to hide a Sioux war party, he observed. But when he edged over and took a look, he saw no sign of Indians. The sun’s heat had narrowed the creek to a mere trickle, but it would provide enough water for the horses and men of the engineering party.