THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER Read online

  The Imperial Engineer

  Behind the Ranges, Book II

  By

  Judith B. Glad

  Something hidden. Go and find it.

  Go and look behind the ranges--

  Something lost behind the Ranges.

  Lost and waiting for you. Go.

  Rudyard Kipling: The Explorer

  Uncial Press Aloha, Oregon

  2006

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2004, 2006 by Judith B. Glad

  Previously published by Awe-Struck E-Books

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-015-1

  ISBN 10: 1-60174-015-8

  Cover design by Judith B. Glad

  Cover lithograph courtesy Library of Congress,

  Geography and Map Division

  All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  Published by Uncial Press,

  an imprint of GCT, Inc.

  Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

  Among my Heroes:

  Abigail Adams, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Scott Duniway, and countless others who worked to gain women the right to vote. This book is dedicated to them, known and unknown. May we all remember what a precious gift they left us.

  And to Neil, ever and always.

  ~~~

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Sincere thanks to everyone who helped me with this book, but most especially to:

  Telephone experts Jim Taylor, P.E., and Tom Farley, Telecom historian;

  Teddie Daley, Blaine/Alturas County historian;

  Diana Steiner, for words in Chinese;

  Mary Taffs, Nancy Schumacher, Kat Thompson, Star Conrad, RubyLee Schneider, and Norma Williams, for their thoughtful comments;

  The staff at the Idaho Historical Library, who were incredibly helpful;

  The folks on 19th Century Woman and OverlandTrails listserves, who are always willing to answer my questions;

  Countless unknown webpage owners who share their knowledge of just about everything.

  And an extra special thanks to Kathryn D. Struck, for believing in me.

  Prologue

  If all the world and love were young,

  And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

  These pretty pleasures might me move

  To live with thee and be thy love.

  Sir Walter Raleigh

  ~~~

  Cherry Vale, Idaho Territory, 1872

  They had known each other for half their lives. They had fought and played and dreamed together, had slept in a heap of children while winter winds howled around the eaves, had splashed naked in the river on hot summer afternoons. They were friends, comrades, family.

  "It's not going to be the same, is it, Micah?" Lulu King said, as they watched their almost-cousins ride across the pasture one afternoon in June. "What with Gabe all grown up, and now Merlin staying Back East for the summer."

  "Wisht I was with Gabe," Micah said, "goin' around the world 'stead of stayin' here and milkin' cows."

  "If you don't learn to speak proper English, you'll never even graduate college, let alone go off adventuring." Lulu tweaked his wooly hair. "You know what Mama says about first impressions."

  "I speak impeccable English, sister mine. I simply do not choose to at this moment." The sly grin her younger brother gave her showed that he had, as usual, been doing his best to get her goat. Papa was forever telling her she took life too seriously.

  Well, and why not? She was all but grown up now, and would go away to school in another year. One final summer of childish irresponsibility, and then she would willingly accept the burdens and privileges of adulthood.

  "Just this one last summer," she whispered, not quite sure why being a child a little longer seemed so important.

  The small party on horseback came through the last gate. Tao Ni led them, sitting tall and sober and responsible on his wiry dun gelding. The three Lachlan children straggled along behind him.

  Lulu ran to meet them.

  Dust sparkled like gold in the sunlight and the river's song had changed from spring's flood-roar to summer's lazy chuckle. Still, everything looked different, now he knew he was seeing it for the last time. Tony Dewitt had almost not come this summer. He had cramming to do so he'd be free to travel with his parents one last time before he entered college. Somehow he couldn't imagine that his education, gleaned from books instead of absorbed in a classroom, would be sufficient preparation for matriculation at one of the nation's most prestigious universities.

  "Go, and enjoy being carefree one last time," his father had advised him. "You'll spend the rest of your life being sensible and grown-up."

  And so he had come, for the temptation to capture a few last precious moments of childhood had been too great to resist.

  Instead of dismounting the moment they rode into the yard, Tony sat on horseback and watched the others, laughing, hugging, rejoicing. For one small moment he gave thanks for the great good fortune he'd had in being adopted into this big, loving family. A thickness grew in his throat as he thought of what might have been--a life of near slavery, without hope, without love. Without family.

  "You look so sad. Aren't you happy to be here?"

  Tony looked down into a familiar, smiling face, into eyes the color of winter rain. "I was just thinking about how this is the last summer I'll come here like this," he said. He dismounted and pulled her into his arms for a hug, as he had so many times before. "Hello, Lulu. Saved any worlds lately?"

  "Hello, Tao Ni," she responded in their ritual greeting, "built any bridges lately?" But there was a catch in her voice, and she pulled away quickly.

  Tony felt heat rise in his face, ashamed of the betrayal of his body, its involuntary reaction to the feel of a girl, the smell of a girl, the thought of a girl. Uncle Emmet said all men went through this, that his body's extreme sensitivity to anything even hinting of female would lessen as he grew older, but he wasn't sure he'd survive that long. "I sure wish you'd learn to call me Tony, like everybody else does," he complained, to cover his embarrassment.

  "Why?" she said, as she lifted his saddlebags across her slender shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with your real name. I like it. Tony is so...I don't know. Mundane."

  "Mundane is good," he told her. "There's nothing exotic about me. Remember that." He looked into her eyes for a moment, saw a flash of something that looked like...disappointment?

  * * * *

  They finished stacking timothy hay late on a hot August afternoon. Dried sweat and dust and tiny fragments of grass had them all scratching, driving them to the hot spring down by the river. Clean, cool and tired, they started for home, riding single file along the narrow trail through the woods. As last in line, Tony was responsible for making sure all the gates were left as they'd found them. When he closed the gate in the fence between the Lachlan pastures and her parents' land, Lulu waited for him, letting the others pull ahead. "Look at that moon," she said when he rode up beside her. "It looks so close."

  The moon, full and round, was just above the crest of the hills to the southeast. Even though the western sky was still lit with the fading glow of daylight, the moon was surrounded with velvety black. Only a few of the brightest stars were visible. "Look! There's a shooting star.
"

  "Make a wish."

  "I wish... I wish everything would stay just the way it is now. Perfect." Keeping her face turned away from him, she clucked at her horse.

  "Wait. Don't go."

  Lulu pulled her horse to a halt after only two steps. "What?"

  "It's not late. Let's go up to the Aerie. We can count the stars."

  "But the others...?"

  "They'll be fine. Reggie has the rifle, and they're almost home. I'll go tell them." He urged his horse into a trot.

  Lulu waited until he returned. "Mama will probably give me the dickens tomorrow."

  "We're through with the haying. Your pa said we could have tomorrow off. So if we don't get in until late, we can sleep in."

  From the high, rocky outcrop, they could see all of Cherry Vale. Moonlight gave the valley below an unearthly appearance, as if it were somewhere far removed from their familiar world.

  Tony reached for her hand, clasped it tightly. "Lulu, I'm going to miss you this coming winter." He felt her tense, then relax.

  After a long silence, she said, "Maybe this is why I hate the thought of growing up. Our lives will go in different directions. Oh, we'll see each other sometimes, when we come home for Christmas, but that's all." Her voice broke, and he heard a sound almost like a sniffle.

  He pulled her into his arms, as he'd been wanting to do since the day he'd arrived.

  She melted against him, warm and soft, and smelling of something flowery. Honeysuckle? He didn't think so.

  Afterward he was never sure who had moved first, but the next instant he was kissing her. Clumsily at first, because he'd never kissed a girl he cared about before. Their noses got in the way, and their teeth scraped. Then, after some initial fumbling, everything worked. Her lips parted under his, her tongue met and parried with his, her sigh mingled with his.

  Under her ugly dress, she was naked. Her breasts, small and firm, flattened against his chest, and her nipples poked at him. His cock strained against his britches, until he had to wriggle to ease the pressure.

  They pulled apart, gasping for breath. Then their lips met again, this time perfectly. Her hands pulled his shirttails free and found the sensitive skin along his spine. Her fingernails scraped lightly across his shoulder blades. He thought he'd explode with the pleasure of it.

  He pushed her away, even though she clung. "Let me--" he growled, and laid his hands on her thighs, inched the heavy, soft linen upwards until her exposed knees gleamed in the moonlight.

  Lulu caught his hands. "Wait!" she said, her voice so breathless and weak she might as well have been begging him to touch her. "Wait, Tao Ni. Stop this, right now!"

  His hands clenched around her thighs, but he stopped pushing at her dress. With a deep, broken inhalation, he slumped, leaning his forehead against hers.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Great God, Lulu, I'm sorry."

  "I am too." If she was going to give herself to a man, there was no other she'd choose for her first. "Even if I wanted to, we couldn't. I--"

  "Even if you wanted to? You mean you didn't? You could have fooled me." He sounded angry, but she had a feeling there was more frustration in him than anger.

  This was what Mama had warned her against. Men were far less able to control their instincts than women, and she had tempted him almost beyond self-restraint. "I didn't say that well, did I? What I meant was that I don't want to risk my future. Tao Ni, it only takes one time to make a girl pregnant."

  "I'd be careful. Silas told me--"

  "The only certain way to prevent conception is abstinence." She wondered if her words sounded as priggish to him as they did in her own ears. But she believed what Mamma had told her, and had vowed to herself that she would never, ever do anything to put her dreams at risk, no matter what pleasures she had to forego. "I think we'd better go back now."

  But he caught her wrist when she started to rise. "Wait!"

  She paused, not pulling against his hold.

  "I love you, Lulu." His voice was low and throbbing, and she knew he spoke from the heart. "I love you so much."

  His hair was like coarse strands of silk under her hand when she laid it atop his bowed head. "I love you, too, Tao Ni, but not the way you need. You're my best friend, my brother. But not my lover." Oh, but you could be! her heart cried. If only....

  His arms enclosed her again, this time with a desperate strength. He buried his face against her breasts. "I want you to marry me," he said, a hint of desperation in his voice. "Now. This summer. Before I go with Silas and Soomey. You could come too. It would be our honeymoon." His arms tightened, until she could hardly draw breath.

  She pushed lightly at his shoulders. In a calm tone she said, "Let me go, Tao Ni. You're squeezing me to death."

  His embrace loosened a little. Enough.

  She took his face between her hands, lifted it so she could look into his eyes. "And if we married? What then? I'm sure Oberlin College doesn't admit married women. And it's a long way from Boston to Ohio."

  "You wouldn't need to go to college. I've got enough money put aside so we could live comfortably while I attend Harvard. Or you could stay here, with your folks, if you don't want to go to Boston with me."

  Shocked, she stepped away from him. "Not attend college? What do you mean? Why wouldn't I?"

  "Hell, Lulu, a married woman doesn't need a college education. Look at your ma. Soomey. Aunt Hattie. They're all intelligent and well-read, and none of them has much formal schooling. I doubt if Soomey's had any." He got to his feet and seemed to loom over her. "Marry me, Lulu. Please."

  She didn't know him at all. Tears clogged her throat as she stared up at the boy she'd loved since first sight. But he was no longer a boy. He'd become a man, a stranger, with ideas and beliefs so foreign, so frightening, she felt her heart shatter in her breast.

  And yet he was Tao Ni, whom she loved.

  "No," she said, holding the tears back as best she could. "No, Tao Ni, I can't...I won't marry you."

  The next morning he rode away at dawn.

  He didn't say goodbye.

  Chapter One

  THE LAST SPIKE

  At exactly half-past 10 o'clock this morning the last spike was driven at the Hailey end of the Wood River Branch Railroad.

  Wood River Times

  ~~~

  Tony Dewitt stepped down from the stage in the small town of Hailey on the first day of May in 1883. Idaho Territory was experiencing another mining boom, only this time lead and silver were the minerals prospectors sought, not gold. Hailey was one of the new towns to grow up around the mines. It had a great future, everyone said, and there were fortunes to be made.

  He sure hoped so.

  The downtown was a busy place, with plenty of foot and vehicle traffic. Big freight wagons fought for street room with carriages and bicycles. The sidewalks were narrow and folks dodged one another as they hurried along. He checked the address of the man he was supposed to see. On the corner of Main and Croy. "Pretty much the center of town," his friend's father had told him. That way then. He turned left and strolled along the block, looking into the storefronts and saloon doors.

  The office occupied the lower floor of a wood frame building on the corner. Gold lettering proclaimed its proprietor's business to all and sundry. Abner C. Eagleton & Co., Real Estate and Investments. He swiped his shoetops against the backs of his pantlegs, checked to make sure he'd brushed the last of the travel dust from his clothing, and went inside.

  "Help you?" The fellow behind the paper-strewn desk was broad but not fat, clean-shaven except for extravagantly bushy sideburns, and dressed in clothing that showed its fine tailoring in how it fit.

  "Mr. Eagleton? I'm Tony Dewitt." He held out his letter of introduction. "Mr. J.P. Winter sent me."

  "Old Jamie? How is he? I haven't seen him for a coon's age." He leaned forward to accept the papers. "Sit down, boy." With total concentration, he read the letter, making all but inaudible comments to himself as he did so.
>
  Tony wished he'd speak a little louder.

  "Well, now, he writes that you're about as good an engineer as anybody he can send me. But I'm not looking for some high-falutin' expert. What I want is an all-round man who can turn his hand to pretty much anything I need him to do." He eyed Tony's suit, the expensive bowler he'd bought to celebrate the completion of his first major project. "Can you dig a ditch? Drive a team? Are you afraid of getting your hands dirty?"

  "No sir, I am not. I was raised on a farm and know what hard work is." Tony dreaded the next question, for he would not lie.

  "Well, then we ought to get along just fine. Now, tell me, what do you know about telephones?"

  "Only what I've read, I'm afraid," he said hesitantly, surprised--and relieved--that Mr. Eagleton had not asked him about his prior engineering experience. "I do know a bit about electrical systems, though. I supervised the installation of one at a dam site back East."

  Eagleton rubbed his hands together. "Good. Good! I don't reckon anybody knows much about telephones. They ain't been around all that long. Tell you what. We'll learn together. Now here's what I plan..."

  In the next hour Tony sat speechless as Abner Eagleton built an empire with words. The man's dreams had no limit. And somehow he was convincing enough that Tony believed he'd accomplish all he dreamed of.

  "But say," Eagleton said, finally, "you just got to town, didn't you? I'll bet you ain't had dinner or anything. Why didn't you say something instead of letting me jabber on? Got a place to stay yet?"

  "No, I haven't. I came straight here from the stage depot."

  "Talk to Mrs. Slossen. She runs a boarding house up the street a ways. Upstairs of the Kansas Headquarters Saloon. Tell her I sent you," He motioned Tony out the door.

  "But...but Mr. Eagleton, you haven't said you'd hire me."

  "I didn't? Well, dadgummit, I guess I got so busy telling about all the work I want you to do that it plumb slipped my mind. You're hired, boy. You and me's gonna get along just fine."