THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER Page 4

  "What about when we electrify the town? Won't we need a steam plant then?"

  "I doubt it. With all the streams around here, we should be able to generate any amount of power." He sat down and looked across the desk. "That's the second time you've mentioned electricity. Is there something you haven't told me?"

  "Hell, boy, there's a bunch I haven't told you. I've got a finger in so many pies, I can hardly keep 'em all straight." Reaching into a drawer, he pulled out a cigar. He clipped the ends, then paused, looking at Tony. "You know there's electricity up at the smelter in Ketchum?"

  Tony nodded.

  "Well, I've been talking to the engineer up there. We could electrify the whole town, if we wanted to. All it would take is money. I've been talking to folks here in town, too, convincing 'em we need to look to the future. So far I've got a few who're interested, but not enough. And it's more than I want to take on myself."

  "So you're not planning to do it tomorrow?"

  "Well, no, but I'd like to start planning for it. Why don't you give it some thought? Draw up some designs, keep your eye open for a likely site to build your dam or whatever, and we'll talk about it again. Now, have you got those maps done?"

  "I'll get them."

  As he walked back to his office, he grinned. Much to his surprise, he was having the time of his life working for Abner Eagleton. The man was a caution--part entrepreneur, part hustler, all charm and enthusiasm. So far, in the two months since he'd arrived in Hailey, he'd designed the telephone system, ordered the equipment, persuaded nine people to sign up for telephone service, chosen a bridge site, started to design the bridge, annotated maps of the area with the locations of property with good water, built a corral, roofed a shed, driven a hay wagon, and run more errands than he cared to count.

  Oh, yes, he'd also rescued a damsel in distress. But that had been his own idea, and the damsel hadn't wanted to be rescued.

  She'd gone away again a few days after the Fourth. He hadn't known she was gone until he stopped by her apartment, intending to apologize and had learned from the elderly woman next door that she wouldn't be back until mid-August.

  He'd been relieved. Mostly because he really didn't believe he had anything to apologize for. But also because he still wasn't sure how he felt about her. Some days he wanted to pound some sense into that curly head of hers. Others he wanted to wipe her from his memory and expunge her from his life.

  Always he wanted her.

  He picked up the rolled maps and took them back to Eagleton's office. "Here they are. I don't know how complete--"

  "No matter. You haven't had time to explore every canyon and gully." Eagleton unrolled the first map, showing Hangman's Gulch.

  "Hmmm." Eagleton pointed to a symbol Tony had used to show mining activity. "I didn't know that was up there. Must be new," he said.

  "It's more a prospect hole than anything. I didn't see any sign of recent activity when I was up there. But that was back in June--"

  "We'll check it out come spring." Eagleton unrolled another map, this one showing the area around Gimlet. "Teller owns all this?" His hand swept across the center of the sheet.

  "According to the records at the courthouse, he owns or leases nearly three thousand acres."

  "There was a time I thought the man was a fool for wanting to raise sheep instead of cattle. Now I'm not so sure." He rolled both maps, handed them to Tony. "Keep at this, whenever you get time. I'm not sure what I'll do with what you find out, but something will come to me. Information is always worth money. You remember that, boy. A man who keeps his eyes open and his ears cocked is always ahead of them who don't."

  Tony was through the door when Eagleton called him back. "I forgot. There's an article in today's paper you might find interesting. Here."

  Tony took the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. "I'll read it tonight. I'm supposed to go down to the ranch this afternoon about that well you want dug."

  "Fine. I'll see you in the morning, then." Eagleton hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, but after a moment's pause, he simply shook his head and waved dismissal.

  Tony spent the afternoon walking Eagleton's ranch with the well digger, watching him use the dowsing rods that seemed so like magic. When he'd marked the site where he'd dig, they parted with an appointment to meet the following Monday.

  As a result of the time it had taken to find a likely well site, Tony didn't get back to town until after seven. He stopped off at the Nevada Chop House for supper, because Mrs. Slossen didn't tolerate latecomers to her table. So it was twilight when he started for home. He was almost there when he remembered the newspaper. Eagleton wouldn't have called his attention to an article unless it pertained to business. He'd better read it tonight.

  Back to the office, then home at last. He removed his necktie and collar, slipped off his shoes, and relaxed on the bed, pillows piled behind his shoulders.

  The Wood River News Miner came out daily. Tony didn't often read it, partly from a lack of time, partly from a lack of interest. A chatty, newsy paper, it mentioned many people whom he'd never heard of. He supposed as he became acquainted with the locals, he'd find more of interest.

  Much of the news concerned the mines in the Wood River Valley and surrounding hills. There were District Court notices, a short note that members of the GAR could ride the train to Denver and back for only $56.70, legal summonses, advertisements for whiskies and men's furnishings. Beside the haberdashery's ad, he saw one promising to cure, among other male distresses, lost manhood. He wondered exactly what might be in the guaranteed restorative. Something vile tasting, he had no doubt. And alcohol--lots of alcohol.

  Local gossip, a bit of poesy in which yesterday's shower was described as 'washing the face of nature and making the grass smile.' He chuckled, wondering what smiling grass looked like. As he skimmed the contents of the back page, he wondered if Eagleton had perhaps given him the wrong paper, Maybe it was yesterday's he'd intended for Tony to read.

  He went back to the first page. On the left were two columns of short news items. This time he read every one, finding several interesting, but not anything Eagleton would concern himself with. The third column contained an account of a News-Miner reporter's visit to Chinatown. No prospect of business there. Then came the results of a foreclosure suit, an account of a pleasure trip to Bullion, a shooting at Atlanta, several instances of dueling--

  "Wait a minute!" He went back and read the reporter's account of his evening in Chinatown. It was written in a patronizing, superior tone and contained contemptuous comments about the morals and intelligence of Chinese. The writer pictured all Celestials as opium fiends, although he did admit there might be some small value to Chinese medicine.

  Tony read it once, quickly, then a second time, slowly and with care. By the time he was done with his second reading, he was furious.

  Throwing the paper aside, he rolled to his feet and paced the room, five steps in each direction. So the reporter believed Chinese lacked the ability to change, that the race had never advanced beyond some near-primitive level. Someone ought to introduce him to Chinese philosophy, to Chinese art. Why, Chinese were civilized when Europeans were still all but living in caves.

  He stopped at the open window and drew deep breaths of dusty, hay-scented air. Someone ought to tell that reporter a thing or two. Teach him to respect other customs, other beliefs.

  "I'd like to..." he began, his fingers digging into the wood of the window frame.

  Before he could complete the thought, a voice spoke in his mind. Yes? What would you like to do?

  Like a bucket of cold water dashed into his face, reality swatted Tony smack between the eyes. There was nothing he could do to counteract the lies and misstatements in the article. Not if he wanted to stay in Hailey.

  Not until he lay in bed, unable to relax, did the most important question occur to him.

  Does Eagleton know?

  Chapter Four

  GRAND

  BALL,
>
  --FOR THE--

  BENEFIT

  --OF THE--

  Tiger H. & L. Co.,

  NO. 1,

  Coffin Brothers' Hall, Ketchum,

  --ON--

  MONDAY EVENING, SEPT. 10

  Wood River Times

  ~~~

  By the time she returned to Hailey in early September, Lulu was ready to stay in one place for a long time. At a conservative estimate, she had covered about a thousand miles in eight weeks, traveling by horseback, riverboat, canoe, carriage, railroad, and shanks mare. She had spoken in parks, in churches, in schools, from porches, in the back rooms of saloons and once from atop a table set beside the bar. She had been cheered and reviled, applauded and pelted with rotten fruit.

  But she had made converts. The cause of women's suffrage would be promoted in Montana Territory.

  Except for one short trip to Portland, where she would at last meet Mrs. Duniway, she planned to stay in Hailey for a while. Soon she'd have to sit down and plan her winter's work. Travel would be more difficult then, so she must accomplish as much as possible before December. She eyed the stack of letters waiting on her desk. No, she would not work today. It was Saturday, her first free day in weeks, and she would selfishly take it for herself.

  Was there a letter from her parents? She hadn't heard from them since June, and was eager to read about their latest adventures.

  Soon she was settled in the rocking chair, bare feet tucked under her skirt and a cup of tea beside her. Not only had she the wished-for letter from Australia, but there was one from each of her brothers and one from her cousin Katie.

  Gabe and Micah were both well, hoped she was the same. Their letters were brief, telling only what they were doing.

  Katie, on the other hand, fairly babbled. Her letter told what each of her siblings was up to, rhapsodized about her children--Lulu found it hard to believe that her goddaughter Melanie was about to turn three--and confessed to worrying about their parents, so far away in Australia. I know they're having the time of their lives, Katie wrote, but Pa's sixty-three, after all, and his leg's never been strong since that time he broke it. I guess I shouldn't worry though, since there's not a darn thing I could do if something happened. Silas and Soomey are planning to travel with them through India, which will relieve my mind no end. But still...

  Lulu smiled, thinking about how Uncle Emmet had fretted and stewed about Katie the time she and Luke had walked halfway across Idaho in the middle of winter. It must be a family trait.

  When she put the last letter aside, she felt much better. Hearing from family was almost as good as being with them. I'll stop off in Boise next time I come through, but only for a short visit.

  So much to do.

  Sunday morning after church, Jacob Teller caught her before she started for home. "Will you come to dinner this afternoon? Imajean isn't feeling up to the trip to town, and she's lonely."

  "I'd love to. I was planning on coming out tomorrow, but we can catch up today just as well." She hesitated. "Unless you'd rather we didn't talk business on Sunday..."

  "My dear Miss King, as if I could stop the two of you! All I ask is that you restrain yourselves until after dinner. I have invited several others, and I doubt that some of them would be interested in your cause. Would you like me to arrange a ride for you?"

  "That would be very considerate of you. I've made no arrangements for regular transportation yet, since I've spent so little time in town. Before winter I suppose I should do so."

  "Do you have any objection to riding out with Miss Petersham and the young man who is bringing her? He is a gentleman."

  "Not at all. It will be a pleasure to meet him. I know so few local residents."

  "Good. I'll have him call for you about half past one." He tipped his hat and walked toward the hitching rail where his buggy waited.

  "Lulu?"

  She turned around. A small shiver of pleasure made its way up her spine. "Hello Tao...Tony."

  "I didn't know you were back in town. Will you be here long?"

  "Off and on. I still have some trips planned." Deliberately she didn't tell him they'd be short and infrequent.

  "Then it's a good thing I caught you. I wanted to apologize."

  "Apologize? What for?"

  "You don't remember?" he chuckled. "Perhaps I shouldn't remind you why you were ready to snatch me baldheaded the last time we met."

  "Oh, that. I decided it was perfectly typical of you." She turned toward home and started walking. Having him beside her seemed natural and comfortable. "You always were so protective of us girls. I never understood why. Not with someone like Soomey for a mother."

  He was silent for several paces. At last he said, "I think it was because I was always so afraid something would happen to one of you. I'd learned the hard way that life is...uncertain." His voice broke on the last word.

  She waited, changing her usual vigorous stride to a slow stroll. Tony so seldom shared his innermost thoughts with anyone. If he was about to, she didn't want to distract him.

  "Do you remember the first time I came to Cherry Vale? In some ways it was one of the most frightening experiences I've ever faced."

  "It must have been terrifying. Being snatched off your horse and hugged half to death. That would certainly frighten anyone." She did remember that day, and in her mind's eye saw the skinny, hungry-looking little kid who'd cowered away when the whole Lachlan family and the three King children burst from the house as the small cavalcade rode across the pasture. "What were you so afraid of?"

  He stopped and stared off into the distance, as if the answer were written on the bright blue sky. "I don't know," he admitted. "That I'd wake up and it would all be a dream, I think. Nothing I'd ever experienced had led me to believe there could be a place in the world as wonderful--as safe--as Cherry Vale."

  Sensing a deep loneliness and a great need within him, Lulu slipped her arm through his. "You've never told us about what happened to you before Soomey adopted you. Why not? Was it so horrible?" While working in the Relocation Program, Lulu had been sickened by the crimes committed again children too young to be worth anything to those who would exploit the helpless. Had Tony been like those pathetic victims of war and hate and intolerance?

  "Compared to some, no. I came to America with my father. I'm not sure why we came, but I think he was running away from something, some danger. He'd been an Imperial guard, so whatever drove him from China must have been serious. Unlike many who worked only toward returning home rich, he saw this country as a new start. A future for both of us.

  "We were in a little gold camp outside of Sumpter, over in Oregon" he said, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper. "The whole place was one vast tent city, because no one wanted to take the time to cut logs and build houses. Any sawn wood went into rockers and sluices. The camp sat in a narrow canyon, so the tents were crowded together until you could hardly walk between."

  Again a long pause, as if what was to come next was still painful.

  "It was early fall. Not much timber was left standing within a couple of miles of town, but there was still a good bit of undergrowth, and a lot of slash from trimming the logs when they were felled. There hadn't been any rain for perhaps six weeks, and the hillsides were tinder-dry." He swallowed.

  "One night there was a storm. Thunder and lightning. Wind. No rain. I don't know how many fires the lightning started. It seemed like hundreds, all around us. We were trapped. It was like Dante's vision of Hell. My father put me under an overturned sluice box and caved a bank over it. I was all but buried."

  Looking down at his hands, he rubbed his thumbs across his fingertips. "I heard the screams, felt the heat as the fire burned over where I lay. After a while I heard nothing more. Then the rain began. When water began seeping under the sluice box, I started digging."

  Again that rubbing of his fingertips, and now Lulu remembered she'd seen him do it many times, whenever he was upset.

  "I dug until m
y fingers were bloody, but I got out before I drowned. I was the only living thing in that canyon.

  "No. Not the only living thing. The vultures were there, too."

  She wanted to take him into her arms and soothe him, comfort him. But they were standing on First Avenue in broad daylight. So she only touched his cheek briefly. "How long before Soomey found you? How did you live?"

  "She thinks it must have been a couple of weeks later. I don't know. I ate berries and what food I could scrounge from the burned tents, until the smell got too terrible to live with. Then I went looking for other people. I had been lurking around the edges of the next camp, five miles or so downstream, for a couple of days when she found me." His chuckle sounded strained. "They only shot at me once."

  She could only shake her head in wonder. "You were what, eight?"

  "Silas thinks I was barely seven. As near as we can determine, from my poor memories of the trip over and records from the gold camps in that area." Clearing his throat, he smiled, a poor attempt, but an attempt nonetheless. "Look, that's enough old history. May I buy you dinner? The Nevada Chop House puts on a great Sunday spread."

  Oh, dear, I must put a stop to this. She opened the gold watch pinned to her jacket. "I have a few minutes. Come inside, please."

  Once he was seated in her rocking chair, she perched on the arm of the settee. "I wasn't going to bring this up again, but you're giving me no choice.

  "Just because we were...friends once, Tao Ni...Tony, doesn't mean you have to watch over me now. I've been on my own for a long time, and can take care of myself quite well. You embarrassed me on the Fourth, and you damaged my credit with people here in town. Now many of them see me as a silly woman who needs a man to rescue her from the consequences of her outrageous behavior."

  She held up a hand when he would have interrupted. "Let me say this, please. When people look at me, I want them to see that when they give me the vote, I'm going to use the privilege responsibly and intelligently. I represent every woman in America, Tony, and it's important that I'm perceived as competent and courageous. When you carried me off the platform, you were showing I was neither.