Death Valley Drifter, page 17
Martins looked at the other man. “How about you? You need to rest?”
Voight shook his head. “Even if I did, we have to make up time we lost in Oak Ridge. First we’ve got to find water for the horses, though.”
The colonel took a map from the inside pocket of his jacket and studied it. Now that the sun was up, they could quicken the pace—as soon as they decided where they were going.
“What’s it look like?” Martins asked.
“We got a small lake northwest or a river running to the northeast. The river’s nearer—about two miles from here. But it’s the wrong direction if we’re making for San Francisco.”
Martins was silent for a long moment, and he stared ahead. Voight looked over at him.
“Lieutenant?”
“We’re not,” Martins said.
“We’re not what?”
“Going to the coast. At least, not directly.”
Voight seemed confused. “Where are we going, then?”
“Truckee. It’s closer and quicker.”
“Truckee?” There was a heavy sound of consideration in the word.
“The train station. A chance.”
Voight regarded the map and then the lieutenant. “The captain would have expected a change of plans to be left at the way station, if such was our intent.”
“We’re not changing our plans, only our point and method of entrée,” Martins said. He faced Voight. “The only way the original plan can succeed is with the letters. Beaudine has them now, along with the rest of what’s rightly ours.”
Martins was pleased he’d had the foresight to remove a gold coin and put it in his shoulder holster, under the Colt Lightning revolver, in case it was needed. He had, in fact, been melting it to a large nugget to disguise its origin when Beaudine and his partner had struck. The lieutenant was also pleased, and surprised, that the man who had clubbed him had not taken it.
“He may have destroyed the papers, for all we know. And hidden the gold,” Voight said.
“Not a Pinkerton man,” Martins said. “He’ll give it all back. Besides, you know who this will expose. He’ll want that evidence.”
Voight was pensive. “That’s even more reason to stop him, I think.”
“Our chances of catching him out here, with the head start he has, make that unlikely,” Martins replied. He was still mulling options, thinking aloud. “Zebulon said he has at least twelve, thirteen hours on us, and in territory he knows.”
“We rested. Maybe he hasn’t.”
“I can’t stake the mission on Beaudine being tired, which is why I’m thinking that pursuing him is not the best course of action. Put yourself in the position of Beaudine and Quinn. They may well have already hightailed it to what they think is the target in San Francisco. Especially Quinn. That was a damn fine horse he had. Shoulda taken it. Or shot it.”
“He said he didn’t remember anything,” Voight said. “He sounded convincing. You don’t believe that?”
“Not if he’s Pinkerton, too. That may be his speciality, playing stupid.”
Voight was still processing all that had been said. “If it is, we got more trouble. He saw us at the campsite, saw you at that cabin. They’ll be watching for an attempt on el presidente after Ensenada, especially if Quinn gets there and can describe us.”
Martins nodded, half smiling. “I wasn’t just lying on that table back there, thinking nothing. How’s President Grant getting to San Francisco?”
“Train to San Francisco,” Voight said. “It’s been in the papers—big transcontinental landmark.”
“Right. It goes through Truckee.”
“What’re you thinking—we derail it, kill Grant, and leave Juárez to the French, like we planned?”
“Nothing that dramatic. There’s a town on the map—what is it?”
“Apple Town.”
“We need a new wardrobe,” Martins said. “Not sure the president’s men will let a bunch of ex-Confederates near the train, in uniform.”
“The president’s men? Lieutenant, without the letters—”
“They’re going to help us, Colonel.” Martins regarded the other man. “We get the clothes, then meet the train in Truckee and tell the president’s men about the plot against Juárez—”
“How are we even supposed to know about that?”
“We were doing business in Mexico City—you had a peach plantation once. We’ll say we are growers helping the government. We’ll say that we met the column in the desert, recognized the men as French soldiers.”
Voight brightened. “I see what you’re thinking. We take the train to the ship, and instead of pointing the French out, we let them on board.”
Martins nodded. “The only change in the plan is that Maria won’t be the one on the inside, killing Grant. We will be ‘her.’”
“What about our pay? Beaudine has that.”
“He’ll be in San Francisco for sure. It’ll still be on him when we kill him.”
Smiling as though he’d just had a long shower, Voight looked at the map. “Then it’s the Scouse River and on through Apple Town to Truckee.”
Martins nodded. “Afterward, while two nations are in chaos and soldiers can be landed in Mexico—somewhere along the way, I kill Jason Quinn.”
Voight replaced the map and passed jerky to his companion. As they ate, and with renewed enthusiasm, the men urged the three sluggish horses on in the rising heat of the new day.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE TOWN MAP looked like the letter “R” in Morse code: dot-dash-dot.
Apple Town had not been much of a place before the train came through the territory. William Beaudine felt it was not much of a place even after. It had been established before the Civil War for one bad reason only: as a place to go for men who did not want to serve in the Union or Confederate armies. Those in Truckee and other towns openly called it “Cowards’ Roost,” but the occupants did not pay much attention. They proudly called themselves the first settlers of a new movement, the Free States of America. All their attention went to growing apples to raise money so they could trade with but be independent of Washington and San Francisco. A town of sorts grew around the orchards. Mexicans and freed slaves stumbled onto the place and stayed as well, though in sections slightly separate from the main street.
That was how Apple Town got its odd shape. Almost at once there was a movement afoot among the two hundred residents to call it the more distinguished Morse Junction, to call attention to the telegraphy that had finally and truly linked California to the nation.
That topic was still being debated, always the first item on the agenda at town hall meetings.
Two years before, the Central Pacific Railroad had decided to bypass Apple Town because of its hermit-minded citizens, who still wanted to be the hub of the Free States of America. So the railroad put their stop in Truckee, where they were happy to take on shipments of apples from Apple Town to be delivered to the more contented inhabitants of the rest of California. That changed when the rail yards suffered a massive fire early the previous year. The railroad moved a few locomotives to a shed in Apple Town, and the settlement finally had a main street that was more than a “dash” with a few shops.
It was still called Cowards’ Roost, especially by veterans of the wars.
William Beaudine had no use for men who ran from fights, except among one another. There was enough of that in Washington, and the West needed men. But if the men were bickering farmers, there was one thing that was true here as throughout his West Coast travels: Beaudine had been impressed by the industry of the women the peevish deserters and objectors had brought with them or married out here.
Aggie was impressive, though her story was her own. Born in El Paso, Augustina-Rose Sanchez had never had it easy. Her father had been a Mexican journalist who had fled Santa Anna and stayed. Mrs. Sanchez had worked as a seamstress while her husband had taught English to others who crossed the border. Both had died of cholera when Aggie was fifteen, and she fell in with a gambler who introduced her to a life on the stage—first as a dancer, then as an actress. She had left the stage because she had stabbed her leading man in the side with a prop letter opener during a performance of The Death of Ivan the Terrible, in which the hand of the tsar was not quite as late as the rest of him. The actor had declined to file charges, fearing a trial would have sullied his growing international name and reputation. That had happened in Denver two years earlier. Beaudine had read of the incident and sought her out. By then, Aggie was living in a Denver attic, trying to write plays to earn money as a playwright or actress.
“How would you like to act again?” Beaudine had asked her over dinner. She had dressed for the event in her Russian ball gown, the only fine clothes she owned.
The twenty-four-year-old with hair the color and sheen of a raven’s feathers was immediately interested.
He told her that the Pinkerton National Detective Agency was always looking for women to work for them in a variety of capacities in the field.
“Would that mean what I think it does?” she had asked with a strange mix of suspicion and resignation.
“I won’t say it might not come up,” Beaudine had answered honestly. “But mostly what I need is a spy. Someone who can work as a maid or a waitress and watch people, listen to what they say. The railroad is opening up a lot of opportunity for anarchists and carpetbaggers, and the federal government wants them stopped.”
He had said that Pinkerton would move her west and subsidize her writing while she remained available for whatever jobs came up.
Aggie had agreed almost instantly. The two things that had appealed to her about acting were pretending to be other people and the ever-present chance that something might go wrong onstage, testing her resources and wits. The work Beaudine had described fit those criteria—and also solved her current financial plight.
The personal relationship that developed between her and Beaudine was secondary. It was convenient. Until Jason Quinn got involved with the Pinkertons a year later. The knife fighter had been reluctant at first. He had fought a war for the Union and hunted Indians for pay in the Montana Territory, and like a gambler who wanted to leave the table with his winnings, Quinn had his eye on San Francisco. He was nearly ready to make that move when Beaudine had sought him out. Under contract from the government, Pinkerton needed a man who could throw a knife to silently kill Indians who cut telegraph wires at night.
“The braves will think it’s evil spirits, not a white man, because white men use guns,” Beaudine had told him.
Quinn had come for the money and the challenge. He had stayed for Aggie. The man suspected that she and Beaudine were closer than they let on. He knew those looks, those private half smiles, the things they did not say or have to say. Quinn also knew that he himself was infatuated with the actress. It was she, in fact, who had convinced him to go on this mission with Beaudine. She had just returned from a month in Mexico, where she had lived at the presidential palace in Mexico City, working as a maid, watching and listening to confirm rumors of a plot. And being humbled in the process: She had spent more of Pinkerton’s gold in the palace than she had expected. To most of the men she approached, it was more desirable than she was.
She was the one who had first heard about a potential attempt on the leader’s life during the upcoming trip. The intelligence came from a spy, a palace secretary whose acquaintance she had made—a man who was in the employ of the French and subsequently arrested.
The city was a den of weasels ready to kill more than they could eat, she had told Beaudine. The assignment needed someone with Beaudine’s single-mindedness and tactical skills and Quinn’s tracking ability and his skill for silent attacks.
That was when Quinn got pig footed and made things messy. Realizing he might be gone for a month or more, he professed his affection, and she used her charm to convince him to go, to make her proud.
Quinn only learned about Beaudine and Aggie’s relationship before he and Beaudine set out. He had seen them kissing when he was supposed to be getting his horse; he had sent a boy for his horse so that he could kiss Aggie goodbye.
Quinn did not know whether he or Beaudine was being used by the woman, but he did not like it in any case. He had said a hostile goodbye to Aggie. He had not spoken much with Beaudine during the hard ride to Ensenada or later on the hazardous chase that the Rebs led into the Nevada desert. It was not until that final showdown after the theft of the box—
No, Beaudine thought as he rode into Apple Town. You can’t doubt what’s done. Whatever guilt he felt or hurt he had caused was booted away like a crowd of tumbleweeds. The mission mattered more. He had to be clearheaded, and he needed Aggie. That meant convincing her that he had done the necessary thing if not the right thing.
Beaudine rode up to the small quadrangle block and hitched his horse beside Aggie’s roan. She made a point of getting it from the stable every morning and going riding at least once a day if it wasn’t raining, which it usually wasn’t here. It was a reason to keep the animal near and saddled, in case she needed it for work—or a getaway. In this business, people made strong lifelong enemies.
While his horse drank, Beaudine took his rifle and the lockbox and walked up to the small cottage at the eastern end of Main Street. He saw the familiar writing desk in the window where it got the morning sun. The locomotive shed had gone up a quarter mile farther, and the street had been continued to there—with not much on it. It was an eyesore, and Aggie kept threatening to move. But she was accustomed to the people and more important the sounds. If something was off, if people or animals were suddenly quiet, she would hear it before she saw it.
That would serve him, too, especially now.
Aggie knew Beaudine was coming a full minute before he arrived. She hurried to the door, smiling from her clear forehead to her chin, the morning sun striking her full as she stood there. Beaudine remembered how and why he had responded to her the way he had. She was confident but feminine, careful but unafraid, and above all beautiful.
Her joy drained away quickly, replaced by a look of concern. It was so unguarded that Beaudine could see it when he was still a few strides distant.
“You look like you’ve been to another four-year war,” she said.
“Feels like it,” he said as he rode up, catching a glimpse of his worn, filthy self in the window ahead. “I could use some breakfast and coffee.”
“Of course.”
Aggie did not suggest that he get himself to Anna’s Table down the street. She knew the man and saw that he was both tired and in a hurry. She also did not ask about the box he carried under his arm. He would tell her about it—if at all—in his own time.
The woman, fresh as a morning flower, went back inside, and Beaudine followed quickly. The coffee smelled strong and familiar, and she was busy setting out bread and the raspberry jam he liked. The scent of her was delicate in the air; he felt vulgar as he stomped his boots clean enough and entered. As he removed his hat and placed the lockbox on the table, he saw the papers stacked on the writing desk. As much as he disliked taking her from that work, there was more urgent business. And her quiet expression and following eyes told him she knew it.
“How—and where—is Quinn?” she asked.
“I’m going to need you with me,” he said as he walked past her toward the small kitchen table.
“Where is he, Bill?”
Beaudine fell into a chair and looked at her across the small kitchen. “I had to leave him in the desert.”
“‘Leave him’?”
“He had his own ideas about how things should be done. I had no options, Aggie. I hit him hard. He was breathing when I left. By rights I should’ve killed him.”
“By what right? And what—,” she began, stopped, calmed her rising anger. “What did you leave him with?”
“Nothing except his underclothes. I brought everything else to the way station at Oak Ridge, left it there.”
Aggie knew how this business worked, and she knew that Quinn tended to be a loner and a firebrand. She also knew that Beaudine would never have sacrificed a member of his party unless time and events made it necessary. But she still could not believe he had done this to an ally.
The woman went about setting the table in silence, and the man offered no other details or narrative.
“You said you need me,” Aggie said.
“Yeah. I do.”
“All right. First I want to know what Quinn did. I wouldn’t want to make the same mistake.” She went to the iron stove. She did not want to look at Beaudine just then.
“He wanted to kill the men we’d been tracking. I told him that I needed them alive. The rest only myself, Pinkerton, and the president and his men knew.”
“The assassins we foiled,” she said. “Why didn’t you kill them?”
It was not a question the way Aggie said it, but a challenge. She was asking if he trusted her.
He did not answer. He wasn’t testing her loyalty, wasn’t seeing whether she would trust him enough to go without knowing. He was protecting the mission.
Aggie brought over the warmed coffee, poured it. She was waiting for him to go on. He knew her actor’s ways, how she drew other folks out with silence. Beaudine knew, of course, that whatever he said or did she would do what was needed. She would show him more trust than he was able—or willing—to show her. That was the difference in their relationship. She loved him more than the work. He . . . was not sure.
“Let’s start with something simple,” Aggie said. “Did you find out whether they intended to assassinate or merely kidnap President Juárez?”
“It’s bigger than that. It always was.”
Aggie was not surprised. “Tell me what you can, Bill. When you want to stop, stop.”
