The Untamed Heart. Kit Gardner

narrowed his eyes on Hyde. “Money for their land.”

      “It isn’t for their mules.”

      “Or their tarantula juice,” the gambler muttered into his glass. “One gulp of that homemade brew is enough to make a hummingbird spit in a rattlesnake’s eye. I prefer my drink like my women—smooth, unspoiled and mighty pure.”

      Again the railroad men sniggered their agreement After a moment Strobridge glanced at Sloan. “All the land for the asking and they sit tight, refusing to budge.”

      “Maybe they think they’ve good reason,” Sloan said.

      “Sure they do. It’s their pride, the same damned pride that saw them westward seeking their fortunes in the first place.”

      “Fortunes you promised them.”

      Strobridge’s glass poised at his lips. “I’m no swiveltongued promoter, spouting empty promises.”

      Sloan puckered his brow and fished one hand then the other into the inner pockets of his topcoat. “I believe I read something that sounded like a promise in a Union Pacific prospectus I was given in New York. Or was it Chicago? Something about the paradise awaiting development west of the hundredth meridian. It must be in my valise.

      “According to your verbiage, gentlemen, if I remember correctly, the frontiersman is an idealized figure, his plow a sacred symbol, your railroad a harbinger of progress. Gold and silver were the thematic notes sounded endlessly in this brochure with land, open space and freedom tinkling in counterpoint. That sounds like a vision of the new Eden and promise enough for a man to abandon his share of a family farm in the East and pack up his family and head west.”

      Hyde jerked his head at the window. “Look out there, Devlin. All you’ll see is an endless bonanza. The Union Pacific firmly believes in the natural process of individual enterprise. Any determined man can share in the good things if he works hard enough. And the railroad’s going to be there to provide it for him. If he’s smart.”

      “Damned right,” Strobridge said. “I’m not saying you’ll find fools everywhere, Devlin. Most enterprising folks wouldn’t dare come up against the power of a company like the Union Pacific.” He punctuated this by shoving one finger skyward.

      “You’ll find all the crazies you want in Prosperity Gulch,” Hyde added, chomping on his cigar. “Most damned impertinent bunch of poor cusses you’ll ever meet. Eking out a living from the South Platte on less than twenty cents a day. After the big mine exploded last year and killed a handful of them, you’d think they’d all just pack up, head back east, and give it up. And yet nothing short of the cavalry will get them out of our path.”

      “They’ll move,” Strobridge snorted. “Our line needs to go through that land if we’re going to get track around the mountains to the rich mining towns in the deeper valleys. This time, they’ll move. They’ll have no choice.”

      “Threats never moved pride,” Sloan said, remembering all too clearly the beleaguered tinners in Cornwall standing firm with their demands in the face of threats from the mine owners. All threats had accomplished was bloodshed.

      “Money should move pride, Devlin, and it hasn’t. I’ll be damned if I return to my boss in Boston when this month is out without clearing the way for our line.”

      “By driving the people from Prosperity Gulch.”

      “After our business in Denver I’m sure as hellfire going to try, even if it means calling in the cavalry to do it. We’ll just have to convince those folks that when their town collapses, as it surely will, their lots will have no more market value than town lots on the moon.”

      “Where is this worthless town?”

      “Ten miles straight north of Deadwood Run.” Hyde jerked his chin at the gambler who dozed in his chair. “Our gambling friend can’t abide smooth liquor, Devlin. I wonder if it’s the same with smooth women.”

      Gathering up his winnings, Sloan bid Hyde and Strobridge good-afternoon and left their railcar for his own some three cars back. Curiosity had drawn him from the overcrowded heat of his car several hours before and had delivered him to the railroad men’s poker table. He was glad it had. He now had an idea where he might be getting off the line.

      Dare to make a difference…. His father’s words seemed to echo from the rhythmic click of the rails as he moved briskly through the cars. He’d dared once to champion a cause for the beleaguered against the mighty and had failed. Opportunity was again here. Was it a cause worth championing? Perhaps. The mighty couldn’t get mightier than the Union Pacific Railroad, and the people any more beleaguered. Were they worth closer scrutiny? Absolutely. It was all waiting for him ten miles north of Deadwood Run. He could turn on his heel anytime and leave that town and those people. He had no ties to bind him there.

      Just as he stepped between the last two cars, something jabbed him in the back.

      “I’ll take what’s mine now, gent” The gambler’s snarl rose above the roar of the train.

      Sloan went still. Heat billowed up from the train’s belly. “Is this how you show thanks in the American West, stealing from the man who covered your cheating hide?”

      “You’re right about that, gent I’m going to steal from you what I should have won. But in the West we go one step farther with English gents we don’t like.”

      Sloan felt the gun nudge deeper against his back. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”

      “Turn around then,” the gambler growled. “I’d rather look into your eyes when the bullet finds your liver. Slow and easy. Just turn around.”

      With hands hanging loosely at his sides, Sloan turned in the cramped space.

      “You’re a queer bird, gent,” the gambler muttered as he rid Sloan of his sack of coins and the folded bills in his pocket. Tucking these into his topcoat, he squinted at Sloan’s embroidered plum waistcoat and starched cravat made of the finest French linen. His eyes hardened on the ruby stickpin nestled in the linen folds.

      Sloan flicked his eyes over the gambler’s shoulder into the railcar, where several passengers loitered. “You’d best shoot me now before the passengers begin to suspect foul play. You’ll have the small matter of my body to dispose of, you know.”

      Profuse color climbed from the gambler’s collar. “The prairie’s as good a place as any for you, gent. The crows and buzzards will pick your bones clean before anyone knows you’re there. A wagon might not come by for a week or longer.”

      Sloan allowed a hint of a curve to soften his mouth. “Then what are you waiting for?”

      The gambler’s eyes narrowed. Doubt, suspicion, chagrin swept over his handsome features, but not a fierce desire for blood. Sloan had suspected as much. This man was no killer. To Sloan’s way of thinking, the gambler needed a small push over the edge of his rage. And he was betting the man would resort to fists first over his gun.

      Sloan’s voice rumbled low and distinctly ominous even to his own ear. “You’re as soft as you look, sir.”

      The gambler took an instant too long to throw his punch. With lightning deftness, Sloan deflected his fist with an upward slice of his forearm, smacked the pistol from his hand with the other, then brought both sides of his hands cleaving into each side of the gambler’s thick neck before he could draw another breath. The gambler went rigid, groaned, then fell back against the side of the railcar and slid to the floor. Sloan bent and retrieved his winnings. Twisting one fist into the gambler’s shirtfront, Sloan hauled him to his feet and shoved him against the railcar.

      “In the future,” he said silkily, “you would do well to leave us queer birds to our business. Perhaps, then I will leave you to yours.” Sloan turned and, with one flex of his arm, tossed the gambler from the train. With grim satisfaction he watched the gambler land and roll into a thatch of bleached grass that lined the track in deep gullies on both