The Untamed Heart

He glanced down at the journal and wrote, Women allow themselves the privilege of a broken heart only once. After that, they never fully part with it again.

Chapter Two (#ulink_00041733-854e-5af3-ab35-535b529fa7d2)

You from the Independent?”

Sloan snapped his journal closed and glanced over his spectacles at the man standing at his elbow. The fellow jerked his eyes from Sloan’s journal but there was no apology in his gaze, no chagrin in the set of his jaw beneath his sweeping black mustache. There was also no gun belt around his waist, just a black walking stick in one hand. He wore a starched white shirt and black trousers common to men of decidedly civilized occupations. Sloan found himself taking an immediate liking to him despite his palpable animosity.

“No news in Deadwood Run today, eh?” The fellow eyed Sloan with increasing suspicion, particularly the stickpin at his throat. “Or you fellas run out of all those epithets and insults you’ve been hurling at us? I’ve been called a loathsome creature one time too many by that louse you call an editor over there.” The man jerked his chin at Sloan’s journal. “I’ll tell you right now, mister, there’s room in this town for only one newspaper and that’s the Lucky Miner.”

“They’ve been lucky then,” Sloan said, folding his spectacles into his pocket and tucking his journal under his arm.

The man snorted and waved an arm at the motley collection of men lingering on the street. “Where’d you hear that? The miners of this town do nothing night and day except drink fiery liquids and indulge in profane language. Sure, the miner you see today loves whiskey, cards and women, just like the cowboys. But compared to the forty-niner of California, or the fifty-niner of Colorado, he’s a hollow mockery.” The man frowned at Sloan. “And you can quote me on that. It’d be the first time fancy didn’t get the upper hand of fact in the Independent.”

“A common malady when there’s a dearth of news.” Sloan watched the color creep from the man’s wing collar. “Truthfulness is not the hallmark of frontier journalism, no matter the paper.”

The newspaperman puffed up his chest. “You give folks what they want to read if you don’t intend to close up shop. Let’s just say most editors in these parts have become masters of the exaggerated news story. Based on the facts, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Hell, about a year ago some poor fella from back East came through town, muttering something about the Indians he’d seen east of here. By the time he’d driven to the other edge of town I’d put his wagon through an Indian fight that to this day has no parallel in history. Folks liked it well enough.”

“It’s a wonder they didn’t all flee town,” Sloan said.

The newspaperman looked squarely at Sloan. “Folks here aren’t afraid of Indians. They’re scared of one thing, and that’s being driven off their land by the railroad. They didn’t knuckle under ten years ago when the railroad said there’d be no town without a rail line through here, and they won’t now. Course, you know all about that, don’t you? The Union Pacific’s used the Independent for spreading its propaganda for years.”

“I’m not from any newspaper,” Sloan said, extending his hand to the newspaperman. “Sloan Devlin, late of Cornwall, England.”

“Lansky,” the man said after a moment’s hesitation, pumping Sloan’s hand. “Tom Lansky. Editor and proprietor of the Lucky Miner. That’s a damned fine set of Sunday bests you’ve got on there. You must be one of those orators who travels around spreading the word about politics and the finer things of life. Funny, but I took you for a writer. Only writers carry a pencil and a journal in their finest coat pocket.”

Sloan’s lips curved in a rare smile. “I’m no orator. And as far as I know carrying a pencil and journal never qualified a man to think he had something worth writing about. Or that anyone might care to read it. I’ve found it’s not the desire to put words on paper that makes a man a writer, but the difference he can make by doing it, the pleasure he brings to his readers.”

Lansky grunted. “Whenever people can learn to walk on their eyebrows, balance ladders on their chins and climb to the top of them will an editor be found who can give pleasure alike to rich and poor, honest and false, respectable and low. I’m just a poor fella who empties his brain to fill his stomach.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of the printed word,” Sloan said, flipping open his journal where he’d tucked a folded handbill. He snapped it open. “This is only one brochure that I encountered in New York. And all of it enticing people westward to make their fortune. They tell a man to come, rush, hurry, don’t wait for anything to buy lots, sight unseen. I visited one of these prophetic cities just outside of Omaha, fortunate as it was to have a depot. I found that this city of grand houses and shady trees contained not a single human habitation, and the only shade to be had was that thrown by the stakes pounded into the dry dirt. It was a paradise, lacking only water and a larger measure of good society. A fortune is being made, but not by the frontiersmen.”

“It’s a story, all right, but if you’re looking to make a big difference somewhere, you’d best go on back to England while there’s still no Union Pacific buying up all the land there.”

“There’s nothing for me in England at the moment.”

Lansky squinted up at him. “You looking to stay on?”

“If I find good enough reason.”

“Fine. You’ve got one. I’m offering you a job. Editorial column every couple of days. Anything you want to write about. Stir things up a bit. If there’s a town bleeding for a champion, it’s Prosperity Gulch.”

Sloan squinted out into the sun-bitten street where only a handful of people meandered past. Set against the majesty of the snowcapped mountains, the town huddled like a shriveled old man. Leave it alone…stay a few days…move on…. “How many people live here?”

“A hundred, give or take, though folks keep to their homes when the cowboys come through. Twice that number called the place home a year ago before the Lucky Cuss mine blew. The dirt was still fresh on the graves when the railroad men rode into town waving ready cash. Guess they thought fifty cents on the dollar for land would sound good to widows with children. Now we got the damned vigilantes trying to burn everybody out”

Sloan glanced sharply at Lansky. “The widows?”

“Everybody. They’ve come a good handful of times in the dead of night. Torched Widow Gray’s house and barn and shot all her cows and pigs. The only reason she was spared was because she had the good sense to hide in her hope chest. It helps that the Widow Gray’s a small woman. She sold out two days later. A good twenty more followed her the next day.”

“Do these vigilantes work for the railroad?”

Lansky shrugged. “You tell me.”

“It’s become a matter of pride,” Sloan muttered, half to himself, remembering the tinner’s immovable pride in the face of the powerful mine owners. “Pride more than the land.”

“Damned straight. Of course there’s some miners who still think they’re going to strike that big vein in the South Platte River. There’s a group of them determined to find it, no matter what the railroad does to try to run them out. Some folks think the railroad men know all about that big vein and are hoping to get the land cheap before the strike and lay their track right through town. Those folks are sitting tight, thinking their land values will triple then. Others still believe they can make their livelihood in Prosperity Gulch, strike or no strike. Some are afraid to sell now, thinking they’ll get ambushed by the miners before they can get out of town, if the vigilantes don’t get them first.”

“What about the mine that blew?”

“It’s common knowledge the owner was a fool. Had too much charge with him one day and she blew. Killed him, his four boys, handful of other men. There’s been nothing there for years. I’ll tell you, though, no matter who you talk to, tempers are running high. There’s a lawlessness in the air, Devlin. I can smell it. And the victims are the common folk, the folks who’ve sunk their lifeblood and their savings into land, homes and businesses.”

Proud, angry and desperately in need of rallying around a common cause if they were to stand a chance against a foe like the powerful Union Pacific and its rogue vigilantes. The town needed a heralding cry, and what better than the newspaper to corral tempers and focus energies?

“Where can I find a hotel?”

Lansky’s lips jerked into a smile. “You’ll find the softest bed and the best cooking at Willie Thorne’s boardinghouse. Second farm on the right about a mile west of town. I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay you fifty cents for every column—”

“I don’t want your money, Lansky.”

“Whatever you say, Devlin. You think about my offer.”

“I plan to.” Sloan picked up his valise and turned east along the boardwalk.

“Hey, Devlin, Willie’s place is due west. Where are you going?”

“To buy a horse.”

“Get yourself a breastplate while you’re at it. I ask only that my editors be responsible for defending themselves against folks who don’t like what you have to say in the paper. And there’s bound to be some. Last editor I had was horsewhipped and run out of town by a fella for something he wrote about the fella’s wife. Something about her dimensions giving her the appearance of an ambulatory cotton bale. Wouldn’t hurt to oil up your gun. You just might need it.”

“I’ll remember that,” Sloan said, turning on his heel and heading for the livery.

The ax blade whizzed through the air then cleaved into the log, cleanly splitting the wood into pieces that would fit neatly into the stove. Willie tossed the pieces onto a pile that reached to her knees then hoisted another log. Taking up her ax, she aimed, drew a breath, swung the ax and drove it into the log.

“Fancy man,” she hissed through her teeth, swiping a forearm over her brow then tossing the split wood onto the pile. “Gussied up and dandified. Damned shiny-toed shoes and pleated trousers. Too damned tall for decency—”

Again she bent, lifted a heavy log and braced it against her belly as she slid it atop the wide tree stump she used for wood chopping. Smacking her hands clean against her blue-denimed hips, she braced her boots wide, took up her ax and swung it in a powerful arc.

The last time she’d looked so far up into a man’s cleanshaven face had been seven months ago when she’d all but run over Brant Masters with her wagon. He’d been wearing the same sort of finely made coat and trousers, the same high linen collar. He’d even stuck one of those jewel-headed pins into his tie and his shoes were shiny and new. Now that she thought about it, Brant had smelled clean and spicy, a scent that had made her knees go wobbly and her belly flutter every time he passed within six inches of her. That scent had seemed to fill her nostrils for weeks after he went back East.

The fancy English gent had smelled like that. Refined. Educated. Thinking himself too good for the likes of Prosperity Gulch. But the English railroad gent’s eyes weren’t dark and sparkling like Brant’s. They were icy blue, shot through with silver, and seemed as deep as she imagined an ocean could be. Against the midnight blue-black of his hair they were startling.

Willie threw the wood aside. “Railroad weasel.”

“The man sure could fight.”