Rail Kings (Wells Fargo Trail Book #3)

James Walker

Description

They would pay any price and stop at nothing to win.As an undercover agent for Wells Fargo, Zac Cobb isn't the kind of man who goes out looking for trouble, but trouble seems to have a way of finding him. And he isn't the kind of man to run away from trouble, even if it means putting himself in harm's way.When Zac foils an attempt to kidnap the family of the oldest daughter of General Sydney Roberts, the President of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, he then must lead the threatened family to safety in Colorado despite the pursuit of a small army of hired gunmen. Once, there, Zac finds himself ensnared in the ongoing deadly railroad war between the Chicago Pacific and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroads. But when Elizabeth Robert decides she's in love with Zac, his personal danger is compounded.Powerful lords of the steam engine fight for control of the narrow passage through the Rockies. The railroads will pay any price and stop at nothing to win. It takes a man who can't be bought to restore right from wrong, and Zac Cobb is such a man.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 juin 1995
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441261922
• Langue: English

Extrait

Books by Jim Walker
Husbands Who Won’t Lead and Wives Who Won’t Follow
T HE W ELLS F ARGO T RAIL
The Dreamgivers
The Nightriders
The Rail Kings
The Rawhiders
The Desert Hawks
The Oyster Pirates
The Warriors
The Ice Princess
The Wells Fargo Trail, Book 3
The Rail Kings
Jim Walker
© 1995 by Jim Walker
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserves. No part of thie publication may be reproduced, stores in a retrieval system, or tranmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording with the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
eISBN 978-1-4412-6192-2
Cover by Dan Thornberg
To a man who worked on the rails and labored to guide his daughters into adulthood my father-in-law, Orrel.
JIM WALKER is a staff member with the Navigators and has written Husbands Who Won’t Lead and Wives Who Won’t Follow . He received an M.Div. from Talbot Theological Seminary and has been a pastor with an Evangelical Free Church. He was a survival training instructor in the United States Air Force and is a member of the Western Writers of America and the Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association. Jim, his wife, Joyce, and their three children, Joel, Jennifer, and Julie, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Contents
Cover
Books by Jim Walker
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Part 1: The Chase
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part 2: The Castle
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part 3: The Canyon
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
PART 1
The Chase
Chapter 1
Standing between the cars of the rapidly moving train, the young detective was thinking about his future. It was the thing he did best and the thing he did worst. The wind whistling through the breezeway of the cars made the cold Kansas air even more rousing to his blood. He turned his collar up, then buried his left hand deep in his overcoat pocket. Sucking deeply on his cigarette, he gaped off at the prairie, the monotonous clicking of the rails lulling him deeper into thought. He barely acknowledged the man who came out to stand on the platform with him, a scruffy-looking sort he had seen in the car earlier.
The detective had thought he would be the only man lightheaded enough to stand in the wind to smoke. He always liked being alone. He especially liked the feeling of the prairie, the sense of being alone on the earth’s open sea of grass. His irritation grew as the stranger inched closer, standing far too close for Ed’s comfort. Refusing to acknowledge the intruder, he looked off into the grasslands. The brief lack of attention was costly. He didn’t see the knife.
The railcar was nearly empty. One of the two men who sat near the door had gone outside shortly after the young detective had left the car. The other man sat near the window, his hat pulled down over his eyes.
A small family huddled near the iron-grated stove, bracing themselves on the polished oak seats against the movement of the train. The young father held the little girl’s hands toward the flaming grate of the coal-burning stove. “It’s warm, Nikki.” He leaned down and spoke loudly into the girl’s ear. “The fire is warm.”
“Warm.” The little girl pressed her lips together and looked up toward her father’s face. Her eyes flashed. “Warm,” she said slowly and smiled. “The fire is warm.”
“Yes, Nikki. The fire is warm.” Her father spoke loudly and directly into her ear. His hands squeezed hers in approval and then held them once again toward the glowing stove.
Across from them, Sam Fisher, a large-framed, gray-haired man with a snow white walrus mustache, sat stone still, watching silently. His hands were pushed into the pockets of his black overcoat. His derby hat was pushed back, exposing his balding forehead. He clinched an unlit cigar between his teeth and chewed it ever so slightly.
The young father noticed Sam studying his daughter. “She’s not feebleminded,” he said. “She’s blind, and she has a profound hearing loss, but she thinks well.” Bruce Elliott was overprotective. At the college where he taught, their family was accepted and Nikki’s blindness was not an oddity, but in the community at large, he still felt the need to fight for a normal life for his daughter. “She’s only five, however,” he went on, “and with the poor hearing, she needs practice.”
The wind rattled the windows on the train and the swaying movement of the coach gently rocked the glowing green-shaded brass lamps. The movement of the train lent itself to sleep, and the lone man at the rear of the car seemed to be taking advantage of it. He had slumped his large frame in his seat with his head resting on the window. Sam watched as the man’s dingy companion reentered the car, closed the door, and seated himself on the opposite side of the aisle, lacing his legs across the narrow walkway. He pulled a dark plainsman hat down over his eyes.
Sam frowned. The man’s legs made it impossible for anyone to leave without waking him up. Not smart , Sam thought. He continued to look past the man and out at the small window that peered onto the platform. Ed ought to be back , he thought. How long can it take to smoke one cigarette?
The woman’s attention had been fixed on Sam. Her blue eyes twinkled as she scooted across and sat beside him. She reached out and patted his hand. “It’s so good to see you again, Sam. I haven’t seen you since my wedding, and I’ve missed you. You always seemed more like an uncle to me, never like someone who just worked for my father.”
“Thank ya, Miss Irene. I’ve known your daddy a long time, served with the general all during the war, but I wouldn’t exactly call that working for him. I was working for the United States Army then.”
“Daddy always said you ran the outfit in anything that truly mattered. I’ve seen pictures of you in your Sergeant Major’s uniform. You were splendid!”
His chest swelled and he sat straighter, lifting his chin.
“Do you still enjoy building railroads, Sam?”
“Sort of, I suppose.” He scratched the back of his head. “The general builds the railroads. I’ve always been in the railroad detective side of things. I don’t know the first thing about surveying and my back’s too bad to drive spikes like a gandy dancer.” He patted the revolver in the shoulder holster under his coat. “I work with firearms and muscle.”
“And Daddy trusts you, he always has.” She squeezed his arm. “But tell me, why did he have to send you to bring us back to Colorado? If he wanted us to visit, why didn’t he just wire us and ask us to come?”
“I suppose he was just hoping that you’d trust me too, Miss Irene.” He looked at the man and his daughter still warming their hands near the stove. “You and your husband, that is. He don’t seem too partial to me.”
“Oh, don’t mind Bruce. He just hates to leave his work at the college. He’s quite taken with teaching, you know. He loves his study time and he loves his books.”
“I can believe that.”
She laughed. “That’s right, you handled the bags. Well, he does love them, and he loves our daughter, too. But you haven’t answered my question. Why send you, Sam? Is there some kind of trouble?”
“Miss Irene, he just wanted to be sure you came home, no matter what. The general wants you at the Red Rocks as quickly as I can get you there. I really can’t tell you much more than that.”
“He’s all right, isn’t he? I know Mother’s death was hard on him. I had hoped that his shopping trip in Europe with my sisters would bring him out of it, but I know he must be lonely there in the castle.”
“Well, he’s lonely on the inside, I s’pose. Got over seventy servants in that place, so he can’t be very lonely on the outside. Hell, I’m ” He stopped midsentence. “’Scuse me, ma’am. My tongue gets away with me and I forget who I’m with.”
She laughed. “Thanks, Sam. It’s the army still in you.”
“Ought to know better anyway, the general being a Quaker and all, a body can’t use coarse language around him. Given all the time I spend round the man, you’d think I’da laid aside the habit afore now.”
He shook his head and continued. “Well, what I’m trying to say is, I’m bunkin’ in that there place myself lately. Hate it, too. Makes me feel like another blame suit of armor just standing around for decoration. Can’t get myself used to it, nohow.” He curled his lip as he drawled out the phrase.
“I thought you had a place of your own in Colorado Springs. What do they call it now, Little London?”
“Oh, I still got it. Downtown, by the tracks. All the travel I do in this job behooves me to live pretty near the rails.”
He took the cigar out from his mouth and turned it over. Then replacing it under his mustache, he bit down. A grin came over his face. “Yeah, you know how the general is so all-fired smitten with them English people and all their highfalutin, English ways. Never had much use for ’em my ownself. Thought it was good riddance when old Andy Jackson peppered their behinds down in New Orleans. I’da thunk that woulda been enough for ’em.”
“Daddy likes the culture found on the Continent.”
“Don’t know nothin’ ’bout culture, but with all of them hoity-toity types struttin’ around, I’d just as soon stay to my ownself and in my own place.” He paused and, lifting the back of his derby, scratched his gray hair. “It’s just that right now, I got to be up at the Red Rocks. The general’s done hired a right smart