Which meant he should have been dead years ago.
Inwardly laughing at her own joke, she allowed her lips to turn up into a small smile. The man was an idiot. He had no idea what she’d been planning all these years. What she’d done to get what she wanted. And he would go to the grave in his ignorance.
The sweet taste of revenge was on her tongue.
But she’d have to be careful. There were eyes and ears everywhere.
She was a planner and could work around the obstacles.
Especially knowing that there was an end in sight.
She could do anything with that knowledge.
Anything.
THURSDAY, JUNE29, 1916•DENVER, COLORADO
The air was stale with dust and sweat. Children whimpered in their mother’s laps, the heat too oppressive for them to exhibit any stronger emotion. The once bustling and noisy railroad car had slipped into a weary silence with each clack of track against wheel.
Sweat trickled down Devin’s temple, dampening his sideburn. He longed to mop his face with his handkerchief, but his shoulder was wedged between the rigid back of the train seat and the burly man next to him. His hip ached from lack of movement, pressed against the unyielding metal of the train. He closed his eyes. Maybe when he woke up, they would finally be at their destination.
“The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy line is twenty minutes from Denver.” The conductor’s voice shattered the quiet of the car, startling Devin out of his hazy state. “Once again, the CB&Q line will be arriving in Denver, Colorado, in twenty minutes!”
His announcement couldn’t have come at a better time.Thank You, Lord.The sincere prayer lifted to heaven.
Twenty minutes until he was free of this sweat-infested torture chamber. He glanced out the window, watching plain after plain whip by in a blur. When he’d decided to visit Eliza, his imagination had run wild with the thought of seeing new cities and states. He’d imagined great rolling hills easing into grand snow-capped mountains. Big-horned sheep. Maybe a bear or two.
Any thrill he’d felt died the second day out of Chicago after miles of unending prairie. How had he not known how flat the middle of the country was? It seemed like the horizon was one long line of flat land and cloudless blue sky.
Not that the heartland didn’t have its charms. To be sure, the rippling acres of wheat brought to mind the opening stanza ofAmerica the Beautifulby Katharine Lee Bates. The spacious skies and amber waves of grain were breathtaking.
But Devin was ready for some purple mountain majesty. And a good long walk.
After all the miles traveled, he still hadn’t formulated the best way to share the news with Eliza. She didn’t need flowery words or prose. Nor did she need to be coddled. But if he simply blurted, “Your grandfather’s dead,” that would be about as caring as stabbing her in the heart.
The crowd grew restless and noisy around him as people shuffled their belongings and family members. Devin shoved the thoughts of Eliza aside. God would give him the words, he needed to trust in that.
The large man beside him snored and then snorted and shifted his weight even more into Devin’s side. With a wince, Devin tried to dislodge himself from being the innards of a train-passenger sandwich, but the more he moved, the more the other man leaned into him.
A loud hiss and the screech of brakes startled the snoring man from slumber, and he shifted his weight an inch or two. Praise God! But then the man went right back to snoring. As soon as the train was fully stopped, Devin would have to maneuver around him.
All around Devin, people began to stand, groaning and laughing with fellow travelers. It seemed the aches and pains of train travel were universal. Relief was palpable as people donned hats, folded newspapers under their arms, and grabbed small luggage cases out of the roped storage above them.
Devin hadn’t trusted his bag to storage. Instead, he’d kept it between his feet the whole trip. Not that there was anything precious in the bag, save a few changes of clothes and his shaving kit. But replacing those items would strain his already thin budget. And if he showed up with nothing, Eliza would just offer to help replace the items he’d lost. He wouldn’t depend on her charity, no matter how kind it was. He could stand on his own two feet. And support his father.
He’d determined to pay off Dad’s house—their house—this year, and it had taken every spare penny since his father hadn’t been able to work for several years. Most days, his father was still sharp as a tack. Then others, he showed the effects from the stroke two years ago.
The shoulder holding him hostage moved, and Devin nearly wept. Feeling crept back into his arm and relief made him sigh. He pressed his fingertips into his shoulder and rotated it a few times, praying the stiffness would ease the more he moved. Standing, he clasped the handles of his bag in one hand and placed his bowler hat on his head with the other. Then he joined the slow shuffle of passengers exiting into Denver’s Union Station. The noise was overwhelming.
“Watch where you’re goin’!” A man growled the words at a mother with a young girl tucked close to her skirts. His gold ring glinted in the afternoon sunlight as he gripped his walking stick in his hand. “This is what happens when you mingle the masses!” His glare swept the crowd—including Devin. “People who don’t know when to get out of the way of their betters!” He thrust his walking stick in front of him and rammed through the crowd, the scent of his foul cigar lingering in the air.
Devin approached the woman, glancing down at the little girl. Large blue eyes rounded with fear, and she turned her face into the plain cotton of her mother’s dress.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
The woman jerked away from Devin, her eyes narrowed. She held her daughter’s hand in a white-knuckled grip. “We’re just fine and don’t need no help from the likes of you, fancy man!” She turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.
Devin’s mouth dropped open. He was riffraff and lower class one minute and a fancy man the next. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Wait until Eliza heard about this. Wouldn’t she laugh? The smile disappeared. He needed the next couple of days to settle his heart and mind. And to gather his courage if he was going to tell his best friend good-bye at the end of this trip.
