Free The Bold Frontier by John Jakes Page B

farewell wave, he left the office car and swung up into his saddle, moving at a brisk trot out through the end-of-track camp.
    It still lay quiet under the burning yellow of the noon sun. The sound of a harmonica lifted mournfully from somewhere beyond the cook car.
    Outside the camp, Rome kicked his mount to a gallop. Warknife lay less than a half mile away. He felt ashamed that he had forgotten so much of the territory in the years he’d been gone.
    Warknife itself hadn’t changed greatly. The board fronts were still there, some with new coats of paint, some worn even more from the weather than he remembered. He rode slowly through the main street, noticing the new druggist’s shop, the new name posted over the livery stable. A hundred boyhood incidents flooded back: memories of warm summer evenings near the stable, of the excitement of the first rolled cigarette, the first church meeting. His father, his mother … They were vague figures; sad-faced people broken by years of work in the general-store business. Someone named Hopeman now owned the store, he saw.
    No one recognized him. He rode slowly through the main street. People bustled on the sidewalks doing after-dinner shopping. Cattlemen were in the saddle on various errands. The loungers on the front porch of the Emporia Saloon paid no attention to him. He spied the Reverend Paxton, who peered at him from the sidewalk for a minute. Rome stared back impassively. Paxton’s eyes took in the gun on his hip, the rawboned body, the determined face. No expression of recognition appeared. Rome felt a little lonely then.
    The Circle JT lay three miles on the other side of Warknife to the northwest. Rome caught his breath angrily as he saw that the land would make a perfect right-of-way. Except for a deep cut in the midst of a stretch of uncleared timber that would have to be bridged, construction would be relatively easy.
    The yard of the ranch house was empty. Most of the hands, including Thompson himself, would be out on the range. Rome tied his horse and walked across the porch, conscious of the loud sound of his boots. He knocked.
    Mrs. Thompson, a stout woman with a retiring manner, came to the door. She stared at him with the gaze she must have reserved for strangers, Rome thought. She made no attempt to recognize him. They had all forgotten. …
    “Yes, sir, good afternoon,” she said, “what can—?” She caught her breath abruptly. “Why, my goodness! Is it … Mark Rome? Is it?”
    Rome grinned. “Yes, ma’am, it is.”
    Mrs. Thompson opened the front screen quickly. “My heavens, boy, come in!” She ushered him into the parlor, a musky place smelling of handmade lavender sachets and adorned with the customary motto, God Bless Our Home, on the wall. “Sit down, Mark,” she said affably. “I’ll call Cathy.” She raised her voice. “Cathy? Cathy, come see who’s here.”
    Rome turned his hat in his hands. In a moment Cathy appeared from the kitchen. She stared at him, a slender woman with brown hair, frank brown eyes, and a faintly sensual mouth set in an oval face. She was still very good to look at, he thought.
    “Mark Rome!” she said, smiling, and Rome felt the inner glow of warmth that always came from seeing that smile. She shook his hand with just a hint of pressure. He saw that she wore no wedding ring.
    “When did you come back to Warknife?” she asked.
    “Only today. I’ve been in Saint Louis doing some work for the railroad.”
    “Railroad?” Mrs. Thompson stiffened perceptibly.
    “Yes, ma’am, the Kansas & Western.”
    Cathy laughed in a forced way. “It always was the railroad, wasn’t it, Mark?”
    “Yes, I guess it was. I came to see about the trouble over the right-of-way.” The moment was broken. The wall had been erected; they were strangers again.
    “Dad isn’t going to sell,” Cathy said evenly. “Bruce Gashlin’s stages work well enough. You know that.”
    “I’d like to talk with Job, if I could,” Mark