This Gun for Hire

by Jo Goodman

  “Ah, yes. The company of women. I reckon you did not expect to find the likes of Calico Nash.”

  “You reckon right.” Quill folded his arms and stretched his legs. His dusty leather boots disappeared under the sheriff’s desk. “How well do you know her?”

  “About as well as anyone can, I suspect. We go back a ways. She was ten years old when I made her acquaintance. Funny little thing she was, all eyes and hair, hangin’ on her pa’s every word. I met her because of him. Bagger Nash and I served in the war together. The twenty-first out of Ohio. Came this way separately. I mustered out after Grant and Lee made peace, but Bagger stayed and took up with the cavalry. He was a scout during the war and liked it, so that’s what he did.”

  “Army scout,” Quill said softly, thoughtfully. It explained some things. “And you say she was hanging on his every word?”

  “Every word. Every deed. She learned from him. Of course, Bagger was confronting a different situation out here. What he learned about tracking in the Western territories, he learned from the Indian scouts the Army employed. Calico absorbed it like a sponge.”

  “You know, she asked me if I was a bounty hunter.”

  Joe chuckled. “That sounds like her. If she was competing for a reward, she would want to know it.”

  “Makes sense, I suppose, but she was hired by Mrs. Fry. There is no bounty on Nick Whitfield.”

  Joe stopped rubbing his knee. He reached across the scarred oaken desk for a stack of papers, wet his thumb, and began sifting through them. “Huh,” he said, studying one for a moment. He pulled it out and passed it to Quill. “Here’s the leader of that rustling outfit I was telling you about.”

  Quill looked the reward poster over. The face staring back at him was quite ordinary, someone people would pass by without a second glance. The rustler’s only distinguishing feature was his glasses. You did not see that often in a wanted poster, and Quill thought it was a reasonably good disguise. Once the man removed them, he would be all but invisible in a crowd. “Shelton area, right?”

  “Good memory.” He jerked his thumb at the wastebasket beside his desk. “You can throw it in there. We got him.”

  “With or without his glasses?”

  “With. Turns out he can’t see his hand in front of his face if he doesn’t have them on.”

  “I thought they were a disguise. He looks like a mail clerk or an accountant.” He crumpled the paper, tossed it in the basket, and accepted another notice from the sheriff. This time it was Nick Whitfield who stared back at him. The artist had drawn eyes that were dark, narrowed, and flat. The proportions of the man’s broad features were correct, but they were set without expression. The effect was to make Whitfield seem dull, not threatening. It was not a particularly good likeness, but probably good enough for people who had met the man to identify him.

  Quill whistled softly as he read the particulars. He looked up from the sketch and met Joe’s eyes. “He robbed a bank? He’s worth five hundred dollars because he robbed a bank?”

  Joe nodded.

  “And nothing at all because he beat a whore.”

  “I am not having that argument again,” Joe said, sighing. “You heard me before. It’s the way of the world. That notice came to my office a couple of days ago, while Calico was hiding out at Mrs. Fry’s.”

  “Then she doesn’t know about this.”

  “Nope.”

  “But you are going to tell her.”

  “Is that a question? Because I’m not sure I like it as a question. Of course I am going to tell her. It would be foolish, don’t you think, to tell you and keep it from her?”

  Quill thought so, too, but he had to be sure. He apologized to the sheriff for the slight on his integrity. Joe Pepper acknowledged the apology with a guttural utterance that might have meant anything. Quill chose to take it as acceptance. He returned Whitfield’s likeness when the sheriff held out his hand for it.

  “Shouldn’t Miss Nash be here by now?” asked Quill. They had left her to settle up with Mrs. Fry and speak to the doctor. She promised to escort Amos to the jail once Doc Maine examined him. Surgery, if required, would be performed in one of the cells. The only person who objected to that was Amos, and Joe reminded him that he did not get a vote.

  Joe looked past Quill to the window. Full-on darkness was closing in fast and the stores across the street were shuttered. Lamplight shone from windows above the stores, but it was insufficient for him to see movement on the street. Mostly what he saw was his office reflected back at him. He shrugged and rocked back in his chair. “She will be here directly. I imagine it is not easy getting the money she’s owed out of Mrs. Fry. The old whore is not only a harridan. She is tightfisted to boot.”

  “I think she would object to being called old.”

  Joe snorted. “You’ve got that right.”

  “How old is Miss Nash?” Quill posed the question casually, but it was a clumsy segue and he felt the full force of Sheriff Pepper’s shrewd gaze. There was a time he would have shifted uncomfortably under a look like that, but those days were long in the past, and the last six months spent in the employ of Ramsey Stonechurch had given him many opportunities to practice endurance. He suffered the look without any outward hint of embarrassment.

  “Twenty-four, I believe. No, twenty-five. I seem to recall that she has an April birthday, not that it means anything to her. Bagger was one for making a fuss over it. That’s how I remember she was ten when I met her for the first time. It was a few days after a party they had for her at the fort. She was still carrying around the present Bagger gave her. Wouldn’t put it down. I think she slept with it.”

  “A doll,” Quill guessed.

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Joe shook his head. “No, it was a .44 caliber Henry repeating rifle. Had a twenty-four-inch barrel, but I swear, from stock to sight it was as tall as she was. Have you ever held a Henry?”

  “I have. Not at ten years of age. My father would have judged it too heavy for me.”

  “That is because your father had some sense. Bagger didn’t, not when it came to his little girl. Nine and a half pounds of lever action capable of firing thirty cartridges a minute if one took the time to get easy with it. You would be right to suspect Calico eventually got real easy with it.”

  “She has a reputation as an Annie Oakley.”

  Joe’s dark eyebrows kicked up. “Better you keep that to yourself. She is itchin’ to shoot you as it is. I would not give her cause. Follow?”

  “I do. Thank you. You know, when she shot Amos, I thought she missed, but she didn’t, did she? She meant to injure, not kill.”

  “That’s right. Same as you, I suspect.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just a sense I get about you.”

  “Huh.”

  Joe’s mouth twisted wryly at the noncommittal reply. “Am I wrong?”

  “Not entirely, but I was aiming for his other leg.”

  The sheriff gave a bark of laughter. “Liar.”

  Quill merely lifted one lightly colored eyebrow and said nothing.

  Smiling to himself, Joe opened one of his desk drawers and brought out a round green tin with a slightly dented lid and multiple scrapes along the circumference. “My wife dropped off cookies back when she was allowing me to have them. Gingersnaps. I like them because you can’t tell if they’re stale. She makes them hard enough to break a tooth if I’m not careful.” He wrestled the lid off the tin, sniffed. “Smell fine. You want some?”

  Quill had not eaten since breakfast, which consisted of coffee and a couple of day-old biscuits. The gingersnaps were probably not as hard. His mouth began to water as soon as Joe opened the tin. He reached for a cookie when the sheriff tipped the tin toward him.

  “Take two,” said Joe.

  Quill was happy to oblige. He snapped one in ha
lf and plopped it in his mouth, turning it over with his tongue to soften it before he bit down. He noticed Joe Pepper did the same.

  That was how Calico found them, slouched in their straight-backed chairs, legs extended, mouths full of cookie while they contemplated the one they had yet to eat as if it held the meaning of life. Perhaps it did, she reflected, giving Amos a little shove to propel him farther into the room. She remembered Mary Pepper’s gingersnaps as being very good indeed.

  They both rose to their feet, but not before they shoved the cookie of contemplation into their mouths. That amused her. “I hope you saved at least one for me.”

  “More than one. You got here in time. Who gave you trouble? Amos or Mrs. Fry?”

  “Mrs. Fry. Tightfisted old whore.” She saw Joe and Quill exchange amused glances, but she let it go. Holding up Amos’s tether, she asked Joe, “Where do you want him?”

  “We’ll put him with Chick. Whit might kill him. He’s in that kind of mood.” He smiled at Amos, who recoiled at this news. “You heard me right. You keep away from him because I can’t say how fast I’ll get there if he puts his hands on you.” He did not wait for Amos to confirm he understood. The truth was, Joe did not care. “I’ll get the keys.”

  He walked to the door at the rear of his office, which led to the cells. He opened it with one hand and took down the ring of keys beside it with the other. “Give me the rope, Calico.” He tossed the keys to Quill. “We will take Amos in.”

  “I can do it.”

  “I know, but let us do it anyway. Whit wants to kill you, and I swear he is mad enough to squeeze through the bars to do it.”

  “Thick neck. Skinny opening.” She put a hand to her throat and pretended to choke herself. “He would be strangled.”

  “Probably, but you don’t want to provoke him. Trust me. You want him alive.” He waved Quill forward. “The rope?” Clearly pained, she gave it to him. “Have a cookie. Have several. You earned them.”

  “I am going to dunk them in your whiskey,” she said sourly.

  “Sounds awful, but you do as you like.” He watched Calico walk behind his desk and take up his chair before he told Quill to proceed. He made Amos follow and then brought up the rear, prodding his prisoner forward while keeping him on a short leash.

  By Quill’s estimation, they were not gone more than two minutes, but it was much too long for Calico Nash to be left unattended at Joe Pepper’s desk. She was holding up Nick Whitfield’s wanted poster so the man’s flat eyes and dull expression were turned toward them. In contrast, her green eyes were as brilliant as polished emeralds, and her expression was infinitely colder than those stones.

  Quill returned the key ring to its peg and let his hand fall to his side. The sheriff was the target of her animus, but it was rolling off her in waves and he could not help but catch the incoming tide given his proximity to Joe Pepper.

  Joe closed the door behind him. “About that,” he said calmly. “I was going to tell you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He tipped his head sideways toward Quill. “Ask him.”

  “Why would I believe anything he has to tell me?”

  Quill said, “Because lying doesn’t come natural to me.”

  “Right. I remember. You have to work real hard at it.”

  Quill looked askance at Joe. He shrugged. “I tried.”

  “Not yet you haven’t,” said Joe. “Go on. Tell her.”

  Quill explained, “He showed me the poster after we got here, and when I asked him if he intended to tell you about it, he was affronted.”

  Calico’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Affronted?”

  “Insulted. Slighted. Offended.”

  She pressed the fingers of her free hand to her temple. “I swear I do not know who deserves a bullet more.”

  Joe raised one hand. “If I have a say, choose him. I’m telling you the truth, and he is just provoking.”

  “He has a point,” Calico said, eyeing Quill. “I know what affronted means.”

  “I figured you did, but, well, the sheriff’s right. I was being provoking.”

  Her eyebrows lifted sharply enough to create tiny furrows across her forehead. She shook her head sorrowfully. “Lying doesn’t come natural to you.”

  “See?”

  Sighing, Calico tossed Whitfield’s reward notice aside. “All right, Joe. So you were going to tell me. Where do I have to take him to claim my money?”

  “The reward was put up by the Jones and Prescott Bank in Bailey.”

  “Park County. That’s not too far. I know the sheriff.”

  Joe nodded. “I will send him a wire in the morning. Tell him to expect you in . . .” He paused, and Calico held up three fingers. “Three days, then. I will also send two deputies with you.”

  “Not necessary,” she said.

  Quill had the sense that it was more for form that she objected than out of any genuine resistance to the idea. To test his theory, he said, “I will go with you.”

  That pulled her straight up in her chair, although she had not been precisely slump-shouldered. “No.” She said it firmly and in the manner of someone who would not brook discussion.

  Quill was not sure if he was relieved or insulted. He decided what he felt was probably a little of both, a disquieting mix of emotion that made his belly clench, although he acknowledged it could have been hunger.

  “Well, that’s that,” said Joe. “She doesn’t want you. Besides, you’re just passing through.”

  “On his way to Stonechurch,” Calico told the sheriff.

  “Lake County,” Joe said. “That’d take you opposite of Bailey.” He looked over at Calico, dismissing Quill. “I can give you Tom Hand, Buster Applegate, Christopher Byers, or Cooper Branch. Your pick.”

  She thought about it for a moment. “I remember Chris having good aim and a long fuse. Still true?”

  “Sure is. Buster’s about the same. Neither of them get riled much, and they will take their marching orders from you.”

  “All right. They can come. What’s fair to give them?”

  “The county’s paying them, so you don’t have to give them anything, but put forty in each man’s pocket and they will be as devoted to you as two old coon dogs.”

  Calico wrinkled her freckled nose. “Maybe thirty would be better. I am fairly certain I do not want that much devotion. What about Amos and Chick? Is there a notice out for either of them?”

  “No. Nothing like that’s come across my desk. In fact, Whit seemed surprised when I showed him the reward poster. I think he believed he had made a clean job of it. A heartbeat was about as long as it took for him to try to go after Chick, but my sense was that Chick was also surprised. That makes me think Amos might have turned on Whit, but then, maybe not. It’s hard to know what manner of thoughts go through the minds of miscreants like those three.” He went over to the chair where Quill had been sitting and put himself in it. “What did Doc Maine say about Amos? Surgery?”

  “Already done. There was a lot of carrying on, but the doctor persevered. I think he enjoyed himself a little too much. I do not fault him precisely, but I know it gave me pause about ever letting him take a slug out of me.”

  “Noted. Are you spending another night at the brothel?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “Marisa was moving back into her room before I had Amos out. I thought I would go to the Hartford.”

  “Why don’t you stay with Mary and me tonight? You will be comfortable there, and no one will bother you.” He was unaware that his eyes slid toward Quill until Calico followed the movement.

  “He’s staying there?” She jabbed her finger in Quill’s direction. “You’re staying there?”

  “Joe recommended it. He did not extend an invitation to stay with him and his wife.”

  “You are still a stranger,” Joe said affabl
y. “My wife would not like it.”

  “Understandable,” said Quill.

  Calico’s nostrils flared as she breathed in deeply. Her exhale was long and slow. “All right. Thank you, Joe. I am pleased that you asked, and I would like to see Mary again.”

  “Then it’s settled. Do you mind holding down the fort while I find Tom Hand? It was my turn to spend the night, but he will understand when I tell him who is here.”

  “Nick Whitfield is a prize,” she said.

  Joe gave her an odd look. “I was talking about you.”

  Quill would not have guessed that Calico Nash could be put to a blush, although she had the fair skin for it, but had he made a wager, he would have lost. Her fine, narrow face blossomed with rosy color.

  And what he thought was, Interesting.

  Chapter Three

  October 1888

  Stonechurch, Colorado

  “Have you tried talking to her?” asked Ramsey Stonechurch. “I told you yesterday to talk to her. You work for me. You recall that, don’t you?”

  Quill waited a beat before he responded. It was not always clear when Ramsey required an answer and when he was asking a question in order to provide his own answer. This time the silence stretched long enough that Quill was moved to say, “I do recall it, sir.”

  Ramsey threw up his hands, the picture of a man at his wit’s end. His shoulders already filled the breadth of the large burgundy leather chair behind his desk, but now they lifted and bunched, stretching his black wool jacket at the seams. His turned-out palms were broad and square and his thick-knuckled fingers were splayed wide. A tide of red rose above his stiff shirt collar and disappeared under a meticulously trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. The color returned, rising to his cheeks, his forehead, and then slipped under his dark hair, visible only along the part line. He spoke slowly, stressing each word. “Then why the hell have you not done it?”

  At the risk of stating the obvious and further inflaming his employer, Quill said, “She is your daughter, Mr. Stonechurch. I have no influence there. Ann would wonder why I’m interfering.”