This Gun for Hire

by Jo Goodman

  Probably because she recently told the story about Boomer Groggins to Quill, sometimes she thought about the thirty-three days she spent pursuing him. Never once in all that time did she feel as twitchy as she did after a week in Stonechurch. And it was only getting worse.

  She could point to several factors impacting her current state of agitation. Ramsey’s attention had not abated, and while his overtures tended to be subtle, she was aware of how his eyes tracked her movements, even at the dinner table when she was engaged in as ordinary an activity as raising a glass to her lips. Her assignment required her to meet with Ramsey and report on matters related to Ann’s education and on her own progress in identifying Ann’s attachment. She tried to keep the meetings short, as there was little enough to tell him about Ann’s studies day to day, and everything she had to say about identifying the young man was a barefaced lie.

  Ann Stonechurch was inexhaustable. Her delicate features and fine manners tended to disguise the fact that she had inherited her father’s tenacity. Whether Ann was in her studies or outside of them, Calico had encountered men bound for prison, some facing the hangman’s rope, who were less relentless in their quest for freedom than Ramsey’s daughter was in the pursuit of getting her way. Ann had not changed her mind about learning to shoot, nor had she changed her mind about wanting Quill McKenna to teach her. As far as Calico could tell, she showed no signs of surrendering. Mentoring a kindred spirit was demanding work, and most nights Calico crawled into bed drained of all thought. Strangely enough, she was content with it.

  Beatrice was relentless in a manner peculiar to her. She was relentlessly pleasant, and there were encounters with her that left Calico’s teeth aching and others that left her unaccountably sad. When she realized that she was avoiding Beatrice, she made it a point to seek her out instead. Beatrice seemed to welcome the attention, and Calico had a source of information for all things Stonechurch.

  Quill McKenna did not come to her room again, and she did not visit his. They had agreed on the occasion of their last meeting not to tell Ramsey what she had learned about the object of Ann’s affection. Quill told her he wasn’t certain he liked being referred to as an object, and she had threatened to use him for target practice. Thus, their business was satisfactorily concluded.

  It had not occurred to Calico that it marked the last moments they would spend any length of time together in private. They caught each other in passing, exchanged information as it came to them, but by and large their conversations occurred in the presence of others. Calico was uncertain why Quill did not show up at her door, but she suspected it was for the same reason she did not announce herself at his.

  The kiss had changed things, and she was a little sorry she had lost a sparring partner, but she did not regret the fact of the kiss. She wondered if he did. That would be a damn shame because all in all it was a very nice kiss. Pleasant. Well, splendid really. Curl-your-toes perfect, if she was being honest. Even now, she could touch her fingertips to her lips and recapture the feel of his mouth on hers. At odd moments she would catch herself doing exactly that and feel so foolish that she coughed or cleared her throat to hide the truth from herself.

  It was not that kissing was exactly a novel experience, just one she had not practiced. Like shooting, it required a target. Unlike shooting, the target had to be taller than a bottle and more interesting than a clay pigeon. Quill McKenna met both qualifications, but Calico had reservations about using him for practice. In light of what he had said about not liking the reference to himself as an object, it was doubtful that he would agree to it anyway. He would be more likely to trust her with a gun in her hand and an apple on his head.

  Picturing that raised Calico’s smile. It was the first time in days that it did not feel forced. She closed the book in her lap and stared at the fire while she thought about that. As much as the Stonechurches, individually and collectively, contributed to her restive state, and as often as she fidgeted when she thought of Quill or Quill’s kiss, nothing influenced her mood to the degree that being confined did.

  She was certainly not a prisoner. She merely felt like one. It was not enough for her to walk down one side of Ann Street and up the other. Ann, Calico was surprised to learn, did not ride and demonstrated no interest in the activity when Calico offered riding lessons. The future purchase of riding clothes was not a big enough carrot to entice her. Calico was disappointed. Even with Ann in tow, riding would have given her respite. It felt as if she had been cut off from a sure, but temporary, avenue of escape.

  Calico’s need to be out of the house led her to accept Ramsey’s invitation to visit the mines on day ten. She knew it was a mistake before she said yes but heard herself agree to it anyway. Sometimes common sense did not serve one’s desires and that was just the way it was. Quill had tried to make it a foursome by inquiring if he and Ann might go along. Ramsey was having none of that. Neither was Ann for that matter. Calico shared a padded leather seat with Ramsey in his comfortably sprung rig, and Quill was left to keep an eye on Ann while avoiding her at the same time. Calico was sure that of the two them, she had had the better afternoon. Still, at the end of the day she felt selfish for it and came to the difficult conclusion that she could not do it again. Ramsey asked her to join him on two more occasions, but she had plausible excuses each time. Ramsey had no choice but to take Quill with him; otherwise the true intent of his invitation to her would have been revealed. For reasons that were entirely his own, he was not prepared to express his interest overtly.

  Calico rested the back of her head against the chair. The front parlor was a comfortable room. When one was alone there, it invited restfulness. She closed her eyes. She was hardly aware of the faint smile still stamped on her lips as she thought about slipping out at night and walking deep into the trees until the pine boughs were thick enough to hide her from even the moonlight. If she called on her imagination, she could hear the crunch of crusty snow beneath her feet and catch the scent of pine. The birds were sleeping, but there was movement around her, stealthy foxes and wily raccoons in search of prey. A sudden gust of wind dropped pinecones out of the trees, and they landed with enough force to pop! pop! all around her.

  Calico sat up straight and suddenly. Her book had fallen off her lap but she knew that was not the sound she had imagined. It was when embers exploded in the fireplace, creating a shower of sparks, that she understood the real source of what she had heard. Again, she wondered if she was growing soft. In the not so distant past, she would have invented gunfire to explain the noise, not falling pinecones.

  “Why, here you are.”

  Calico came close to launching herself out of the chair. “Beatrice!” She swiveled in her seat. “I didn’t hear you come in.” But she had, she realized, and wondered if the woman was the stealthy fox or the wily raccoon.

  “Oh, I frightened you, didn’t I? Goodness, I did not mean to do that.” She pressed her hands together, this time in the manner of someone praying for forgiveness. “I came to see if you wanted tea before you retire. A nice chamomile is a sleep tonic; at least I find it so.”

  “You are kind to think of it, but I will pass this evening. I don’t think it settles well in my stomach.”

  “Really? That is odd. Most people find it soothing, but perhaps tea with ginger root will suit you better.”

  “Perhaps, but another night. You caught me catnapping, which proves I am ready enough for sleep without any help.” She leaned forward, scooped up her book, and stood. “Has everyone else retired?”

  “Goodness, no. My brother-in-law is always the last to go to bed. He works entirely too hard. Ann is in her room, studying, I’m sure, not sleeping, and I just left Mr. McKenna in the kitchen, where he is writing down Mrs. Friend’s recipe for orange layer cake. He intends to send it to his mother.”

  “He has a mother?” As soon as it was out, she wished she had not said it. More than her words, it was her
tone that caused Beatrice to stare at her oddly.

  “Yes, dear, of course he has a mother, one I should very much like to meet, given the fact that she has raised such an agreeable son as our Mr. McKenna.”

  “Hmm.”

  “In the event it had not occurred to you, he has a father also. A minister. He writes to his parents regularly. I know because I carry the post back and forth. There is a brother, but Mr. McKenna does not speak of him often, and usually it is about the past.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “I think the brother has been on the wrong side of the law for quite some time. It was back in August, I believe, that Mr. McKenna had to leave Stonechurch on a family matter. He was gone longer than expected, and Ramsey was unhappy about it. He said something under his breath that he probably wishes he had kept to himself.”

  “What did he say?”

  Beatrice hesitated. She fussed with a loose brown tendril that had escaped her topknot. “I suppose since I’ve told you this much . . .” She made a steeple of her fingers. “Ramsey said he should have been left to rot in jail.”

  “I see,” said Calico.

  “What a trial it must be for his parents. And poor Mr. McKenna. A lawyer.”

  “A trial for him as well,” Calico said wryly.

  “Oh, my.” Beatrice’s blue eyes brightened momentarily as she caught the humor of it, but then she looked away as if embarrassed by a lapse in her judgment.

  Lord, Calico thought, Beatrice Stonechurch needed to allow herself a human moment. She tucked her book under her arm and stifled a yawn. “I think I will go to my room now. I look forward to seeing you at breakfast.”

  * * *

  By Calico’s reckoning, there were at least four hours remaining before sunlight would steal across the horizon when she left the house. It was plenty of time; she would be satisfied with half that.

  She left by the back door, but before she stepped off the porch, she stretched her arms wide and filled her lungs with crisp mountain air. Snow covered the ground, but there were enough tracks going to and from the house that she was able to mask her own. It was nothing more than the kind of precaution that she was used to taking. It seemed unlikely that anyone had heard her leave. She was cautious by nature.

  Calico followed the route that she had walked earlier in her mind’s eye, up the gradual incline of the hillside, past the junipers, and deep into the cover of the ponderosas. She walked with deliberate care until her eyes accustomed themselves to the dark, and then she picked up her pace, quickening her stride even as the grade steepened. She only paused occasionally and only when she wanted to look over her shoulder. When she spied lamplight winking at her from town, she moved on. When she finally confronted darkness, she stopped and spread the blanket she carried in a roll on her back on the ground. Then she sat. Then she lay down. And then she stared through a narrow space in the pines and imagined the sky opening up to her.

  She stayed in just that position, her breath misting, her nostrils flaring slightly as she took in the scent of the earth and open space.

  It was cold, of course, uncomfortably so, and her blanket provided almost no barrier, but that hardly mattered at the outset. In any other circumstance, she would have built a small fire and huddled close to it. She also would have had another blanket, her saddle for a pillow, and hot stones to place near her feet.

  It would have been heaven. And although she allowed that her bed back at the house was very nearly so, it simply was not the same. It was only when her teeth began to chatter that she admitted to the advantages of comfort over cold.

  “You are certifiable as a danger to yourself,” Quill said.

  Calico blamed her chattering teeth for not having heard his approach. She threw a forearm over her eyes. “You know, it was not so long ago that people couldn’t sneak up on me. Go away.”

  Quill ignored her. “Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing out here?”

  “I’m recollecting that it’s been fifteen years give or take since I’ve spent more than five days indoors, and I was sick then. Cholera outbreak. I am not used to being indoors, Quill, not for days on end. I needed to have the sky over my head.”

  Quill was not unsympathetic. He skirted the bottom edge of the blanket and hunkered down beside her. “Did it have to be now? In the middle of the night?”

  “It can’t be in the middle of the day, now can it? There’s Ann.”

  He laid a gloved hand on her shoulder. “You’re shaking, Calico. You can’t stay here. You have to get up.”

  She knew he was right, but except for the movements she couldn’t help, she stayed exactly as she was.

  “Please.”

  She would never be able to say what it was about the way he voiced that single word that made her uncover her eyes and stare at him, yet that is what she was moved to do. His hand slid from the curve of her shoulder to under it. She was already so stiff that she accepted his assistance without comment.

  “Let me have your hands.”

  She dutifully gave them over.

  Quill removed her gloves, rubbed her hands hard between his, and then held the gloves open so she could slip her hands inside.

  “Will you come back with me?”

  Calico looked up and found a patch of sky. What she wanted was for him to go away. What she said was, “I want a little longer.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Quill nod. “How did you find me?”

  “I saw you leave.”

  “I didn’t realize anyone was still awake.”

  “Couldn’t sleep tonight. I was sitting at the window bench.”

  She nodded. “Nothing feels quite right anymore. I haven’t fired a weapon since I arrived, and I can’t see that there will be an opportunity to do so. That’s not good. I need to stay sharp. I need to know I’m sharp.”

  “I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do. How did you follow me? I was careful. I stepped in tracks made by other people. You shouldn’t have been able to find me, and yet you did. Here I am, and somehow I’ve lost my way.”

  Quill let a moment pass and then said quietly, “Whose tracks did you imagine you were stepping in, Calico?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yours?”

  He shrugged, nodded. “I do understand.” He stood and extended his hand. “Let me help you up.”

  Calico hesitated, but in the end she placed her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “Thank you.” When he released her hand, she shook loose the kinks and frozen joints. She crossed her arms, slapped her shoulders, and jumped in place.

  Quill picked up her blanket, rolled it, and when she turned around, he strapped it to her back. “You travel light. I usually bring a couple more blankets than this. Do you have a flask?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t own one.”

  “Luckily I do. Better yet, I brought it.” He reached in his wool coat and pulled out a silver flask. “This is Ramsey’s best whiskey, so enjoy it.” He opened it and handed it to her.

  Calico put the flask to her lips, tilted it, and took a deep pull. The whiskey was warm in her mouth and still warmer as it slid smoothly to the pit of her stomach. “That is good.” She pressed her lips together to contain the heat. “Mmm.”

  “Have another,” he said when she would have returned the flask.

  She did. “Thank you.” This time he took it from her and slipped it back in his coat. “You’re not having any?” she asked.

  “One of us should be sober on the trek back, and I noticed you didn’t eat much at dinner. You’re going to feel it.”

  “Unlikely. I was raised on it. Mother’s milk.”

  Quill was skeptical and it showed. “Bravado? Exaggeration? A good bit of both, I’d say.”

  “Actually, not much of either. Apparently I was a colicky baby.”

  “Oddly enough, I have no trouble believing
that.”

  Calico jabbed him with her elbow, not hard, just enough to let him know she was alert and listening.

  “Come on. Let’s go.” He turned and started off, and she fell into step beside him.

  “Why were you awake?” she asked.

  Quill glanced sideways at her. “I was puzzling out the problem of Ramsey’s Number 1 mine. I think the men are loosely organized, but if there is a leader, I haven’t been able to identify him, and I believe if there were a leader, the men would be better organized.”

  “You mentioned a name. George . . . George . . .” She shook her head. “No. I can’t bring it up.”

  “George Kittredge.”

  She held up her right hand and snapped her fingers, or rather she tried. “It’s the gloves.”

  “Uh-huh. About Mr. Kittredge . . . he has been working for Stonechurch Mining for eighteen years. He remembers when Ann was born, how proud and excited Ramsey was at the time, and what a celebration there was that night. Drinks all around, that sort of thing. It’s the kind of story a man might share if he wants to prove his loyalty or point out a personal connection.”

  Quill stopped, lifted a low bough out of the way, and let Calico pass under it before he followed. “Mr. Kittredge is in charge of the crew that lays down explosives. He got his experience during the war, blowing up bridges, rails, and munitions strongholds. He wiggled all ten of his fingers at me as proof that he is good at his job. Came west with the railroad and ended up here. He seems settled, has a wife, children. I don’t take him for someone who likes to stir the pot.”

  “So he is not a candidate for organizing the men.”

  “No, but I think he suspects something is going on. He hedged, wouldn’t say anything straight out, and I mostly listened. He mentioned that he’s been having problems with the explosives. Orders not filled properly. Damaged fuses. Wet dynamite. He says he complains, things get better for a time, and then the problem comes around again.”

  “That would go a ways to explaining why the vein isn’t delivering the ore Ramsey expects, but wouldn’t there be problems at the other mines? I would think they would order all the explosives from the same place.”