by Jae
No pain came.
Luke glanced up.
Walters lay facedown in the grass, his right hand still clasping his revolver.
Phin stood over the dead man. Blood dripped from his arm.
Luke got to her feet and walked toward him. "You all right?"
Unfocused blue eyes stared in Luke's direction, then at Bill Walters. "I shot him. I think he's dead." A tremor ran through Phin's tall body.
Luke had seen it before. Phin was a tough man, his body hardened and reflexes sharpened by his work with the horses, but he wasn't used to gunfights. Luke realized this was probably the first time he had shot at a man, let alone killed one.
She knelt and rolled the motionless Walters onto his back. Sightless eyes stared at her. Blood drops trembled on blades of grass.
Phin turned away. Retching sounds came from where he crouched behind a shrub of sagebrush.
The part of Luke that Nora called the "mother hen" wanted to rush over, but she had lived among men long enough to know she would only embarrass Phin. She was his mentor, a father figure, and he wouldn't want her to see him so weak.
Acid burned in her throat when she took the revolver from Walters's stiffening fingers. Then she knelt down next to Charlie.
He was sitting up, clutching his leg.
"Let me see," she said. She slid off his boot and pushed up his pant leg.
Blood streamed down Charlie's calf. Luke probed with gentle fingers.
Charlie flinched. He stared at his leg, his face pale.
"The bullet is lodged in the fleshy part of your calf. You're lucky that it didn't shatter your bone."
"I don't feel lucky," Charlie grumbled. "Is Phin all right? He got that bastard, right?"
Luke nodded and used her bandanna to put a bandage around Charlie's calf. It would stop the bleeding until she secured the camp, checked the horses, and made sure the third soldier had stayed behind in Fort Boise, nursing his wounded thigh.
She helped Charlie settle down on his bedroll, then walked over to Phin.
He was on his knees, digging in the earth with frantic fingers.
"Phin," she said. "What are you doing?"
Blood soaked the left sleeve of his shirt, but Phin didn't seem to notice. He continued to shovel earth with his bare hands.
"Phin!"
He looked up. Cold sweat beaded on his pale face. "I need to dig a grave." He bent and continued to dig.
"Look at me, Phin." Luke used her most commanding voice, the one she had perfected as the boss of half a dozen young men and parent of two adolescent daughters.
Phin's gaze flickered up to her.
"I know killing a man is horrible, even if he wasn't a good man. Taking a life is something you never get over, and that's one thing that separates you from men like Bill Walters. If you hadn't shot him, he would have killed me and then Charlie. You did what you had to, and you saved our lives." She looked into Phin's eyes until the hazy blue of his eyes cleared and he gave a hesitant nod. "All right. We can talk about this later, but for now, can you go and sit with Charlie while I make sure these two were alone?" She didn't want to send Phin out with a weapon.
Phin's Adam's apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed. He nodded.
"If he can, have him check out your arm," Luke said. No new blood soaked the sleeve, so it was probably just a graze wound, but even that could get infected.
Luke reloaded Walters's revolver, then her own. Dew drenched her pant legs as she walked through the grass, two revolvers at the ready. The horses had fled from the sounds of shots and screams as fast as their hobbled legs allowed. She found them next to two geldings that were tied to a shrub.
A quick check revealed the military brand of the horses. Had they stolen them, or had Captain Kelling helped them to take revenge on Luke? As soon as she got home, she would send a letter to Colonel Lundgren.
Just two horses. So the third man stayed behind in Fort Boise.
The tension in her body dissipated. We were lucky. If we hadn't posted a guard and if I hadn't woken up... The memory of her dream came back to her, and she again heard Nora order her to open her eyes. It was what had woken her. "Thank you, darling," she whispered.
* * *
Luke listened into the darkness. The wind rustled the leaves of a few slender willows. Nearby, the Malheur River gurgled on its way north. Even with two wounded men and the additional horses in tow, Luke had insisted that they cross the river before they rested, just in case someone else was following them and had heard the shots.
Most of the horses were dozing. Phin's gelding bent his head in search of some tender tidbits amidst the valley's coarse grass.
Still, Luke kept her rifle nearby as she walked over and settled a second blanket over Charlie. The young man groaned in his sleep, then continued to snore even worse than usual. Luke had given him the last of their whiskey before she dug the bullet out of his calf. It dulled his pain, but Phin still paled at the anguished cries of his friend and Luke's stomach roiled too.
Quietly, trying not to startle Phin, she made her way back to the fire. The wound on Phin's arm was little more than a scratch, but Luke worried about him nonetheless. He stared into the fire, watching the flames devour the dry wood and turn it into ashes.
"Hey." She settled down next to him.
A slight tilt of his head indicated that Phin was aware of her presence.
"Did I ever tell you about the first time I had to kill a man?"
That pulled Phin from his stupor. He looked up, his eyes still dull, not the usual sparkling blue. He didn't need to answer. They both knew Luke hadn't told him. She rarely talked about the past.
But Luke waited for an answer. She wanted Phin to be in the present with her, not retreating into himself.
"No," Phin finally said, his voice rough. "You haven't."
"It was during the Mexican War. I was barely twenty, and I thought I was really tough." She smiled at the memory of her younger, more naïve self. "I'd made it on my own for a lot of years, had worked on half a dozen ranches, and tamed wild horses that no one else could ride."
"Sounds familiar," Phin said. He hadn't been all that different when he had first come to work for Luke.
"Yeah." Luke grinned. "But instead of doing the clever thing and settling down somewhere, I got it into my head that the dragoons were the right place for me. And maybe they were, for a while, but the war..." She closed her eyes as the old images resurfaced. "There's nothing glorious about killing someone. During my first encounter with the Mexican troops, one of their soldiers galloped right at me, yelling loudly, maybe to scare my horse or to encourage himself. I raised my rifle and fired — but nothing happened. My rifle failed. Back then, most of us still had the old muzzle-loading muskets, and the gunpowder must have gotten wet."
She paused and looked at Phin, who was watching her. The flickering light of the fire pasted shadows across his face. He nodded at her to continue.
"The Mexican soldier gave a cry of triumph. He was almost upon me now, and he raised an old revolver." Luke sucked in a breath. "I slashed my bayonet across his belly before he could pull the trigger."
"He died?" Phin asked.
"Later, when we searched the battlefield to find fallen comrades, I found him." The image of him clutching his belly, blood staining his once white shirt, had haunted Luke's nightmares for years. "He was just a boy in farmer's clothes, fighting with his father's old revolver. They gave me a medal for fighting in that battle. I didn't want a medal. Killing that boy or any of the other soldiers afterward didn't make me feel proud."
Phin flicked a branch into the fire and nodded.
Sparks rained down around them, and Luke watched them trail down to earth.
"I know you don't feel good about killing Bill Walters, and you shouldn't, even though he was a miserable son of a bitch. But you saved my life and Charlie's. Maybe you can at least feel good about that." She clapped him on the shoulder, knowing it was the only physical comfort allow
ed between two men. When Phin lifted his gaze up from the fire and looked at her, she added a heartfelt "Thank you."
It wasn't just for her. If she had died, her secret would have been discovered. It would have ended not just her life, but life as her family knew it too.
The shadows lifted from Phin's eyes, and he straightened his shoulders. "I would do it again if I had to."
"I know."
They watched the fire in companionable silence until the blazing flames turned into glowing embers.
Hamilton Horse Ranch
Baker Prairie, Oregon
May 31, 1868
"DO YOU WANT a mare or a gelding?" Amy asked and looked over her shoulder at Frankie, who followed her across the ranch yard. While mares were thought to make good mounts for women, most men preferred geldings, saying that mares were too cranky and easily distracted.
What would Frankie prefer? Amy still couldn't figure her out. When she rode out with the ranch hands to look at the land, she wore pants and short hair. Most neighbors they met mistook her for a man, and Frankie didn't correct them. But when they went into town on Sunday, Frankie wore a dress, a hairpiece under her elegant hat, and dainty shoes that made Amy's feet hurt just by looking at them. Frankie chatted about the newest fashion back East with the townswomen and seemed as at ease as she was riding the range.
"A mare, please," Frankie said. "I prefer mares, and Sally is getting too old to rush down a hill to rescue damsels in distress." Frankie winked at her.
Amy blushed and wanted to object to being called a "damsel in distress," but Frankie's smile was disarming.
They wandered to the herd in the corral and went from horse to horse in comfortable silence. In a strange way, it reminded Amy of walking with Papa, checking on the horses. How odd that a woman reminds me of Papa. Frankie had turned all her assumptions of what a woman's life could be upside down. She wondered what it meant for her. Was she like Frankie in a way? Would it be possible for her to determine her own fate, to make her own decisions without ever getting married?
Next to her, Frankie chuckled. "I'm still confusing you, aren't I?"
Heat stained Amy's cheeks. "No, no, it's just..."
"It's all right." Frankie smiled at her. "I confused myself for a lot of years too."
It was hard to imagine the self-assured Frankie as a confused young woman. "You like dressing like this, right?" Amy asked.
Frankie ran a hand down the outer seam of her pants. "It's comfortable, yes."
They had that in common. "But you don't dislike dresses, do you?"
"No. I like both, just for different occasions. A woman doesn't have to wear pants to be strong, Amy," Frankie said.
"Oh, I know." Mama was by far the strongest woman she knew, and Amy had never seen her wear pants.
"I grew up a bit like you." Frankie pointed to the bunkhouse and the corral. "In a man's world. I lived in a mining camp with my father and five brothers. Have you ever seen a mining camp?"
Amy shook her head. "Papa went to Silver City once with a herd of horses, but he said I was too young to come with him."
"And he was right. Mining camps are rough. Except for a few Chinese women, I was the only female for hundreds of miles, and my father dressed me like a boy to protect me from any unwanted advances."
The thought of being courted by a horde of unwashed miners sent ripples of disgust through Amy.
"I enjoyed the freedom it gave me," Frankie said. She leaned her arms on the corral rail and stared off into the distance. "I could roam the area with my brothers instead of staying in the tent. It took me years to figure out that dressing in female apparel is fun too and that being a woman is a wonderful thing."
Is it really? Amy wondered if she would ever see it like that. If she were a man, she could run the ranch without people like Adam questioning her at every turn. And then my feelings for women wouldn't be wrong.
She suppressed a sigh and forced her thoughts back to Frankie's life instead of her own. "How did you become a Pinkerton detective?" Amy grew up thinking women had options besides marrying and raising a gaggle of children, but she never imagined women could become detectives or marshals.
The smile on Frankie's face vanished. She turned and leaned her left side against the corral, now facing Amy. "My father was killed for a handful of gold."
"I'm sorry." Amy didn't know what else to say. The thought of losing her own father filled her with dread.
Frankie nodded in acknowledgment. A veil of grief still covered the normally clear eyes. "His murderers nearly got away with it. But then a Pinkerton detective hunted them down. I never forgot it. When I came across an advertisement, I applied for a job with the agency."
"They were advertising for female detectives?" Amy shook her head in wonder. Maybe the East really was the magical place Nattie made it out to be.
"No." The grin was back on Frankie's face. "They were advertising for a secretary. But I can be very persuasive if I want to be. And my success spoke for itself. I solved a lot of cases by befriending the wives, sisters, and mistresses of suspects in a way no male detective could."
"And your cousin? Was she a Pinkerton too?"
Frankie's lips curled. "No. She helps me get the job done, but Tess was never officially a Pinkerton. She prefers to be her own boss."
They wandered along the corral side by side, again looking at the horses.
"How about that one?" Amy pointed at the dun mare that stretched her head to nibble on a bit of clover growing under the corral rail. A whitish blanket without any spots dusted her hip. "Her name is Zebra. She's not a very tall horse, but she's fast."
Frankie chuckled. "Zebra?"
Amy nodded at the shadowy stripes on the mare's legs. "Yeah, well, Nattie once read a story about zebras. Apparently, they look like horses and they have these stripes too."
"What about her?" Frankie pointed at another mare.
"Mouse?" They owned a herd of beautiful, well-trained Appaloosas, and Frankie picked a plain gray mare?
A dark eyebrow rose beneath the brim of Frankie's hat. "Mouse?"
"Well, she's —"
"Gray," Frankie finished for her and laughed. "And that's why I like her. For my kind of work, I need an inconspicuous horse that no one will remember, not a flashy Appaloosa. So, how much would you want for her?"
"You'll have to talk to my mama about that." Even when Papa was home, Mama always had a say in financial decisions. Then something occurred to her. This was her chance to pay back Rika's ten dollars. "Better yet, talk to Rika. I bought Mouse with her money, so I guess you need to see if she's willing to sell the mare to you."
"All right," Frankie said. "I'll talk to her."
"Want to try riding her before you decide?" It was a test not just for the mare, but of Frankie's skills as a rider too. Frankie was the cousin of Mama's best friend, but still, Amy wouldn't sell Mouse to her if she didn't have a gentle hand and the experience to handle the skittish mare.
A confident grin tipped up the corners of Frankie's mouth, letting Amy know Frankie suspected the true reason for the offer. "Sure."
* * *
Rika swept the soiled straw out of the henhouse and sneezed as dirt and tiny feathers tickled her nose.
The dog shot out beneath the veranda and raced across the yard, barking.
Rika looked up. Her hands tightened around the broom, ready to defend the hens and the rest of the ranch.
But instead of the coyote she expected, Tess closed the outhouse door behind her.
"Hunter!" Rika yelled at the dog. "Quit making such a ruckus. You know Tess isn't an intruder."
Hunter trotted back to Rika. His wagging tail beat against her skirt, and Rika reached down to scratch behind his ears.
Slowly, keeping an eye on the dog, Tess walked up to them. "I'm impressed. He listens to you."
"He's gotten used to having me around, and Amy let me feed him a few times, so now he wants to stay in my good graces." Rika weaved her fingers through hi
s shaggy coat. "My first week here, he started barking every time I came near the henhouse too."
"He's defending his home," Tess said. She reached down and let Hunter sniff one of her fair hands. "Speaking of home, is it really all right with you to stay with Amy? When you agreed to let us have the cabin, you probably thought we'd stay just a night or two. But now it's been ten days, and I know that's not what you expected. If it's a problem, we can figure out some place else for us to stay."
"Oh, no, it's fine. That way, I can keep a closer eye on Amy." And Amy really needed someone looking after her. When Rika hadn't paid attention, she had ridden out with Frankie despite Rika's warning to stay out of the saddle.
