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ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE
November 2006
Vol. 51, No. 11
Dell Magazines
New York
Cover by Michael Gibbs
FICTION
COUNTING COUP by Brian Thornton
EVEN THE LEAST by Janet Nodar
SUDDEN STOP by Mitch Alderman
IN A CIVILIZED MANNER by Rex Burns
SQUARE ONE by Loren D. Estleman
THE CASE OF THE OLYMPIC CUP by Joe Helgerson
PROUD MARY by Harriet Rzetelny
RANSOM by R. T. Lawton
AHMM CLASSIC
MY MOTHER, MY DAUGHTER, ME by Margaret Maron
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR'S NOTES
SOLUTION to the October Dying Words
BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
UNSOLVED by Robert V. Kesling
REEL CRIME by Steve Hockensmith
THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by Willie Rose
Visit us online at www.TheMysteryPlace.com!
Click a Link for Easy Navigation
CONTENTS
COUNTING COUP by Brian Thornton
EVEN THE LEAST by Janet Nodar
SOLUTION TO THE OCTOBER “DYING WORDS"
SUDDEN STOP by Mitch Alderman
SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER
IN A CIVILIZED MANNER by Rex Burns
BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
SQUARE ONE by Loren D. Estleman
THE CASE OF THE OLYMPIC CUP by Joe Helgerson
PROUD MARY by Harriet Rzetelny
UNSOLVED: LOGIC PUZZLE by Robert V. Kesling
RANSOM by R.T. Lawton
REEL CRIME by Steve Hockensmith
AHMM CLASSIC: MY MOTHER, MY DAUGHTER, ME by Margaret Maron
THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by Willie Rose
COMING IN DECEMBER 2006
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EDITOR'S NOTES: MADISON MADNESS by Linda Landrigan
As September rolls to an end, we head to Madison, Wisconsin, for Bouchercon, the 37th annual convention for mystery lovers and writers. Bouchercon is a large convention—overwhelming at times—but for three days straight we get to talk mystery and mingle with the stars of the field. This year's honorees include Robert B. Parker, Nevada Barr, and M.C. Beaton, and the fan guest of honor is Jim Huang, the proprietor of The Mystery Company bookstore in Carmel, Indiana, and publisher of Crum Creek Press and The Drood Review, whom we profiled in November 2003.
Numerous awards are handed out at Bouchercon, and it happens that a number of AHMM stories have been nominated for honors this year. Three stories are finalists for a Shamus award, presented by the Private Eye Writers of America: Jeremiah Healy's “Two Birds with One Stone” (January/February 2005), Steve Hockensmith's “The Big Road” (May 2005), and Michael Wiecek's “A Death in Ueno” (March 2005).
Two stories have been nominated for a Barry award, presented by Deadly Pleasures magazine (www.deadlypleasures.com): “The Big Road” and Tom Savage's “The Method in Her Madness” (June 2005).
And finally, “The Big Road” was also nominated for a Macavity award, presented by Mystery Readers International (www.mysteryreaders.org). In addition, a new category of Macavity award, the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Novel, has a familiar name on its shortlist—Rhys Bowen's novel In Like Flynn, featuring the irrepressible P.I. Molly Murphy in turn-of-the-century New York.
Kudos also to Joe Helgerson ("The Case of the Olympic Cup"), who will publish this September a YA novel set a little north of Sheriff Huck's stretch of the Missippippi river, titled Horns and Wrinkles (Houghton Mifflin).
We're pleased to introduce a new author with this issue. Brian Thornton ("Counting Coup") is a history teacher in the Seattle area and is the author of 101 Things You Didn't Know About Lincoln (Adams Media, 2005). Mr. Thornton's interests include the outdoors, history, art, literature, musical theater, and “baseball, baseball, baseball!” Mr. Thornton will be one of the many authors in attendance at Boucheron.
Congratulations to all our nominees!
COUNTING COUP by Brian Thornton
Tim Foley
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Wash and Chance made it over the rise and into the valley of the Gallatin just ahead of that storm. It had taken three days of hard riding to get to the railhead, and the horses were all but played out.
The entire last day finished setting their nerves on edge. What with the smoke signals and the tracks of all of the unshod ponies they'd seen, there was enough sign to make a body think he was riding right through the heart of the Cheyenne Nation.
Stretching away to the north and south below them lay the broad flood plain of the Gallatin. The river itself meandered along the valley floor, with the more slender, silver ribbon of rail line mirroring it, running off forever in either direction. The reds of the tamarack and the golds of the aspen and the greens of the fir created a burst of color on the hills that flanked the river on either side, their hues all the more vivid when set against the white of the previous evening's uncharacteristically early snowfall.
The only sign of human habitation aside from the rail line was the Great Northern Depot, its outbuildings, and the large water tower that was the reason for the depot's placement there in that remote fastness where plains met mountains. Gold strikes farther up in the hills near the territorial capital of Virginia City made it profitable during the previous year or so for the railroad to run a spur line south from its main line where it passed through Helena.
"I wonder whether there'll be a train through here before that storm hits,” Wash said, as he put heels to his big bay gelding, leading the way off the crest of the ridgeline and down into the valley.
For the first time in days, Chance uncocked the carbine he'd been carrying propped just behind his saddle horn. “No idee.” Chance had wondered that himself for the past several hours, turning in his saddle periodically to look over his shoulder at the roiling mass of clouds directly behind them. Horses being herd animals, Chance's buckskin mare took it on her own volition to follow Wash's bay down the trail in the direction of the Great Northern's Gallatin River Depot.
They rode on in exhausted silence for over an hour, picking their way down the hillside, letting their mounts do most of the work. The trail crossed the Gallatin at a shallow ford less than three hundred feet south of the train depot's main building.
That ford and the traffic it represented were the major reasons the railroad had chosen this spot on which to build. The Gallatin River site was the sole entrepôt and watering station for fifty miles in either direction along this spur line. As such, it was usually a popular destination for miners down from the hills after having found enough color to get themselves a bath and a taste of whiskey, not necessarily in that order.
A light wind had kicked up by the time they made it across the river. It was late afternoon now, with the accompanying lengthening of the shadows and the resultant drop in temperature. They tied their horses to a rail on the south side of the main building.
The Great Northern Railroad's Gallatin River Railway Station consisted of a single, substantial high-ceilinged room. The baggage counter at the north end doub
led as a bar between trains and as a supper table during mealtimes. The shutters on the windows were closed up, and a large fire crackled and popped in a river rock hearth at the south end of the fifty foot by thirty foot room. Several straight-backed wooden chairs and two small homemade tables completed the utilitarian complement of furniture in the place.
There were five people already in the room when Wash and Chance walked in. Off to one side a medicine drummer sat using a stub of pencil to tally his wares, his supply case across his lap doubling for a writing table.
Seated close to the fire were two women, one middle aged, the other in the first blush of maidenhood, both in eastern dress and clearly escorted by a middle-aged man in a duded-up eastern suit.
The fellow's mustache bore a liberal amount of wax, and his careful eyes studied Wash and Chance from beneath the sweep of his broad, flat-brimmed hat as the two men strode through the door and up to the baggage counter-cum-bar.
Behind the counter stood the fifth and final person in the room, a Great Northern employee known to Chance only as “Deacon.” Whether this moniker signified some deep religious conviction on the man's part, was an actual title, or a first, middle, or last name, Chance didn't know. If Wash knew, he kept mum about it.
"Washburn!” the little man crowed, touching the bill of the conductor's cap he never seemed to remove from his head. “And young John T. Chance!"
Chance had heard once that Deacon's cap was a permanent fixture covering his pate because he'd been scalped and left for dead by some Piegan braves up on the Clark Fork back in the thirties. At that time, there was still beaver to be fought over, and Deacon was a mountain man running traps through Blackfoot country, risking his skin for plews. Of course, Chance didn't know for sure if the story was true. Wash had known Deacon a long time, but Chance never bothered to ask him about it. Wash kept mum on most things.
"Deacon,” Wash's long face broke into a grin as he laid his rifle, bedroll, and saddlebags on the bar, “have a drink with us?"
Deacon reached beneath the bar, pulled a bottle, and blew dust off it. “I will at that, Wash. And since us drinkin’ together is such a rare and precious thing, the first one is on the house."
Wash's grin widened into a smile as he doffed his hat and shucked his sheepskin, placing them both on the bar next to his other belongings. “Fire's a mighty welcome sight. Got any coffee to go with that nip?” Deacon stepped off to fetch it.
Chance had already dropped his own set of possibles on the bar and was hard at work shrugging his way out of his coat, straightening his clothes, removing his hat, and trying to smooth out the tangled shock of hair beneath it. He snuck a look at the maiden at the table as he did so.
When Deacon returned with two tin cups of coffee for the both of them, Wash said, “Thankee. You're a prince, Deacon."
Chance bellied up to the bar, picked up his coffee with both hands, and said, “When's the next train north to Helena due in?"
Deacon produced a pocket watch from his worn leather miner's vest and said, “Oh, ‘bout four hours, if'n the weather holds.” He looked past Chance's shoulder and out through the glass in the big door at the clouds coming down over the ridgeline. “More like it'll be tomorry, mebbe day after that, afore the next northbound makes it up here from Virginia City, depending on how much snow she's got to git through.” He poured three glasses full from the bottle. “Once she does get in here, might just quit this job and light out myself, what with the Cheyennes bein’ all riled up. Our cook, the smith we just hired on, the grooms, all gone yesterday. Hopped a southbound headed for Virginia City, I reckon."
"We saw a powerful lot of sign,” Chance said.
Wash grunted in agreement as he took a sip of his coffee. Reaching for his glass, he said, “Seems as if Yellowneck and Silvertip have the Powder River Cheyennes stirred up again."
"They're all riled up, all along the line through this territory and on east to the Dakotas,” Deacon said. “Sioux whupped Miles at the Rosebud a couple of months back, so now they're all talkin’ about ‘heap big medicine’ and paintin’ up."
Chance said, “Ain't it kind of late in the year for Cheyenne Dog Soldiers to be out raidin'?"
Before either of the other men could answer, a fourth voice, one with a deep Southern accent, said, “Gentlemen, your conversation is distressing the ladies."
Chance turned his head and saw that the dude with the big hat was standing right behind them. The man was a full head shorter than Chance's six feet, and he stood with hands at his sides, his highly polished black boots spread wide apart. Chance wondered about this odd posture until he noticed the silver inlaid butt of the pistol peeking out from behind the front of the dude's frock coat.
Wash must have noticed the pistol. Wash noticed everything. “Well, mister, I can certainly understand why it would. The thought of runnin’ into a Cheyenne war party has been distressin’ me since my partner and I pulled stakes a few days back and made our way here."
That seemed to throw the fellow. He opened his mouth to respond to Wash, but was interrupted by a series of sharp explosions. The young woman at the table sprang to her feet and asked loudly, “What was that?"
Every man in the room knew what that was, Chance included. Rifle shots. As if by a prearranged signal, Chance and Wash both snatched their weapons off the bar and hurried to shuttered windows on either side of the big door, which Deacon quickly shuttered and bolted.
Peering through the murder hole in the heavy wooden shutter, Chance spied the source of the rifle fire. Two men on horseback had just finished fording the river, maybe a hundred yards ahead of a fully dressed-out war party of at least a dozen Indians. It was twilight by now, and the storm he and Wash had run from all day had finally caught up with them, so between it and the failing daylight, Chance was unable to make out anything more about them than that. Then he heard them, faintly at first: the Yip-yip-yip of the Cheyenne Dog Soldier. They were armed with rifles and firing from the opposite bank of the Gallatin as the two figures they were pursuing made for the front door of the depot.
Off to Chance's right, Wash's big Sharps roared, eliciting a frightened shriek from one of the women. Chance took aim with his Spencer and fired off three quick shots over the heads of those braves where they had reined in their ponies on the opposite bank.
"I've got the door in the back out to the cookhouse bolted and barred,” Deacon said from somewhere behind Chance. “Three-inch-thick Doug Fir, nothing they've got'll break through that!"
Wash said, “Three shots is enough, boy.” Only Wash could get away with calling Chance that. “I reckon you had the good sense to fire over their heads?"
"With a carbine, what prayer did I really have of hitting ‘em in the first place, Wash?” Chance grinned crookedly at him just as Deacon pulled the bolt and let in the two men who had so narrowly escaped the clutches of the Indians on the other side of the Gallatin moments before.
As the door swung open, Chance saw for the first time that one of them, the one who tumbled in first, was an Indian himself. His hands tied behind him, he sprawled face down at the feet of the older of the two women, who in her turn began to scream lustily. Close on his heels came a mountain of a man, half a head taller than Chance, dressed in buckskins himself, only his broad-brimmed hat, army-issue boots, and full dark beard set him apart as a white man.
The big man looked neither to right nor to left, reaching his prisoner (for that he clearly was), and using one meaty paw, began to manhandle him roughly to his feet. By now Deacon had rebolted the door, with the drummer having dropped his inventory and joined the knot of people gathered near it. Wash still had his eyes peeled through the murder hole in the window he was manning.
Chance looked at the girl again, as he had several times already. She was staring in fascination at the Cheyenne warrior, her blue eyes round, her mouth a small o, her hands clasped together and twisting to and fro. She held herself quite erect, but Chance could tell from the stiffness of her posture t
hat she was afraid. The older woman clutched the younger woman's arm directly above the elbow. She would look at the Indian, then hide her face in the girl's shoulder, then start the process all over again.
Their would-be protector, he of the fancy mustache, pistol rig, and Southern accent, also gazed fixedly in the direction of the recently entered captive, on his face a look of wonderment. His jaw hung slack, his eyes bulged from their sockets. His whole frame shook with a violence that had been entirely absent from his manner when he'd been facing down Wash, Chance, and Deacon mere moments before.
Chance sidled over to Wash, poked him, and murmured, “Take a lookee there. Think any of those three have ever laid eyes on an Injun before?” Wash grunted something Chance didn't catch, and never stopped peering out into the snowstorm.
"At least we don't have to worry about them trying to burn us out,” he said. “What with this snowfall, the roof'll be too wet for them to get a spark goin’ on."
"This murderin’ skunk,” said the bearded giant, addressing them all for the first time, “is goin’ back to Virginia City with me, so's the territorial marshal can give him a fair trial and then give him the hangin’ he deserves, all fit and legal.” He sounded as if he'd just stepped off the farm in southern Missouri, his speech filled with all of the broad, flat vowel sounds of that region. “Anyone here goin’ to contest my right to the bounty money?” He shook the Indian in his clutches for emphasis, then set to work binding the hapless fellow hand and foot and lashing him to one of the posts that supported the roof.
The Indian must have had all of the fight pounded out of him, because he stood straight and tall, making barely a move while his captor set about securing his bonds. An old burn scar peeked out from beneath his unbraided black hair, running in a sallow path along the side of his throat, terminating just beneath his chin and in front of his left ear. The proud countenance above that ochre blaze was bruised and cut, with one eye swollen shut, but the other one, piercing and black, fixed on the blond locks of the girl so stock still less than ten feet away from him.
AHMM, November 2006 Page 1
