by Jo Goodman
There was humor in Mr. Church’s voice as he whispered, “‘Leads me to conclude.’ You a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Sound like a lawyer…maybe a politician.”
“Neither.”
Church nodded. “Can’t abide either one. Thought maybe I lost my touch for takin’ a man’s measure.”
Kellen was curious about what made this Nat Church choose him, but he didn’t take the dangling bait. Maybe it was simply what he’d been reading at the time. He might have been passed over completely if he’d been holding The Pickwick Papers.
“Who did this to you?”
Again, the small smile. “Ain’t it the way of life that most things is done by ourselves, to ourselves?”
“Philosopher? The Nat Church I read about is none of that.”
“Even a good writer can’t put all of me on the page.”
“I see. So are you saying you stabbed yourself?”
“Hardly. Not such a fool as that. Just tryin’ to say that I had some part in it.”
Kellen watched the man take a short, steadying breath, drawing air through clenched teeth. In spite of the pain, it seemed to Kellen that Mr. Church wanted to take his time, tell his tale slowly in the fashion of Scheherazade, as though he might be granted a night’s reprieve if he could spin the ending to another chapter.
Kellen put his next question bluntly. “Do you know the name of your murderer?” He gave Nat Church full marks for not flinching. Perhaps he had something in common with the man he purported to be after all.
“Never saw it coming…crowded in the aisle…people trying to get settled.”
“One car back? That’s where I thought you boarded.”
Mr. Church tried to suppress a cough but couldn’t. He pressed the ball of his free hand against his lips.
Kellen passed him a handkerchief.
“Thank you.” He wiped his mouth and crumpled the handkerchief in his fist. “Yes, one car to the rear. Did I say I never saw it comin’?”
“You did.”
“Should have seen it. Half expectin’ it since…since forever. Knew what I was up against. Wife would’ve tried to stop me.” A short laugh had him raising the handkerchief to his mouth again. “Damn me if that don’t hurt.”
It had not occurred to Kellen until now that there might be someone to notify. “Who should I tell? How can I find your wife?”
“Can’t. She’s gone now. Same as me.”
“There must be someone.”
“Bitter Springs.”
Not a person at all, but a place. Kellen’s Western journeys had taken him past the town on several occasions. It existed on Wyoming’s high flatland near the Medicine Bow Mountains, a survivor of the camps that sprang to life as the Union Pacific laid track from Omaha toward Utah. Instead of disappearing as so many of the camps did when the rails passed them by, Bitter Springs found commerce in cattle country and as a water way station for thirsty engines and their thirstier passengers.
Kellen had never seen anything from his train window that recommended Bitter Springs as a place of particular interest. Now he wondered what he might have missed by not spending a few days with the locals. “Is that your home? Bitter Springs? Were you going there?”
“Going there…not home.”
“Expected?”
Mr. Church nodded. “Pennyroyal. Should find her…tell her…she’s waiting.”
“Penny Royal. All right. I’ll be certain to—” He stopped, his attention caught by the coach door opening. Mr. Berg appeared on the threshold with a man on his heels that Kellen supposed was the doctor. The late arrival was explained by the doctor’s condition. The man required the conductor’s shoulder to keep him steady and upright. Kellen swore under his breath and got to his feet. “Right here,” he said. He stepped into the aisle, backing up as he pointed to Mr. Church. He jerked his chin at the doctor but addressed his question to Mr. Berg. “You sure he can help? He looks as if he can hardly hold his bag any better than he can hold his liquor.”
“Don’t like the looks of you much either,” the doctor said, answering for himself. He kept pace with the conductor and then switched places so he could sink onto the bench beside Mr. Church. He flipped the clasp on his medical bag and opened it, offering his credentials to Kellen as he withdrew a ball of tightly wound bandages. “Woodrow Hitchens. Late of St. Louis. Graduate of Philadelphia Medical College, class of ’sixty. Cut my teeth in the field hospitals at Manassas, Gettysburg, and Shiloh to name a few that you might have heard of, you still being a whelp and all. That suit you?”
Kellen accepted the rebuke, knowing it was deserved. The doctor hadn’t slurred a syllable. Liquor didn’t account for the man’s unsteady gait or the slight tremble in his hands. Some sort of wasting disease did. “Suits me fine,” Kellen said. “What can you do for him?”
Dr. Hitchens gave his patient his full attention while Mr. Berg inched closer for a better look until Kellen put an arm out to ease him back. “You’re going to have to let me see your wound, Mr.—”
“Church. Nat Church.”
“Well, that’s something,” the doctor said equably. “I’ve been known to enjoy your exploits. Especially liked Nat Church and the Frisco Fancy.”
Kellen smiled wryly as Nat Church offered a modest thank-you. The man had no shame, perhaps another trait he shared with his fictional counterpart.
The doctor had some difficulty unbuttoning his patient’s coat. Aside from the tremor in his hands, his fingers quickly became slick with blood. “Can’t wait to read the new one. Have it on order.”
“Nat Church and the Chinese Box,” Church said as the doctor opened the coat at the site of the wound. “Got a copy for you right here.”
The conductor blanched and sucked in a breath when he saw the bloody mess that was Mr. Church’s midsection. Kellen took a step forward to block his view.
Kellen couldn’t distinguish between book, blood, and bowel. The doctor tossed the latest Church adventure to the floor, shoved slithering intestine back inside the gaping wound, and held one hand against Church’s bloody flesh while expertly unwinding the ball of bandages in the other. When he had a wad the size and thickness of his palm, he used his teeth to tear it off and replaced his hand with it. “Mother of God,” he muttered, looking back at Kellen. “This man’s been gutted. Who did this?”
“He says he doesn’t know.”
“Anything you can do, Doctor?”
“Put this away.” Hitchens held out the unused portion of bandage to Kellen. “Take out the smallest syringe and give it to me.”
Kellen followed the instructions, eventually taking the doctor’s place beside Mr. Church and using his hand to keep the man’s guts from spilling onto his lap. Hitchens wiped blood from his fingers and then filled the syringe from a vial of clear fluid that he extracted from the bottom of his bag.
Kellen saw both resignation and determination on the doctor’s face. It wasn’t so different from what he observed in the man who wanted to be Nat Church.
“Morphine?” asked Kellen.
The doctor didn’t answer. Without a word of warning or apology, he plunged the point of the syringe into his patient’s thigh.
There was only waiting after that. Nat Church eventually closed his eyes. He slept. He died. And none of those who stood as witness to his end had an explanation for it.
They agreed that the bloody tin star the doctor found pinned to Nat Church’s vest might account for some part of the answer. Kellen Coltrane was left to wonder what accounted for the rest of it.
Chapter One
Bitter Springs, Wyoming Territory
Lorraine Berry wondered about the man arriving today. Allowing her thoughts to drift into the great unknown of possibilities and unforeseen consequences was as close to daydreaming as she ever got. The work facing her was considerable, and she was too practical to stray from it for long. Besides, she had deliberated at length, sometimes out loud, and she had done it for weeks be
fore she began the correspondence with the gun for hire.
It had been a risk writing to him, but at the time it seemed that not writing was the greater risk. It troubled her that she no longer had the same firm sense that she’d made the better choice. Of course, it could be that if she’d done nothing, she would still be plagued by niggling doubt, and then she would have lost the opportunity to hire him. In spite of the fact that she answered his notice, Raine could not imagine that a man with his specialized talent was ever without work for long. In fact, Raine had supplied more information about her circumstances than he revealed about his own. Somehow this made her feel more comfortable about the arrangement, as though he were choosing her, not the other way around, and that he could be better trusted because of it.
It was not until his last letter that she learned who he was, and then because she requested it. He never signed his previous correspondence, so it showed a certain amount of confidence in her when he finally shared his name.
Best regards, Nat Church.
Raine looked up from arranging bottles behind the mahogany bar and caught her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror. Her wry smile was mocking, which was exactly as it should be. Nat Church? She might have ended their arrangement if he had penned that at the outset.
It wasn’t that she believed it was his real name; it merely troubled her because it demonstrated a singular lack of imagination. Now if he had signed his name as Aaron Burr or John Wilkes Booth, that would have hinted at wit, however dark and ghoulish.
Raine’s self-mocking smile deepened as she addressed her reflection. “You are most assuredly twisted, Raine Berry.” She raised a hand to her hair. “Look at you. When exactly was it that the cat dragged you over the backyard fence?” One of her tortoiseshell combs had lost its moorings and was no longer serving the intended purpose of keeping her hair close to her head. When she was still a young girl and knew every sort of thing was possible, she held fast to the notion that her dreadful carroty curls could be tamed. As a woman full grown, she knew better and accepted as marginal consolation that sometime between four and twenty-four the color of her hair had darkened from carrot to copper.
Raine licked her fingers, smoothed back the strands trying to stand at attention, and anchored the comb so it was positioned on a symmetrical plane to its twin. In the event there was still more wrong in places she couldn’t easily see, she felt for the coil near the crown of her head and rearranged a few pins to keep it in place. When she was satisfied that she had done the best she could with what she had, she nodded once at the mirror so her reflection could confirm it.
Raine turned away from straightening the bottles and picked up a broom before the mirror became a bigger distraction than the impending arrival of Nat Church. She swept behind the bar and was starting to make a pass under the tables when Walter Mangold walked in from the storeroom at the back. She was glad he didn’t know how to tread lightly; otherwise his sudden appearance might have had her diving for cover.
Walt rested his large hands on his waist, his arms akimbo, and scolded Raine in a baritone so deep and dulcet that no sting could be attached to it. “Now, stop that, Mrs. Berry. Give me the broom. On no account should you be doing my work just because you can.”
Raine didn’t think about arguing. She held out the broom. Walt was her hardest worker, and what he lacked in quick-wittedness, he compensated for in size, strength, and steadiness. He was also loyal. While there was a certain amount of charm in his devotion to her, Raine also felt a responsibility to do right by him. There were plenty of people in town who looked out for Walt, but there were always a few who considered it a fine joke to make him the butt of one. Before she and Adam took over the Pennyroyal, Walt mostly worked for the Burdicks, and that family had a way of using a body that had nothing to do with useful. The passing recollection of the way they had treated Walt was enough to set Raine’s teeth on edge.
“Goodness, but you got yourself riled up about something,” Walt said. “There’s color creeping up your neck.”
Raine wished she still had the broom so she could make a playful jab at him with it. Instead, she immediately raised a hand to the hollow of her throat. She didn’t know whether she really felt the heat or only imagined it, but she knew Walt was right about the color. She could school her fine features into an expressionless mask, but it usually served no purpose when her pale skin flushed pink with so little provocation.
“You think I’m riled now? Just stand there talking to me when you should be sweeping and I’ll show you riled.”
Walt grinned, flashing teeth almost as big as his fingernails, before he ducked his head and set to work.
Raine got out of his way. She started to pick up a rag to polish the brass rail at the bar, thought better of it, and retreated from the saloon in favor of the hotel’s dining room. Three overnight guests were already seated, the older married couple from Springfield at one table and the liquor salesman from Chicago at the other. Town regulars who enjoyed the company and coffee at the Pennyroyal occupied two more tables. Raine greeted everyone by name before she disappeared into the kitchen.
Mrs. Sterling promptly told her to get out.
“You’re going to get underfoot,” the cook said flatly. “You always do. And Emily will take her orders from you instead of me, and sure as God made little green apples, the next thing you know I’ll be burning Mr. Wheeler’s toast and scrambling Jack Clifton’s eggs instead of turning them over real easy like.” And in the event Raine had a conveniently forgetful memory, Mrs. Sterling reminded her, “It’s happened before.”
Raine stayed where she was just inside the door. To further placate her cook, she kept her palms flat against the raised oak panels. “I thought I might get my own breakfast,” she said. “I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday’s lunch.”
Mrs. Sterling evinced no sympathy. She used one corner of her apron to swipe at the beads of perspiration outlining her widow’s peak before she returned to flipping hotcakes on the griddle. “Whose fault is that? That’s what I would like to know.”
“It’s mine,” Raine said. She stepped aside to let Emily pass into the dining room with a pot of coffee and a platter of hotcakes. She tried to catch the girl’s eye, but under Mrs. Sterling’s more predatory one, Emily was having none of it. The fair-haired Emily slipped past Raine with otherworldly efficiency, like a wraith in a Gothic novel. Raine was left to inhale sharply as the cakes went by and hope the aroma clung to her nostrils until Mrs. Sterling invited her in.
“Did you say something, dear?” Mrs. Sterling asked. “Because I thought I heard you say something.”
Raine knew the cook had heard her perfectly well, but she answered just the same. “I said it is my fault.”
Mrs. Sterling nodded briskly. “Always good to have that out of the way. Now, why don’t you go up to your room, have a little bit of a lie-in, and I’ll send Emily up with a plate of everything once I attend to the guests and the regulars?”
“The regulars are also our guests,” Raine said.
“If you say so.”
Raine smiled. “I always do.” Mrs. Sterling had known Howard Wheeler and Jack Clifton since they worked beside her husband laying rails back in ’67. She knew the other regulars just about as well. If they were visitors in her own home, which they hadn’t been since Mr. Sterling was shot dead, then she would have called them guests. What she thought of them now, she’d told Raine, lacked Christian sentiment and did not bear repeating, so she was a better woman for just calling them regulars.
Raine watched Mrs. Sterling carefully tend to Mr. Clifton’s eggs. Her smile deepened. In spite of the unchristian sentiments the cook insisted she harbored, she never broke one of Jack Clifton’s eggs if she could help it and to Raine’s knowledge she had never tried to poison anyone.
“Why do you think I should have a little bit of a lie-in?”
“Do I need to say it?”
“Apparently so.”
Mrs. Sterlin
g stopped what she was doing long enough to remove her spectacles from their perch above her forehead and place them on the rather pronounced bridge of her nose. It was all for effect because she stared at Raine over the top of the gold-plated rims. “Those bags under your eyes are so big that Rabbit and Finn would refuse to carry them, and you know those two would rather throw themselves in front of a moving train than admit there’s something they can’t do. Is that plain enough for you?”
Raine blinked. “Yes,” she said when she found her voice. “It is.”
“Well, you had to make me go and say it.”
“Again, my fault. Perhaps the next time you’ll simply tell me that I look tired.”
“Mr. Sterling was always trying to put words in my mouth. It didn’t work for him. I don’t expect that it will work for you.”
Sighing, Raine gingerly pressed her fingertips to the underside of her eyes. The skin didn’t feel puffy, so the reference to bags was an exaggeration, but during her earlier conversation in front of the mirror, she’d glimpsed the same faint shadows that drew Mrs. Sterling’s notice.
“I was late going to bed. The saloon was crowded last night.”
“I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. You’re the owner, not the entertainment.”
“I was behind the bar all evening.”
“Pouring drinks with a smile and a kind word for everybody.”
“I like to think it reminds them they’re gentlemen, and it helps keep tables and chairs in place and the mirror in one piece.”
Mrs. Sterling pushed her spectacles back above her salt-and-pepper widow’s peak. She gave Raine a hard look, nothing feigned about it. “Were the Burdicks here?”
