Holmes on the Range

by Steve Hockensmith

  “Brother—we don’t know there’s only one spy. Could be two. Maybe Uly’s decided—”

  Crazymouth and Anytime appeared just then with the horses for the wagon, and our conversation came to a quick end. I didn’t need to hear any more to know what my brother was driving at, though.

  Every day, cowboys are presented with fresh opportunities to get themselves killed. The job Uly had just handed me and Tall John and Swivel-Eye—pulling beeves from sinkholes—is one of the easiest ways to go about it. A steer can stick to swamp like a fly on gluepaper, and by the time you find him he might be half-crazy with fear. Getting him out isn’t as simple as throwing on a rope and kicking in spurs. I’ve seen drovers pull horns, legs, and even heads off the critters they’re trying to save. So you’ve got to get in close and work it scientific—which gives the bull a chance to gut you with his horns, brain you with his hooves, or just crush you under his big, beefy butt.

  If someone wanted to help him do it . . .well, it wouldn’t be hard. So as I rode north, I kept my eyes open for two things: bog holes and stabs in the back.

  Most days I was friendly enough with Tall John and Swivel-Eye—particularly the latter, who hailed from Kansas farming folk like Old Red and myself. Still, either or both could be working for Uly, and I grew so wary of saying the wrong thing to the wrong fellow I ended up saying nothing at all.

  “I can’t believe it,” Tall John said after we’d ridden a couple miles seeing nothing more noteworthy than a few largish puddles. He cupped a hand to his ear. “You hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Swivel-Eye asked.

  “Nothin’. Absolute silence.” Tall John grinned. “I never thought I’d hear that when I was within a mile of Big Red Amlingmeyer.”

  Swivel-Eye chuckled. “What’s the story, Big Red? Tall John’s right—you’re as tight-lipped as your brother today.”

  “Can’t a man just roll up his tongue every now and then and listen to what the songbirds have to say?” I said.

  “My goodness,” Swivel-Eye replied, shaking his head. “We have a goddamn poet in our midst.”

  Tall John cocked his head and gave a mock-serious nod. “I think Big Red might be onto somethin’. Just listen.” He lifted his cheeks from his saddle and gave the beans he’d had for dinner a chance to speak their piece. “I do believe that was a duck. What do you think he was singin’ about, Big Red?”

  This busted Swivel-Eye and myself into such hysterics Tall John stuck out his butt and gave us an encore.

  Amongst cowboys, this is what passes for wit.

  “But in all true seriousness,” Tall John said once our laughs wound down into wheezy giggles, “I can understand why a man might think twice about openin’ his mouth with . . .you know. . .events ofthe day bein’ as they’ve been.”

  Swivel-Eye gave that a neutral “Um-hmm” and pointed a cross-eyed stare in my direction. He might have been hoping I’d join in with some square talk. Or he might have been looking to see if I’d stick my head in the noose. Either way, I didn’t give him what he was looking for. I just acted like I was listening to the birds again.

  “Alright then,” Tall John muttered, disgusted, after the resulting silence had gnawed at us for almost a minute. “I thought maybe with us being away from HQ and all—”

  “Shut up,” Swivel-Eye said.

  Tall John squinted back at him. “What did you say?”

  Swivel-Eye shushed him.

  And then I heard it—the clatter of wagon wheels and the jangle of hitched horses coming at us from the north.

  Headquarters and the VR’s wire wagon were to the south.

  Without a word, the three of us got our horses to a gallop and headed toward that noise.

  Before long we saw what was kicking up the ruckus—a stagecoach, a surrey, and a wagon, all moving along the trail that winds down from the Yellowstone River valley to the castle. As we approached, the stage driver stood and waved his hat.

  “Don’t shoot, boys!” he called out. “We got women here!”

  With that, what had been a mere surprise turned into an absolute miracle. It had been two months since I’d laid eyes on a female who didn’t sport hooves, and I’d assumed I’d be waiting several more before I got my next chance. Yet there in the buggy drawing up behind the stage I spied the unmistakable outline of a woman. When we got close enough, I could see she was a real beauty, too. Swivel-Eye, Tall John, and I rode straight toward her, racing for the honor of saying how-do first.

  Swivel-Eye won. By the time I trotted up to the buggy, he was already bidding the woman and her companion good afternoon, hat in hand. The woman—and that’s what she was, being a number of years past the point at which she could wear the tag girl—nodded and favored us with a smile that, while small, lit up the sky brighter than the noonday sun. She might have been too old to be considered a fresh young filly, but she was one hell of a beautiful mare.

  The fellow with her, on the other hand, was simply a horse’s ass. He looked about the same age as the lady—in his midthirties, I’d guess—though he had the rounded, doughy features of a child and the impatient scowl of a crabby old man. He was kitted out in a tweed suit with matching cap, argyle socks almost up to his knees, and spectacles that perched on his bulbous nose like two birds on a turd. His ways were as uppity as his clothes—when he spoke, his voice was more starchy stiff than his spotless white collar.

  “You are employed with the Cantlemere Ranche?” he asked.

  He used the pronunciation raunch instead of ranch, prompting us hands to titter like little girls.

  “No, sir,” Swivel-Eye said. “We work for the Bar VR.”

  “It’s what you would call a ranch,” I explained.

  “Never hired on with no raunch before,” Tall John added. “What sort of work they do there?”

  Our giggles straightened up the fellow’s spine so fast it’s a wonder he didn’t bust his suspenders.

  “We’re here to see Mr. Perkins,” he snapped with all the cold fury a rich man can muster when people stop licking his boots.

  “Oh,” Swivel-Eye said, and our chuckles evaporated. As much as we didn’t like this duded-up juniper, it would reflect poorly on us to give disrespect to a dead man’s friends or relations—especially a friend or relation as pretty as the lady.

  “I’m afraid we have bad news, folks,” I said. “You’re too late. Mr. Perkins was taken in an accident just a few days ago.”

  “ ‘Taken in an accident’?” the woman asked. She didn’t speak like Perkins, and certainly not like Crazymouth, but something about her voice told me she was from England. If she was our former manager’s sister or fiancée or some such, it had fallen to me to deliver sad tidings indeed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “He was caught out in a storm and . . .he didn’t make it back. He’s dead.”

  “Oh my. How unfortunate,” the woman said, her poise only the slightest bit ruffled.

  Mr. Fancy-Pants didn’t shed any tears, either. He seemed not so much distressed by Perkins’s death as annoyed that the man should presume to die at such an inopportune time.

  “Dead?” he said. “Then who’s in charge?”

  “That would be Mr. McPherson, the foreman,” I said. “He’ll be runnin’ the place for the rest of the season. The owners are all the way back in England, so it’ll be months before we hear who’s to take over.”

  “Hardly,” the man sniffed. “We are the owners. We have come to see our ranche—and apparently we have arrived not a moment too soon.”

  Twelve

  “MR. BALMORAL”

  Or, The King and His Court Lay Claim to Their Castle

  Before I could figure out the proper response—the best I could manage on the spur of the moment was a pop-eyed stare—an older gentleman climbed out of the stagecoach. He had a number of years (and pounds) on the first fellow, but his haughty manner was just the same.

  “What’s this about Perkins?” he demanded in a tone that told me demanding was
something he did a lot. Like the lady, he had an accent I took to be English. And like the man with her, he was dressed up fancy, wearing a cream-colored suit, blinding white puttees, and a high-peaked helmet. He looked like a European explorer gone to fat, as if he’d spent the last few years lost in somebody’s kitchen as opposed to the deadly jungles of darkest Africa.

  “Well, sir, it’s like this,” I said, and I told of Perkins’s ride the night of the storm and his condition the next morning. As I spun out the story to the blustery old gent and the lady and her snooty companion—not to mention the wagon drivers and shotgun riders, who were plainly enjoying an opportunity to eavesdrop—I noticed that my audience had grown even further. Two more passengers were in the coach the old man had exited: a gangly young fellow and a golden-haired girl, both of them about my own age. They stared out at me with the wide-eyed wonderment of children at their first circus.

  The old man seemed considerably less impressed. When I was finished, he gave me no thanks, but simply snapped that I should lead his party to the manor house without delay. Then he heaved himself back up into the stagecoach before I could ask what the hell a “manor house” was. I made my best guess and headed for the castle.

  Swivel-Eye, Tall John, and the rest of the caravan followed behind, and before long we were back at HQ. That many harnesses and horses will put up a noise that stretches out quite a ways before them, so Uly had a bit of warning somebody was coming. When we arrived, he was waiting for us in front of the castle looking as slick as I’d ever seen him, in clean clothes and polished boots and a brand-new Stetson.

  I didn’t pause to wonder why Uly would have such finery just lying about, for my brain was brimming with gleeful anticipation—I couldn’t wait to see the conniption that would befall our foreman when he realized the VR was no longer under his thumb.

  “What is this?” he called out. “I send you lookin’ for sinkholes and you come back with guests?”

  “That’s right! And wait’ll you hear who!” I shouted back.

  The little wagon train slowed to a stop before the big house, and that gruff, puffy old geezer stepped out of the coach again.

  “Who are you?” he huffed at Uly.

  “My name’s McPherson. I’m the foreman here,” Uly explained, his voice and manner shockingly polite. “And who might you be?”

  “This is His Grace, the Duke of Balmoral,” snapped the swell in the surrey, apparently offended that there were actually folks in the world who didn’t recognize the old man on sight. His beautiful riding companion had the decency to look embarrassed by his presumption.

  “Mr. Balmoral?” Uly said, swiping the hat off his head. “The chairman of the Sussex Land and Cattle Company?”

  “Mr. Balmoral” nodded brusquely. “I have in my party two other stockholders.” His gaze darted to the uppity fellow who’d just introduced him. “There’s Mr. Edwards.” Then the gawky young man I’d seen in the coach stepped out behind the Duke. He was dressed like a gentleman, though one in need of a better tailor—his overly ample jacket and baggy trousers gave him the look of an understuffed scarecrow. The Duke turned, glaring at him the way you’d look at a bug floating in your beer. “And young Brackwell here. We have come to inspect the Cantlemere.”

  “Did Mr. Perkins know you were comin’?” Uly asked with such meekness it nearly knocked me from my saddle. I’d been expecting fire-works, but what he was giving off so far wouldn’t light a candle.

  “That no longer matters,” the Duke harrumphed. “Now I need you and your men to get us situated.”

  Behind him, the situating had already begun. The stage driver had hit soil, and his shotgun rider was easing a trunk down into his hands. They were quickly joined by the final passenger from the coach—the blond girl I’d seen peeking out at me a few minutes before. She was considerably younger and fleshier than the lady in the buggy with Edwards, with less of the china doll about her. But she was pretty in her own sturdy way. As she didn’t hesitate to start hefting boxes, it was plain she was a servant.

  Edwards and the lady stepped down from the surrey, yet the only help they offered with the unloading came from the gentleman—in the form of reminders not to bust anything. He seemed to be an American, though his words were warped by an accent I couldn’t place. The skinny kid, “Young Brackwell,” kept his distance from any work, as well. He took to wandering around staring at all there was to see, peering in astonishment at every hitching post and horsefly as if they were carved from purest gold.

  Tall John, Swivel-Eye, and myself were quickly drafted into service lugging trunks. The lady took charge of assigning rooms, and it took us a good three-quarters of an hour to get everything stowed where she wanted. She had us deposit the maid’s things—little more than a small case and a carpetbag—in a tiny room on the first floor, next to Perkins’s old bedroom. Naturally, the biggest, heaviest items all had to go up the stairs to the second floor. If they’d brought a cannon with them, I’m sure the lady would’ve wanted it on the roof.

  Not that she gave us any real cause to grumble. Her commands were firm but never harsh, and she even favored us with the occasional please and thank you.

  It was the servant girl—Emily, the woman called her—who finally told me the lady’s name. She’d overheard us cowhands talking about getting “Mr. Balmoral’s” gear settled where “that pretty gal” wanted, and she pulled us into one of the bedrooms for a little lesson on how to address our betters—and also to flirt, which she did with an enthusiasm we were keen to match.

  “His name’s not ‘Mr. Balmoral.’ Oooooo, he’ll bark like an old bulldog if any of you call him that again!” Emily told us, somehow managing to cackle no louder than a whisper. “No, he’s Richard Brackenstall de Vere St. Simon. Whew! Turns me blue in the face just saying it. Fortunately, he’s just ‘His Grace’ to the likes of us—’Your Grace’ if you’re speaking to him face-to-face. . .which I don’t recommend! Ho! Best to stay out of the big boar’s way, if you can.”

  “You know, I knew a woman named Gracie once,” Swivel-Eye said, winking one of his squinty peepers. “Never met a man went by that handle.”

  “It’s ‘Your Grace,’ ” the girl corrected, the smile on her face telling us she was in on the joke. “Don’t forget or you’ll regret it.”

  “Thank you for the advice, ma’am,” I said. “Just so you know, folks around here refer to me as ‘Sir Red, the Earl of East Kansas.’ Naturally I expect you and your bunch to do likewise.”

  Emily hiccuped out a “Ho!”

  “And everybody knows me as. . .,” Tall John said, upon which he unleashed a mighty thunderclap of flatulence. Being one of the many men who consider the breaking of wind to be the perfect punch line for any joke, Tall John immediately doubled over laughing.

  Such buffoonery would have the chippies back in Miles City busting a gut. But I assumed a woman who spent her days in the company of the hoitiest, toitiest folks on earth would surely be scandalized. I assumed wrong.

  “Oooooo, you must be a friend of the Duke’s then,” Emily said. “I heard him mention you by name just this morning! Ho!” And then she blew a raspberry and doubled up laughing herself.

  When the snorting and snickering finally faded, I asked the question that had been on my mind for the past hour.

  “So what about the lady? Who’s she?”

  “You may refer to her as Lady Clara,” Emily said, sounding awfully prim and proper for a girl who’d been trading fart jokes with cowboys a moment before. “When speaking to her directly, ‘My Lady’ or ‘Miss St. Simon’ will do.”

  “ ‘Miss St. Simon’? So she’s the old man’s daughter?”

  I tried to keep my voice neutral, but the relieved smile that creased my lips gave me away.

  “You were afraid maybe her name was Mrs. Edwards?” Emily said, her stiff airs disappearing with a leer.

  I shrugged and blushed. “Well. . .itwouldbekindofashame.Not for her to be married, I mean. For her to be married to a f
eller like him.”

  “Oooooo, it’d be a shame, alright—which isn’t to say it won’t happen,” the maid replied, rolling her eyes. “Not if that Edwards gets his way, nasty bugger.”

  Tall John leaned in and planted an elbow in my ribs. “So who do you propose the lady should marry, Sir Red?” he said. “The Earl of East Kansas, maybe?”

  I was getting ribbed—literally—and if I didn’t act fast it wouldn’t let up for days. I decided the best thing to do was give the conversation my spurs and point it in another direction.

  “So how ‘bout that beanpole—’Young Brackwell’? What are we supposed to call him? ‘Your Royal Highness’ or ‘Your Majesty’?”

  Emily giggled and filled us in. Though his family had titles in spades, Brackwell didn’t carry any himself. Nevertheless, as the youngest son of the Earl of Blackwater, he was due the respect afforded a nobleman. He was no older than any of us hands, but we were to address him as “Mr. Brackwell.”

  I was about to ask what we should call Edwards—simply “Jackass” or “Mr. Jackass”—when Lady Clara got to calling for Emily. Our little sewing circle broke up, and Tall John, Swivel-Eye, and I headed downstairs to grab the last of the trunks. In doing so, we found that the stage and wagon crew had finished watering their horses and were getting set to roll out. That was a big disappointment, as we’d been looking forward to hearing news from town.

  “You can’t even stay for supper?” I asked.

  “Wish we could, friend,” the fellow riding shotgun on the stage said. “But we gotta get back. The old man wouldn’t hire us out for two days—he’d only pay for the one. That cheap son of a bitch might look rich, but he pinches pennies till they bleed.”

  “But your horses could surely use more of a rest,” I pointed out. “And there’s no way you’ll make it back to Miles before sundown anyway. If you don’t have business callin’ you back to town, you really oughta stay the night.”

  It was true enough, and for a second it looked like they were giving it real thought. But then Uly came outside, glared at the drivers, and snarled, “What the hell are you still doin’ here?” Then he turned to me and Swivel-Eye and Tall John and added, “And you three—get back to work.”