Holmes on the Range

by Steve Hockensmith

  “You there!” the Duke barked, and I was shocked to discover that these words were directed at me. I snapped to attention like I was wearing blue.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Tell the cook we’ve returned. The party will be changing for dinner, which we will expect within the hour. We had discussed canards à la Rouennaise this morning, but I think not now. A roast of our own Cantlemere beef should do nicely. Yes, very nicely indeed! And tell Emily to set out one of the ports. And cigars! This is most definitely a night for port and cigars, eh, Brackwell? Well, now—did you get all that?”

  I most certainly did not. I feared to admit my shortcomings as a manservant to the Duke, however, and I was prepared to simply nod and set off to make a mash of the whole thing. But Old Red spoke up before I could do so.

  “Don’t fret, Your Grace,” he said, taking me by the elbow and steering me toward the house. “Whatever he don’t remember, I’ll remember for him.”

  We were inside before the old man could raise an eyebrow at my brother’s initiative, so I did it for him.

  “Are you crazy? Boo’s off sayin’ who knows what to Uly, and you just go strollin’ into the castle like you own the place?”

  “I ain’t gonna sit on my ass when the time comes to act. While the Duke and his people are here, we’ve got us a chance to break this thing.”

  “The only thing that’s gonna get broke around here is our necks,” I grumbled. “And what difference does it make whether or not them English folks are here? They hadn’t even showed up when Perkins got himself ground into powder.”

  Old Red shook his head with sad, almost perplexed aggravation, as if he’d just observed me trying to eat soup with the wrong end of the spoon.

  “That don’t mean it ain’t all connected,” he said. “Haven’t you wondered about the timing of—?”

  The doors behind us opened, and the Duke and the rest of his bunch stepped into the foyer.

  “That must be Emily back in the kitchen,” Gustav said, cupping a hand to his ear while herding me down the hallway. “Oh, Emily! Emmm-illly!”

  As it turned out, Emily was in the kitchen. She was harping away at the Swede, who looked as flummoxed by her chatter as we usually looked by his.

  “Sir Red!” the maid said when she turned and saw us come in. She smiled and gave me a little curtsy, and I pulled myself together enough to respond with a deep bow.

  “My lady.”

  She giggled in just the way I wanted.

  Making gals laugh has always come easy for me. Maybe it’s because I’m not exactly underblessed on good looks. Or maybe it’s because I spent so much time around women as a boy. After my father and my brother Conrad died and Gustav hit the trail to make money, it was just me and my mother and my sisters there on the farm for the next couple years—and there wasn’t much to laugh about. So I did my best to keep everyone bucked up, and I’ve kept on clowning ever since.

  Old Red, on the other hand, can face down rattlesnakes, rustlers, and rabid bears without so much as batting an eye, but put him face-to-face with a female and he’ll practically bat himself blind. He’s no more unsightly than the average drover, with piercing blue-gray eyes and a high forehead and a nose and ears that manage to be “prominent” without spilling over into “enormous.” Yet he’s always been so bashful around women he could hardly bring himself to shout “Fire!” if a gal’s skirts caught flame.

  When I introduced him to Emily, she gave him another jokey curt-sey, but the best he could do in reply was swipe off his hat and mumble what sounded like “Peas tomato again tents”—I assume it was “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” I stepped in quick before things could get even more awkward.

  “Your Grits is back, and he’s hungry. You’re supposed to set out pork and cigars before you go upstairs.” I turned to the Swede. “And you’re not to worry about whatever you had planned for supper. Just rustle up some steaks.”

  “You’re to set out port, ma’am,” Old Red corrected, still mumbling but managing to make himself heard. “And the Duke said he wanted a roast.”

  “A roast, steaks, what’s the difference? The man wants beef.” I glanced over Emily at the Swede. “What’s the matter? You look like you’re about to bust out bawlin’.”

  “All day I em vit ducks cooking, and this one”—he shook a bony finger at Emily—”she say, ‘Not goot! Not goot enough for the Duke!’ And now I em to broil a roast?”

  “You will if you know what’s good for you,” Emily replied coolly, all brusque business now. “You don’t deny a man like the Duke. He gets what he wants, how he wants it—or you’ll pay. So you’d better get to that roast. And lay out oysters, boiled potatoes, custards, and a cherry tart while you’re at it.”

  “God damn it!” the Swede exploded, cutting loose with the clearest English I’d ever heard leave his lips. “I em only two hands having!”

  Emily gave him an unsympathetic shrug. “They’d better be enough then, hadn’t they? I don’t have time to help you. I have to go upstairs and dress my lady for dinner.”

  She started for the door, but an unexpected obstacle appeared in her path—Old Red.

  “Looks to me like you and the Swede have your hands full,” he said, his words loud and clear now. “Seein’ as we ain’t got nothin’ to do but head back to the bunkhouse and jawbone with the boys, maybe we could help out.”

  “You?” Emily replied with a skeptical grimace. But her frown slowly blossomed into a mischievous grin. “Well, why not? That fat bastard dragged us all the way out here without so much as a single valet—what more could he expect? Ho! Do you know how to set a table, then?”

  We knew how to set plates on wood, but that wasn’t quite what she was asking. Nevertheless, Old Red got to nodding and grinning, and he cocked an eyebrow at me that said I should do the same. So I did, and Emily gave us another “Ho!” She showed us where the china and silver had been laid out and then left us to it—provided we didn’t wash our hands before we started.

  “That gal sure don’t like the Duke,” Old Red mused as I began puzzling over the bowls, plates, cups, saucers, silver, and crystal.

  “Tell me why she should. And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re up to?”

  “Settin’ a table,” Gustav said. “Let’s do the plates first. Them I understand.”

  The big plates took all of ten seconds to lay out around the dining room table. There were smaller plates, too, and after some debate we stacked these atop their larger siblings.

  “Well, that wasn’t so hard to figure out, was it?” Old Red said, looking pleased. “Now what do you think about them bowls? On top of the plates or off to the side?”

  “They wear ‘em on their heads for all I know. Now would you please tell me what we’re doin’ here?”

  “We are waiting,” my brother said, speaking slowly and solemnly, like a preacher reading Scripture from the pulpit, “for opportunity to present itself.”

  Rather than explain what opportunity, Old Red placed a bowl on top of a plate and leaned back, beaming at the porcelain tower he was building.

  “Now what about these spoons?” he said. “In the bowls or beside ‘em?”

  I told him exactly where he could stick those spoons, but of course he didn’t follow my recommendation. Instead, he started balancing the spoons on top of the bowls. When he was done with that, he crisscrossed the spoons with forks.

  Old Red’s table-setting sure as hell didn’t look right, but I had to admit this much: It did look interesting.

  Just as he found a home for the last of the saucers—he’d perched them atop a set of crystal goblets—the door behind me opened and I heard Emily bark out a “Ho!”

  “If only old Ousby could see this. He’d drop dead on the spot, he would,” the maid said. “It’s a good thing the lady wanted to finish dressing herself tonight. . ..”

  Emily started around the table, tittering as she undid the work Old Red had put into it. My b
rother bugged out his eyes at me, and I realized the opportunity he’d been awaiting had just presented itself. We were alone with an eager young flirt—and it doesn’t take much canoodling to turn flirtation to gossip. And as canoodling with women is more my line than Gustav’s, it was up to me to get things rolling.

  “So,” I said, favoring Emily with a smile, “who’s this Ousby feller you speak of?”

  “The gruffest old goat in all England, that’s who. He’s the head butler back at Cantlemere. The real Cantlemere, I mean. The Duke’s estate in Sussex.”

  “How come he ain’t out here with the rest of you?”

  “Oooooo, he’s got the household to run, don’t he? And he’s hardly got the staff to do it anymore. And anyway, he’s too old to be dragging his bones halfway around the world. That’s for the likes of poor me.”

  “You ain’t excited to see America?”

  “Excited to see the Columbian Exposition maybe. After all, that’s the reason we came over, innit? Or so they tell the servants.”

  Emily flashed me an exaggerated wink that seemed to imply the secrets and lies and inherent sneakiness you always had to expect from your employers.

  “But now we’ve missed the opening. And why?” she went on. “So we can come out to Mandana or Montini or whatever you call it and let the savages have a chance at our scalps! Ho! I’ll have you know the Duke actually gave me a gun before we left Chicago. A little silver thing hardly bigger than a pocket watch. Everyone got one just like it—Lady Clara, Edwards, Brackwell. Old Dickie made a joke of it. ‘In case of Red Indian attack or train robbery,’ he said. Oooooo, he thinks he’s a regular Oscar Wilde. If only he were. Ho!”

  Old Red was getting exactly what he’d wanted—information. There was such a deluge, in fact, I felt myself drowning in it. I grabbed hold of a stray bit of flotsam and tried to ride out the flood.

  “If the Duke wanted to inspect the ranch, why didn’t you and the lady just stay behind in Chicago for the Exposition?”

  “Oooooo, you don’t know ‘Lord Clara.’ Headstrong, that one is. She insisted on coming along—to keep the old man from making a cock-up of things, I’d wager. She’s got more sense with a pound than all the men in her family combined. . .little good it can do them now. Now look—it’s fork fork fork, then knife knife spoon.”

  Soon she was instructing us on the proper placement of “finger bowls.” Old Red gave me a glare that told me to get her back to gossip.

  “It’s a shame Mr. Perkins ain’t here to see all these beautiful eatin’ wares laid out like this,” I said. “The Duke and the rest of ‘em must be mighty downhearted they came all this way to see the man only to find he’s dead.”

  “Oooooo, you wouldn’t know it from their moods tonight. I’ve never seen them more cheery. Except that Edwards. The only time he bothers with a smile is when he can use it on my lady. Everybody knows what he wants—and he just might get it. After all, she can hardly make a match with a nobleman, can she? Someone’s already taken a bite of that plum, and the gentry won’t touch a commoner’s leftovers. Although I can think of one who wouldn’t mind a taste. Ho! That puddinghead Brackwell’s got as much money as Edwards, but to my lady he’s nothing more than a pet. The boy’s family would never stand for it, anyway. Even their black sheep’s too good for the likes of her. Ooooooo, I’ll never understand the high and mighty. If they’ve got respectability, they want money. If they’ve got money, they want respectability. And if they’ve got both, why, then all they want is more of each! Ho!”

  We were getting more gossip alright—though not much I could make any sense of. Trying to steer Emily in conversation was akin to riding a buffalo without benefit of a bridle. You were sure to go someplace fast, but you had little choice in where.

  Nevertheless, I hoped to get Emily’s tongue pointed in the direction of the Duke’s daughter again. Lady Clara’s social woes would probably be the last thing Old Red wanted to hear about, but I didn’t care. I was smitten with the lady, and I couldn’t defend her honor if I didn’t know what had stained it.

  But before I could fire off a question, the door to the parlor opened, and the Duke stepped in looking like he was on his way to an opera house. He was decked out in formal evening clothes, complete with tie and tails, and his fat fingers were wrapped around a smoldering cigar.

  Given that he’d just stumbled upon two dirty ranch-hands pawing over his silverware, I expected rage to overtake him, or at least shock. Instead, the old man shocked me by hanging a grin betwixt his mutton-chops.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Just who I’ve been looking for.”

  Sixteen

  THE PARLOR GAME

  Or, Old Red’s Brain Is Put Through Its Paces—and Comes Up Lame

  The Duke told the three of us to follow him into the parlor. We found Edwards there awaiting us, slicked up like the old man in a high-collared white shirt and black suit, his thick lips making a pink O around the butt of a cigar. He was leaning back stiffly upon the very divan Pinky Harris had made himself so comfortable on the night my brother and I sneaked into the castle. Like Pinky, Edwards was putting a glass of hooch to good use, though he was limiting himself to just one, ruby-red liquid.

  The Duke had a glass of his own waiting for him, and he picked it up and took a slurp as he settled into an armchair so large and ornate it could’ve been a throne. Sitting there together, he and Edwards almost looked like portraits of the same man—one as he came into the full bloom of maturity, the other as he faded into decay.

  Neither one invited us to have a seat.

  “You can’t use both,” the Duke said to Edwards. “Pick one.”

  By both, the Duke evidently meant Old Red and myself. Edwards got to inspecting us like he was judging cows at a county fair. His eyes narrowed to dark slits behind his spectacles as he looked at my brother, reminding me of the lip Gustav had given him that morning.

  “That one,” he said, stabbing his cigar at Old Red. Even as small a movement as that seemed to pain him—a grimace twisted the lumpy loaf of sourdough he used for a face. Evidently his back was still buckled up from the pounding it had taken on horseback that day.

  “I’ll go first,” the Duke announced, sounding like a man who always goes first. He pointed his jowls at my brother. “What’s your name?”

  “Gustav Amlingmeyer.”

  “That question doesn’t count,” Edwards said, managing to smile as if this were a very clever remark indeed.

  The Duke grunted out a gruff chuckle. “Tell me, Amlingmeyer,” he said, “where is the seat of the British Empire?”

  “The seat, sir?”

  “The center. The capital.”

  “You mean to say you don’t know?” Old Red said, deadpan.

  “I want you to tell me,” the Duke growled.

  “Alright . . .I suppose it must be London.”

  The old man leaned back in his plush chair, jutting out his equally plush belly.

  “Very good,” he said.

  “Emily,” Edwards said, “what is the capital city of the United States?”

  The servant girl blushed and brought her fingers up to stifle a giggle. “Ooooo, I’m not much for geography, Mr. Edwards. Is it New York, then?”

  The Duke wheezed out a mirthless grunt that was apparently a laugh. “That’s fifty dollars for me!”

  “I’m sure Emily’s American counterpart will even the score quickly enough,” Edwards replied, throwing a sneer my brother’s way.

  Emily kept up her tittering, blissfully unaware that she was a pawn in some cruel game. But Gustav’s face was beginning to burn as red as his mustache.

  “Amlingmeyer,” the Duke said, lifting his glass for another slurp. “Can you tell me who rules the British Empire?”

  “You folks’ve got yourselves a queen.”

  “Yes, but what’s her name?” Edwards asked.

  Gustav’s face went another shade darker, almost appearing purple by this point.

  “Do the lett
ers VR mean nothing to you?” the Duke prodded, incredulous. “Victoria Regina?”

  “Now, Your Grace—no hints, if you please,” Edwards chided gently. “Answer the man, Amlingmeyer.”

  Of course, I knew the answer. Anyone who’d ever read a newspaper would, what with the woman running half the world and all. But to Old Red, a newspaper was just something you used to swat a fly or light a fire. I had to hope his deducing would see him through, as the Duke had waved the answer right under his nose.

  “Well. . .I suppose this Mrs. Regina must be the queen,” Old Red said, making exactly the deduction I’d hoped he wouldn’t make.

  The Duke and Edwards nearly burst their starched collars they got to cackling so, and Emily added her own shriek of a laugh to their howls.

  “Behold—the common American!” Edwards hooted. “That’s fifty for me!”

  I just barely kept myself from stomping across the room and herding Edwards’s teeth from his face with my fist. Not only did he have some sort of bet going as to my brother’s ignorance, he was kissing up to the old Englishman by cutting down Americans. One might expect a highborn European so-and-so like the Duke to feel more pride in his class than his countrymen, but for Edwards to do the same struck me as akin to treason.

  For his part, Old Red seemed less enraged than shamed. He’d always been sensitive about his lack of learning. I figured that had something to do with his desire to detect and deduct—a lot of folks assume “uneducated” and “stupid” are one and the same, and he aimed to prove them wrong. He just stared down at his boots now, looking like he was counting off the seconds till the laughter would stop.

  “Now, Emily,” Edwards said after one last giggling snort. “Who is the president of the United States?”

  “Oooooo, I know that one,” the maid said proudly. “It’s Mr. Lincoln, innit?”

  Her answer didn’t set Edwards and the old man off into hysterics as had Gustav’s, but it did give them another chuckle.

  Emily blinked at her employers, an unsure smile dimpling her round cheeks. “Is that not right, then?”