Holmes on the Range

by Steve Hockensmith

  “I’m afraid Clara has a scandal all her own, Otto—though one, I’m glad to say, that Dr. Watson never had reason to write about.”

  Brackwell’s shoulders drooped, and he sort of melted across the Ottoman, suddenly looking exhausted.

  “It was a man, of course,” he said, stretching out his beanpole legs and staring up at the ceiling with dreamy distraction. “Nathaniel Horne. I even met him once. I can’t say I blame Clara for succumbing to his charms, no matter what the cost. He was tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, smooth-skinned. More than handsome. Beautiful. He could have had the pick of any woman in his class—or below it. But certainly not above it. Not so high as her.”

  “Didn’t have himself a fortune or a fancy title, huh?” I huffed, sympathizing with this Horne fellow.

  Brackwell coughed out a short burst of weary laughter. “Oh, it was much worse than that.” He brought his gaze down to meet mine again. “He was the Duke’s secretary.”

  I tried to imagine how the old man would react to the proposition of an employee becoming an in-law.

  “Ohhhhhhh my,” I said. “So what happened to this Horne? Was he hung or burned at the stake?”

  “Sacked. And blacklisted to boot. Dickie saw to it that he couldn’t gain employment as so much as a stable boy in all England. Horne probably had to go to Canada or Australia or even here to America to find a respectable position again.”

  Of course, that very day the Duke had promised to have me and Old Red blackballed in much the same manner. It put a mighty tight knot in my stomach to realize the old man wasn’t just blowing smoke when he made such threats. I tried to untangle that knot by focusing my thoughts on misfortunes other than my own.

  “I suppose word got around about Lady Clara’s little fling.”

  Brackwell nodded. “The family name had already been tarnished by her brother Robert’s escapades—as if his disastrous attempt at marriage hadn’t been bad enough, he’d become entangled with a dancing girl at the same time. There have been other. . .indiscretions, as well, and the St. Simons found themselves with a reputation for dabbling with those born beneath them. Clara managed to remain above it all until her flirtation with Horne came to light. After that—”

  “No ‘respectable’ gent would have her.”

  “Just so. Not that she’d be interested in such a match were it to present itself.” Brackwell’s eyes took on a wistful look. “She loved Horne—and she says she has no intention of marrying any other man.”

  “Well, good for her,” I said, though my foolish heart was stinging. I knew I had no chance with a woman of Clara’s caliber, yet a part of me wished her to be at least tempted by the notion of “dabbling” with someone as miles beneath her as myself. “I wonder if she’s said as much to Edwards.”

  “Apparently not,” Brackwell grumbled. “Or if she has, he thinks he can change her mind. And . . .well, perhaps he can. She does seem to be warming a bit to—”

  And then the inevitable happened. I’d become so wrapped up in Brackwell’s gossip I’d forgotten just how inevitable it was, and I grabbed for my .45 before I realized what was going on.

  “Of all the damnable insolence!” the Duke howled as he barged into the room. “I’m not some servant to be kept waiting about at your pleasure, you know!”

  The old man had worked himself up into such a state he didn’t notice that I’d almost put a slug in his considerable belly. In fact, he was so ablaze with indignation he kept on hollering for a good half minute before he even realized Gustav wasn’t in the room. Lady Clara had entered on her father’s heels, and she was showered with such a torrent of foul language it was a wonder her delicate ears didn’t singe to a crisp and drop right off.

  “What’s going on here?” the Duke asked once he’d run through his full deck of vulgarities.

  The answer didn’t come in words—it came as a whistle that turned us all toward the window. Outside, Old Red was ambling up astride Sugar, the calico cutting horse Crazymouth had been riding in the corral earlier that day. Another pony, a top-rail night-horse called Brick, Gustav was leading by the reins.

  “Time to go, Brother,” Old Red said. “And don’t forget to bring our ‘ill of Sal’ with you.”

  Any opportunity to distance myself from the Duke and his spluttering was welcome indeed, so I snatched the paper, got through the window, and climbed atop that horse without asking any questions.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the old man squawked as I made my escape.

  “I’m doin’ what I set out to do—catch me a killer,” Old Red shot back. “It just so happens I have to go to Miles City to do it.”

  “Miles City?” Brackwell exclaimed.

  “Don’t you worry, Mr. Brackwell,” Gustav said. He gave Sugar’s neck an affectionate rub. “We got a couple of fast mounts here. Plus, we won’t be tempted to stop off at any saloons while we’re in town, as McPherson’s man might. If we ride hard, we can find what we need and still get back here in time to win the bet for you.”

  Old Red got his pony moving, so I did likewise. But before we could kick the horses up to a trot, a cry of “Wait!” stopped us. I turned back toward the castle to see Brackwell climbing out the window.

  “Please,” he said as he dropped from the windowsill and hurried toward us. “Take me with you.”

  Gustav let the young man get all the way to his horse before he leaned down and spoke to him, his voice so low I could barely hear the words.

  “I’m sorry, pardner,” he said, putting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “You ain’t dressed for it.”

  Then Old Red straightened up and got Sugar going again without waiting for any arguments. After just a few trot steps, he fanned her to a gallop. It wasn’t hard to figure why, for I’d turned to give Brackwell a wave, and beyond him I saw Uly and Spider back at the barn, watching us. It was a sure bet they’d be on our trail before our dust had even settled.

  I kicked Brick into as fast a gallop as he could manage—though I knew it wouldn’t be speed that would keep the bullets out of my back. It would be sheer luck.

  Twenty-nine

  THE SPREAD

  Or, I Set Off on a Race but End Up on a Tour

  Old Red kept pushing Sugar hard, and poor Brick had a devil of a time keeping up. Although he’d been weighed down with a heftier load to tote—me—Brick had heart, and he didn’t let Sugar’s backside slip out of sight.

  We finally got our chance to catch up after an hour on the trail that winds northwest out of the Cantlemere. Sunday Creek, the little trickle of water that cuts through the spread, was swollen with recent rain. Though still not large enough to require a swim to cross, neither was it a puddle you could take with a standing jump. Gustav was waiting for us as Brick and I reached the edge.

  “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said by way of hello. “Ease on out to the center of the creek, then turn and ride with the water. After a quarter mile, the creek’ll bend south. We’ll hop out there on the far side.”

  Old Red’s plan made a certain sense, as it would get us off the well-worn trail and force the McPhersons to do some hunting before they could jump us. Yet there was one respect in which it made no sense at all—it would take us east and south when Miles City lay north and west.

  “We ain’t goin’ to Miles?”

  “Nope,” Gustav said, and he pushed Sugar out into the Sunday without another word.

  As we were aiming to untangle ourselves from anyone tracking us, we rode Indian fashion—single file and closemouthed. When we were through splashing along the creek, my brother quickly got Sugar up to a gallop again. He headed over a row of hills at the first opportunity, putting some cover between us and the creekbed. Yet we continued to follow its path south, and before long we were a ten-minute ride east of ranch HQ.

  We’d come full circle.

  Old Red took us down to a trot then, for though the ground wasn’t bone-dry, a hard-charging horse might still kick up a trail of dust you
could spot a half mile off.

  “So what’d Brackwell say after I slipped out to fetch our mounts?”

  Anyone watching us would have assumed Gustav’s question was directed at a field mouse or a clump of grass, as my brother’s eyes were pointed at the sod sliding by beneath us as we rode.

  “He said plenty. And I’ll tell you all about it . . .if you tell me something first.”

  Old Red brought his gaze up slowly.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Oh, just what the hell is goin’ on?”

  My brother fixed his eyes to the ground again. “You’ll have to cut that deck a little deeper.”

  That’s a drover’s way of asking a fellow to be more specific.

  “Well,” I began, realizing then just how narrow my question had been. Where was Gustav supposed to start?

  There was Perkins’s death. There was Boudreaux’s death. There was the Duke’s “sudden fancy” to visit the VR and Edwards’s solitary “picnic” and a thief who took pillows, handbags, and irons. There was Hungry Bob and the McPhersons and feathers and a half-burnt receipt for beef fat and a stray nose and . . .

  There was a lot.

  “Start with Boo then,” I said. “I thought I had some ideas as to who might’ve put that hole in his head, but what we found back there in the office. . .it’s got me all jumbled up. If you were able to make something of it, it would be a comfort to hear it.”

  “Theorizin’,” Old Red warned me, saying the word the way you might say “sharp” when a two-year-old reaches for a knife.

  “Gustav, let me be plain: I don’t give a shit about ‘biasin’ your judgment’ just now. I am sick of runnin’ around like a chicken with its head cut off. Tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  “Otto, you know Sherlock Holmes don’t go blabbin’ his every thought to Doc Watson. He keeps his notions to himself until—”

  “You ain’t Sherlock Holmes, and I ain’t Doc Watson, alright? So just talk, God damn it!”

  Half a minute passed in silence before my brother realized I was serious: no theorizing from him, no new data from me. He finally heaved a sigh and gave in.

  “Boudreaux had a horse waitin’ last night, so it’s safe to figure he was goin’ someplace—probably leavin’ the VR,” he said, still aiming his words straight down. “But first he stopped at the castle. He was wearin’ his spurs, which ain’t somethin’ a man’s likely to do if he’s on the prowl. You know how them things kick up a jingle. So I ain’t inclined to believe he snuck up to the second floor and went rootin’ around in the closet for an iron. No, he stayed on the first floor, in the office—cuz he was meetin’ somebody there. And that somebody up and shot him.”

  “But if Boo was killed in the office, the folks in the house would’ve heard the shot plain as day,” I pointed out. “I mean, what about Emily? Her room was right down the hall.”

  Old Red nodded. “True enough. But it looks like the shot was muffled, either by a couple pillows or a passin’ duck. I’m thinkin’ it was most likely the pillows.”

  “Hold on, Gustav. You lost me right around the part about the duck.”

  “Well, why do you think there was a feather on Boudreaux’s forehead? I never saw the man in a Cheyenne warbonnet, did you? Nope, that was pillow down. Pillows would’ve swallowed up the powder flare, too, which would explain why Boudreaux didn’t have any scorch on him.”

  “So before the killer shoots Boo, he says, ‘Thanks for comin’—now would you mind sittin’ here with these pillows over your face?’ ”

  I half-expected my brother to respond to my snipping by snapping, but instead he just shrugged. “Yeah, that’s a hole in the bucket, alright. Still, Boudreaux was killed in Perkins’s office, of that I’m sure.”

  “Well. . .let’s say you’re right. That means I’ve lost my favorite suspects.”

  Old Red peeked up from the turf beneath our mounts just long enough for me to see the amusement in his eyes.

  “I started off sure it was Uly or Spider,” I explained. “And if not them, one of their boys. And if not one of their boys, then maybe Anytime—he hated Boo from the second we hit the VR. But there ain’t no way any of them would’ve done the deed in the castle. They could’ve killed him a lot more easily someplace else.”

  “Good deducin’,” my brother said. “So the question is, who was Boudreaux meetin’ in the house and why? The who we’ll have to leave for later. But the why falls into place with just a little jigglin’. It stands to reason the killer lit up a blaze in the fireplace to try and cover the smell of gunsmoke—and destroy that ‘Bill of Sale’ in the process. So the receipt’s the key.”

  “But, come on. . .a receipt for tallow? Why would anybody kill a man over that? It’s fat, not gold.”

  I leaned back and shook my head, suddenly understanding the problem with theorizing. It doesn’t just bias the judgment—it drives a man crazy.

  “And how does that nose in Boo’s pocket tie in?” I said. “And the missing iron and handbag from the closet upstairs? And why can’t anybody agree on the time of the gunshot? And why move Boo out of the office just to dump him in the outhouse, for Christ’s sake?”

  “The answers to them questions are ‘Damned if I know,’ ‘I ain’t sure,’ ‘I am utterly confounded’ and ‘All I’ve got is a guess.’ ”

  “A guess, huh? Well, that’s better than a ‘Damned if I know.’ Let’s hear it.”

  Old Red snuck another quick peek at me, almost looking embarrassed by what he was about to say.

  “It was an accident.”

  “Come again?”

  “Just stroll through it with me,” Gustav said. “The Swede told us he heard someone sneakin’ around the privy not long before he heard the gunshot. Now he was comin’ toward the house at the time, and if someone was movin’ the body from the house, the two might cross paths. So the body got stuffed into the jakes until the Swede passed by. But you know the door on that privy’s always had a mind of its own—let it slam, and it drops the latch.”

  My brother shot me another peek, apparently gauging how crazy I thought his guess to be. I sure as hell didn’t have a better guess of my own, so I told him to keep going.

  “The latch drops, and the body’s stuck in the outhouse,” he said. “And though somebody fought with the door a bit—there were fresh scratches in the wood, remember—whoever it was needed tools and more time to pry it off. It was almost mornin’ by then, and before long the Swede wouldn’t be the only man up and about, and breakin’ through the door was bound to kick up a ruckus. So throwin’ the gun in there to make it look like suicide—that was just someone doin’ some clever thinkin’ on the fly.”

  For a man who’d resisted theorizing for so long, my brother sure looked like he was enjoying himself. I couldn’t join in the fun, though. There were still too many unanswered questions churning my brain to butter.

  “Well, that would explain a lot,” I said. “Not everything, though—not by a long shot.”

  “Yeah, we still got quite a ways to go before it all makes sense.” Gustav reached up to tap the side of his Stetson. “But wheels are turnin’. Just give me a little more data and a little more time to cogitate, and I’ll cook up some answers that’ll sit better in both our stomachs. Speakin’ of which, I think it’s time you told me what Brackwell had to say back in the office.”

  I nodded. Old Red had held to his side of the bargain. Now it was my turn.

  So I told him the tale—about Edwards’s hunt for respectability and how Lady Clara’s fall from grace could land her right in the man’s clutches. Though my brother had been uncommonly chatty just moments before, he held his tongue for the next several minutes, offering no commentary beyond the occasional nod or grunt as I dredged up everything I could recall from my conversation with Brackwell. When there was no detail left to dredge, I shifted into spirited speculation on Edwards’s chances of wooing the lady—chances I stacked up unfavorably against a snowball’s chances in hell.<
br />
  “Alright,” Old Red finally cut in. “That’s enough gossipin’ over the fence, Mabel. It’s time we got serious about ridin’ again.”

  Though kicking a man in the seat of the pants while both you and he are mounted would be a difficult and perhaps even dangerous task to undertake, I considered it seriously for a moment there. But instead of lashing out with a boot toe, I lashed out with my tongue.

  “How can I be ‘serious about ridin’’ when the Sherlock Kid over there won’t even tell me where we’re headed?”

  Gustav glared at me like I’d just called him the Son of a Bitch Kid.

  “I’d have thought it was clear enough,” he growled. “We’re gonna keep followin’ these tracks.”

  “Tracks?” I said—and I instantly regretted it, for upon bringing my gaze to the ground I beheld a trail Helen Keller herself would have no trouble following. I’d been so caught up in conversation I hadn’t even noticed it.

  I stared at the tracks now, trying to make sense of them. They were made by wheels, that much was clear, and they cut across the prairie to the southeast—toward a section of the Bar VR the McPhersons had warned us Hornet’s Nesters frequently and forcefully to avoid. Other than that, I wasn’t sure what to think. There were so many crisscrossing ruts of varying depth and freshness they all mashed together into a jumble in my head.

  I knew Old Red was seeing something else entirely, however. There’d be no jumble for a master tracker like him.

  “Well?” I prompted him.

  “Four fresh trails, new and light,” he said.

  I stared back down at the flattened grass and exposed dirt slipping by beneath Brick’s belly. It was still a jumble to me.

  “Four new trails, you say?”

  “Two trips in a buggy,” Old Red replied. “Out and back, then out and back again, all within the last day.”

  “Well, the Duke’s little expedition would account for one set of tracks,” I said. “But what about the. . . oh. Edwards?”

  Gustav nodded. “He must’ve headed this way for his ‘picnic.’ ”