Holmes on the Range

by Steve Hockensmith

  “Now to start with,” Old Red said, “just look at Mr. Edwards here.”

  We obliged, but all there was to see was a sweaty son of a bitch foolish enough to wear tweed in Montana on a warm May day.

  “That back of his is stiff as board, ain’t it?” Gustav pointed out. “And any of you catch sight of his face when he moves? Looks like he’s got wasps in his socks.”

  “So?” Edwards snipped.

  “So how are you supposed to be draggin’ dead cowboys around when you say it was your bad back that kept you from sleepin’ in the first place?”

  “Oh. . .well. . .a man is capable of extraordinary things in a time of crisis.”

  “Like sprinkling feathers around after shootin’ somebody to death?” Old Red said. “We found down stuck to Boudreaux’s forehead. You wanna tell me how it got there?”

  Edwards sidestepped that one entirely. “I don’t even know why we’re listening to this little tramp any longer,” he said to the Duke and Martin.

  “You need a reason to listen?” Gustav asked. “Try this on: Perkins was robbin’ the Sussex Land and Cattle Company blind—and Boudreaux was killed cuz he had proof.”

  Uly waved off the accusation with the back of his hand. “Awww, now that he’s slandered every livin’ person in the room, he has to go and speak ill of the dead!”

  But my brother’s words had hooked the Duke like a jowly trout.

  “What’s this about Perkins robbing us?”

  “I thought that might interest you folks,” Old Red said. “In fact, it’s the real reason you’re here, ain’t it?”

  “Who told you that?” the Duke demanded.

  Brackwell, however, was done beating around the bush. “You’re right,” he said. “One of the board members, Sir Charles Appledore, owns an interest in another ranch near here. Apparently, Sir Charles had been hearing about our ranch from the general manager there. The Cantlemere was sending fewer and fewer cows to market, he said—far fewer than Perkins’s reports indicated. So the board sent a party to investigate the situation personally. . .and discreetly.”

  “And if you didn’t like what you found,” Old Red said, “you could sell the VR at the Stockgrowers Association meetin’ in Miles City.”

  “Who told you that?” the Duke blurted out again.

  “No one told me. The timin’ of your visit just seemed a touch. . . convenient.”

  “You’re right,” Brackwell said. “The plan was to find a buyer for the Cantlemere if we discovered anything troubling.”

  “And did you?”

  “Well, aside from all the deaths, everything seemed to be in order.”

  The hint of a grin tugged at Old Red’s lips. “That’s right, Mr. Brackwell—deathsss. I’m glad you haven’t forgotten that we’ve had more than one corpse around here lately.”

  “Who’re you talkin’ about?” Martin butted in.

  “Perkins, the general manager. We had us a stampede a while back, and. . .well. . .” Gustav shrugged. “You know, if any of our guests had bothered askin’ questions, I could’ve laid out some mighty curious data about what happened. But I guess y’all ain’t in the habit of chattin’ with the hired help—which is exactly what certain folks was countin’ on.”

  “You’re being asked now,” the Duke snapped.

  “Alright then. For one thing, another man went missin’ right around the time of the stampede.”

  “Another man?” Martin moaned. “Just how many more bodies are you gonna drag into this?”

  “I guess we’ll have to count ‘em up when we’re done,” Old Red said. “Anyway, Jack, you should be pleased I’m pullin’ this one in.” He took a step closer to Martin, digging out his handkerchief and unfolding it just enough for the lawman to get a peek at what it held.

  Martin mumbled something that might have been a curse.

  “What is it?” Edwards asked.

  “A. . .a man’s nose,” Martin told him, hardly able to believe his own words.

  The Duke’s bushy eyebrows jumped so high it was a wonder they stayed on his head. “A nose?”

  “And not just any nose,” my brother said to Martin. “You must’ve looked at the reward notice for Hungry Bob a hundred times. Don’t that look familiar?”

  “I’ll be damned,” Martin whispered. “Where’d you get it?”

  Old Red wrapped the nose back up in its little shroud and returned it to his pocket. “Found it on Boudreaux. I think he was plannin’ on takin’ it to you.”

  “To me?” Martin looked stunned to find himself drawn into Old Red’s helter-skelter theorizing.

  “Well, not you, exactly. To the federal marshal’s office in Miles. You see, that was the only proof he was able to save that Hungry Bob was dead.”

  “Why the only proof?” Martin asked.

  “Because the rest of the body had been gummed up like a stick of chewin’ wax.”

  For a minute there, Old Red’s line of thought seemed to be zigzagging willy-nilly. But now I realized he’d been moving in a circle—right back to Perkins.

  “Holy shit!” I said, so thunderstruck I forgot to watch my tongue around Lady Clara. “That body we buried the day after the storm—that was Hungry Bob?”

  “It was so flat it could’ve been Queen Victoria herself and we wouldn’t have known the difference.” Gustav, looking intolerably pleased with himself, cocked an eyebrow at the Duke. “Except I did notice a couple irregularities. You remember, Brother. The only bit we found that wasn’t trampled to a pulp was the left hand—and it was tanned even though Perkins never set foot outside the house. On top of that, Perkins wore a gold band on this finger.” Gustav held up the finger next to the pinky on his left hand. “But it wasn’t there when we found the body.”

  “Are you saying Perkins wore a wedding ring?” the Duke asked.

  “Sure looked like one.”

  “Rubbish!” the old man proclaimed triumphantly. “Perkins was a bachelor! Never married! That’s what made him ideal for the position—he had no family to leave behind in England.”

  Old Red frowned, then smiled grimly, then frowned again, all in the span of a second. “I suppose that would make him ‘ideal.’ ”

  “So,” Lady Clara said, “if I follow you correctly, you’re claiming that Perkins is alive?”

  “No, ma’am. Not quite.”

  “He’s not quite alive?” The lady’s chilly tone made the words brittle as ice. She still had a hold on one of Edwards’s hands, but it looked like her grip was beginning to loosen. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “I’ll show you,” Gustav said. He turned toward Martin and pointed at the window. “Jack, do me a favor—open that up and let loose a nice, loud whistle.”

  The deputy paused only a moment, then did as my brother asked. It was obvious why Old Red didn’t want to mess with the window himself—he was keeping his distance from the McPhersons, who’d been easing their hands ever closer to their guns.

  “Perkins took out a horse called Puddin’ -Foot the night he ‘died,’ ” Gustav said, walking in a slow circle as he talked. “Gentle as a kitten. A perfect mount for any man without much horse sense.”

  A movement outside caught my eye. A man on horseback was approaching the house. Trailing him was another, riderless horse with a large pack slung over the back.

  “Puddin’ -Foot never turned up after the stampede—until this mornin’,” Gustav went on. “I saw him out at a line camp a good twenty miles from here. As you might imagine, I was anxious to go in for a closer look. Fortunately, I had a friend with me, for I got into a bit of a tussle with three fellers there.”

  I recognized the man on horseback now. It was the friend Old Red had just mentioned—Jim Weller. The horse ambling along behind him was Puddin’ -Foot.

  I got a better look at the pack on Puddin’ -Foot, too. It wasn’t a pack at all. It was a body.

  “Them three men went and got themselves dead.” Gustav ended his pacing to my right, near the wall but angled out
so as to have a clear view of everyone in the room. “Two of ‘em I’d never laid eyes on before. The third I knew—or thought I knew.”

  Uly and Spider were coiled up as tight as rattlers set to strike, and given what Gustav was saying I had to wonder why they hadn’t put their fangs to work. Then I caught a quick flicker Uly’s eyes made away from my brother. I couldn’t tell exactly where he was looking, but it gave me my answer nevertheless.

  The McPhersons had been waiting for a signal from someone else in the room. Old Red was setting himself up to see who.

  “Mr. Edwards, Lady Clara, Mr. Brackwell, Your Grace,” he said. “Would you be so kind as to look outside?”

  They all obliged, the Duke grumbling about my brother’s “insolent theatrics” as he stood—until the sight of the body shut him up.

  Outside, Weller had dismounted just a few yards from the house. He walked around to Puddin’ -Foot, took hold of the dead man’s silver-gold hair, and pulled, lifting the head up to reveal the face.

  Edwards looked away. “Good Lord! What’s the meaning of this?”

  His three companions had very different reactions.

  “It can’t be,” Brackwell gasped.

  The Duke’s knees buckled, and he sank into his seat, his ruddy face going chalk white.

  And Lady Clara—she cut loose with a shriek so loud and long Edwards’s spectacles should’ve shattered. The scream faded into a sob as she fell back onto the ottoman, her face in her hands. Rather than comfort her, Edwards turned and gaped again at the body.

  “What’s happening? Who is that man?”

  “That’s Perkins, the VR’s manager,” I said.

  “No, it’s not.” Brackwell was staring at Lady Clara as he spoke, his expression mixing equal parts wonderment, pity, and betrayal. “It’s Nathaniel Horne.”

  The lady peered up at her young friend, her face streaked with fresh tears, and held out a hand to him. “William. . .”

  Brackwell moved closer and took her hand in his.

  “Hold on—Nathaniel who now?” But even as the words sprang from my tongue, a memory was stirring. “You mean the Duke’s secretary? The one he blackballed?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, Horne was a lot more than the Duke’s secretary,” Old Red said. “He was his son-in-law to boot. Ain’t that right, Lady. . . whoa there.”

  We all turned toward Lady Clara and came face-to-face with two unexpected sights. One was the composure that had chased the grief from her features. The other was the gun she’d slipped from the holster on Brackwell’s left hip.

  “Darling, what are you—?” Edwards began.

  “Oh, do shut up, George,” the lady said, her words trembling despite the mask of calm on her face. “You truly are the most colossal fool.”

  “Well, it’s about time,” Uly snickered, and he started to stand and draw his own .45.

  Lady Clara turned the business end of the iron in Uly’s direction.

  “Sit down.”

  There was no tremble in her words this time.

  Uly blinked at her, his chuckles curling into a strangled cough. “What? Have you lost your damn—?”

  Lady Clara pulled back the hammer with her thumb, and Uly sat down quick. I didn’t blame him. It was a big gun for such dainty fingers. Should the lady’s thumb have slipped, Uly would’ve found himself with an ugly hole where his heart used to be.

  “Don’t move.” Lady Clara swung the barrel in Spider’s direction. “Either of you.”

  “Now just calm down, ma’am,” Uly said, managing to ooze snake oil despite an obvious—and justified—case of nerves. “Your man’s dead, and that’s too bad. But we’re still in this together. We’ve got to—”

  “Got to what?” the lady snapped. “There’s no hiding our secrets now. Not without killing every man in this room—and I won’t allow it.” Her gaze moved to her father. “Not everyone here deserves that.”

  “Well, we can’t just—”

  “McPherson,” Lady Clara said, sounding more tired than angry now, “speak again and I’ll kill you, I swear. Our partnership died with Nathaniel. . .and I think a part of me is glad. It shames me that we had to associate with brutes of your sort for so long.”

  “But you needed allies here in Montana,” Old Red said.

  Lady Clara swung the gun his way, and for a second it looked like she was going to do more than swing it—she was going to use it. The look on her face made it clear she hadn’t forgotten who’d killed her beloved.

  But something kept her from pulling the trigger. I knew what it was when she glanced toward her father again and smiled grimly at his hollow-eyed heartbreak. There was her real enemy—and she wanted to give one more twist to the knife she’d plunged into his back.

  “Yes,” she said. “On his way here from England, the real Perkins was. . . intercepted by my husband. That was regrettable, but it made so many things possible. Nathaniel could assume his identity and take over the Cantlemere. As a general manager with a board of directors thousands of miles away, he was in a perfect position to chip away at the ranch. He allowed the herds to dwindle and struck quiet deals to sell off outlying parcels of Cantlemere land. These men”—she gave the McPhersons a curt nod—”were allowed a small portion of the profits in exchange for their help.”

  “But then the board sent your father out for an inspection,” Old Red said. “And naturally he couldn’t find Horne here to greet him instead of Perkins.”

  Lady Clara nodded. “I wrote to warn my husband, and he staged his death. That he had a body to use in doing so—that of an escaped lunatic who would be mourned by no one—was merely a stroke of good luck. But that hideous Negro betrayed him. He came here to tell us where ‘Perkins’ was hiding. The Negro found me in the office, waiting for a rendezvous with Nathaniel. I’d been separated from my husband for three years, and I was willing to take any risk to feel his touch again.”

  Lady Clara looked at the Duke as these last words left her lips, and she seemed to savor the wince they slapped across his face. She kept her eyes on him as she went on.

  “Given that no one would be on the first floor—Emily having gone upstairs to take her usual place in my father’s bed—I’d assumed the risk wouldn’t be all that great.”

  The Duke winced again.

  Gustav coughed gently. “If I may, ma’am?”

  “Yes?” Lady Clara responded, equally polite despite her pointing a peacemaker at my brother’s guts.

  “Your husband had been sendin’ the board reports of a secret breakthrough here: a new buffalo-cow hybrid that was going to be the next big thing in beef,” Old Red said. “When Boudreaux came to the house, he brought proof that it was all a lie—a receipt for cattalo from another ranch. Naturally, he wanted a reward for doin’ you this service. So you went upstairs and grabbed your valise. The derringer your father’d given you was inside, and you stuffed a couple pillows in there, too—to muffle the sound of a gunshot. Then you went back downstairs, brought that bag to Boudreaux like you were bringin’ him cash. . .and you killed him. Some of the feathers from the pillows got sprayed about by the shot, and you tried to clean ‘em up—only you missed a couple.”

  Lady Clara inclined her head. “It was exactly as you say.”

  “Damn the details and deductions! What I want to know is why,” the Duke spat out. “Why, Clara?”

  The lady’s face had relaxed as she and Old Red talked, as if going over the particulars of the plot had pushed everything into the past, making it something that had happened far away and long ago. But her father’s words snapped her back to the here and now. Her proud, straight back slumped, and for the first time her hand wavered under the weight of the gun it gripped.

  “Revenge, of course,” she said. “Revenge on the man who squandered my family’s fortune on foolish wagers. Revenge on the man who humiliated my mother with disgusting debauches. Revenge on the man who did his utmost to drive away my one and only real love.”

  Inch by inch,
the gun moved across the room until it was pointed squarely at the Duke.

  “I married Nathaniel in secret a year after you tried to break us apart. I longed to tell you—throw it in your fat face. But you would’ve disowned me, and I would’ve been denied my due as a St. Simon. So Nathaniel and I set out to transfer your last remaining pounds to us. AndwhentheCantlemereRanchewasfinallyrevealedtobeworthless, when you were ruined completely, you would be forced to sell the real Cantlemere—our family estate, my home. It would be purchased by an anonymous gentleman from America. Nathaniel. And I would come to live with him openly as his wife while you rotted in the gutter.”

  The Duke’s stiff-necked dignity melted away drip by drip under the heat of his daughter’s hatred. By the time she was finished, he wasn’t so much sitting in his chair as poured out over it like a lumpy mound of candle wax.

  “Well,” the Duke said, his eyes brimming with tears, “you’ve failed, haven’t you?”

  “There’s always another way,” Lady Clara replied, her own eyes beginning to overflow.

  A contract was sealed between father and daughter in this last look, and the rest of us had but a split second to prepare for its execution.

  I settled on Spider as my first target, hoping Old Red would go for Uly. Martin, Brackwell, and Edwards would have to take care of themselves.

  My gun was halfway from its holster when Lady Clara pulled the trigger. I saw Spider’s hand come up with his .45 just as the puff of powder smoke from the lady’s iron threw a fog across the room. There was a blast from where Spider had been, and I pointed at it and fired twice. Glass shattered, and four more gunshots rang out in quick succession, followed by a deafening boom. I crouched down low, trying to look beneath the layer of smoke that was choking the room, but all I saw was eye-stinging soot, and I dared not fire blind lest I put a bullet in someone whose name wasn’t McPherson.