She went over every word she and the marshal exchanged. He had to know she had seen Branch and still he lied. That made her job even more difficult. Now she had to work without the support of local law enforcement.
After leaving the marshal’s office, she checked her post office box and eagerly fingered the letter waiting for her. She’d sent careful descriptions of every man working at the ranch to the main office and hoped the letter would offer answers.
Tearing the seal on the envelope, she perused the neatly ciphered handwriting. A man matching Wishbone’s description had served time for forgery. No other matches were found in the Pinkerton Rogue Gallery.
She folded the letter and tucked it into her handbag. Pinkerton’s criminal photograph file was the largest collection in the country but it was nowhere near complete. Still, she’d hoped for more—a lot more.
Most criminals started small, committing petty crimes before advancing to more serious transgressions. It was hard to believe that the Phantom didn’t have some sort of criminal record.
Had Wishbone gone from forging checks to robbing banks? Possibly. Still, it was hard to imagine that the most wanted man in Cochise County was really the slow-paced whittler.
No one was in the telegraph office when Annie arrived except for the youthful operator. She stepped to the counter and he looked up from beneath his visor. Unlike the well-dressed telegraph operators in the East, he was dressed shabbily in canvas pants and a wrinkled shirt rolled up at the sleeves.
“What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“I wish to send a telegram.”
He pulled a yellow sheet of paper from a low shelf and handed it to her. He was an awkward-looking lad who appeared to be all legs and arms and pimply skin. He pointed an ink-stained finger at the pen and inkwell.
She thanked him and set to work. The telegram she addressed to Octavo at Napthia, cipher for Principal William at Pinkerton. As concisely as possible, she explained that she was suspicious of the marshal and then asked for another file check on Branch, giving the same description as before.
She signed the telegram Unicorn, her cipher name.
Chapter 12
For a job that supposedly doesn’t pay, crime has no lack of employees.
The battery-operated switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree and Bessie Adams shuffled to the dining room. Now what? Can’t a body have a moment of peace? Never would she have agreed to have the switchboard installed in her home had she known people would take advantage of her good nature.
Planting her generous form on the stool, she donned the head-phones and stuck a peg in number twelve. “What num-BER?” Her voice might not have passed Bell Telephone standards for pleasantness but she remembered to inflect her voice at the end.
“This is Agnes.” Agnes worked in the assay office.
“I know who you are. What number?”
“I don’t want any number. I called to tell you that Miss Walker’s new heiress is in town. You told me to let you know. I saw her walk into the marshal’s office.”
Bessie pursed her lips. Hmm. No doubt she was collecting the belongings taken from her during the robbery. “Let me know when she leaves.”
“You’re planning to match her with your nephew,” Agnes announced. “Admit it.”
“All right, but don’t go blabbing it all over town.” Now that her older nephew, Luke, was married, finding the right wife for his brother, Michael, was of prime concern.
“I wouldn’t think of blabbing, but it seems to me that a man should pick his own wife,” Agnes said, her voice sharp with disapproval.
Bessie sniffed. What an absurd thing to say. “A man picking out a wife is like asking a cow to pick out a farmer.”
“And you think you can do better, of course,” Agnes said.
“With a little help from the Lord.” Fine Christian woman that she was, Bessie didn’t like to take all the credit.
Numbers seven, three, and fifteen lit up. “I’ve got to go.” She pulled the peg to disconnect Agnes and blinked. Mercy. Cactus Patch only had sixteen telephones. How did operators in large cities like Boston or Chicago manage thousands of them?
During the next several minutes, every light lit up—and every call was in regard to Annie.
“What num-BER?”
“I thought you’d want to know that Miss Walker’s new heiress just left the telegraph office.”
For the next fifteen minutes the switchboard was quiet except for the hypochondriac spinster, Miss Whitehead, calling with her latest organ recital.
Finally number eight lit up.
Bessie placed the cord into the jack and threw the back key forward. “What num-BER?”
Mrs. Daniel’s voice crackled over the line. “I just saw Miss Walker’s heiress walk into the mercantile. Thought you’d want to know.”
Bessie smiled. Now they were getting somewhere.
While waiting for Mr. Green to fill her order, Annie happened to look outside and spotted someone who looked like Stretch on the opposite side of the street.
She walked to the window to get a better look. It was Stretch, all right. She’d recognize that tall, awkward form anywhere. The ranch hand looked around as if making certain he wasn’t seen before dashing into the barbershop.
Annie frowned. What was he doing in town on a Tuesday? Stretch was the only cowpuncher she knew who had been in Cactus Patch during the robberies. That made him a suspect from the start. Still, unless he was planning to hold up the barbershop, it didn’t explain his presence in town today.
No sooner had Stretch vanished than she spotted Wishbone. He, too, dashed into the barbershop, followed by Feedbag. What was everyone doing getting a haircut at the same time?
The door flew open, followed by a woman’s hearty voice. “Why, Annie Beckman. Imagine meeting you here.”
Annie smiled. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Adams.”
“My friends call me Aunt Bessie. If surviving a train robbery together doesn’t make us friends, I don’t know what will.” She lifted a bar of Pear’s soap from the counter and sniffed it. “And how is Miss Walker these days?”
“She’s on the mend,” she replied carefully. Annie eyed the jars of hard candies. With all the desserts she’d eaten lately, she didn’t dare avail herself of more sweets.
Mr. Green returned from the storeroom with a box of stationery. “The finest we have,” he announced in a nasally voice. He set the box on the counter and glared at Bessie. “Shouldn’t you be manning the phones?”
“I can take a break if I want to,” Aunt Bessie snapped. It was obvious that no love was lost between the two.
“I’d better take two boxes,” Annie said, purposely sending the store owner scurrying away.
Wanting to take full advantage of his absence, Annie wasted no time. “How well do you know the marshal, Aunt Bessie?”
Bessie looked surprised by the question. “Fairly well. Why do you ask?”
Not wanting to seem overly interested, Annie picked up a tin of gunpowder tea and examined it before setting it on the counter next to the other items she wished to purchase.
“I was just curious. If I recall, you said something at the train station about it being time he earned his keep.”
Bessie made a face. “Let’s put it this way. If I were an outlaw, the last person I would be afraid of is Marshal Morris.”
“He did catch the train robbers,” Annie said.
“Yes, but through no fault of his own. He got an anonymous tip that the train would be held up. While he was at the station, someone robbed the bank. I’ll bet my feathered hat that it was the Phantom.” She lowered her voice and her eyes grew wide as wagon wheels. “Some think the gang leader is hiding out at the Last Chance.”
Delighted that Aunt Bessie mentioned the Phantom first, Annie asked, “Is that what you think? That one of the ranch hands is the leader?”
“Ranch hands, my foot,” Aunt Bessie muttered, looking self-righteous. “I think the old lady herself is t
he gang leader.”
Annie stared at her. “You can’t be serious. Miss Walker?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a ranch owner became known for duplicity. Several years ago the owner of the Redfield ranch turned out to be the leader of a group of highwaymen. And he was a respected ranch owner.”
Aunt Bessie didn’t come right out and say it, but her meaning was clear: Miss Walker was held in no such esteem. Bessie held up her hand and crossed two fingers. “She’s this close to the bank president, which means she probably has inside information.”
“But from what I’ve been told, Miss Walker seldom ever comes to town,” Annie pointed out.
“That’s true. Far as I know, she’s only been to town once in twenty years. She conducts all her business in Tombstone.”
“Why is that?” Annie asked. Cactus Patch was so much closer and didn’t have Tombstone’s bad reputation.
“I don’t remember all the details, but she got into some sort of hassle with the church ladies’ auxiliary over her divorce. But that isn’t to say she wouldn’t send others to do her dirty work.” The older woman sniffed. “It makes perfect sense, when you think about it.”
Could Miss Walker be the Phantom? The idea was ridiculous. Crazy. Still, Annie hadn’t been able to think of anything else since leaving town.
Certainly female criminals and gang leaders were not all that rare. Hell-Cat Maggie came to mind, as did river pirate Sadie Farrell. Still, Annie had a hard time imagining someone as blunt-spoken as Miss Walker doing anything underhanded.
The moment Ruckus stepped out of the barn to unhitch the horse from her wagon, she bombarded him with questions. “Did you know that some of the ranch hands are in town?” she asked.
“Shh.” Finger to his mouth, he glanced around. He was a compact man with a horseshoe mustache and a quiet, modest demeanor. No swagger here. Not like some men she knew and immediately a vision of Branch came to mind.
“Don’t say anything to the boss lady. They’re pretty riled up about the acc’sations flyin’ around. I sent them to town to blow off steam. Maybe then we can get some work done around here.”
She nodded. “That makes sense.” Though the barbershop seemed like a strange place to blow off steam.
She waited for Ruckus to unbuckle the reins before broaching the topic foremost on her mind.
“How is Miss Walker managing the ranch? Financially, I mean?” She had gone through the ranch ledgers and had seen nothing amiss, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. If Miss Walker was stealing to support her ranch, there could well be a second set of ledgers somewhere, perhaps locked in the safe.
Ruckus lowered the shafts to the ground and glanced at her sideways. “Many have shown up hopin’ to be the boss lady’s heiress but you’re the first to inquire ’bout finances.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m being forward.”
He straightened and removed the horse’s bridle. “Nah. It just tells me you got a good head on your shoulders.” Holding the horse’s mane, Ruckus let his gaze wander for a moment. “We’ve had our share of tough times,” he said. “Kind of makes me think of Job in the Bible. Ranching makes ‘Jobs’ out of us all. But you ain’t finding any better than the boss lady. She’s run this ranch for forty years. And if she can find the right heiress, I don’t doubt it will go on for another forty.”
“Even though beef prices have dropped and you’re going through a drought?”
He shrugged. “Prices go up and prices go down. Rain comes and rain goes. But the Good Book tells us that no matter what happens, we need to store our trust in God’s stables instead of our own. And that’s what’s gonna keep this ranch goin’.”
Ruckus struck her as a true man of faith and she felt guilty for suspecting him. Suspicion was like walking through the desert at night. Everything that moved was suspect, even one’s own shadow.
“Has she no family to take over the ranch?” Annie asked.
“I heard talk that she had a brother. From what I gather, he was more interested in gamblin’ than in running a ranch.”
“Do you believe the rumors? Do you think the leader of the Phantom gang is here somewhere?”
He shook his head. “Don’t take much stock in rumors. If the Phantom was on the premises, I’d know about it. But out there . . .” He tossed a nod toward the distant mountains. “That’s a mighty big desert. Anything’s possible.”
A pall had fallen over the ranch. At no time was it more evident than that night as Annie made her way to the bunkhouse with a tray of Able’s sweet cakes.
She had taken up the habit of bringing the men nightly dessert. It was a good way to get to know them better and build up a rapport. For the most part, she liked the cowhands and enjoyed their teasing banter. She enjoyed even more the occasional slip of the tongue that revealed a man’s background or history. Still, she resisted forming any sort of friendship—ultimately, she would have to betray one if not more of them.
Tonight the bunkhouse was eerily silent. No laughter. No whining sound of a fiddle or mouth organ. Nothing.
Feedbag greeted her at the door and for a moment she didn’t recognize him. His square black beard was gone, leaving his face two-toned, the upper half the color of leather and the lower half white as a frog’s underbelly.
He wasn’t the only one sporting a clean-shaven face. Stretch and Wishbone had shaved, too, and not a beard or a whisker was in sight, though plenty of pockmarks had been uncovered. Now she knew what they were doing at the barbershop earlier that day.
“What do you think?” Feedbag ran his hand over his clean-shaven jaw. “Did you notice that my whiskers and face have parted company?”
“I’d have to be blind not to notice.” Her gaze traveled over Feedbag’s shoulder to Branch. Their eyes locked for a moment before he winked. Cheeks flaring, she quickly turned her attention back to Feedbag.
“You all look so . . . different.” Strange, more like it.
Feedbag grinned. “That’s the idea.” He took the tray of confections from her and motioned her inside with a toss of his head. No sooner had he set the tray on the long wooden table where Aunt Bessie’s nephew Michael sat writing in a notebook than the men all helped themselves to sweet cakes.
“Careful,” Wishbone muttered, brushing the powdery sugar off the table with a feather duster. “We don’t want the boss lady sending a housekeeper over here.”
“So what’s going on?” she asked. “Why no beards or mustaches?”
Even Ruckus had changed his appearance since that afternoon. His crooked nose twitched above the ghostly white outline left by his mustache.
Feedbag lowered his voice. “Friday night when we were all in town we heard a rumor that Wells Fargo is sending a detective to snoop around. We decided none of us best resemble any of those wanted posters hangin’ in the post office.”
Annie clenched her fists. Just hearing the words Wells Fargo detective made her stomach turn. If the rumor was true, her job had just gotten that much harder. She had a very personal reason for detesting Wells Fargo detectives, but today her alarm was purely professional. The presence of one would no doubt force the Phantom deeper underground.
“Yep. Every outlaw has himself face cover,” Feedbag said. “Beards and mustaches go with the terr’tory.”
Stretch wiped crumbs off his mouth with the back of his hand. “We decided to make things easier on the detective by cutting off our facial hair. That way the real outlaw would stand out like a sore thumb.”
Annie frowned. “Are you sure that’s the real reason and you don’t have anything to hide?”
“Ain’t got nothing to hide,” Feedbag assured her. “Least not that I know of.” He helped himself to another cake. “That’s why I had myself a good shave. If you have something to hide, you grow a beard. If you’re not hiding anything, you cut it off.”
Wishbone set the feather duster on the mantel and reached in his pocket for his whittling knife. “Simple as that.”
> Her gaze shifted to Branch, who was watching Wishbone too. As if sensing her gaze, he looked her way and the corners of his mouth quirked upward. Whether he was amused at the rather odd logic or something else, she couldn’t say.
She walked back to the ranch house with a feeling of unease. Of all the bad luck! A Wells Fargo detective. That was all she needed. Please, God, don’t let it be true.
Chapter 13
Outlaws are so prevalent in some western towns you can walk from one end to the next without leaving the scene of a crime.
What poisonous brew have you cooked up this time?” Miss Walker asked when Annie walked into her room with a tray.
Today Annie had chosen Earl Grey. She poured the hot tea and handed a cup to Miss Walker. “This was created especially for Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey and prime minister of England. I heard that it’s Queen Victoria’s favorite tea.” She then poured a cup for herself and took a sip. “Hmm. I love that citrusy taste, don’t you? The bergamot orange is what gives it that taste.”
Miss Walker took a sip of her own tea and made a face. “Perhaps if the queen drank less citrus she would be less of a prude.”
Annie sat on a chair next to the bed. “How prudish can one be with nine children?”
Miss Walker grunted but said nothing. She would never admit it but Annie suspected the old woman looked forward to afternoon tea. On more than one occasion, Annie caught her staring pointedly at the clock whenever tea was late.
The other operatives laughed at her habit of serving tea when interviewing suspects or witnesses. They could laugh all they wanted, but it worked. Something about tea made people lower their guards. Perhaps that’s why tea and gossip were synonymous. Miss Walker didn’t gossip but she did reminisce.
Today she talked about the beginnings of the Last Chance. “My mother nursed an Englishman to health and he repaid her with a heifer. My mother saw it as her last chance to take care of the family. Instead of butchering it to feed us, she started a cattle ranch.”
Gunpowder Tea (The Brides Of Last Chance Ranch Series) Page 11
