Gunpowder Tea (The Brides Of Last Chance Ranch Series)

by Brownley, Margaret

  And then she waited in silent prayer.

  It was almost an hour later before the rumbling of Dr. Fairbanks’s horseless carriage drifted through the open window, followed by the sound of its horn. Ah-ooh-ga.

  Moments later two taps on the bedroom door made her rise to her feet. Dr. Fairbanks entered the room. “Well now, what have we here? His name is Branch, right?”

  She moved the chair away from the bed. “Yes.”

  The doctor set his black bag on the floor and leaned over Taggert’s motionless body. He removed the ice pack and checked the wound. One by one he lifted Taggert’s eyelids and peered at his retinas. He then pulled his stethoscope out of his black bag.

  “It’s a concussion, all right,” he said. “Some people call it a bruised brain.”

  The doctor started to expound on the marvels of the organ and she quickly stopped him. “Is it serious?”

  “Any trauma to the head is serious,” Fairbanks said. He lifted Taggert’s shirt and planted the chest piece of his stethoscope on the upper torso. He then pulled away, letting the medical instrument dangle down the front of him. “Got a good strong heart.”

  Annie pressed her hands together. She knew about the good part. Maybe she always did, even when she suspected him of being a criminal.

  After Fairbanks had affixed gauze to the wound at the back of the head, Taggert opened his eyes. Annie clasped her hands together. Thank You, God, thank You!

  “Ah, there you are,” Dr. Fairbanks exclaimed. “From what I understand, you and your horse parted company.”

  Taggert blinked as if trying to clear his vision. He looked pale and his gaze batted around the room, as if he didn’t know where he was.

  Fairbanks tossed his scissors and gauze into his black case and straightened. “Suppose you tell me your name?”

  Taggert frowned as if trying to pull something out of the recesses of his mind. “Taggert,” he slurred. “Jeremy . . .”

  Annie froze. Oh no! He really was out of his head. Under no other circumstances would an undercover detective reveal his true identity unless absolutely necessary.

  Fairbanks drew back. “I thought your name was Branch.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Annie said quickly. “Taggert’s the name of his friend.” She hated lying to the doctor, but she really had no other choice.

  Taggert thrashed from side to side as if trying to sit up.

  Fairbanks held him down by the shoulders. Taggert was strong but so was the young doctor. “Whoa, there! You aren’t going anywhere. At least not for a while.”

  Taggert sank back on the pillows and shook his head as if to clear it.

  “Hello, Branch,” she said with emphasis. “You certainly gave us a scare, Branch.”

  He gazed up at her but she couldn’t tell by his blank expression if anything she said made sense to him.

  Dr. Fairbanks gave her a strange look and bent over his patient. “Now that we’ve established who you are, perhaps you can tell me the name of the president of the United States?”

  Taggert pinched his forehead and groaned. “Lin . . . coln.”

  Fairbanks straightened. “We’d better not let our southern friends know he’s still president or we may have another war on our hands.”

  Annie chewed on a nail. “Is . . . is he going to be all right?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see. Let him rest for a while but watch him. Don’t let him sleep for long periods of time. Wake him every hour or so. If the swelling in his brain doesn’t go down, I’ll have to drill a hole to relieve the pressure.”

  Annie shuddered and swallowed hard.

  “Don’t look so worried. Did you know that trepanning is the oldest known surgery to man?” The doctor chuckled. “Can you imagine cavemen drilling holes in each other’s skulls? That must have been something.”

  Knowing that the surgery had been around for thousands of years did nothing to relieve her anxiety.

  The door flew open and Miss Walker hobbled into the room. “So how is he?” she demanded.

  Dr. Fairbanks gave a quick but no less thorough rundown on Branch’s condition. He picked up his black bag. “If he gets worse, have someone come and get me.” He turned to Miss Walker. “I may as well check you out while I’m here.”

  “I don’t need you checking me out. I need to get rid of this cast.”

  The two left the room arguing and Annie drew a chair next to Branch’s bed. His eyes were closed, but his breathing sounded normal. The doctor said to wake him every hour but she didn’t want to wait that long.

  She leaned forward and took his hand in hers. It was a large hand, his fingers nicely shaped. She squeezed it tight. If anything happened to him . . . She couldn’t bear to finish the thought and tears burned the backs of her eyes.

  “Who . . . who did this to you?”

  “How do you know anyone did?”

  She dropped his hand with a gasp. He peered at her through one eye before opening the other.

  “You . . . you were faking!” She jumped to her feet and glared down at him, hands on her waist. She couldn’t make up her mind whether to hug or shake him. “You nearly scared the life out of me.”

  He looked like he was trying to smile but grimaced instead. He pressed his hand against his forehead and groaned. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “When I first woke I was confused. After I realized I had given the doctor my real name, I decided I’d better not let on that I was of sound mind. So I continued to act confused. For your information, McKinley is the president. See? Perfectly normal.”

  “You’re lucky the doctor didn’t drill a hole in your head,” she said.

  This time he did manage a wan smile. His boyish grin melted away the last of her annoyance and she smiled back. She couldn’t help it.

  He grew serious. “Okay, it’s your turn.” He spoke slowly as if he had to search for each word. “How do you know someone did this to me?”

  “You’re a good horseman. The best.”

  “No horseman’s so good he can’t be thrown,” he said.

  “True. But it takes real talent to be thrown before mounting.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your horse wasn’t even saddled.” During the confusion of finding Branch on the ground, no one seemed to have paid any attention to his black steed.

  He rubbed his forehead as if trying to recall the order of events, but he didn’t fool her.

  “Come on, Taggert. ’Fess up. What really happened?”

  He let out his breath. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept going over everything trying to figure out what I might have missed. The fire, the cattle . . .” He paused for a moment as if trying to remember. “I decided to check out the cave again, but as I was getting dressed I heard something. I let myself outside, but everything was quiet. I decided to check the horses to see if any had been ridden. Stretch’s horse was still warm.”

  A shadow flitted across his face and he grimaced. “That’s all I remember.”

  She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. “Do you think Stretch hit you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was he in the bunkhouse when you left?”

  “It was dark and it never occurred to me to do a bed check.”

  Dark? That meant he’d been unconscious for a while before anyone discovered him. The thought sickened her and her mind raced.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I can see the wagon wheels turning.”

  “That’s how the other Wells Fargo agent died—a blow to the head.”

  “Thank you for reminding me.”

  “Do you think your assailant knows you work for Wells Fargo?”

  “I doubt it.” He reached for her hand. “It could have been you that was attacked, and if anyone hurt you, I—”

  He held her gaze and the concern in his eyes reached deep inside to a previously untouched part. No one h
ad ever made her feel the way he did. Never had she felt so feminine, and in her mind this translated to vulnerability, perhaps even weakness. As a Pinkerton operative, she couldn’t afford such feelings. She had a job to do and nothing could be allowed to interfere.

  She pulled her hand from his and straightened the bedcovers, but all too soon she ran out of diversions. “While you’re resting, I’ll look around the crime scene.” She doubted she would find anything but she had to make certain.

  “I wish you weren’t working the case,” he said.

  “It’s my job.”

  “It’s dangerous. I don’t think Pinkerton would have sent you had he known just how dangerous it was.”

  “But he would have sent a man, right?” she snapped.

  “That’s not what I meant. One man is already dead and we still don’t know who or what we’re up against.”

  Something tiptoed on the back of her mind, but it slipped away before she could grasp it. “I have the feeling we have all the pieces of the puzzle. They just haven’t fallen into place.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, but his expression offered no clue to his thoughts. “Annie . . .”

  His low voice forced her to lean closer. “What is it?”

  “Be careful. I—”

  She quickly covered his mouth with her fingertips. “Don’t talk,” she whispered and a silent plea exploded inside. Don’t say anything we will both come to regret. Don’t say the words that my heart longs to hear.

  “Y-you need to get some rest.” She pulled her hand away and stood, her cool, efficient manner belying the knot of emotions nearly tearing her apart. “I’ll go and look around.”

  He started to laugh but ended up grimacing in pain.

  Hands on her waist, she gazed down at him. “What?”

  “Do you realize we’re working together?”

  She relaxed. His teasing banter she could handle. As long as they remembered their roles as private detectives, they were on safe ground.

  “What a pity,” she said. “You’re still confused. Looks like the doctor is going to have to drill a hole in your head after all.”

  Since the fire, the ranch hands kept their horses tied to the hitching post in front of the bunkhouse.

  Sitting on her haunches, Annie checked the ground. The sandy loam was covered in footprints and U-shaped hoofprints.

  By the looks of Taggert’s wound, she suspected he’d been hit with the butt end of a gun. She nonetheless checked for rocks and other possible weapons, but found none.

  She did find an impressive pile of hand-rolled cigarette butts by the side of the building.

  Someone had obviously been standing in that spot for quite some time. The question was why. She mentally counted off the ranch hands who smoked. Most did, including Michael. Stretch chewed tobacco. Only Ruckus was without a tobacco habit.

  She picked up a butt and examined it. The cowhands sat in the shade almost every afternoon and smoked. It would be a simple matter to find a cigarette that matched. She slipped the butt into her pocket.

  “You looking for something, Miz Annie?”

  The voice made her jump and she swung around to find Feedbag standing at the door of the bunkhouse. She still couldn’t get over how odd he looked without his black square-cut beard.

  Her training came into play. “Branch asked me to make sure his horse was taken care of.”

  Feedbag’s gaze drifted to the steed and back again. No doubt he was wondering why she was by the side of the bunkhouse and not by Branch’s horse. “Me and the boys will take care of him.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.”

  One cheek bulged with a wad of tobacco. “Is Branch gonna be okay?”

  He looked and sounded genuinely concerned. “Yes, Feedbag, I believe he is.” She hesitated. “Do you know who found him?”

  “That would be me. I walked outside to saddle my horse and there he was. I would have bet a month’s salary he was ready to be laid out all respectful-like in a cigar box.”

  The thought nearly tore away her tightly held emotions. “Branch wasn’t thrown from his horse. Someone hit him over the head.”

  Feedbag’s eyes widened. “You don’t say.”

  She studied him. “Who do you think would do such a thing?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe Branch caught someone trying to steal our horses. Could have been a drifter. Wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to take off with our stock.”

  It was a plausible theory, and had it not been for all the strange happenings, she might have given more credence to the idea.

  He spit out a stream of tobacco juice and it hit the ground with a plop. “You weren’t thinking it was one of us?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” She turned and walked back to the ranch house. Pausing by Dr. Fairbanks’s horseless carriage, she glanced back. Feedbag hadn’t moved. She was too far away to see his face beneath the brim of his hat, but she nonetheless felt his gaze.

  Chapter 24

  A man who keeps looking o’er his shoulder is probably only two jumps ahead of the sheriff.

  The telephone wires reached the ranch the following week and by Thursday afternoon the instrument had been installed on the wall in the entry next to the staircase.

  The ranch hands crowded by the front door to admire the wondrous new contraption. Not everyone was so enamored. Miss Walker sat in a chair Annie had arranged for her and glared at the phone box as if she expected it to attack.

  Taggert had fully recovered from his injury. Annie envied his ability to appear relaxed even as his sharp, assessing gaze traveled around the room.

  Each time his gaze met hers it lingered for a moment before moving on. He stared at the cigarette dangling from Wishbone’s mouth and sent her a message with a raised eyebrow. It wasn’t a match for the cigarette butts found outside the bunkhouse.

  They read each other’s expressions like lawyers reading briefs. It didn’t take much—a quirk of his brow, twist of the mouth, or narrowing of the eye and she immediately knew what he was thinking.

  Not good, not good at all. Not only did working with a Wells Fargo detective go against Pinkerton company policy, she never thought to work with the competition, not after what happened to her father. But, God forgive her, never had she enjoyed herself more.

  Wishbone moved halfway up the stairs and leaned over the stair rail. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s now official. We have entered the nineteenth century.”

  “And it’s not a moment too soon,” Taggert whispered in her ear. His warm breath on the back of her neck sent goose bumps rippling down her spine. “Since the twentieth century is right around the corner.”

  Miss Walker glared at the bill Ruckus handed her. “There goes free speech.”

  O.T. stroked the walnut box like one would stroke a prize horse. “Never thought I’d see the day we’d have a telephone all the way out here.”

  “How does it work?” Able asked. He wiped his hands on his apron, releasing a cloud of flour. Today he smelled like cinnamon and Annie’s mouth watered just thinking of the dessert he was no doubt concocting for dinner.

  “It’s simple,” Ruckus said, “but it seems only right that Miz Walker try it out first.” He lifted the horn-shaped receiver and held it out to her.

  Miss Walker pushed it away. “The telephone has only just been installed and already it’s turning out to be a nuisance.” She rose on her crutches and hobbled into the large room.

  Shrugging, Ruckus lifted the receiver to his ear and turned the hand crank. He grinned when a voice came over the line. He spoke into the mouthpiece. “I don’t want a number, Bessie, I’m just testing the phone.”

  He hung up.

  “Let me,” Wishbone said. He did what Ruckus showed them to do. “Hello, hello, hello, hello.” He kept yelling into the mouthpiece and turning the crank.

  “You only have to say hello once,” Feedbag said, snatching the receiver away.

  One by one, the other ranch hands tried
it out. “Your turn, Branch,” Ruckus said after a while.

  “I’ll pass,” Branch said. “But we should let Miss Annie try it.”

  Annie was quite familiar with the telephone. The Pinkerton Agency led the way in utilizing the telegraph, railroads, photography, and telephones in the fight against crime. Nonetheless, she decided it was best to play along.

  The voice on the other end of the line sounded impatient. “What num-BER?”

  “Mrs. Adams—Aunt Bessie—it’s Annie Beckman. We’re just testing the phone.” She cast her gaze among the expectant faces. “Would you like to speak to your nephew?”

  “That would be mighty nice,” Aunt Bessie responded in her ear.

  Annie handed the receiver to Michael.

  “Not bad,” Branch said under his breath. “For a beginner.”

  “Who said I was a beginner?” she whispered back.

  “My mistake,” he said quietly, and something in his voice made her pulse race.

  By the seventh or eighth test, Bessie’s voice shot out of the earpiece like the blast of a horn.

  Stretch dropped the receiver and pounded the side of his head with the palm of his hand.

  “Ours must be the only telephone with two cranks.”

  Ruckus caught the swinging receiver and placed it on the hook.

  Feedbag raised his hand. “Hey, this is the first thing we’ve ever done that Ruckus hasn’t gone and quoted the Bible.”

  Stretch rolled his eyes. “You ninny! That’s ’cause they ain’t nothing in the Bible about telephones.”

  “Sure there is,” Ruckus said. “The Lord called his people all the time. And if I’m not mistaken, He’s calling us back to work right now.”

  “But I didn’t get a chance to talk,” Brodie complained. It was the first complete sentence Annie had ever heard the horse trainer say.

  Ruckus held the door open. “Tomorrow the phone will be hooked up to the bunkhouse and you’ll get your chance then. Now git, all of you!”

  Taggert waited for Annie to return from taking the nightly tray of sweets to the bunkhouse before stepping out of the shadows. “Psst.”

  She spun around and he moved in front of a lit window so she could see him.