Gunpowder Tea (The Brides Of Last Chance Ranch Series) (6 page)

It’s true that at times she lost her patience; not that anyone could blame her. People who wouldn’t think of being rude if they saw you on the street thought nothing of being obnoxious and demanding on the telephone. After one such occasion, Bessie gave the offending party a thorough tongue-lashing. This made the man so mad he pulled out all the wires from the telephone pole in front of his house.

After that, her nephew insisted she travel to Kansas for training while he took over in her absence.

The trip was a waste of time. The city manager of the Kansas City telephone exchange insisted that each call be answered “What number?” in a pleasant voice with rising inflection. He made Bessie practice numerous times until she could practically do it in her sleep. He then carried on at great length about the importance of saying “Who is this?” as opposed to the more strident “Who are you?”

He also lectured on ways to turn away wrath with a gentle answer. Ha! Some people didn’t know a gentle answer from a turnip.

Knowing her nephew, he probably let people get away with murder during her absence. Calling all hours of the day and night . . . making more than their share of calls in a single day . . . tying up the lines . . . calling to ask the time . . .

As if to confirm her thoughts, the battery-operated light on number sixteen lit up. She plugged the answering cord into the jack,
threw the back key forward, and switched her headset into the circuit. “What num-BER?” She spoke into her mouthpiece with her most pleasant and inflected voice.

Jimmy Drake’s deep baritone practically blasted her out of her seat. Why did people insist upon yelling into the phone? “Give me Cynthia Noble.”

It was all Bessie could do to remain civil. “What do you want with
Miss
Noble?”

“It’s none of your business what I want. Now connect me.”

“You are a married man,” Bessie scolded, “and have no right to call another woman.” Politeness and inflection were all well and good but some callers needed to be put in their places.

“I have business with her and—”

“You can take your business elsewhere!” With that Bessie pulled the wire, disconnecting Jimmy midsentence.
“Harrumph!”

Bessie gave a self-righteous nod. Not only was she the town operator, she was also a fine Christian woman. That made her an authority on proper behavior and good moral standards. As long as she was in charge, the telephone would not be used for reprehensible, unprincipled, or illegal purposes. Proper inflection indeed!

Number thirteen lit up. Now what did that annoying Mrs. White want this time?

“What num-BER?”

“Connect me with Mabel.”

“You talked with her not an hour ago.”

“So what business is it of yours when I last talked to her?”

Bessie heaved a sigh. What she had to go through. “The telephone is for emergency purposes.”

“This
is
an emergency,” Mrs. White insisted. “I can’t remember how much butter to put in the recipe she gave me.”

“Then why don’t you go next door like a civilized human being and ask her to her face?” Bessie snatched the wire, disconnecting Mrs. White.

Almost immediately the entire switchboard lit up. “Now what?” she muttered, connecting a line at random.

“What num-BER?” And then, “This better be important, Millicent,” she added. “This is the third call you’ve made today!”

Millicent’s excited voice screeched into her ear. “Did you hear about Miss Walker?”

Annie paced outside the closed bedroom door and alternated between wringing her hands and fighting exhaustion. The doctor had been with Miss Walker for hours and it was almost midnight. She paused beneath a softly hissing wall sconce.

Ohhhhhhh. Just wait till Mr. Pinkerton heard what she did this time! Annie’s stomach knotted just thinking about it. Causing an old lady serious injury was far worse than shooting a dead man. Not only did she feel terrible, she also felt doomed, her future career as a Pinkerton operative hopelessly in peril. Worse, should Miss Walker file a lawsuit, it could well bring financial ruin to the entire agency.

Miss Walker’s angry voice cut through Annie’s thoughts. “Doctor, I demand that you leave at once!”

Annie whirled about to stare at the closed door. If the ranch owner suffered pain or shock, it was not evident in her vocal cords.

The doctor’s murmurs were steady and calm but too low for Annie to make out his words. She marveled at his patience. As bad as she felt for causing Miss Walker to fall, she felt worse for the doctor.

It took three men to hold the old lady down just so the doctor
could stabilize her leg. Never had Annie seen such a commotion. Everything she’d ever heard about Miss Walker turned out to be true.

Something crashed against the door and Annie jumped back. Miss Walker’s voice snapped through the air. “How am I supposed to run a ranch with my leg in the air?”

“You’re lucky a broken leg is all you have,” the doctor said. “A woman your age—”

Another crash. “My age, my age. You make me sound like a fossil.”

The door suddenly flew open and the doctor glanced at Annie before looking back over his shoulder. “I’ll check on you tomorrow. Now get some sleep.”

He stepped from the room and greeted Annie with a weary nod. He held his hat and black leather case in one hand and closed the door with the other.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk earlier. I’m Dr. Fairbanks.” Even in the soft yellow light he looked young for a doctor, probably in his early thirties. Despite having to deal with a wildcat patient and the lateness of the hour, his demeanor was calm; only his appearance was ruffled. His ruddy brown hair stood on end and exhaustion showed in his watery red eyes. A stubble beard shadowed a firm, strong jaw and his shirtsleeve was torn.

“That’s quite all right, Doctor.”

“And your name is . . . ?” he asked.

“Annie . . . Annie Beckman.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Beckman.” Something banged against the door and the doctor shook his head. “I should have been a veterinarian.”

Another thud made Annie jump but the doctor only shrugged.

“Will Miss Walker be all right?” she asked.

“It’s a femur break,” he said as if that were answer enough. “Did you know that the femur is the longest and strongest bone in the body?”

“No, I didn’t—”

Despite the lateness of the hour, he went on at great lengths about the marvels of the femur bone. Annie was exhausted and in dire danger of falling asleep on her feet. She nevertheless forced herself to listen politely.

Miss Walker would be well within her right to order Annie off the property. If not, then Mr. Pinkerton would probably summon her back to Chicago the moment he heard how she caused the ranch owner’s accident. Either way, her days on the ranch, and maybe even hours, were numbered.

Still, she couldn’t stop thinking like an operative. For that reason, she was determined to cultivate a friendship with the doctor. If by some miracle she was allowed to stay, anyone who talked as much as the doctor might very well come in handy.

“The femur is perfectly engineered,” the doctor continued. “It’s also the last bone you want to break. It does, after all, make up a quarter of a person’s height.”

“Th-then it’s serious?”

“Serious enough,” he conceded. “Eighty percent of broken femurs result in a patient’s demise.”

Annie’s jaw dropped. Covering her open mouth with both hands, she peered at the doctor over her fingertips. “You mean—”

“Not Miss Walker. She’s too stubborn to die. I should specialize in stubborn patients. They’re a pain in the gluteus maximus but they seldom die, which does wonders for a doctor’s reputation.”

Unable to make up her mind whether the doctor was serious or not, Annie pulled her hands away from her face.

He dug in his black bag and handed her a brown vial. “I gave her something to help her sleep. This is for pain. Give it to her in the morning if she’s uncomfortable. She should eat something light at first and curtail visitors, at least for a couple of days. The most important thing is to keep her calm. Don’t let her get upset.”

It seemed a bit late to worry about upsetting her but Annie glanced at the closed door and said nothing. All was quiet, at least for now.

Dr. Fairbanks stalked down the hall toward the stairs and Annie chased after him.

“Wait!”

He turned.

“You want
me
to take care of her?” She was trained to hunt down criminals, not play nursemaid.

“Someone has to. Since her housekeepers have returned to Mexico, there’s no one else to care for her but you.”

Annie struggled to find her voice. “Surely one of the ranch hands—”

“Miss Walker won’t hear of it and probably for good reason. The only way a ranch hand knows to deal with a broken leg is to shoot the unfortunate victim. We can’t have that, now, can we?”

“No, but . . . but what if something happens? What if she’s in a lot of pain or . . . How do I get hold of you?”

“Send someone into town to fetch me. It’s a pity the telephone line hasn’t yet reached the ranch but they’re working on it. Meanwhile, get some sleep while you can. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.” He donned his hat and started down the stairs. “Good luck.”

It was the second time that day someone had wished her luck.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs and glanced up at her. “One more thing,” he called. “When you enter her room, be sure to duck.”

Chapter 5

An undercover agent is only as good as his (or her)
disguise.

A
nnie’s body ached from exhaustion but she still couldn’t sleep. Closing her eyes meant having to relive the horror of watching Miss Walker tumble down the stairs time and time again. The deadly sound of the woman’s body hitting the ground floor seemed to rise from the very pillow at her head. No matter how much she twisted and turned, she couldn’t make the memory go away.

By the time the rising sun turned the desert sands red, she’d been sitting in a chair for hours, a manila folder marked GTF in her lap. Operatives, or Pinks as they were commonly called, were taught to keep detailed records. Every fact had to be recorded with utmost accuracy; every question duly noted, every action scrupulously documented. Notes were to be written on small pieces of paper and attached to reports.

The strict training not only helped professionally, it also impacted her personal life. Some people kept diaries; Annie kept dossiers.

Reverend Jones, the pastor of her church back home, once accused her of treating God like a suspect. She continually bombarded the pastor with questions that even he, with all his seminary training, couldn’t answer. It was an odd thing for him to say since he had no idea she was a Pinkerton. Telling anyone, even her pastor, what she did for a living would mean immediate dismissal from the company. The Pinkerton guidelines were clear on that.

“God is bigger than our minds can comprehend,” Reverend Jones said on more than one occasion. “Even if we knew all the answers, we wouldn’t understand them.”

Questions without answers were called enigmas and nothing disturbed a detective more. For that reason, she kept jotting notes in her GTF folder, writing questions, underlining and crossing out words. Today she wrote,
Miss
Walker? Why did something so awful have
to happen, God?

She was so well versed in writing in cryptic that it came naturally to her, even when she wrote something meant to be seen by her eyes only.

She closed the folder with a sigh and put it aside. GTF—for God the Father.

As usual, He offered no answers, only more questions.

Her body stiff, she stood and stretched her arms over her head, then bent to touch her toes.

Anxious to check on the old lady and nervous about meeting her face-to-face, Annie hurried through her morning ablutions and dressed in a dark blue skirt and white linen shirtwaist.

The last thing she did was lift her skirt and strap her leather gun holster around her thigh. The derringer was a gift from her brother Travis, following the successful fulfillment of her first assignment. It was his way of saying she was an operative in every sense of the word, even if their father didn’t agree.

At the moment, she didn’t much feel like one. This was her first time outside the States and never before had she been required to work in such a remote location. The cattle ranch was nothing like the cities or large towns that offered endless resources for catching criminals.

Even if by some miracle Miss Walker didn’t throw her off the ranch, there was still the problem of how to submit the mandatory daily reports to the main office. Annie didn’t even know how to contact the marshal in a hurry and she felt very much alone.

She straightened her skirts and could almost hear her father’s stern voice:
“You wanted a challenge, Miranda, and now you have one. So
quit your complaining.”

Shaking the thought away, she held her head high and shoulders back. With outward confidence and inner doubt, she followed the smell of bacon and coffee downstairs to the kitchen. The man standing in front of the stove had introduced himself the previous night but she couldn’t remember his name.