Holmes on the Range (22 page)

“We all pushed and shoved our way into a line, you'll recall, and Uly counted off seven men from his left to his right,” Old Red said. “But he skipped over Weller, a top-rail puncher and one of the best bronc busters in Montana. That don't make any sense unless the VR don't hire Negroes. But it does. So there must've been another reason to pass over Weller. And you can see it plain as day if you just move on down that line with Uly. His plan was to count off seven fellers for jobs at the VR, and that's just what he did. He didn't give a shit who got hired as long as one particular man was among ‘em—the seventh and last man hired. The man who'd let himself get jostled around to the
eighth
place in line. Tall John Harrington.”

As the boys listened to my brother roll out his deductions, their expressions began to change, heating up to a bubbling boil like coffee on the fire. The only exception was Tall John himself, who seemed to shrink under the heat of his bunkmates' glares. By the time Old Red wrapped up,
Tall
John didn't look any bigger than a prairie dog.

“Now look here, boys,” he began.

That's as far as he got. Some fellows are born with huevos so large they could bluff their way out of hell itself. Tall John was not such a man. A fox with a mouthful of chicken feathers could hardly have looked more guilty.

“You best clear out, Harrington,” Swivel-Eye said.

“But—”

“Go on!” Anytime snarled, taking a step toward Tall John. “There's the gate. Get yourself through it or I'm gonna pull you down off that horse and shove your head so far up your ass you'll be wearin' your breakfast for a hat.”

Whether Anytime could make good on this threat was something Tall John chose not to test. He wheeled his mount, keeping his eyes on the former compadres who were now staring arrows at his heart, and managed to lean down and get the gate open without dismounting. Once he was out of the corral, he spurred his pinto to a gallop.

“Yeah, that's it—ride!” Anytime shouted after him. “And don't come back alone, if you know what's good for you!”

Being a man for whom hurling abuse comes as natural as growing hair, Anytime wasn't satisfied to stop there. He launched some spit, a couple cow patties, and a long string of profanities at the fleeing traitor's backside. As we watched Anytime run out his conniption, I got the feeling he hadn't had so much fun in months.

The same could have been said of my brother. His face beamed prideful pleasure, with a heap of relief piled on for good measure. He'd obviously been sitting on his suspicions about Tall John for a good reason: He didn't trust himself to be right.

But right he was, and that had
me
looking pretty relieved myself just then. Gustav had cooked up a deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes, and for the first time I entertained the notion that the McPhersons might have as much to worry about as we did. And apparently I wasn't the only one to think so.

“Alright, Old Red,” Swivel-Eye said as Anytime's cursing wound down to a raspy mumble. “You said somethin' a minute ago about havin' questions. Well, go and ask ‘em. I'll provide what answers I can.”

“I'll do the same,” Crazymouth said.

“Me, too,” Anytime added as he walked back toward us.

“Thanks, fellers,” Old Red said. “I've got the same request for all of
you. Tell me everything you remember about last night—
everything
—from the moment we put the lamp out to the time the sun came up.”

“You mean like how many times I stepped out to take a piss?” Anytime asked.

He was joshing, but Old Red didn't treat it like a joke. “Exactly. That's just the kind of data I'm lookin' for.”

“Data?” Anytime asked.

“Facts,” I translated. “Information.”

“Well, why the hell didn't he say so?” Anytime said.

Answering that question would've dragged us into another conversation entirely, so I did my part to herd things along by sharing my memories of the night—which didn't amount to much more than sleeping, more sleeping, and finally waking up, with the sound of a distant gunshot mixed in there somewhere. Crazymouth's account was much the same, though phrased with more color. But Swivel-Eye stirred the pot when he threw in his recollections: He heard the shot, too—and he managed to notice the time, more or less. It was just before dawn, he said. Anytime backed him up, saying the sound of gunfire woke him and he didn't grab more than another hour of sleep before it was time to roll out for the day.

I turned to Old Red. “Didn't Emily—?”

“That's right,” my brother said, cutting me off.

“Didn't Emily what?” Anytime asked.

“She said she heard the shot, too,” Gustav replied, still playing it cagey.

Only I knew what my brother wasn't adding. Emily had put a very different time on that gunshot: after midnight, perhaps one o'clock. It can take sound a while to travel from one place to another, of course, but I had my doubts that even the laziest echo would need all of three hours to mosey from the castle to the bunkhouse.

“None of you took a look around when you heard the shot?” Old Red said, hustling things along before anyone could ask
him
another question.

“All I saw was the insides of me eyelids,” Crazymouth said.

“Same for me,” Swivel-Eye added. “I just rolled over and went back to sleep.”

“I looked,” said Anytime.

My brother's eyebrows shot up so fast it's a wonder they didn't hit the brim of his hat. “What did you see?”

“The bunk above mine—I was on my back.”

“You didn't peek to see if anyone was missin'?”

“Why would anyone be. . .?”

Anytime's gaze turned granite-hard as his words slowed to a stop. Beside him, Swivel-Eye and Crazymouth took on the same look of surprised suspicion. They were realizing that they'd all assumed wrong—as had I.

We'd figured Old Red wasn't trying to pin down
who
killed Boudreaux. He was just trying to work out when, where, and why the McPhersons did it.

But my brother had more suspects than Uly and Spider. He wasn't counting
anybody
out—including the Hornet's Nesters.

“How about before the shot?” my brother said, his voice a touch softer now. He knew he was putting his bootheel down on his bunkmates' toes. “Y'all notice any comings and goings?”

Crazymouth just shrugged and shook his head, his mouth sealed tight. Swivel-Eye stayed silent, too—though his googly eyes had something to say, shooting a glance over at Anytime.

“I went outside to piss,” Anytime spat. “What of it?”

“Did you go to the privy?” Old Red asked.

“Why would I do that? I let ‘er fly right outside the bunkhouse.”

“Did you see anyone else while you were out there?”

“Come to think of it, I did. Caught a glimpse of the Swede.
He
was headed for the privy.”

Gustav chewed on that a moment, looking either intrigued or skeptical—or both. Maybe Anytime really had seen the Swede. Or
maybe he was just trying to dodge my brother's rope by pushing someone else in its path.

“And this was before the gunshot?” Old Red asked.

“That's right,” Anytime said. “Just before daybreak.”

“Just before
daybreak
,” Gustav repeated, giving his head a slight shake. He shot me a glance, and I nodded, letting him know I felt just as flummoxed as he did.

We were walking the mystery through pretty much as Holmes would, far as I could tell, yet we weren't getting closer to the solution—we were getting further away. Not only did we not know who killed Boudreaux, we couldn't even be sure where and when they did the deed, not to mention why. The only thing we really did know was the how of it, thanks to the bullet hole in Boo's head.

“Alright then—that's all I needed to hear,” Old Red announced, pumping up his voice with as much confidence as he could. “Y'all have been a big help, and I thank you.”

“So who do you think did it?” Swivel-Eye asked.

“Yeah, tell us, Sherlock,” Anytime threw in, some of the nasty snap back in his voice. “Who killed Boudreaux?”

“Well. . .I reckon there's certain fellers I'd like to point my finger at,” Old Red replied, obviously choosing his words with considerable care. “But you gotta consider all the answers—even the ones you
don't
like—if you're gonna dig out the truth.”

“Just let us know if there's more we can do,” Swivel-Eye said.

Old Red smiled grimly. At least one Hornet's Nester was still solidly behind us. Then my brother noticed something over Swivel-Eye's shoulder, and his smile faded. I followed his gaze and saw six men moving toward the corral on foot—Uly, Spider, Tall John, and three other McPherson hands.

“There's more you can do,” Gustav said. “But this ain't the time. What Big Red and I gotta do now, we gotta do alone.”

“And what exactly is it we gotta do?” I asked, my eyes on the McPhersons and their boys as they drew closer.

My brother has a habit of answering questions with more questions and making comments that get a man scratching his head. But what he said now left no room for deep thought or confusion.

“Run!”

And that's exactly what we did.

Or, The McPhersons Stay on Our Heels While We Get on a Gentleman's Nerves

W
e didn't bother with
the gate—we just scrambled over the fence and took off in a sprint the second our feet hit the ground. Of course, I knew what we were running
from
, but I quickly realized I had no idea where we were running
to
. Old Red supplied an answer by making a beeline for the castle.

We didn't make it. When we were still a good twenty feet from the porch, the front door opened, and out stepped Edwards, his bulky frame wrapped in one of his heavy tweed outfits.

“I would have a word with you!” he said when he saw us.

I was of a mind to keep on running. But Gustav skidded to a stop, so I did, too. As Edwards came down the steps toward us, I peeked over my shoulder at the McPhersons' little lynch mob. They were outside the corral, talking to the Hornet's Nest boys and throwing glares our way.

“You're still pursuing this ‘investigation' of yours?” Edwards asked. He was moving slowly, obviously still hurting from his ride the day before. In fact, he appeared to be so weak that the small, covered basket he
carried with him was enough to pull him off-balance, giving him the slightly tilted gait of a rummy stumbling from one saloon to the next.

“Yes, sir—still pursuin',” Old Red said. “In fact, I think you'll soon be out two hundred of them
pounds
.”

My brother gave Edwards the kind of salty, ribbing grin that comes more naturally to men like Anytime.

“You have a theory, then?” Edwards asked. “A notion as to which man is responsible?”

Old Red nodded, still doing his best to look smug. “I do.”

Edwards waited a moment, obviously expecting more.

“Well?” he said.

“Well what?”

“What's your explanation? Whom do you suspect?”

“Oh, I shouldn't say just yet. But be patient. You'll hear my conclusions soon enough.”

It was plain Edwards didn't like hearing “just be patient” from a social inferior. His face, already pink as watermelon pulp from hours in the sun to which a man of his station isn't accustomed, burned even redder.

“You refuse to tell me?”

“ ‘I follow my own methods and tell as much or as little as I choose,' ” Old Red said, quoting you-know-who. “ ‘That is the advantage of being unofficial.' ”

For a second, I wondered if Edwards was going to heft up that basket of his and bring it down on my brother's head. He settled for a dismissive sneer.

“Be obstinate if you wish. It doesn't matter to me anymore. For your information, I've withdrawn my wager.”

Old Red's put-on cockiness almost gave way to genuine surprise, but he managed to keep a smile on his face.

“Backed out, did you? I suppose I oughta look upon that as quite a compliment.”

“You shouldn't. My decision had nothing to do with your chances for success—though my opinion on that subject hasn't changed.”

“Well, your opinion on
somethin'
must've changed.”

“Yes, well,” Edwards huffed. “It's simply that upon further reflection I realized that this whole charade is in the most abominable taste. A man is dead. He may have been some sort of a Negro grotesquerie, but that doesn't turn his death into a proper subject for sport.”

“So it's a matter of principle, huh?” Gustav replied. “Well, I commend you on that, Mr. Edwards. You're absolutely correct. Any death should be treated with all due seriousness. Which is why I know you won't mind answerin' a few questions.”