Horse With No Name Page 4

  "One moment, lass," he said.

  Originally and recently from Ireland, Walt was the only man in town who topped Merrick's height. The two men looked like Grecian pillars when they stood beside one another. But unlike his friend, Walt had the fair skin and fine, light brown hair of the Celts. His hands were always dirty; his profession did not allow him to ever be clean for long. His expression was usually serious, but when he looked at Julia, a long dormant warmth formed in his eyes. His nose was slightly too big for his face, but he was handsome in his own rugged way. There were small lines beside his clear blue eyes that Julia found charming. Though he rarely referred to his past, Julia got the impression he'd left Ireland under some sort of cloud. Twice since she'd arrived in August, Julia had had a chance to observe this natural observer when he didn't realize he was being watched. Both times, she'd seen a sorrow in his expression that nearly took her breath away.

  Today though, the big Irishman was all smiles. Julia waited while Walt put the finishing touches on the nail, dunked it into the bucket of water beside him, and then tossed it onto a pile of nearly identical nails in a basket at his feet. He came around the anvil, hammer still in hand.

  "What've you got there?" He nodded his head toward the glove. It would have taken much more time for any other man to notice she was carrying it. Walt the Observer.

  "I found it at James Hunter's shop."

  "Aye?" Walt reached for it, "May I?"

  "Of course."

  He set his hammer down on the chair by the front door and took the glove in his own hands, his blackened fingers holding it gently despite their size and strength. After running his eyes and fingers over it, and turning it over twice he handed it back to Julia.

  "What are you thinking?" he asked.

  "We found it by itself."

  "Who's 'we'?"

  "Betty Mitchell and I."

  Walt nodded. "Go on."

  "We found it by itself in Hunter's shop and I'm convinced it's not his."

  "You'd be right about that. Look at the size of it. Hunter is a wee little thing. I could snap him in half and cook him for breakfast." He grinned at Julia. "And I'd still be hungry."

  She smiled. No doubt Walt was right. "It looks like a ranch hand’s glove to me. What do you think? See there, where it's been worn in a line?" She pointed to a darkened stripe that ran across the palm of the glove.

  "Reins," Walt said simply.

  Julia nodded, "Exactly."

  "Well," Walt took in a deep breath and stood up straighter. He put his closed fists on his hips and arched into them. "You'd best go talk to the Major-General," he said, meaning Merrick. "He'll be wanting to know who set the boots to Hunter."

  "He's not at his office. Do you know where he is?"

  Walt jerked his head to his left, indicating the building next door, which was the other half of his business, the town livery. "Earl's got a bit o' a cough so he's ministering to him. Babying him, more like." But he smiled as he said it. Animals were one weakness of Walt's that Julia had noticed. He was friend to every dog and horse in town. Even the backyard chickens loved him. The three dogs of unknown origin who hung around the blacksmith shop and livery all day were no exception. They watched Walt's every move with the adoration of apostles.

  "Thanks." Julia turned to leave the darkness and heat of the forge.

  Walt picked his hammer up off the chair. "When he starts yelling I'll come and rescue you."

  "Rescue him, you mean," Julia said, smiling.

  Big men need big horses, and Merrick's grey gelding was no exception. Earl was, at minimum, seventeen hands high and had feathered feet that were larger than Julia's head. Like Merrick, he was intimidating to look at but as gentle as a kitten when you got to know him. Merrick and his horse were a matched pair; both strong, steady, with even tempers and endless stamina. Earl was a little quicker to display affection, however.

  When Julia poked her head over the half-door and greeted the constable and his ailing animal, Earl gently pushed Merrick out of the way and stepped over to greet her. He lifted his head over the door so Julia could rub his nose and cheek and whisper sweet nothings to him.

  Merrick let this go on for a few moments and then asked, "Are you two about done?"

  Julia grabbed a carrot out of the basket at the front of the livery. She broke it in half and held one piece of it out to Earl on her flattened palm. The crunching noises that issued from the big grey's mouth sent a frisson of pleasure through Julia.

  Julia's own horse, Stanley, a paint horse with intelligent eyes and a curiosity that was never satisfied, just like his owner, poked his head out from his stall as well. His mistress walked down the center aisle of the barn and gave Stanley the other half of the carrot. With both horses happily munching, Merrick came out of Earl's stall.

  He was wearing his usual dark suit, although at the moment his jacket was off and hanging from a hook on a post nearby. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and was putting the lid back on a tin of ointment that smelled strongly of menthol. His vest was a little scrunched up and his hands looked a shiny from the ointment. Merrick glowered at Julia briefly, but she didn't take it personally. She had the sense she ruffled his feathers somewhat. He turned and walked all the way down the aisle to the tack room and disappeared inside. When he reemerged seconds later he was rubbing his hands on an old piece of cloth, removing the greasy liniment.

  "Is Earl okay?" Julia asked.

  "He'll be fine. He's just got a bit of a cough. It's almost gone." Like most men, Earl was probably loathe to admit he needed any special care. He withdrew his head back into the stall when he recognized Julia was out of carrots.

  Julia came right to the point. "I found something." She held the glove out to Merrick.

  The constable draped the cloth over the top rail of an empty stall and took the glove from her. He was quiet, turning it over just as Walt had done. Then he looked up at Julia, a hint of amusement in his eyes, "It's a glove."

  She smiled. "Thank you for that."

  "What's significant about this?"

  "I found it at James Hunter's shop."

  "And it's not his." This was a statement, not a question. "Just the one?"

  Julia nodded. "I think it could belong to the man or men that attacked him."

  Merrick handed the glove back to her. "Perhaps."

  Julia's brows came together in a look of concern. "Are you going to look into it?"

  "No," Merrick began unrolling his sleeves and buttoning them at the cuff. "It could have been dropped by anyone."

  "But look," Julia pointed to the glove's palm, "Walt and I think that's the mark a reign makes. Whoever's glove this is works with horses. It could belong to one of the drovers from around here."

  Merrick stood frozen while working at one cuff button. "'Walt and I'?" he asked.

  Julia looked at him defiantly. She stood up a little straighter. "Yes. Walt and I discussed the glove just now. I found him next door before I knew you were here."

  "Huh," Merrick began rolling his other sleeve down, "Well then, I will leave it to you and Walt to figure out who the glove belongs to."

  "Good heavens, Constable Merrick, what's gotten up your nose this morning? I didn't think you'd be so petulant."

  "Not petulant, Miss Thom, just busy. I've got paperwork on my desk that's about to swamp me, brands to check on several different ranches, and just for fun I thought I might have a stab at trying to find out who attempted to attack you the other night. If that's all right with you. So if you don't mind, I'll go take care of some of those things and leave you and Mr. Sheehan to discover just who the rightful owner of this glove is."

  Julia's back was up now. She felt as though Merrick was attacking her for no good reason. "What about James Hunter? Isn't it also your responsibility to find out who attacked him? What if whoever it was comes after someone else in the community?"

  Merrick pulled his jacket off the hook with a sharp jerk, "Not that it's any of your business,
but Mr. Hunter is not cooperating. I've spoken to him twice so far today and he won't answer any of my questions. Swears he's got amniotic something-or-other."

  Julia stifled a smile, "I think you mean amnesia."

  "Whatever. The point is he won't cooperate so there's not much else I can do. Without a witness or, heaven forbid, any details about what happened, my hands are tied. Now, if you'll excuse me."

  Julia stepped aside to let Merrick pass. The constable sailed down the aisle and went out into the light outside without looking back. Julia turned and looked at Earl, who stood with his eyelids half-closed. "He's not an easy one to manage, is he?"

  Seven

  Through the large front window of the store, Merrick could see Betty Mitchell sweeping the day's dirt into a pile in the center of the room. He walked past once, stomping down the wooden sidewalk as though he was rushing to an emergency. When he got to the end of the row of shops, he hopped down onto the street and turned right, without thinking or knowing where he was going. He walked up the slight incline that occurred in this part of the town center. When it rained, this sloped street became a river; he could still see the furrows in the dirt from the last big storm they'd had. Soon it would be snow they'd be contending with and his job would become that much more challenging. The previous winter had been hard on everyone; several people had moved away, back to the coast where the climate was milder and where amenities were easier to come by. Living out here in a new province, with the paint hardly dry on the few buildings they had, was not easy.

  But Merrick loved it. He loved the wide open space and the feelings of possibility and opportunity available to him. As a boy growing up on a farm in the Ottawa valley, he had known from a very early age what his future held. He and his brothers would take over the farm from his father, and they would work the earth until they died. Someone, probably his mother, would find him a wife, and they in turn would produce children that would do the same as their parents had done.

  By the age of ten he couldn't bear this idea. It stifled him, made him feel a panicky sensation. He felt like there were birds trapped inside his chest anytime he thought of his future. By thirteen he had started talking to his brothers about it, wondering if they felt the same way. They looked at him like he had two heads. His oldest brother, Daniel, was courting a girl and planning to marry her. The look of peace and satisfaction on his brother’s face whenever he talked of his future made Merrick question his own sanity. Why couldn't he feel that way? It would be so much easier if he did.

  He waited for the feeling of panic to go away. Waited to feel like Dan did, and like Michael did as well, who’d married a year after Dan. Waited to feel secure and satisfied and pleased with the bounty that surrounded him. For it was true that the Merrick farm was one of the most successful in the valley. Callum Merrick often repeated the story of starting out with nothing and buying his first small plot of land with the wages he'd scraped together working several jobs. The elder Merrick had worked incredibly hard and had prospered. The man didn't know the meaning of a day off, or even an hour. And he’d married a woman with a work ethic just like his. They were good people. Not affectionate or nurturing - who had time for that? But Jack Merrick had known he was loved.

  So why did he want to leave it all behind?

  He had never been able to reconcile that question inside himself. It just was.

  The day after he turned sixteen, he kissed his mother goodbye, knowing it was not likely he would ever see her again. She was the only one he told that he was leaving. He felt she deserved to know; he couldn't just up and disappear on her.

  She was shattered, naturally, but she didn't seem surprised. She brushed a strand of his dark, curly hair out of his eyes and touched his cheek. "You'll do very well," she said, "you're just like your father."

  Merrick was stunned. For his entire childhood he had wondered why he could not align himself with his father's dream. He assumed it was because they were so different.

  June Merrick saw the confusion in her boy's eyes and chuckled. "How d'ye think we ended up here, son? Your father's a dreamer, too. He wanted better things for himself than working for his old man in Aberdeen. This farm and this family is his dream. Now you must go find your own."

  So he had left with his mother's blessing, which fueled him for many cold and hard seasons. It was a long and difficult way from Ottawa to British Columbia, and it had taken him four years to get there. But the moment he stepped onto the dock in what was then called Granville, he knew he was home. Somewhere in this new, wild place was the thing he'd been searching for.

  It was a twisty, uncertain road from farmer's son to police constable, and he fell into the job by accident. But it suited him perfectly and he was grateful for it every day. He loved the responsibility he felt for the town and its people; the courageous, the lost, the searchers, and the slightly mad. He loved that every day was different and totally unpredictable. The routine of the farm had nearly killed him with boredom, but here he was never bored.

  Especially not since Miss Julia Thom had arrived. Now there was a burr under his saddle blanket. He was not practiced with women, that much was for certain. His wife, Charlotte, who he'd accidentally fallen in love with, had been strong-willed, but this trait had been paired with a pleasant and peaceful nature. When she died eighteen months earlier, Merrick had been devastated. But he had borne the loss with a grim Scottish determination that his father would have been proud of. The constable didn't miss a day of work. And strangers coming into town would never know he'd suffered such a blow.

  In the past six weeks since Julia Thom arrived in Horse, Merrick spent a fair amount of time being annoyed with her. She had helped him solve the puzzle of a break-in at the Mitchell's general store, for which he was equal parts grateful and irritated. The school teacher tended to stick her nose in where it didn't belong, at least when it came to Merrick's job as the sole officer of the law for hundreds of miles.

  He was floundering. His reaction to her just now in the livery was overblown, and he knew it. But he was lost as to how to deal with her. The one person he thought could help him was his mother. But it would take too long to explain everything to her in a letter, post it and wait to receive her advice back in the mail. The answer might not reach him for six months.

  It was his job to understand people. He'd had to develop that skill quickly when he'd left the farm. He would not have survived the long trip across the prairies and then over the Rocky Mountains if he had not learned how to read people; how to know their intentions almost before they did. His job as a police officer depended on this skill as well. He considered it one of his strengths. And yet, Julia...

  He needed immediate help and there was only one person he felt even remotely comfortable broaching this subject with.

  Merrick paced on the gentle hill for a few more moments and then made his decision. He charged back down toward Main Street and leapt up onto the sidewalk. In a few long strides he was at the Mitchell's door. He pulled it open and marched inside with such force that Betty Mitchell startled and nearly dropped her broom.

  "Good heavens, Constable Merrick. You gave me a fright."

  But she was smiling, as usual. The Mitchells both seemed to have two of the sunniest personalities in the west.

  "Sorry. Sorry, Betty." Merrick pulled the door closed behind him with more care and turned to her, taking his hat off.

  "What can I help you with?" Betty walked over and leaned the broom on one of the low glass counters that formed a U-shape around the store.

  Suddenly Merrick was shy. He couldn't just blurt out his problem. Besides, what was it, really? Was he angry with Julia or worried about her? He needed another moment to gather his courage.

  Stalling, he said the first thing that came to him. "I need some twine."

  "Twine? Right.” Betty walked through a gap in the countertops and reached for a basket on one of the shelves that lined the store walls on every side. She fished around in the basket and
came up with a ball of twine slightly smaller than her fist. "Will that do?"

  "That's fine." Merrick was still trying to collect himself, trying to find the right phrasing for his question. Betty was moving too efficiently. He needed more time. "And some, uh, some of those strawberry preserves you had the other day."

  "Certainly." Betty made her way around the back of the counter, aiming for a different set of shelves. "You haven't gone through that other jar already have you?"

  Damn this woman and her excellent memory. He had just bought a jar of preserves two days ago. "This one is a gift." Merrick winced inwardly, not sure this reasoning would hold up. He felt like a criminal who panics at the first line of questioning.

  "A gift," Betty put the glass jar on the counter and set his twine down beside it. "That's lovely. Who's it for?"

  "Walt Sheehan." The name was out of Merrick's mouth before he knew what he was doing.

  Curiosity now appeared in Betty's eyes, and the corners of her mouth turned up just slightly. "One ball of twine and one jar of preserves for Mr. Sheehan. Anything else?"

  They were standing face-to-face now, Betty on one side of the counter and Merrick on the other. The store was empty but for the two of them. And it was nearly five o'clock, closing time, so Merrick doubted anyone else would barge in on them. He had a clear path, and might not get another moment like this. If he could just figure out a way to capitalize on it. Betty watched him thinking, the look of amusement still making her eyes twinkle.

  "Constable Merrick!"

  Merrick jerked like someone had touched his back with a hot poker. Christopher Mitchell appeared from the storeroom behind the retail part of the store. He had a wooden crate of apples in his arms and his usual wide smile in place.

  Merrick tried to rally. "Christopher. How are you today?"

  "Very well. Very well, thank you." Mitchell set the crate down and began moving the apples from it into a display basket at the front of the store.

  Merrick wasn't sure what to do. His moment was gone. There was no way he was going to talk to both the Mitchells about his failings to understand Julia and his desire to stop her from interfering in his work. Let alone his inexplicably elevated levels of frustration and anger at dealing with her. And his confusion about why she drove him so mad.