Horse With No Name Page 5

  He looked back at Betty. "That's all thanks, Betty. Just the twine and the preserves." He fished around in his pockets for some coins.

  "Righto." She took his money and handed him the items, one in each hand.

  "Have a good evening, then, Constable." Christopher nodded at him as Merrick opened the door and stepped across the threshold.

  ***

  Walt Sheehan's day was coming to a close. The light began to fade earlier every day and he had stalls to clean before he would take himself to Finnegan's for a pint and some of Caroline's stew. He put the finishing touches on an intricate fire poker he was making to sell. It embarrassed him slightly to work on something beautiful, but it also soothed a place in his soul that was in desperate need of some kindness. He had an idea to form the handle in narrow, twisting strips of iron so that it looked like a pine cone. He hadn't been able to get it quite right yet, but he was getting closer to the image he had in his mind.

  He never worked on the set of fire tools during the day; it was a private project he spent just a few minutes on each week when he could spare the time from pounding out nails and shoveling horse manure. When he wasn't working on the set he kept them hidden deep in the shadows under his work bench, covered by an old horse blanket.

  He was bent over the anvil, spinning and forming the piece of iron, his attention utterly consumed by the task. He heard footsteps enter the forge. His head lifted and he saw Merrick standing by the workbench at the front of the building. The constable held up a glass mason jar with a scrap of cotton fabric tied over its lid.

  "Bought you a jar of preserves," Merrick said, setting the jar down on the table with considerable force. He held up his other hand. "And some twine." He set this down as well and then whirled around and stalked out the front door.

  What the hell was that about? Walt thought. He shrugged to himself and bent again to his task.

  Eight

  Finnegan's hotel and restaurant was far and away the nicest place in Horse. The hotel had been built by Edgar Finnegan, who had come from money and was looking to make an impression on British Columbia. Edgar had had the good fortune to marry a woman as driven as he was and together they had built the business into the going concern it was. Edgar and Caroline were looking forward to the day the rumored railway spur line from Kelowna would be finished. Until then, they bided their time and perfected their particular brand of stern, but generous, service.

  Julia arrived just as the supper hour was beginning. Millie and Billy Jones were seated at their usual table, and two men in stockmen's suits sat at a table for four near the front window.

  "May I help you, Miss Thom?" Edgar called from behind the bar, where he was drying glasses.

  It wasn't entirely proper for a lady to enter a restaurant and bar alone, but the rules of propriety tended to bend a little more in a town like Horse, when women who were on their own had no choice but to do some things by themselves. As long as she stayed on the main floor and didn't even glance in the direction of the wide, wooden staircase that led up to the hotel rooms on the second and third floor, Julia should be able to avoid scandal.

  She approached the bar. "I'm looking for Lily, Edgar. Is she around?"

  Lily Cecil was very new to Horse. Julia wasn't actually sure they'd been formally introduced. But Julia did know that Lily worked part-time as a server and dishwasher for the Finnegans.

  "She is, lass. She's in the kitchen. D'ye want me to get her?"

  "Is it okay if I go back there? I don't want to interrupt her work."

  "Aye. Go on back," Edgar nodded toward the kitchen door. "Tell the missus I said it was okay if she asks. Not that I have any sway around here." He winked at Julia.

  The kitchen was almost as large as the dining room. A big stone fireplace equipped with rotisserie spits filled one end of the room. At the other end were two huge cooking stoves. Down the center of the room was a long wooden table, upon which now lay the makings of several apple pies. Lily Cecil was dressed in a flowered cotton top with short sleeves and a long black skirt that touched the top of her buttoned boots. Over this she had a stained white apron tied around her waist. A flowered kerchief that looked like it was perhaps made from the same material as her blouse covered her shoulder-length, almost white blonde hair.

  She was a tiny thing. When Julia had first seen her, two weeks previously at church, she wondered if she would see the girl at school on Monday morning. But then a young and ragged-looking man sat down beside Lily and by the way they put their heads together when they spoke made Julia realize that they were married. Millie Jones, who made gossip her livelihood, confirmed to Julia after the service that these were the Cecils. Alan worked for the Double A Ranch outside town and Lily had just secured the job with the Finnegans.

  "Charity, I call that," Millie said with a sniff in her voice.

  "Why do you say that?" Julia asked.

  "The Finnegans will work all the hours God sends. They don't need any help - they've got the Chinaman cooking for them and the two of them doing everything else." She lowered her voice, "They took pity on the girl because her husband is a lazy so-and-so and has been fired from every job he's taken on so far. The pair are destitute."

  Given that the Cecils had been in Horse's vicinity for all of ten minutes, Julia wasn't sure how Millie could know this.

  Millie continued, reading Julia's mind, "Katherine at the O'Brien Ranch is Lily's aunt by marriage. She convinced her husband to hire Alan and then further twisted Edgar Finnegan's arm to hire the girl. Too much generosity, if you ask me. It's not good for the soul. We all have to make our own way in the world." This was rich, coming from a woman whose family owned half of the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island and who had been handed every possible advantage in life, including a husband who treated her far better than she deserved.

  But this visit in the kitchen of the restaurant was the first time Julia had been close to Lily. She watched the girl roll out pastry for a moment, noticing a fine bruise on one of her wrists. "Mrs. Cecil?" she said.

  The girl, for she could hardly be a day over eighteen years old, looked up, slightly startled.

  "I'm Miss Thom, from the school."

  "Yes, hello Miss Thom," Lily straightened her spine and wiped her hands on her apron, "I'm not sure where Mrs. Finnegan is. Shall I find her for you?"

  "It's you I'm here to see, Lily. May I call you Lily?"

  The girl nodded.

  Mr. Hunter had no memory of who had beaten him. With the stained glove as her only clue, Julia wanted to find out more. She knew almost nothing of Hunter, beyond his occupation and his name, but she remembered that at the dance on Saturday night, Lily Cecil had seemed familiar with Hunter.

  Julia took a small breath and softened her energy somewhat. She knew she had a tendency to come across like a stallion with the bit in its teeth when she was on a mission. It served her schoolteacher persona well, and kept the children in line, but sometimes she knew people felt she was a bit fierce. Lily Cecil looked like someone who needed a soft touch on the reins rather than a strong hand. "Please call me Julia."

  The girl nodded again, concern and a slight fearfulness shrouding her eyes.

  "I wanted to ask you about the dance on Saturday night. I believe I saw you there."

  "You did." Lily's tone made the statement almost a question.

  "You were standing with James Hunter at one point, I believe."

  Now the girl's brow creased with a lack of understanding. She shook her head slightly. "I don't know anyone by that name."

  "James Hunter, the watchmaker?" No recognition lit Lily's eyes, so Julia continued to explain. "You both were standing near the punch table, sort of close to the front of the class...that is, the far end of the room, farthest from the door. After Mr. Hunter and I came in from outside?" She made it a question.

  Still Lily's brows were creased. She wiped her hands again on her apron and glanced around, perhaps looking for Mrs. Finnegan to rescue her.

 
; Julia continued, undeterred, "Mr. Hunter is about this tall." She held her right hand just above the top of her own head. "He dresses very neatly and wears a nice watch chain." Julia was struggling to describe the man. All gentlemen wore dark suits and most had whiskers.

  "Oh, James!" Lily finally said, while Julia was grasping for what more to say. Lily gave a small laugh. "Mr. Hunter. Yes. Now I know who you mean."

  Julia relaxed. Now they were on common ground. "Not that it's any of my business, but did you know Mr. Hunter before you arrived in Horse?"

  "Um," Julia could see Lily thinking, "Yes. Yes, I did know him. We were at the same school in Granville, though he was a few years ahead of me."

  "What a coincidence that you would both arrived here, then."

  "It is." Lily nodded and waited with the patience of one who doesn't make many of their own decisions in life.

  "Did you know Mr. Hunter was beaten badly yesterday?"

  "Mrs. Finnegan told me, yes."

  "Pardon me for being impertinent, but if you knew Mr. Hunter from your school days, do you know any reason why anyone would want to hurt him? He doesn't remember anything."

  Lily's eyes grew slightly wider as she thought about this. She shook her head, but it was not a decisive shake.

  "Do you know if Mr. Hunter knows anyone else in town, besides yourself?"

  Again Lily shook her head.

  Julia couldn't be sure if the young woman was shy or just not very intelligent. Her answers weren't satisfying.

  Caroline Finnegan came into the room through back door, a basket of carrots and beets in her arms.

  "Julia. How nice to see you."

  Lily bent to her task again, rolling the wide wooden pin over the dough on the table.

  Caroline put her basket down on the wide table in the middle of the room. "Did you hear that Olivia Smith is having a baby?"

  Distracted, Julia shook her head.

  Caroline continued, talking about the Smith's joy at having their first child and how Mrs. Thoreson was already working on a quilt for the baby. Julia hardly heard her friend.

  "...and then we'll get together once Christmas is over."

  Julia snapped back to attention, "Pardon me?"

  Caroline looked up from the basin where she was washing the carrots. "You're distracted today, aren't you? I said we'll have a tea once the baby is born, which will probably be after Christmas."

  "Oh, yes. That will be lovely."

  Lily continued making her apple tarts. She studiously avoided Julia's eyes, carefully placing apple slices into the little dough pockets she had made.

  Julia excused herself and left the kitchen via the back door into the yard behind the hotel, her curiosity unsatisfied.

  Nine

  Overnight, Julia thought about her conversation with Lily Cecil. It had left her with a bad taste in her mouth, but she couldn't figure out why. Julia, who was becoming better at spotting a liar after six weeks of dealing with school-aged children who were always covering something up, didn't sense that Lily was lying. But still, the conversation left her with an odd, unsettled feeling.

  She dressed quickly on Wednesday morning, wanting to make sure she had time to visit Merrick's office before she had to be at the school. One of these days, she muttered to herself, I'm going to have to get some new dresses, as a button fell off the sleeve of her favorite blouse, one with slightly puffed sleeves. Sewing had been her worst skill growing up. Her mother used to despair at Julia's crooked stitches and off-center buttons.

  "How is a woman like you supposed to catch a husband if you're not even dressed properly?"

  The secret was that Julia had no intention of 'catching' a husband. In those days she still had her heart set on being a lawyer like her father and back then the thought of marriage made her shiver.

  As a model, her parents' marriage was satisfactory; they tended to mostly leave each other alone to live the lives each of them wanted. Julia's father, Judge Thom, spent most of his life traveling to preside over cases around the province and smoking cigars with his cronies in New Westminster. Her mother adored playing at being lady of the manor, and hosted teas and lunches for anyone who would sit still long enough. She supervised Julia's education, torturing governesses when Julia's piano playing or drawing was sub-par. Which was always because Julia only wanted to read and to sneak into her father's study to hear him talk about his cases.

  "Dammit!" A button came off her other cuff. Quickly she pulled the blouse off and found another in her wardrobe that was not too wrinkled.

  When she was completely dressed except for her boots, she pulled her riding jodhpurs on, up under her skirt, and then sat to button up her boots. If things went as planned, she would need the riding pants on immediately after school and didn't want to take the time to come home to change.

  Merrick was at his desk, though it was barely eight o'clock. He was hunched over a stack of papers, reading while eating an apple. The door to the office was propped open with the head of a hammer whose handle had broken off. The fall day was crisp and the air smelled wonderful. Merrick couldn't resist airing out the office, which had a faint odor of vomit from town drunk Arthur 'Sully' Sullivan's last overnight stay.

  "Oh, good, you're here." Julia sped into the office, startling Merrick slightly, and sat down in one of the guest chairs that faced his desk.

  Merrick's office was dark and a bit gloomy, which was too bad, for he was a fellow who loved bright sunlight. Although, in the heat of a North Okanagan summer, when temperatures could read 100 degrees in the shade, he was always glad for the north-facing windows. The floors were stained a dark color, as were the walls. Julia wondered, when she had first seen the room, if this had been intentional; this was not a place of frivolity. The men who were housed here temporarily, in the small, barred enclosure at the back of the room, were often not long for this world.

  Several cabinets stood to attention behind Merrick, their drawers hanging open in some cases. The paperwork that flowed through a constable's office was endless; he was tax collector and notary public, birth and death registrar and local weather man. Dealing with criminal activity was most often the least of Merrick's worries.

  Perpendicular to the desk, the telegraph table was set against one wall. Other than the mail, this was Horse's only means of communication with the outside world.

  Julia noticed a fine layer of dust over everything that had not been moved recently, and a clean circle on the desk demarking where the apple Merrick was eating had been until moments ago. The constable's black, wide-brimmed hat was hanging on the coat tree in a corner. Merrick kept his suit jacket on in deference to the slight chill in the air from the open door. The small parlor stove at the back of the room was not lit.

  Julia was amused to notice that Merrick's face fell when he looked up and saw her taking an uninvited seat. She’d realized the day before that she got quite a lot of enjoyment out of torturing the police constable. He did not appear to be someone who could be ruffled easily, and yet, she noticed he often seemed a little ruffled around her. She liked having this effect on someone so large and imposing.

  She smiled at the man, "Good morning, Constable Merrick."

  "Good morning, Miss Thom. Please tell me you've come in to ask about the stage coach schedule."

  "I haven't, but tell me anyway."

  Merrick watched her for a few beats. Finally he said, "I won't waste your time. Or mine. Why don't you tell me why you're here?"

  "You mentioned that you were going out to the Double A Ranch today to question the drovers there about the interrupted..." she faltered slightly, and then rallied, "incident at the dance on Saturday night."

  Merrick nodded, chewing slowly.

  "I would like to propose something. But before I do, will you promise to listen to me without prejudice until I am finished?"

  The constable thought about this for a moment. He swallowed. "I won't promise, but I'll try."

  "Fair enough. Here's my suggestion: wait
until school is finished today so that you can take me with you to the Double A."

  "No way."

  Julia was shocked by the rapid response. She began to speak but snapped her jaw shut and pursed her lips. When she opened them again her voice sounded grave. "Now, Constable, you promised to listen without prejudice and..."

  Merrick interrupted her, "And I did. I thought about your idea and then I rejected it. I told you when you suggested going with me to the Green ranch that the idea was inappropriate. It's...it's... I don't even have a word for it. Miss Thom, I am an officer of the law. You are a civilian without the requisite legal authority to be questioning suspects with me. I cannot and will not take you with me to the Double A. There is nothing further to discuss."

  ***

  "It's a fine afternoon for a ride, isn't it? The horses seem to be really enjoying themselves." Julia shifted her reins to one hand and patted Stanley's neck.

  Merrick grunted at her, not wanting to agree, even though she was right.

  She had worn him down and won the argument about taking her with him to the ranch. She’d pointed out that she was the only person who could potentially identify her would-be attackers and that without her the trip would be futile. Whoever Merrick spoke to would deny having been at the dance, and also deny threatening Julia. If he took her with him, he would save time and have a definitive answer to the question. His trip the day before to Middle Lake Ranch had been unsuccessful and every hour that he spent riding around to local ranches was another hour away from town. Finally, feeling caught between a rock and Julia Thom's torrent of words, he'd given in.

  But he was not happy about it.

  Julia liked it when Merrick sulked. She was learning to deal with the moods and upsets of the children in her classroom and dealing with Merrick at times just gave her more practice.