Horse With No Name Page 6

  Walt joined them, and Julia was grateful for this. He so often provided a buffer between herself and Constable Merrick.

  The three horses walked shoulder to shoulder, Julia's paint horse, Stanley, in between the two enormous animals on either side of her. Had the Double A been any further out of town, Julia's plan to have Merrick wait until after school to ride out would not have worked. But the ranch was within easy riding distance and the trio would make it back to Horse by supper time and before dark.

  Julia inhaled deeply, appreciating the scents of dry grass and soil. Crickets chirped as they walked. A startled thrush flew up in front of the group, and all the horses flicked their ears forward to watch but stayed calm.

  Julia was riding astride her horse, as she always did. Her long skirt flowed over Stanley's rump and the jodhpurs underneath it made her feel capable. She always felt less hampered by her gender when she was riding.

  The silence and space allowed her to think and, unbidden, visual memories of the night of the dance came to mind. She could still smell the men who had grabbed her, their tobacco and dried sweat, the oddly sweet smell of the breath of First Man. Julia tried to push the images away but they popped up again, like corks in a bathtub. The shiny knife First Man had held to her face, its blade flashing in the night, despite the lack of light around them.

  She readjusted her reins and tugged on her hat brim, trying to get away from her own thoughts. The men rode on silently and Julia tried to come up with a topic of conversation to distract herself. The group crested a hill and turned slightly to their left. The Double A house and barn came into sight. Julia estimated that they must be on the ranch's land already, for the house was set almost exactly in the middle of the property.

  The sight of the buildings and a couple of figures walking around gave Julia some peace. Though she was reminded why they were there.

  The three horses, eyeing the buildings and the potential for a snack, made their way toward the little cluster of buildings without much guidance.

  The barn was much larger than the house; this was where Gerard Anker's energy went. It was a long, low building with a peaked roof and doors on both ends. Horses were kept here, and equipment. The cattle that were the ranch's mainstay lived on the land, fattening up on the sweet grasses that abounded in the rich soil.

  Merrick, Julia and Walt dismounted.

  "Anker?" Merrick called.

  The barn was quiet. They looked away toward the house, which was as grand as any that Julia had ever seen at home in New Westminster. It was like a beautiful doll house blown up to full size. Painted bright yellow with clean white trim around the windows and doors, it had a wide porch that ran all the way around the building. It was three stories high, with a decorative weather vane in the shape of a great blue heron at the mid-point of the roofline, giving the building the impression of even more height than it already had. The windows all glinted in the sunlight, and the tops of the porch columns were decorated with detailed woodwork that must have taken ages to create. The side of the house had a large kitchen garden with a white picket fence surrounding it and an arbor at each end. The decorative features of the building, which had no practical use and must have taken many man hours to build and install, all created an unmistakable impression of wealth.

  "Good heavens," Julia said under her breath as she absorbed all there was to see.

  "Mrs. Anker comes from a very wealthy family," Merrick said.

  "You don't say," Julia muttered. She took a closer look at the weather vane. "Do I recognize your handiwork there, Walt?"

  The blacksmith looked at her out of the corner of his eye and nodded just slightly.

  A figure came out the front door onto the porch and waved at them. Though he didn't have children in her school Julia recognized the figure as Gerard Anker, proprietor of the Double A Ranch.

  As he got closer to them, Julia could see that Anker was a tall man, though not as tall as Walt and Merrick. He moved somewhat stiffly, as though his feet or ankles were bothering him. His hairline was retreating, leaving a large and speckled forehead in its wake. Julia had only met the man once or twice before and was struck each time by his sparkly eyes. He perpetually looked as though he was up to some gentle kind of mischief.

  "Gentlemen!" he called to the group, and then wiped at his mustache with the napkin he held in one hand. "What can I do for you? Oh, and Miss Thom. Excuse me, Miss, I didn't see you there. Like a rose between two thorns." Anker walked straight up to Julia and took one of her gloved hands in his and kissed her knuckles, an old-fashioned habit and one that seemed a bit odd, but Julia was touched.

  Anker stepped back and looked at the two men, "What can I do for you fellows today?"

  Merrick spoke first. "Mr. Anker, I don't know if you heard that there was a bit of an incident at the dance on Saturday night?"

  "The missus was saying something about that yesterday, but I didn't catch it all. Something involving you, Miss Thom." He nodded toward her and then looked back to Merrick.

  "Miss Thom was threatened by two men that night. Outside, near the outhouse."

  "I'm sorry to hear that, Miss." Anker did look genuinely grieved.

  Merrick continued. "We get the impression from Miss Thom's description that the men who threatened her may have been drovers. I'm asking around, looking to speak to the men you might have working for you, to see if Miss Thom can identify them."

  Julia could see Anker processing this information. He rocked back on his heels and then forward again. "I see, I see," he said. "You think it might have been some of my men?"

  "No, I don't, Mr. Anker. I don't have any idea who it was." Merrick was moving delicately. "But what we'd like to do is eliminate the possibility. And the only way to do that is for Miss Thom to have a look at your drovers."

  Anker thought about this for a moment. He looked at Julia again, and then back to Merrick. Walt had stood silently this whole time. If Anker was curious about why he was there, he didn't ask.

  Making a decision, Anker eventually said, “Okay then. Come with me. The men happen to be close at hand today." He turned and began walking west, away from the house and barn. Merrick, Julia and Walt followed, leading their horses. Merrick took the lead, walking beside Anker, while Julia and Walt fell in behind them.

  "Nervous?" Walt said after a moment.

  Julia glanced at him, appreciating his perceptiveness. "A little."

  "It's good you're doing this. Despite Merrick's objections, I think it's better this way. More definitive."

  The group was walking along a fence line and soon came upon four men who were repairing a post. Julia's breath caught in her throat when she saw them. They were like cutouts of one another. Each one wiry and spare, with a wide brimmed hat on. As Julia got closer she could see some distinguishing characteristics; one had a russet colored mustache and beard, another had eyes that looked in slightly different directions.

  The men stopped their work and looked at the group approaching them.

  "Mr. Anker," said a man with a black beard and small dark eyes, addressing his employer.

  "Gents!" Anker began, "How are you getting along with this fence post? Almost done?" Anker made small talk with the men for a few minutes, easing them into the matter at hand.

  While he did so, Julia watched the men, looking for clues that would match one or two of them to her attack. One of the men was quite short, not much taller than Julia herself. She eliminated him right away because the men who'd threatened her had definitely been taller than this. The other three, though, were possibilities. They were each the right height and build. While they spoke to Anker, Julia listened carefully to their voices.

  Anker looked at Merrick at one point and Merrick took over. "Gentlemen, I wonder if you could help me with my enquiry. We're wanting to eliminate you as suspects in the attack on Miss Thom, here," he gestured to Julia, "last Saturday night."

  The men each turned and looked at Julia. She held their gaze but her grip on Stanl
ey's reins tightened.

  Merrick continued. "Could you each please say your name?" He knew that the best descriptor Julia had was the sound of her attackers' voices. "Starting with you, sir." Merrick nodded his head at the drover with the russet beard.

  In turn, each man said his name. Julia held in her mind the event from Saturday night and tried to match it to what she was experiencing now. When the men had finished she met Merrick's eyes and shook her head almost imperceptibly.

  "That's fine. Thank you, gentlemen." Merrick turned to Anker, "We can leave you in peace now, Mr. Anker. Thank you for your help."

  "My pleasure, son. Anything to see the blaggards who attacked Miss Thom brought to rights." He winked at Julia.

  As the three figures rode back to Horse, Julia was quiet, absorbed in her own thoughts. She had been more anxious about the task of meeting Anker’s drovers than she’d realized. Now that the meeting was over, it brought her some peace to know the men at the Double A were not her assailants. She felt her shoulders begin to loosen. At the same time, there were still lots of men on the surrounding ranches who could be the culprits. Julia was loathe to admit to herself how much she’d been affected by the events of Saturday night; she’d been studiously avoiding her feelings ever since.

  Now, with Merrick and Walt on either side of her, and the quiet of the early evening surrounding them, she recognized that the mystery of Mr. Hunter’s beating was doing an excellent job of distracting her from her own discomfort. Though she was horrified about what had happened to the clockmaker, she was pleased to have a puzzle to focus her attention on. She took a deep breath and shifted slightly in her saddle.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Merrick watching her.

  “What?” she said, turning toward him.

  “I’m worried,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “You were looking solemn but now you’ve got that determined expression on your face. The one that makes me so nervous.”

  “Oh good,” Julia said, smiling for the first time since they’d left Horse. “Someone needs to keep you on your toes, Constable. It might as well be me.”

  Ten

  Every day before he headed home to his cold little house near the lake, Merrick stopped by Walt's livery to help muck out stalls. He began with Earl's, of course, but then depending on how many guest horses were occupying the other stalls, he helped with those as well.

  On Thursday afternoon Merrick found Walt repairing and replacing the girth strap and some other leather on an old saddle. He had a sawhorse in front of the livery, with the saddle straddling it and his chair pulled up to it. Beside him, in a basket, were spare leather parts of varying degrees of worn-ness. The three dogs that were Walt's constant companions at the livery were circling around, sniffing and lifting their legs on fence posts. When Merrick approached, they came to him to say hello, pressing themselves against his legs and thumping his calves with their tails. They were each medium-sized, with ears that flopped over and long tails. They were mottled with black, white, brown and tan, and had dark, liquid eyes that lit up whenever anyone paid them any attention. Merrick had often wondered if they were litter-mates. All three dogs were developing winter coats. As Merrick leaned over to pet each of them, he could feel the thickening in their fur.

  Greeting ritual complete, Merrick went into the livery and grabbed the chair that was one of three that were always present, close to the doorway. It used to be two chairs that occupied the space, but Merrick noticed recently that another had been added. He couldn't decide if he liked this development or not.

  He set the chair down with a slight thump a few feet away from Walt's chair. One of the dogs came and put its head in Merrick's lap so that he would stroke its ears. The big man obliged, and the dog closed its eyes with pleasure.

  The two men were quiet. Nothing was required of Merrick in this moment and he was enjoying that feeling. Merrick spent much of his life listening and responding to the problems of the people around him. Walt never required him to be a police constable.

  Finally, Merrick said, "Might rain tomorrow."

  "Aye," Walt replied, hunched over, squinting at the piece of leather he was sewing.

  "We could use the rain."

  "Aye."

  They were quiet for a few moments more. The dog in Merrick's lap was sated; he pulled away and went to wrestle with one of his cronies. The two dogs gargled and gently growled at one another while they mouthed each other's necks and bumped one another with their chests, lifting their front paws to try to headlock one another.

  "What was your impression at the Double A yesterday?"

  Walt lifted his eyes and looked at Merrick, his fingers tugging at a thick line of thread he was using to sew two pieces of leather together. He looked back at his work, thinking. Merrick waited.

  Finally he spoke, answering Merrick's question with a question, "About Anker's men?"

  Merrick nodded.

  "I wouldn't trust any of them as far as I could throw them. But I didn't notice any guilt among them, if that's what you're asking."

  "It is. I didn't see any guilt in them either. But impressions can be wrong."

  "Julia didn't recognize any of them."

  "No." Merrick shook his head and looked down at his boots, thinking. "She paid close attention to their voices but didn't notice any familiarity when they spoke."

  Walt continued sewing, pushing the needle through the leather with his thick fingers. He made sure to keep his eyes on his work when he next spoke. "I noticed Julia convinced you to take her with us when we went to the ranch. I didn't think that was the plan."

  Merrick grunted quietly. "It wasn't." He was quiet now for a few moments, and it was Walt's turn to wait his friend out. When Merrick spoke again his voice was low, almost as though he was speaking to himself. "I find Miss Thom challenging to deal with."

  "How so?"

  "Well...she pushes her way into things, like the trip to the ranch yesterday. I haven't known her very long, granted, but I don't think I like her very much."

  Walt looked up from his work. "Really?" He sounded skeptical. "I thought you two were getting along a bit better."

  "I wish we were," Merrick shook his head slightly, "But she's a bit of a burr under my saddle blanket at the moment. I can't seem to get her to understand that police business is my affair, and that she should leave that work to me and stick to school teaching."

  Finished with his repair work, Walt stood up. All three dogs froze and looked at him, their ears perked, eyes alert. He picked up the sawhorse and spun it around so the opposite side was facing him. When he sat down again to work on the leather on this new side, the dogs relaxed and resumed wrestling. "She's stepping on your toes."

  "Aye, she is. And repeatedly." Merrick stood up and began pacing in front of the livery. "What if every citizen got involved like she did? What if I had people running around, looking into cattle theft? We'd all be tripping over one another, and I'd get nothing done. It can't be that way. I can't have other people trying to do my job."

  Walt nodded, listening attentively, letting his friend vent.

  "What if you had people coming in to the smithy, picking up your tools, trying to form their own horse shoes and nails?" Merrick looked at Walt, enjoying his own metaphor. "You couldn't work that way."

  "Right."

  "And I can't work this way either." Merrick stopped his pacing and leaned on the back of the wooden chair he'd been occupying. "I need to tell her. I need to sit her down and let her know she can't interfere any longer. It's over. I'm done indulging her amateur detective work."

  "Excellent. A night in the stocks might do her some good."

  Merrick glanced at his friend, "We don't use stocks."

  "Mebbe we should."

  Walt stood up and lifted the saddle off the sawhorse by its horn. "C'mon then you lazy bastard. That horse shit isn't going to shovel itself."

  Eleven

  Most of Julia's pupils lived within Horse'
s town limits, and they walked to and from school. Three out of the class of eleven lived outside of town on ranches. Harry Hewitt and Peter Little lived on adjoining properties about four miles outside of town.

  At three o'clock on Thursday, when Julia was just wrapping up for the day, she heard footsteps coming up the wooden staircase at the front of the school. The door opened and Harry Hewitt's father stepped into the alcove where the children hung their coats.

  All the children's heads swiveled to look at him and adorably the man blushed. "Don't mind me, Mrs. Thom," he said. "I was in town and just thought I'd pick up the boys and take them home on the wagon with me, rather than making them walk." He always called Julia “Mrs.” and she never corrected him. She suspected it made him feel more comfortable chatting with her if they both pretended she was married.

  Harry waved at his father.

  "That's fine, Mr. Hewitt. We're about finished for the day." Julia made sure the older children understood their reading assignment for the night and then dismissed the group.

  Mr. Hewitt stepped into the classroom to get out of the way of the multi-limbed monster that had now crowded around the coat hooks. He grinned at Julia. "I don't know how you do it all day with these ruffians. One is by far too much for me and Mrs. Hewitt to manage."

  "Oh, they're no trouble at all, Mr. Hewitt." Julia said, which was not entirely true.

  Mr. Hewitt was a slight man and didn't look like someone suited to farming life at all. He looked like he'd be much more comfortable working in a bank or a fine hotel. He was wiry, like a sapling, and not very tall. His complexion always looked red and raw, even when he wasn't blushing. He had dark circles under his eyes, but Julia wasn't sure if that was from exhaustion or just the natural state of the thin skin there. He was a jolly man though, quick to laugh and always kind with his words.

  The children evaporated, leaving just the two boys waiting for Mr. Hewitt. The man was in no rush to leave, though. He usually took the opportunity to chat to Julia, starved, perhaps, for town gossip and interaction with an adult other than his wife.