Horse With No Name (22 page)

Betty anticipated Julia's question. "Did she
say anything?"

"Not then. But she was distracted and
puzzled, I could tell. She left the shop and I was left wondering
what to do. I began considering moving to a larger center. Maybe
Kelowna or maybe farther east."

"But she confronted you later. At your home
after you'd been beaten." Julia filled in the blank.

"Yes." Evelyn looked at her. "You heard us,
did you?"

"I didn't hear anything, but I saw the little
confrontation you two were having. I thought maybe it was a lovers'
spat. I wondered later if Alan Cecil had noticed anything between
you and his wife."

"Yes, poor Alan." Evelyn smiled ironically.
"I think he's jealous. But I begged Lily not to tell him. And poor
Lily. She's been caught in the middle. I hope to disappear soon and
put her out of her misery. That is, if I can." Evelyn glanced at
Julia's front windows where the sky was just beginning to lighten.
"My clothes have probably all burned up."

Julia wouldn't let her change the subject.
"Do you think it was Alan Cecil who beat you up?"

Evelyn turned back to her host. "I honestly
don't know. I was telling you and Constable Merrick the truth when
I said I don't remember anything from that day. It's all a blank,
going back to the previous evening. The last thing I remember is
tidying up after supper. That's it."

"I went out the O'Brien ranch the other day
to talk to him." At this Betty raised her eyebrows, but Julia
pressed on. "He's not the smartest person alive, and I wonder if he
just let his fists do the talking for him."

"It's possible." Evelyn pulled the blanket a
little tighter around her shoulders.

"You seem like you're not convinced," Julia
said.

Evelyn looked steadily at Julia. "I'm sure
it's possible. It's just that Alan strikes me as a coward. A
follower, not a leader. Someone who would abuse a woman, for sure.
I don't think he treats Lily very well. But I'm not sure he has the
backbone to attack another man."

This assessment agreed with what Julia
observed in Cecil at the ranch.

Betty spoke for the first time in several
minutes. "You must have fresh insights into the workings of the
male mind."

Evelyn surprised them and shook her head.
"Not fresh insights, no. I've always felt I had a male mind. I just
had to pretend it was female."

Julia and Betty both processed this.

A knock at the door made all the women
jump.

"Julia?" It was Jack Merrick's voice. "Are
you there? Is Mr. Hunter with you?"

Julia stood up. "Quickly, Evelyn. Go to my
bedroom."

Evelyn did as she was bid. Julia waited until
she was out of sight and then opened the front door.

Merrick stood there, slightly out of breath,
his face liberally covered in soot. He was wearing an undershirt
that was also filthy, and work pants, but no shirt or jacket.

"Shhh," Julia said to him, "Mr. Hunter is
trying to rest."

Merrick paused for a beat. "In your bedroom?"
he finally said.

"Yes," Julia stood up a little straighter and
opened the door wider giving Merrick a full view of the living
room, "Betty Mitchell is here chaperoning if you're worried."

"I wasn't... I, um..." He was flustered. And
bothered. But he righted himself quickly. "The house is gone."

"Oh no."

"Yes. But we kept the fire off the Carson's
house and it's almost out. Walt and the others are staying there,
keeping an eye on it, making sure it doesn't flare up again."

"Good." Julia nodded. She felt awkward. She
hadn't spoken to Merrick since their argument at the livery.

Merrick looked to Betty and then back to
Julia. "Will Hunter be staying with you until he finds new
housing?"

Julia thought that if he wanted the question
to sound innocuous he failed. She heard Betty's voice from behind
her.

"He'll be staying with Christopher and me,
Constable. I'll be taking him home to feed him as soon as he
wakes."

"Right." Merrick took a step back from the
door. "I'll go back and see how the men are doing."

He turned and strode down the front walk.
Julia secretly appreciated the view of his back clad in just his
damp undershirt. She closed the door and turned, finding Evelyn
Hunter in the doorway to her bedroom.

"Well, the cat's out of the bag now," her
guest said, "I might as well slink out of town on the first
stagecoach."

"Nonsense," Betty stood up and put her hands
on her hips. "What we do next is find you one of Christopher's
suits to wear."

Twenty-eight

Merrick found Walt with
Dr. Parker out in front of the livery. The doctor was sitting on
one of the old wooden chairs. He had one of the livery dogs clamped
between his knees. The dog was facing in, toward the doctor. Walt
was standing beside the chair and had the animal's head gently but
firmly clasped between his large hands. Dr. Parker had his face
bent close to the dog, examining one of its eyes.

Walt turned his head as Merrick walked toward
them and nodded at his friend.

"I didn't know you saw patients with four
legs as well, Doctor."

Parker grunted, focused on his task.

Walt replied for him. "I asked him to look at
this fellow. He's had something wrong with one of his eyes for a
few days and it's getting worse."

Merrick glanced around at the other two dogs
who were lying in the yard, unaffected by the goings-on of the
medical procedure. "Who do these mongrels belong to, anyway?"

"No idea," Walt said. "They just show up each
morning and disappear every day at dusk."

With Walt slightly distracted, the dog tried
to pull its head out of his hands. Walt turned back to the patient
and spoke some Gaelic words to it in a deep calm voice. The dog
stopped fidgeting.

Parker finally spoke. "Constable, hand me the
small tweezers from my medical bag, will you?"

Merrick found the bag behind Parker's chair
and dug around in it, coming up with a long, curved instrument with
pincer ends and round handles for wielding it. "This?" he said,
holding it up.

"No. There should be some brass tweezers in
there. Smaller than that."

Merrick searched again, digging past a
stethoscope, a thermometer, several sizes of scissors and something
that looked like a spoon with a square head until he found what he
thought Parker wanted. When he pulled them out of the bag and held
them up Parker nodded.

"Is there a magnifying glass in there
too?"

Merrick reached into the bag once more and
then handed the doctor the glass.

For a few more moments the operation was
quiet. Walt continued to talk to the dog under his breath. Merrick
couldn't understand the words, and he supposed the dog couldn't
either. But whatever Walt was saying was calming the animal.

The dog made a small whining noise and then
Parker sat back in his chair, the tweezers held aloft in front of
him. "Voilà," he said.

Walt released the dog's head, and the doctor
unclamped his knees. The animal backed away and shook himself all
over. He rubbed his face a few times with his paw and then trotted
away and began pushing his head into one of his compatriot’s
shoulders.

"What was it?" Walt asked.

Parker turned the tweezers in his hand,
examining the offending object closely. "Part of a pine needle, I
think. It was stuck in his eyelid." He flicked the needle away and
stood up.

Walt shook his hand. "Thank you," he
said.

"No problem, Sheehan. My pleasure."

When the doctor left, Merrick and Walt went
inside and began the daily chore of mucking out the stalls. Walt
placed the wheelbarrow in the center aisle of the livery and both
men grabbed a pitchfork from the tack room. Merrick started with
Earl's stall and Walt let himself into the stall where his horse,
Nelson, normally stood. Both animals were outside, which made the
job much easier.

They worked silently for several minutes.
Both men were weary from being up most of the night at the fire.
The smell of soot lingered in their nostrils. Eventually Walt said,
"You seemed a bit short with Julia the other day."

Merrick grunted in reply and kept sifting
through the straw for lumps of manure.

Walt tried again. "How is it that one woman
can cause you so much aggravation? She must be magic or
something."

The silence from Earl's stall stretched
out.

"Maybe," Walt continued, trying to get a
reaction, "you could hire her as your assistant. She could solve
the crimes and you could do the paperwork."

"Why are you so chatty all of a sudden?"
Merrick's tone was grave.

"Just wonderin'. She's like a fly at a
picnic, that one. She won't go away no matter how much you swat at
her."

Merrick looked up through the bars that
divided the top half of the stalls. "Exactly! I keep telling her it
is not her place to be running around town, solving crimes. She's
going to get herself hurt. Or worse. I was angry because she went
to the O'Brien ranch the other day. By herself, no less." Merrick
bent to his task again, his face furrowed with concern and
anger.

"Did she come back in one piece?"

"What?" Merrick hadn't heard Walt over the
grumbling in his own head.

"I say, did she come back in one piece? Was
she safe? Did she get hurt while she was out there?"

Merrick lifted a pile of poop onto his
pitchfork and walked it out of the stall to the wheelbarrow. "No.
She didn't get hurt. But that's not the point. She could have. The
men at that ranch are dangerous. I wouldn't let any woman go out
there alone."

"I suppose she didn't need your permission."
Merrick grunted again at this but Walt continued. "You know, she
reminds me of someone."

"Really? Who?"

"There's a man in town who's fiercely
independent. Won't let his friends help him even when he's grieving
and lost for what to do next. He's proud and stubborn as hell.
Smart about his job but not too bright when it comes to dealing
with people sometimes." Walt finished in Nelson's stall and moved
across the aisle to a box reserved for guest horses.

"Very funny," Merrick said.

"I'm not being funny," Walt said. "I'm
serious. You two are like peas in a pod. I think that's why she
drives you mad. You see yourself in her. She's lost, like you were
after Charlotte died, and she's grabbing onto a task that gives her
a sense of purpose and probably distracts her from whatever's
bothering her."

Merrick stood up straight and leaned on his
pitchfork. "Since when did you become Aristotle?"

"Since never. I'd have to be blind not to see
how irritating you find Julia. And I just got to wonderin'
why."

For the third time, Merrick grunted. He
continued leaning on his pitchfork, his eyes focused on nothing,
deep in thought. "What am I going to do?" he finally asked. "She
won't listen to reason. She won't stop interfering. I can't arrest
her just for being a giant pain in my ass."

Walt stood up as well now, and looked across
the aisle at his friend. "Have you tried talking to her?"

"Of course I've talked to her. I feel like I
do nothing else but talk to that damned woman these days."

And then Walt said the wisest thing he'd
perhaps ever said, "Aye, but have you listened?"

Twenty-nine

Julia and Betty kept
their ears and eyes open for days after the fire, looking for signs
that others in town had noticed James' female silhouette when he
was outside his home in his nightshirt. James, who they continued
to refer to in the male form, as that was his preference, was
feeling the loss of his home keenly. But more than that, Julia
could see he was convinced he would have to move away.

Betty had found him an old suit of
Christopher's, as she’d promised, and in the early light of Friday
morning, she altered it so that he could wear it that day. He was
also offered the spare room in the Mitchell's living quarters,
though he declined.

"I think that would be a bit awkward, Betty,"
James said, while standing on an ottoman so she could pin the hem
of his trousers. "Christopher is a perceptive man. He'd figure out
that something was going on. This is why I tend to stay out of
relationships. I'll ask Walt if there are any rooms at the livery.
I can't afford to stay at the Finnegan's hotel."

The watchmaker buried himself in work; he was
at the store every time Julia went to check on him. He had always
been a bit closed off with her, but now was even more so. He could
hardly look at Julia, and soon she began to feel her presence was
more of a burden than anything else.

When he wasn't working, Hunter hovered over
the site where his little home had been. He had picked through the
ashes and found some pieces from the clocks that were in his home;
two pendulums, some gears, a clock face, twisted and melted.

On a Saturday evening in late October, Julia
found Merrick and Walt in Finnegan's restaurant. Walt pulled a
chair out for her as she approached.

The men were eating their evening meal in the
restaurant, as they so often did. Without wives to cook for them at
home, and left to their own devices, both men preferred to pay for
their main meal of the day. Merrick was a dab hand at baking bread,
but that was where his culinary skills stopped. Walt never seemed
to care about food one way or the other. He ate what was put in
front of him, and did so indiscriminately. Julia wondered how he'd
grown so big without any interest in fuel.

Julia splurged and ordered the special from
Caroline; leg of lamb with boiled potatoes. The men were finishing
their meals. Merrick chewed a piece of ham and watched Julia remove
her gloves. She looked up at him. This was the first time they'd
spoken since their argument at the livery, barring the few moments
at her front door the night of the fire. Julia noticed a little
anxious fluttering in the pit of her stomach.