Horse With No Name (3 page)

Julia and her pupil arrived at Elise's front
door. Elise pushed it open and called out, "Mother?"

Mrs. Campbell appeared from the kitchen. The
house smelled pleasantly of cooked onions and fresh bread.

Elise began to cry again when she saw her
mother.

"Oh, my darlin'. What's happened?"

"She's fine, Mrs. Campbell," Julia assured
her from the threshold. "Just a little scrape."

Beth Campbell crouched down and used the tea
towel in her hand to wipe the tears from her daughter's face. She
murmured softly to the girl for a few moments.

"Go on, now," she said, standing up, "Go take
those stockings off and put on your after school dress. Bring me
your stockings once you've got them off and I'll darn them." She
kissed the girl's cheek.

When Elise was gone, Beth stood.

"Let me make you a cup of tea, Miss
Thom."

"I'd better not, Mrs. Campbell. I want to get
to the clock shop before it closes. I want to thank Mr. Hunter for
his help the other night." Hunter had not been at church the day
before, and Julia couldn't remember if she'd thanked him
sufficiently on Saturday night.

Beth nodded and then the light in her eyes
shifted slightly. "I was so sorry to hear about what happened to
you at the dance, Miss Thom. That must have been awfully
frightening."

"It was a little unsettling, I must say,"
Julia conceded. The truth was that she had been more rattled by the
event than she cared to admit. She had hardly slept at the
Mitchells, and then in her own bed Sunday night, and felt herself
anxiously looking over her shoulder several times during the day at
school. She couldn’t get the smell of the two men - a mixture of
chewing tobacco, whisky and sweat - out of her nose.

"How nice that Mr. Hunter was there for you.
He's such a lovely man. Quiet." She stopped, her eyes glancing
down, thinking. "I don't actually know if I've heard the man say
more than three words. But there are worse qualities in a man,
aren't there?"

Julia smiled, and shifted uncomfortably where
she stood, now waiting for the first opportunity to leave the
house.

"He certainly came to your aid. A gun! My
goodness." Beth clutched her hands to her chest, enjoying the
drama.

"It was just a tiny little thing," Julia
said, wondering why she was downplaying the size of the gun.

"The bullets still come out of it just as
quickly as a large gun, I'm sure." Beth laughed a tinkly little
twitter and Julia had to smile as well.

"I must be going, Mrs. Campbell," Julia said
and backed toward the door. "I just wanted to see Elise safely
delivered."

"Of course, Miss Thom. Thank you." Beth moved
forward and just before Julia made her escape she put a hand on the
teacher's arm. "You must tell me if Mr. Hunter refers to the
escapades from Saturday night when you see him this afternoon. He
must be feeling quite gallant."

Julia cursed under her breath as she reacted
to what seemed to be the collective town project that looked to
involve marrying her off. She'd left her family home for just such
a reason. Her parents didn't want her educated, they wanted her
married. Despite encouraging her intelligence when she was a child,
when push came to shove all her parents wanted from her were
grandchildren. Julia's father had been her best friend, teaching
her all he knew about the law. But when she began talking in
earnest of applying to law school, even though no woman had yet
attended one in Canada, he balked. Words were flung. Tears were
cried. Julia felt betrayed by the man who, for the whole of her
life thus far, has been her greatest ally. She had come to Horse in
a rash move to punish her father, but also to escape the
preordained role as wife and mother that she had felt herself being
pushed into. And now I find myself in the same damn predicament,
she thought as she stomped down the street. People being shoved in
my face at dances, and matches made with men who inexplicably carry
guns.

She turned onto Main Street, her thoughts
swirling, her anger growing and bouncing around inside her like a
rubber ball in a drum. She wasn't quite ready to admit to herself
that it felt better to be angry than to reflect on how afraid she'd
been the night of the dance. As she walked down the wooden
sidewalk, her heels tapping, she thought about what Mr. Hunter had
done for her. She was grateful. About that there was no doubt. But
she was not attracted to the man. Was she?

Julia came to a stop on the sidewalk. Now she
was second-guessing herself. Mr. Hunter was an attractive man in an
unshowy kind of way. Did she have feelings for him?

She shook her head and scoffed at herself.
The townsfolk had gotten inside her head. Especially that
passive-aggressive Millie Jones who would like nothing more than to
have Julia married off to the first man who had laid eyes on her.
She resumed her steps and hopped down off the end of the sidewalk
when she reached Third Avenue.

Mr. Hunter's shop was three doors past the
corner. In the front window sat a display on an old pine dresser
with several pocket watches and a mantel clock.

The door creaked as it opened, and Julia
closed it firmly behind her. She was determined to be as
professional and courteous as possible, but she was not going to
let others' ideas about her and Mr. Hunter cloud her mind.

The shop rustled with the ticking of many
clocks. There were several small wall clocks in the front of the
shop, their pendulums swinging. Julia feigned interest in them for
a moment, while she waited for Mr. Hunter to attend to her. A small
counter stretched across the middle of the store, dividing the shop
into front and back. Behind the counter was a wall and a doorway,
and beyond that Mr. Hunter's workspace. Julia could see a
workbench, crowded with tools and also the innards of what she
assumed was a watch, laid out on what looked like a piece of dark
velvet. She listened for a moment, trying to detect sounds coming
from the workshop, but there were none. Perhaps Mr. Hunter was out
back at the privy.

She waited.

After a few more moments with no sign of the
proprietor, Julia went to the counter and called through the
doorway behind it, "Hello? Mr. Hunter?"

She waited, ears perked.

Perhaps he had been called away. It seemed
strange that he'd leave the door open in that case, but perhaps it
was an emergency.

Julia shrugged, relieved in a way not to have
to face Mr. Hunter while she was still riled up. She turned and
walked to the front door and yanked it open, perhaps slightly more
aggressively than entirely necessary.

Just as she raised her foot to step across
the threshold she heard something. Turning, she waited. There it
was again. At first she thought it was one of the clocks making an
odd noise. But then it came again and she recognized it for what it
was. A groan.

She let go of the door and turned back. "Mr.
Hunter?" she asked again, this time with fear touching her
voice.

At the far left of the counter was a gap with
a small, knee-to-waist-height swinging door. Julia, still
listening, walked to it and pushed through, aiming to go to the
workspace in the back of the shop. But she was brought up short.
There, on the floor behind the counter, lay Mr. Hunter. One of his
arms was crumpled under him at an odd angle. He was lying on his
stomach. There was a tear in one sleeve of his white shirt and his
dark suit trousers looked splattered with some kind of dark liquid.
His head was turned and rested on one cheek and the side facing
Julia was covered in blood. The right eye was swollen almost
completely shut; it bulged out from Hunter's face like a small
balloon.

Julia dropped to her knees and fumbled in her
handbag for a handkerchief. "Oh dear, oh dear. Mr. Hunter, can you
hear me?"

She flung her purse to one side when she
realized her handkerchief was not there. She must have left it at
the school after using it to minister to Elise. Julia leaned
forward and touched the man's arm gently. "Mr. Hunter? Are you
awake? Can you hear me?"

Something was digging into her left knee. She
shifted slightly, and reached down with one gloved hand to brush
away whatever it was. As her hand touched the offending object she
caught a glimpse of it before it shot away from her touch and
bounced off the baseboard behind her. It was a tooth.

Four

"Can you hold up your side a bit better please?"

"I'm trying but you've got him hoisted so far
up on your side that his weight is sliding down on me. You're both
taller than me, you know," Julia said crossly, and slightly out of
breath.

"Okay, stop then. Let's try something else."
Merrick stopped walking and shifted Hunter so that his arm wasn't
around Merrick's shoulder. "Is that better?"

"Yes." Julia said.

They kept walking.

Hunter needed medical attention, that much
was obvious. Julia debated for a few seconds about running all the
way through town to Dr. Parker's office to get him and bring him
back to the store. She ran out into the street and, as luck would
have it, Constable Merrick was riding by. He took one look at
Julia's face and leapt off Earl, his big grey. He quickly threw the
reins over the closest hitching post and followed Julia without a
word into Hunter's store. After a quick assessment, Merrick decided
it would be better to just take Hunter to the doctor's office.

"Stay here. I'll go get Walt."

"Don't be ridiculous," Julia said, refusing
to be relegated to the status of frail bystander. "We shouldn't
waste time. Let's get him up into sitting position."

When they did, the situation briefly
worsened. Hunter's vest and shirt front were liberally covered in
blood. His nose was sitting at an odd angle and was nearly as
swollen as his right eye. His left eye still remained slightly
open, but Julia expected that situation wouldn't last long. The
right arm was clearly broken. Hunter moaned loudly when they sat
him up.

From there, as gently as they could, Julia
and Merrick got Hunter standing between them. He was conscious, but
just barely, and his feet dragged occasionally as they
pulled/carried him out of the shop.

Dr. Parker was waiting for them when they
reached his surgery. Christopher Mitchell had been coming back from
a delivery and spotted the ragged trio inching their way along Main
Street. He’d run to the doctor to prepare him.

"Put him on the table. Gently now."

Julia and Merrick slowly made their way down
the hallway at the front of Parker's house. In his office, the
examination table was covered with a fresh sheet and lying
flat.

Julia and Merrick leaned Hunter against the
table at its middle. Merrick unwound his arm from Hunter's side and
then while Julia squiggled out of the way, the doctor and Merrick
gently lifted the patient up onto the bed. Hunter groaned once and
his head flopped back dramatically as he fainted for the first time
since they'd left the store.

"What happened?" Parker leaned over Hunter's
face as Merrick stepped out of the way.

"I don't know," Julia answered. "I found him
like this behind the counter at his store."

Merrick turned to Julia. "Did you see anyone
around the shop when you arrived?"

Julia shook her head. Now that Hunter was
safely in the doctor's care, the adrenaline was leaving her body.
She cleared her throat, "No. There was no one. The shop was quiet.
I almost left because I thought he wasn't there."

Parker turned away from the examining table
and walked to a cabinet filled with glass jars that held various
sharp and dangerous-looking instruments. He grabbed a pair of
scissors and two towels off a pile on a lower shelf.

"Did you see any horses around when you
arrived?" Merrick continued questioning Julia. "Any wagons hitched
nearby?"

Julia cast her mind back to the scene on the
street. She had been so preoccupied with angry thoughts about her
status as a project in the minds of the town's matchmakers that she
doubted she would have noticed a stagecoach even if it had run over
her. She shook her head.

Dr. Parker undid the buttons on Hunter's vest
and pushed it aside. The shirt underneath was still white in the
places where the vest had protected it. Parker leaned across with
his scissors and began cutting away the shirt from around the
broken arm.

Suddenly Hunter lifted his head off the bed.
He groaned and began struggling, trying to sit up, although without
much steam behind the attempt. Merrick moved a step closer to
assist, but Parker was able to calm the man with a few words. He
placed both hands on Hunter's shoulders and eased him back
down.

Hunter said something that Julia didn't
catch, and Dr. Parker had to lean in and turn his head to place his
ear close to Hunter's mouth. Things were quiet for a moment and
then the doctor straightened up and turned to Merrick, "I think you
can leave us now. He'll be fine with me. I'll set this arm and look
after his cuts and bruises." He turned to Julia. "Miss Thom, could
you find Eleanor, please, and send her? She's probably at the
Mitchell's store."

Julia nodded and Merrick followed her out of
the room and then out of the house.

Five

Betty Mitchell ladled a generous portion of stew
from the large Dutch oven into a smaller pot that Julia held out
for her. The stew smelled richly of onion and roasted venison. It
made Julia's mouth water.

When the smaller pot was full, Julia waited
while Betty wrapped up two loaves of bread and six scones. They
were heading over to James Hunter's house to check in on him and
make sure he was eating.

Betty was Julia's closest friend in Horse. On
the surface they had very little in common; Betty was married and
had come to British Columbia from Canada's far eastern maritime
provinces. She and her ridiculously handsome husband, Christopher,
owned and ran the General Store. They were childless, which brought
tears to Betty's eyes every time it was mentioned in Julia's
presence. The couple poured their love and attention into their
shop and it showed. It was the loveliest little store for hundreds
of miles and the Mitchell's were justifiably proud of what they'd
built. Betty and Julia had bonded initially out of necessity,
perhaps. The ratio of men to women in a place this remote was
overwhelming. Secretly, Betty wanted to keep an eye on Julia; to
keep her safe from the possibly predatory men who might want to
hitch their wagons, and their kitchens, to Julia. She needn't have
worried. Julia was far too enamored of her new status as a single
working woman to throw it away for some man with a quarter section
and most of his own hair.