Authors: Jae
He was on his knees, digging in the earth with frantic
fingers.
"Phin," she said. "What are you doing?"
Blood soaked the left sleeve of his shirt, but Phin didn't
seem to notice. He continued to shovel earth with his bare hands.
"Phin!"
He looked up. Cold sweat beaded on his pale face. "I
need to dig a grave." He bent and continued to dig.
"Look at me, Phin." Luke used her most commanding
voice, the one she had perfected as the boss of half a dozen young men and
parent of two adolescent daughters.
Phin's gaze flickered up to her.
"I know killing a man is horrible, even if he wasn't a
good man. Taking a life is something you never get over, and that's one thing
that separates you from men like Bill Walters. If you hadn't shot him, he would
have killed me and then Charlie. You did what you had to, and you saved our
lives." She looked into Phin's eyes until the hazy blue of his eyes
cleared and he gave a hesitant nod. "All right. We can talk about this
later, but for now, can you go and sit with Charlie while I make sure these two
were alone?" She didn't want to send Phin out with a weapon.
Phin's Adam's apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed. He
nodded.
"If he can, have him check out your arm," Luke
said. No new blood soaked the sleeve, so it was probably just a graze wound,
but even that could get infected.
Luke reloaded Walters's revolver, then her own. Dew drenched
her pant legs as she walked through the grass, two revolvers at the ready. The
horses had fled from the sounds of shots and screams as fast as their hobbled
legs allowed. She found them next to two geldings that were tied to a shrub.
A quick check revealed the military brand of the horses. Had
they stolen them, or had Captain Kelling helped them to take revenge on Luke?
As soon as she got home, she would send a letter to Colonel Lundgren.
Just two horses. So the third man stayed behind in Fort
Boise.
The tension in her body dissipated.
We were lucky. If we
hadn't posted a guard and if I hadn't woken up...
The memory of her dream
came back to her, and she again heard Nora order her to open her eyes. It was
what had woken her. "Thank you, darling," she whispered.
* * *
Luke listened into the darkness. The wind rustled the leaves
of a few slender willows. Nearby, the Malheur River gurgled on its way north.
Even with two wounded men and the additional horses in tow, Luke had insisted
that they cross the river before they rested, just in case someone else was
following them and had heard the shots.
Most of the horses were dozing. Phin's gelding bent his head
in search of some tender tidbits amidst the valley's coarse grass.
Still, Luke kept her rifle nearby as she walked over and
settled a second blanket over Charlie. The young man groaned in his sleep, then
continued to snore even worse than usual. Luke had given him the last of their
whiskey before she dug the bullet out of his calf. It dulled his pain, but Phin
still paled at the anguished cries of his friend and Luke's stomach roiled too.
Quietly, trying not to startle Phin, she made her way back
to the fire. The wound on Phin's arm was little more than a scratch, but Luke
worried about him nonetheless. He stared into the fire, watching the flames
devour the dry wood and turn it into ashes.
"Hey." She settled down next to him.
A slight tilt of his head indicated that Phin was aware of
her presence.
"Did I ever tell you about the first time I had to kill
a man?"
That pulled Phin from his stupor. He looked up, his eyes
still dull, not the usual sparkling blue. He didn't need to answer. They both
knew Luke hadn't told him. She rarely talked about the past.
But Luke waited for an answer. She wanted Phin to be in the
present with her, not retreating into himself.
"No," Phin finally said, his voice rough.
"You haven't."
"It was during the Mexican War. I was barely twenty,
and I thought I was really tough." She smiled at the memory of her
younger, more naïve self. "I'd made it on my own for a lot of years, had
worked on half a dozen ranches, and tamed wild horses that no one else could
ride."
"Sounds familiar," Phin said. He hadn't been all
that different when he had first come to work for Luke.
"Yeah." Luke grinned. "But instead of doing
the clever thing and settling down somewhere, I got it into my head that the
dragoons were the right place for me. And maybe they were, for a while, but the
war..." She closed her eyes as the old images resurfaced. "There's
nothing glorious about killing someone. During my first encounter with the
Mexican troops, one of their soldiers galloped right at me, yelling loudly,
maybe to scare my horse or to encourage himself. I raised my rifle and fired —
but nothing happened. My rifle failed. Back then, most of us still had the old
muzzle-loading muskets, and the gunpowder must have gotten wet."
She paused and looked at Phin, who was watching her. The
flickering light of the fire pasted shadows across his face. He nodded at her
to continue.
"The Mexican soldier gave a cry of triumph. He was
almost upon me now, and he raised an old revolver." Luke sucked in a
breath. "I slashed my bayonet across his belly before he could pull the
trigger."
"He died?" Phin asked.
"Later, when we searched the battlefield to find fallen
comrades, I found him." The image of him clutching his belly, blood
staining his once white shirt, had haunted Luke's nightmares for years.
"He was just a boy in farmer's clothes, fighting with his father's old revolver.
They gave me a medal for fighting in that battle. I didn't want a medal.
Killing that boy or any of the other soldiers afterward didn't make me feel
proud."
Phin flicked a branch into the fire and nodded.
Sparks rained down around them, and Luke watched them trail
down to earth.
"I know you don't feel good about killing Bill Walters,
and you shouldn't, even though he was a miserable son of a bitch. But you saved
my life and Charlie's. Maybe you can at least feel good about that." She
clapped him on the shoulder, knowing it was the only physical comfort allowed
between two men. When Phin lifted his gaze up from the fire and looked at her,
she added a heartfelt "Thank you."
It wasn't just for her. If she had died, her secret would
have been discovered. It would have ended not just her life, but life as her
family knew it too.
The shadows lifted from Phin's eyes, and he straightened his
shoulders. "I would do it again if I had to."
"I know."
They watched the fire in companionable silence until the
blazing flames turned into glowing embers.
"
D
O
YOU WANT a mare or a gelding?" Amy asked and looked over her shoulder at
Frankie, who followed her across the ranch yard. While mares were thought to
make good mounts for women, most men preferred geldings, saying that mares were
too cranky and easily distracted.
What would Frankie prefer? Amy still couldn't figure her
out. When she rode out with the ranch hands to look at the land, she wore pants
and short hair. Most neighbors they met mistook her for a man, and Frankie
didn't correct them. But when they went into town on Sunday, Frankie wore a
dress, a hairpiece under her elegant hat, and dainty shoes that made Amy's feet
hurt just by looking at them. Frankie chatted about the newest fashion back
East with the townswomen and seemed as at ease as she was riding the range.
"A mare, please," Frankie said. "I prefer
mares, and Sally is getting too old to rush down a hill to rescue damsels in
distress." Frankie winked at her.
Amy blushed and wanted to object to being called a
"damsel in distress," but Frankie's smile was disarming.
They wandered to the herd in the corral and went from horse
to horse in comfortable silence. In a strange way, it reminded Amy of walking
with Papa, checking on the horses.
How odd that a woman reminds me of Papa.
Frankie
had turned all her assumptions of what a woman's life could be upside down. She
wondered what it meant for her. Was she like Frankie in a way? Would it be
possible for her to determine her own fate, to make her own decisions without
ever getting married?
Next to her, Frankie chuckled. "I'm still confusing
you, aren't I?"
Heat stained Amy's cheeks. "No, no, it's just..."
"It's all right." Frankie smiled at her. "I
confused myself for a lot of years too."
It was hard to imagine the self-assured Frankie as a
confused young woman. "You like dressing like this, right?" Amy
asked.
Frankie ran a hand down the outer seam of her pants.
"It's comfortable, yes."
They had that in common. "But you don't dislike
dresses, do you?"
"No. I like both, just for different occasions. A woman
doesn't have to wear pants to be strong, Amy," Frankie said.
"Oh, I know." Mama was by far the strongest woman
she knew, and Amy had never seen her wear pants.
"I grew up a bit like you." Frankie pointed to the
bunkhouse and the corral. "In a man's world. I lived in a mining camp with
my father and five brothers. Have you ever seen a mining camp?"
Amy shook her head. "Papa went to Silver City once with
a herd of horses, but he said I was too young to come with him."
"And he was right. Mining camps are rough. Except for a
few Chinese women, I was the only female for hundreds of miles, and my father
dressed me like a boy to protect me from any unwanted advances."
The thought of being courted by a horde of unwashed miners
sent ripples of disgust through Amy.
"I enjoyed the freedom it gave me," Frankie said.
She leaned her arms on the corral rail and stared off into the distance.
"I could roam the area with my brothers instead of staying in the tent. It
took me years to figure out that dressing in female apparel is fun too and that
being a woman is a wonderful thing."
Is it really?
Amy wondered if she would ever see it
like that. If she were a man, she could run the ranch without people like Adam
questioning her at every turn.
And then my feelings for women wouldn't be
wrong.
She suppressed a sigh and forced her thoughts back to
Frankie's life instead of her own. "How did you become a Pinkerton
detective?" Amy grew up thinking women had options besides marrying and
raising a gaggle of children, but she never imagined women could become
detectives or marshals.
The smile on Frankie's face vanished. She turned and leaned
her left side against the corral, now facing Amy. "My father was killed
for a handful of gold."
"I'm sorry." Amy didn't know what else to say. The
thought of losing her own father filled her with dread.
Frankie nodded in acknowledgment. A veil of grief still
covered the normally clear eyes. "His murderers nearly got away with it.
But then a Pinkerton detective hunted them down. I never forgot it. When I came
across an advertisement, I applied for a job with the agency."
"They were advertising for female detectives?" Amy
shook her head in wonder. Maybe the East really was the magical place Nattie
made it out to be.
"No." The grin was back on Frankie's face.
"They were advertising for a secretary. But I can be very persuasive if I
want to be. And my success spoke for itself. I solved a lot of cases by
befriending the wives, sisters, and mistresses of suspects in a way no male
detective could."
"And your cousin? Was she a Pinkerton too?"
Frankie's lips curled. "No. She helps me get the job
done, but Tess was never officially a Pinkerton. She prefers to be her own
boss."
They wandered along the corral side by side, again looking
at the horses.
"How about that one?" Amy pointed at the dun mare
that stretched her head to nibble on a bit of clover growing under the corral
rail. A whitish blanket without any spots dusted her hip. "Her name is
Zebra. She's not a very tall horse, but she's fast."
Frankie chuckled. "Zebra?"
Amy nodded at the shadowy stripes on the mare's legs.
"Yeah, well, Nattie once read a story about zebras. Apparently, they look
like horses and they have these stripes too."
"What about her?" Frankie pointed at another mare.
"Mouse?" They owned a herd of beautiful,
well-trained Appaloosas, and Frankie picked a plain gray mare?
A dark eyebrow rose beneath the brim of Frankie's hat.
"Mouse?"
"Well, she's —"
"Gray," Frankie finished for her and laughed.
"And that's why I like her. For my kind of work, I need an inconspicuous
horse that no one will remember, not a flashy Appaloosa. So, how much would you
want for her?"
"You'll have to talk to my mama about that." Even when
Papa was home, Mama always had a say in financial decisions. Then something
occurred to her. This was her chance to pay back Rika's ten dollars.
"Better yet, talk to Rika. I bought Mouse with her money, so I guess you
need to see if she's willing to sell the mare to you."
"All right," Frankie said. "I'll talk to
her."
"Want to try riding her before you decide?" It was
a test not just for the mare, but of Frankie's skills as a rider too. Frankie
was the cousin of Mama's best friend, but still, Amy wouldn't sell Mouse to her
if she didn't have a gentle hand and the experience to handle the skittish
mare.
A confident grin tipped up the corners of Frankie's mouth,
letting Amy know Frankie suspected the true reason for the offer.
"Sure."
* * *
Rika swept the soiled straw out of the henhouse and sneezed
as dirt and tiny feathers tickled her nose.
The dog shot out beneath the veranda and raced across the
yard, barking.
Rika looked up. Her hands tightened around the broom, ready
to defend the hens and the rest of the ranch.