Holmes on the Range (18 page)

To put it with less delicacy, Old Red had just told Uly he was full of shit.

Though Edwards, Brackwell, and the Duke were not themselves workingmen, they could surely piece together that some kind of face-off was at hand. The old man dealt with the situation in his usual fashion—by opening up his big mouth and shouting.

“What's the meaning of this? You there! Do you have some other explanation for this man's death?”

“You there” was Old Red.

“An explanation? No, sir,” my brother said. “But I do have some questions that bear askin'.”

“Such as?” the Duke prompted with his typical impatience.

“Well, for one thing, why's he wearin' his spurs?”

We all turned to gape at Boudreaux's boots. Attached at the heels were work spurs, the rusty, star-shaped rowels digging into the dirt of the outhouse floor.

“Why would a feller on the verge of shootin' himself take the trouble to strap on his spurs before sneakin' out to do the deed?” Old Red asked.

“Well, obviously when a man ups and kills himself, he ain't thinkin' straight,” Uly replied. He'd wiped the scowl from his face, affixing in its place an expression of tolerant bemusement similar to the one my dear old
Mutter
used to wear when Uncle Franz would get to telling us ducks can talk, pigs can hear your thoughts, and God had just dropped by to talk politics. “There's no use lookin' for any
why
to what he might do.”

“But it ain't just the spurs,” Old Red said. “Look at Boudreaux's holster. He's got a perfectly fine Peacemaker tucked away there. He could've placed that up against his ear and done the job with more certainty than he'd have with that little stingy gun. If he was downhearted
enough to kill himself, I don't think he'd be too concerned about makin' a mess of the privy. So why not use the .45? And that brings us along to somethin' else.”

Uly was rolling his eyes now, trying to get his boys to lay in with catcalls. But they were as wrapped up in Gustav's chatter as us Hornet's Nesters. Even Spider was hanging on every word, though he looked ready to hang Old Red from the nearest branch.

As for the gentlemen, no two were reacting the same way. The look of put-upon amusement on Edwards's face suggested he was inclined toward the view Uly was pushing—namely, that my brother was crazy. Brackwell, on the other hand, was gazing upon Old Red as if he were a conquering hero, not a raving lunatic. And the more my brother worked his mouth, the more the Duke puckered his own into a prodigious frown.

“There ain't a lick of powder scorch on the man,” Gustav went on. “Blastin' yourself in the skull ain't sharpshootin'. You'd have to get your hand right up against your noggin. And if you did that, not only would you end up wearin' your brains for a glove, you'd give yourself a heck of a powder burn. But his hands and forehead are as white as ever, aside from that bullet hole. So to my eyes, it's clear. Boudreaux didn't shoot himself. Somebody did the shootin' for him.”

“Ha!” Uly spat out.

Gustav folded his arms across his chest and gave McPherson the sort of coldly appraising, vaguely disappointed look he usually reserves for me.

“And what is there to ‘Ha' about?”

“You, that's what,” Uly replied with cold scorn of his own. “You got a reputation for bein' an odd bird, Amlingmeyer, and now I see why. I've heard cow farts that made more sense. What exactly are you hintin' at, anyway? Someone got in there with Boudreaux, shot him in the head, dropped down into the shit pit, then dug his way out? That's the only way it could happen, cuz in case you forgot that door was locked from the inside.”

Old Red blew out a breath and shook his head. The outhouse door was still open wide, and he surprised us all by walking around to hide behind it.

“Otto,” he said, “give this door a knock.”

I'd been keeping quiet and trying to look small—neither of which comes naturally to me. But there was no way around it now. My brother wasn't just asking me to play along with his Sherlockery again. He was asking me to do it right there in front of everybody. If I was going to tell him to shut his trap and forget this detectiving nonsense—and maybe keep us in the frying pan as opposed to the fire—now was my last chance to do it.

So I had a choice to make, and it was splitting my brain like an ax through a watermelon. All Gustav wanted me to do was knock on a door, but it felt like I'd been told to march through one—knowing there was a cliff on the other side. I had to face up to a none-tooflattering truth about myself just then: I've always had opinions on things, yet choices I've left to others.

Well
, I thought,
maybe it's time to change that
.

I walked up and gave the wood a rap.

Old Red's eyes appeared in the ventilation hole.

“Who's there?” he said.

I'm not always lightning-quick about catching on to my brother's ideas, but this one I got hold of straight off. I stuck out my index finger and pointed it at my brother's forehead.

“Bang,” I said, snapping my thumb down like the hammer of a pistol dropping on a round.

Gustav's eyes went into a crinkle, and I knew he was favoring me with a small but approving smile.

When he stepped back around the door, of course, all trace of that smile was gone.

“I say again—this man did not shoot himself.”

I thought that was a pretty neat display of deducting, but Uly was
having none of it. He'd been working hard to save face in front of his employers—or maybe save his neck from a noose—and he wasn't about to give up now.

“Fiddle-faddle!” he declared. “If someone shot Boo like you say, why on God's green earth would they leave the gun in the outhouse?”

“That I don't know,” Old Red admitted, meeting McPherson's contemptuous glare with a steely stare. “I'd surely love to ask the man who did it.”

Uly curled up his lip, but before he could get out another word, he was interrupted by the sound of applause.

“Oh, bravo,
bra-vo
,” Edwards said, clapping his fleshy, soft-palmed hands. “That was quite a performance. Will you next offer definitive proof that the sky is blue?” He faced the Duke. “I don't see how the death of some Negro laborer can have any bearing on us, no matter what the circumstance. I suggest we send word to the proper authorities and get back to our business.”

I gaped at the man, utterly boggled by the bluntness with which he revealed the hardness of both his heart and his head.

If I'd been looking to the Duke to balance Edwards's jackass callousness with a little simple human decency—and I wasn't—I would've been sorely disappointed.

“Quite right, quite right,” the old man said, giving Edwards a nod so firm it set his chins to quivering. “This is obviously no concern of ours. McPherson—see to it.”

“Yes, sir,” Uly said, triumph gleaming in his eyes.

The Duke and Edwards turned toward the castle, no doubt keen to move on to matters more important than mere murder—namely, the ones that might make them
money
.

“Wait!” Old Red called out.

The Duke spun around looking like a boar who's had his tail yanked.

“Please,” Gustav added quickly. “Your Grace. Sir. You'll have to
pardon my sayin' so, but I don't think you should be so quick to assume this has nothin' to do with you.”

“What do you mean?” the old man snapped.

“Well,” Old Red said, and though the pause that followed was mere seconds in length, I aged a good ten years as they dragged themselves out. It was hardly the time to throw down our cards about Perkins.

As it turned out, my brother had an entirely different card up his sleeve.

“I'm wonderin', sir,” he said. “Has anyone warned you that we may have a madman loose in these parts?”

“A madman?” Edwards scoffed. “What in heaven's name are you talking about?”

“Why surely even all the way back in Boston you've heard of Hungry Bob Tracy,” Old Red replied. “The Colorado Cannibal? The Mountain Maneater? He was spotted not too far from here. This body don't look like Bob's work, bein' uncooked and free of salt and pepper, but who knows? Maybe that's just cuz ol' Bob couldn't get at it. Like I said there's good reason to think Boudreaux didn't kill himself. And if there's even the smallest chance Hungry Bob did him in, it ain't just a county matter. You tell the sheriff you got a death you can't account for, he's gonna have to tell the federal marshal in Miles City. And then you're gonna have deputies out here turnin' over every blessed rock on the spread.”

The more Gustav flapped his gums, the more the Duke got to looking like he'd swallowed a frog. He clenched his jaw hard, as if trying to keep his breakfast from hopping up his throat and out through his mouth. Edwards looked equally queasy—you could almost see his waistcoat bulging and rippling with all the flip-flops his stomach was doing.

Setting eyes on a dead man hadn't so much as ruffled a one of their feathers. But the prospect of a posse on the VR had them practically plucked clean?

“That would be. . .an unwelcome disruption,” Edwards said.

Old Red nodded sympathetically. “No doubt. Course, it don't have to roll out like that. You send one of the boys off after the law, they're not gonna be back for at least a full day. All we'd have to do is use that time wisely.”

“By determining the manner of this man's death before the authorities arrive,” said Brackwell, who now looked decidedly less green around the gills than Edwards or the Duke.

“That's the only way we're gonna avoid that there ‘disruption' Mr. Edwards spoke of,” Gustav said. “Put our finger on what happened or have lawmen swarmin' around here like so many honeybees.”

“And who exactly would conduct this investigation?” Brackwell asked, though he seemed to have guessed the answer already.

“Why, I would,” Old Red said.

“
You?
” Edwards looked my brother up and down as if laying eyes on him for the first time. “I'd like to know what inspires such confidence in a. . .”

All indications pointed to words along the lines of “ignorant ranch hand” being the next to exit Edwards's mouth. As he was
surrounded
by ignorant ranch hands, Edwards reconsidered, ending his sentence instead with the words “man such as yourself.”

“I've made a study of the science of observation and deduction,” Old Red answered. He didn't acknowledge the snickers this drew from the McPhersons and some of the other men—including, I was disappointed to observe, the boys from our own bunkhouse. But he did raise his voice a touch louder to add, “And I'll point out that you wouldn't even be askin' that question if I hadn't kept everyone from jumpin' to conclusions.”

“He's right enough about that,” Brackwell said. “I say we give him a chance.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Edwards sneered.

“What's ridiculous about it? I don't see what we have to lose.”

“I don't see what we have to
gain
.” Edwards gave Brackwell's colorful costumery a look of open disdain. “This man's no more a detective than you are a cow-boy.”

Brackwell's cheeks flushed so pink you'd think he'd just been slapped.

“If you fellers feel so strongly opposed on this, maybe you oughta settle it like gentlemen,” Old Red said. His gaze drifted over to the Duke. “You know—make things a little more sportin'.”

“A wager?” the old man mused. His gray, watery eyes suddenly lit up bright, taking on the same sheen they'd had the night before when he'd tried to square Old Red and Emily off in a battle of half-wits. “Yes! If you have faith in this man, Brackwell, you should back it up!”

“Well, I. . .I will then,” Brackwell replied, trying to sound defiant despite a nervous quiver in his voice. “Two hundred pounds says he can provide a satisfactory explanation for what's happened before the authorities arrive.”

“Done!” the Duke crowed, and Brackwell's face went from livid red to ghostly pale in a heartbeat. I tried to imagine what shade Lady Clara's face would turn when she heard of the bet, as the previous evening she hadn't seemed happy about a wager of five dollars, let alone one of two hundred pounds—however much
that
was.

Edwards managed to toss in his own “Yes, done!” before the old man turned to Uly and began barking out instructions.

“Send word to whatever authorities you must—they should come as quickly as possible. In the meantime, you are to excuse this man from his regular duties so that he may”—the Duke pointed a smirk at Gustav—”pursue his investigation.”

“One more thing, Your Grace,” Old Red said. “I'll need my brother's help if I'm to have a fair shot at this.”

“Your brother?”

I stepped forward—this time with no hesitation. “That's me, sir.”

The Duke glowered at me. “Why do you need
him
?”

“Well, someone's gotta take down notes and such,” Gustav replied. “And I can't do nothin' with a pencil beyond scratch my nose.”

“You can't write?” the Duke asked.

“Nor read, sir. No.”

Brackwell gave my brother a pained look that said,
What have I done
?

“Fine. The brother, too, McPherson,” the Duke said, his smirk returning.

For a fellow who'd been so unnerved by the thought of lawmen on his land a minute before, he looked awfully chipper now. Uly'd wanted Boo's death swept under the rug, but the old man seemed perfectly happy to snatch that rug up and toss it out the window—provided he might win a bet in the process.

Perhaps Uly was just more cautious. Perhaps the Duke was blinded by his contempt for a mere workingman like my brother.