Horse With No Name (26 page)

"Good heavens," Betty whispered, mostly to
herself.

"Why did he take you out in the boat?"
Merrick asked.

"He didn't say, but I suspect he was going to
shoot me and push me overboard."

Julia could see Merrick thinking some more.
She enjoying watching him think. He turned his head toward her,
feeling her gaze. He looked a little startled when he saw that
she'd been watching him, but he recovered quickly. "How long have
you known about Mr. Hunter's...situation?"

Betty answered for Julia, "Since the
fire."

Merrick nodded, thinking again, and then
looked at Hunter. "You told them then?"

Hunter set his tea cup down and jammed his
hands into his coat pockets. "I told Mrs. Mitchell. But Miss Thom
already knew."

Merrick raised his eyebrows at her.
"How?"

Julia waffled for a moment.

"Come on," Merrick said. "Out with it."

"I may have taken a sneak peek at Dr.
Parker's patient files." Julia cringed a bit when she said this,
knowing Merrick wouldn't like it.

He didn't. His expression froze and Julia
felt like the whole room got quiet, holding its breath.

Walt made a small chuckling noise. "Go easy
on her," he said under his breath.

Merrick took a deep breath in through his
nose and held it for a few seconds. Julia wondered if he was
counting to ten. He blew the breath out and leaned forward, picking
up his teacup and taking a sip. With an unnatural sense of calm he
said, "Please. Tell us about that."

Julia wasn't sure if she would rather Merrick
had been yelling. This quiet approach was almost more unnerving.
She tried to explain herself. "I happened to be in Dr. Parker's
office the other day."

"Happened to be?" Merrick asked.

She continued, unabashed, "And it just so
happened that his filing cabinet was in there, too."

"Where it belongs?" There was irony in
Merrick's voice.

Julia ignored him. "I had been thinking about
Mr. Hunter for days, of course," she looked up at the small person
who looked like a child in Christopher's suit, "and was wanting to
understand him better. The idea being that if I knew more about who
he was, I might be able to figure out who would want to hurt
him."

Hunter, who throughout the conversation in
Betty and Christopher's sitting room had looked decidedly
uncomfortable, now looked slightly more relaxed. He met Julia's
eyes and nodded at her, encouraging her to continue.

"And I remembered that when we'd taken Mr.
Hunter to see Dr. Parker after I found him in his shop, there was
an exchange between doctor and patient that struck me as a bit
odd." She looked over at Hunter. "When the doctor began to take
your shirt and vest off so he could see your wounds and tend to
your arm, you began to panic."

Hunter nodded, remembering.

"I had been thinking about that and it had
occurred to me to wonder if you didn't want Merrick and I to see
you without your shirt on." She looked back to Merrick. "So I might
have taken the opportunity while I was in the office to look for
Mr. Hunter's patient file." Julia stopped and waited for Merrick to
explode.

The constable seemed to be absorbing this
information, though his face still did not betray whatever emotions
he was feeling. The room was quiet again for a few moments.

Merrick was about to speak again when Betty
startled everyone by leaping into the ring. "It wasn't entirely
Julia's fault. I helped her. I kept a lookout for the doctor while
we were in there."

A huge grin broke out on Walt's face. "Mrs.
Mitchell," he said, "we hardly knew ye."

At the same time, Julia shook her head at her
friend and then turned to Merrick. "She was not there. I was on my
own."

Betty objected, and Julia argued with her.
Merrick's eyes bounced back and forth between the two women while
they corrected one another.

"All right, all right," Merrick finally said,
holding up one hand. "Let's just agree that Mrs. Mitchell may or
may not have given you some aid..."

"I did too help," Betty muttered, unwilling
to be left out of the adventure.

Merrick continued, "...but why don't you
share what really matters. What did you find when you committed the
crime," his eyes drilled into Julia's as he emphasized this word,
"of breaking into Dr. Parker's files?"

"Nothing," Julia said.

"Nothing?"

"Correct." Julia nodded and straightened her
back a bit.

Merrick waited her out.

Julia glanced over at Mr. Hunter and then
continued. "What I found was that there was no file in Dr. Parker's
office for James Hunter."

Merrick, who had leaned forward in his chair,
leaned back again and Julia could see the wheels turning in his
head. When he spoke, his voice had lost some of its ice. "And that
struck you as odd."

"It did."

"Was that when you knew that Mr. Hunter was
...um, well..." The sentence dangled.

"A woman," Hunter said, smiling at Merrick,
letting him off the hook.

"Er, yes. Thank you. A woman."

"No," Julia said. "I had no idea then. But it
puzzled me and I did wonder why there was no file. It occurred to
me that one reason Parker might hide it was that there was
something in it he didn't want anyone to know."

Merrick looked at Hunter. "Dr. Parker was
protecting you from thieves and busybodies, like Miss Thom, was
he?"

"Well...," Hunter said, not wanting to betray
his rescuer, "I did visit Dr. Parker when I first moved to town
because I had, er, some female troubles. I told him of my
particular...situation. And I asked him then to keep my file
somewhere safe. Just in case."

Merrick raised his eyebrows at Julia and
shook his head slightly with amazement and chagrin. "Just in case,
indeed."

In the course of the next hour, Merrick
continued to question Julia and Hunter. He wanted to be sure he
understood the sequence of events that led up to finding the two of
them, plus Anker, Cranna and Sully, sitting on the beach looking
drained but relieved, and all except Sully, soaking wet.

When they'd gotten to shore, Cranna had
chased Anker, who was inexplicably running down the beach, away
from town. He wouldn't have made it very far at all because soon
the shoreline disappeared and unless he wanted to swim to freedom
he would have found himself at a dead end. Cranna walked him back
and the sodden group had made their way through town to Merrick's
office. Betty had rushed in almost immediately, having heard what
was happening, and insisted they move the meeting to her sitting
room so that Julia and Hunter could get out of their sodden
clothes.

Throughout the questions that followed in the
Mitchell's upstairs sitting room, Merrick was both calm and
professional, but he was also cool toward Julia. He only looked at
her when he had to, and she keenly felt his simmering anger.

Unlike the month before when she and Merrick,
with Walt's help, had worked together to understand why one of
Julia's students had broken into the Mitchell's store, this time
Merrick seemed unwilling to accept or understand Julia's help in
finding Hunter's assailant.

The last of his questions asked, Merrick
stood. He shook Christopher's hand, and then, after a slight
hesitation, also Hunter's.

"I'll need you to stay in town, Mr. Hunter,"
Merrick said, "until Thursday when the Judge gets here. But then
you're free to go."

Hunter nodded.

Merrick and Walt both nodded to Christopher
and Betty. As he walked past her toward the staircase, Merrick
refused to meet Julia's eyes.

Thirty-four

The walls were bare and
the clockmaker's shop had an abandoned feeling about it. It was
uncharacteristically silent, without any ticking or pendulums
swinging. Julia could still smell the faint metallic scent of the
clocks and their gears. She imagined that would linger for some
time, or until a new shopkeeper took possession.

She found Hunter packing a crate in the rear
of the shop.

"You're leaving us, Mr. Hunter?"

The clockmaker looked up from the workbench
and smiled at Julia, though he looked weary.

"I think it's best, Miss Thom. I'll go
somewhere where I can disappear a little more easily."

The traveling judge had come and gone. Gerard
Anker was convicted of arson and grievous bodily harm and had been
sent to the penitentiary in New Westminster. James Hunter was free
to leave.

Julia didn't try to talk him out of this
decision. Despite the acceptance Hunter had found with her and the
Mitchells, and with Merrick and Walt, Julia was not naive enough to
expect that everyone in Horse and the surrounding area would
understand or accept who Hunter was. And, in such a small place,
there was no way the secret would be kept for long.

"Where will you go?"

Hunter placed some loose gears in a small
cardboard box and fitted the lid on top. "I think I'll try Kelowna.
It's a growing place, and might suit me well. If that doesn't work
I expect I'll go back to the coast. Or perhaps east."

Julia looked around her. The shelves in the
workroom had been stripped of their clocks and watches, and looked
naked in the bright light that was coming through the wide
window.

"Tell me this," Hunter said, "for my own
edification. Was it only Dr. Parker's file that gave me away?"

Julia thought about this for a moment. "It
was a combination of things, really. Your reluctance to let anyone
get close to you. Your small hands." Julia hesitated and then
continued. "And I found a box of china under your bed the other day
when Betty and I were tidying up your house. I didn't think much of
it at the time, but later I wondered what a man was doing with such
a delicate china pattern."

"You snooped," Hunter teased Julia.

"I did. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.” Julia
blushed slightly, feeling embarrassed.

"My mother insisted I take that china when I
left home. I told her I wouldn't use it but she wouldn't listen."
He sighed and picked a few large clock pieces off the table, adding
them to the crate in front of him. "I can't do anything about my
hands, I suppose. You see, in the future I'd like to make sure I
don't give myself away."

"You didn't give yourself away this time,
James. It was bad luck that Gerard Anker had some sort of sixth
sense going on. And that he felt he needed to act out about
it."

"I expect there are many people in the world
like Gerard Anker."

Julia nodded slightly. "Unfortunately that
might be true. But all you can do is your best."

"Do you think that if you hadn't seen me
panic when Dr. Parker tried to take off my shirt, and if you hadn't
seen the china, you would have known?"

Though he was trying to cover it, there was
desperation in Hunter's eyes. Julia's heart ached for the terrible
position he was in. He had a choice to live as a woman and betray
his true self. Or live as a man and risk exposure and perhaps more
violence.

She considered how to answer. "The truth is,
James, that we can't predict the future. Who knows what might have
happened if I hadn't noticed those things? But events collided the
way they did. And here we are."

Hunter gave a rueful laugh. "I won't be
seeing the doctor in Kelowna, that's for sure."

Julia placed a hand on his arm. "Please take
care of yourself."

Julia left Hunter in his vacant shop. He
refused her help to finish the packing. As she walked away she
reflected about the life we wish to live and the life we have to
live. Hunter's isolation touched her deeply. She wondered what it
must be like to face a future filled with uncertainty and no small
measure of fear. The last few weeks had been challenging for her.
Everything in her life had changed, and she started to feel like
she wasn't dealing with that very well. James Hunter's situation
was helping her to put things into perspective.

She walked slowly, reflecting, bundled up in
her long, thick wool coat and a dark blue scarf her grandmother
knitted for her years ago. The sky was such a clear blue that it
almost hurt Julia's eyes. The temperature had dropped noticeably in
the past few days and snow was expected soon.

Hunter was paying a high price for being
himself. Julia imagined that he'd have to move regularly, and would
not be able to settle in one place for any length of time.
Eventually people would figure out who he was, no matter how he
presented himself. For the rest of his life Hunter would be in some
measure of danger. But obviously he was not willing to compromise
who he felt he truly was in order to conform to some sort of
societal norm. That, Julia could now see, took courage. And it made
her feel a measure of kinship with him.

She thought about the price she was paying
for being herself, including the dangerous situations she sometimes
found herself in. She had moved to Horse in a knee-jerk reaction to
her father’s rejection of the idea that she could go to law school.
Now that she’d been on her own for nearly two months, she could see
that it was perfect and inevitable that she was here, fending for
herself. There was no other way for her to live. Looking back at
her years as a teenager who preferred to sit with her father in his
study and discuss legal cases than drink tea and discuss baby names
and wedding gowns with the other girls in the neighborhood, she
could see that there was no way she could have ended up anywhere
but where she was. Not the town of Horse, specifically, but some
place where she was able to forge her own path without the
restrictions and compromises inherent in the traditional female
life her mother wanted for her.

She nodded and said good day as she passed
Mrs. Campbell, but her mind was elsewhere, grasping what she was
discovering to be true about herself.