Horse With No Name (8 page)

The sight of the buildings and a couple of
figures walking around gave Julia some peace. Though she was
reminded why they were there.

The three horses, eyeing the buildings and
the potential for a snack, made their way toward the little cluster
of buildings without much guidance.

The barn was much larger than the house; this
was where Gerard Anker's energy went. It was a long, low building
with a peaked roof and doors on both ends. Horses were kept here,
and equipment. The cattle that were the ranch's mainstay lived on
the land, fattening up on the sweet grasses that abounded in the
rich soil.

Merrick, Julia and Walt dismounted.

"Anker?" Merrick called.

The barn was quiet. They looked away toward
the house, which was as grand as any that Julia had ever seen at
home in New Westminster. It was like a beautiful doll house blown
up to full size. Painted bright yellow with clean white trim around
the windows and doors, it had a wide porch that ran all the way
around the building. It was three stories high, with a decorative
weather vane in the shape of a great blue heron at the mid-point of
the roofline, giving the building the impression of even more
height than it already had. The windows all glinted in the
sunlight, and the tops of the porch columns were decorated with
detailed woodwork that must have taken ages to create. The side of
the house had a large kitchen garden with a white picket fence
surrounding it and an arbor at each end. The decorative features of
the building, which had no practical use and must have taken many
man hours to build and install, all created an unmistakable
impression of wealth.

"Good heavens," Julia said under her breath
as she absorbed all there was to see.

"Mrs. Anker comes from a very wealthy
family," Merrick said.

"You don't say," Julia muttered. She took a
closer look at the weather vane. "Do I recognize your handiwork
there, Walt?"

The blacksmith looked at her out of the
corner of his eye and nodded just slightly.

A figure came out the front door onto the
porch and waved at them. Though he didn't have children in her
school Julia recognized the figure as Gerard Anker, proprietor of
the Double A Ranch.

As he got closer to them, Julia could see
that Anker was a tall man, though not as tall as Walt and Merrick.
He moved somewhat stiffly, as though his feet or ankles were
bothering him. His hairline was retreating, leaving a large and
speckled forehead in its wake. Julia had only met the man once or
twice before and was struck each time by his sparkly eyes. He
perpetually looked as though he was up to some gentle kind of
mischief.

"Gentlemen!" he called to the group, and then
wiped at his mustache with the napkin he held in one hand. "What
can I do for you? Oh, and Miss Thom. Excuse me, Miss, I didn't see
you there. Like a rose between two thorns." Anker walked straight
up to Julia and took one of her gloved hands in his and kissed her
knuckles, an old-fashioned habit and one that seemed a bit odd, but
Julia was touched.

Anker stepped back and looked at the two men,
"What can I do for you fellows today?"

Merrick spoke first. "Mr. Anker, I don't know
if you heard that there was a bit of an incident at the dance on
Saturday night?"

"The missus was saying something about that
yesterday, but I didn't catch it all. Something involving you, Miss
Thom." He nodded toward her and then looked back to Merrick.

"Miss Thom was threatened by two men that
night. Outside, near the outhouse."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Miss." Anker did
look genuinely grieved.

Merrick continued. "We get the impression
from Miss Thom's description that the men who threatened her may
have been drovers. I'm asking around, looking to speak to the men
you might have working for you, to see if Miss Thom can identify
them."

Julia could see Anker processing this
information. He rocked back on his heels and then forward again. "I
see, I see," he said. "You think it might have been some of my
men?"

"No, I don't, Mr. Anker. I don't have any
idea who it was." Merrick was moving delicately. "But what we'd
like to do is eliminate the possibility. And the only way to do
that is for Miss Thom to have a look at your drovers."

Anker thought about this for a moment. He
looked at Julia again, and then back to Merrick. Walt had stood
silently this whole time. If Anker was curious about why he was
there, he didn't ask.

Making a decision, Anker eventually said,
“Okay then. Come with me. The men happen to be close at hand
today." He turned and began walking west, away from the house and
barn. Merrick, Julia and Walt followed, leading their horses.
Merrick took the lead, walking beside Anker, while Julia and Walt
fell in behind them.

"Nervous?" Walt said after a moment.

Julia glanced at him, appreciating his
perceptiveness. "A little."

"It's good you're doing this. Despite
Merrick's objections, I think it's better this way. More
definitive."

The group was walking along a fence line and
soon came upon four men who were repairing a post. Julia's breath
caught in her throat when she saw them. They were like cutouts of
one another. Each one wiry and spare, with a wide brimmed hat on.
As Julia got closer she could see some distinguishing
characteristics; one had a russet colored mustache and beard,
another had eyes that looked in slightly different directions.

The men stopped their work and looked at the
group approaching them.

"Mr. Anker," said a man with a black beard
and small dark eyes, addressing his employer.

"Gents!" Anker began, "How are you getting
along with this fence post? Almost done?" Anker made small talk
with the men for a few minutes, easing them into the matter at
hand.

While he did so, Julia watched the men,
looking for clues that would match one or two of them to her
attack. One of the men was quite short, not much taller than Julia
herself. She eliminated him right away because the men who'd
threatened her had definitely been taller than this. The other
three, though, were possibilities. They were each the right height
and build. While they spoke to Anker, Julia listened carefully to
their voices.

Anker looked at Merrick at one point and
Merrick took over. "Gentlemen, I wonder if you could help me with
my enquiry. We're wanting to eliminate you as suspects in the
attack on Miss Thom, here," he gestured to Julia, "last Saturday
night."

The men each turned and looked at Julia. She
held their gaze but her grip on Stanley's reins tightened.

Merrick continued. "Could you each please say
your name?" He knew that the best descriptor Julia had was the
sound of her attackers' voices. "Starting with you, sir." Merrick
nodded his head at the drover with the russet beard.

In turn, each man said his name. Julia held
in her mind the event from Saturday night and tried to match it to
what she was experiencing now. When the men had finished she met
Merrick's eyes and shook her head almost imperceptibly.

"That's fine. Thank you, gentlemen." Merrick
turned to Anker, "We can leave you in peace now, Mr. Anker. Thank
you for your help."

"My pleasure, son. Anything to see the
blaggards who attacked Miss Thom brought to rights." He winked at
Julia.

As the three figures rode back to Horse,
Julia was quiet, absorbed in her own thoughts. She had been more
anxious about the task of meeting Anker’s drovers than she’d
realized. Now that the meeting was over, it brought her some peace
to know the men at the Double A were not her assailants. She felt
her shoulders begin to loosen. At the same time, there were still
lots of men on the surrounding ranches who could be the culprits.
Julia was loathe to admit to herself how much she’d been affected
by the events of Saturday night; she’d been studiously avoiding her
feelings ever since.

Now, with Merrick and Walt on either side of
her, and the quiet of the early evening surrounding them, she
recognized that the mystery of Mr. Hunter’s beating was doing an
excellent job of distracting her from her own discomfort. Though
she was horrified about what had happened to the clockmaker, she
was pleased to have a puzzle to focus her attention on. She took a
deep breath and shifted slightly in her saddle.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Merrick
watching her.

“What?” she said, turning toward him.

“I’m worried,” he said.

“Why?”

“You were looking solemn but now you’ve got
that determined expression on your face. The one that makes me so
nervous.”

“Oh good,” Julia said, smiling for the first
time since they’d left Horse. “Someone needs to keep you on your
toes, Constable. It might as well be me.”

Ten

Every day before he headed home to his cold little
house near the lake, Merrick stopped by Walt's livery to help muck
out stalls. He began with Earl's, of course, but then depending on
how many guest horses were occupying the other stalls, he helped
with those as well.

On Thursday afternoon Merrick found Walt
repairing and replacing the girth strap and some other leather on
an old saddle. He had a sawhorse in front of the livery, with the
saddle straddling it and his chair pulled up to it. Beside him, in
a basket, were spare leather parts of varying degrees of worn-ness.
The three dogs that were Walt's constant companions at the livery
were circling around, sniffing and lifting their legs on fence
posts. When Merrick approached, they came to him to say hello,
pressing themselves against his legs and thumping his calves with
their tails. They were each medium-sized, with ears that flopped
over and long tails. They were mottled with black, white, brown and
tan, and had dark, liquid eyes that lit up whenever anyone paid
them any attention. Merrick had often wondered if they were
litter-mates. All three dogs were developing winter coats. As
Merrick leaned over to pet each of them, he could feel the
thickening in their fur.

Greeting ritual complete, Merrick went into
the livery and grabbed the chair that was one of three that were
always present, close to the doorway. It used to be two chairs that
occupied the space, but Merrick noticed recently that another had
been added. He couldn't decide if he liked this development or
not.

He set the chair down with a slight thump a
few feet away from Walt's chair. One of the dogs came and put its
head in Merrick's lap so that he would stroke its ears. The big man
obliged, and the dog closed its eyes with pleasure.

The two men were quiet. Nothing was required
of Merrick in this moment and he was enjoying that feeling. Merrick
spent much of his life listening and responding to the problems of
the people around him. Walt never required him to be a police
constable.

Finally, Merrick said, "Might rain
tomorrow."

"Aye," Walt replied, hunched over, squinting
at the piece of leather he was sewing.

"We could use the rain."

"Aye."

They were quiet for a few moments more. The
dog in Merrick's lap was sated; he pulled away and went to wrestle
with one of his cronies. The two dogs gargled and gently growled at
one another while they mouthed each other's necks and bumped one
another with their chests, lifting their front paws to try to
headlock one another.

"What was your impression at the Double A
yesterday?"

Walt lifted his eyes and looked at Merrick,
his fingers tugging at a thick line of thread he was using to sew
two pieces of leather together. He looked back at his work,
thinking. Merrick waited.

Finally he spoke, answering Merrick's
question with a question, "About Anker's men?"

Merrick nodded.

"I wouldn't trust any of them as far as I
could throw them. But I didn't notice any guilt among them, if
that's what you're asking."

"It is. I didn't see any guilt in them
either. But impressions can be wrong."

"Julia didn't recognize any of them."

"No." Merrick shook his head and looked down
at his boots, thinking. "She paid close attention to their voices
but didn't notice any familiarity when they spoke."

Walt continued sewing, pushing the needle
through the leather with his thick fingers. He made sure to keep
his eyes on his work when he next spoke. "I noticed Julia convinced
you to take her with us when we went to the ranch. I didn't think
that was the plan."

Merrick grunted quietly. "It wasn't." He was
quiet now for a few moments, and it was Walt's turn to wait his
friend out. When Merrick spoke again his voice was low, almost as
though he was speaking to himself. "I find Miss Thom challenging to
deal with."

"How so?"

"Well...she pushes her way into things, like
the trip to the ranch yesterday. I haven't known her very long,
granted, but I don't think I like her very much."

Walt looked up from his work. "Really?" He
sounded skeptical. "I thought you two were getting along a bit
better."

"I wish we were," Merrick shook his head
slightly, "But she's a bit of a burr under my saddle blanket at the
moment. I can't seem to get her to understand that police business
is my affair, and that she should leave that work to me and stick
to school teaching."

Finished with his repair work, Walt stood up.
All three dogs froze and looked at him, their ears perked, eyes
alert. He picked up the sawhorse and spun it around so the opposite
side was facing him. When he sat down again to work on the leather
on this new side, the dogs relaxed and resumed wrestling. "She's
stepping on your toes."

"Aye, she is. And repeatedly." Merrick stood
up and began pacing in front of the livery. "What if every citizen
got involved like she did? What if I had people running around,
looking into cattle theft? We'd all be tripping over one another,
and I'd get nothing done. It can't be that way. I can't have other
people trying to do my job."