Four Furlongs

by C. K. Crigger

  “Very.”

  “What about the horse?”

  “No idea about him, I’m afraid. Neva says he’s safe.”

  His chest, pressed against my back, rose and fell as he chuckled. “You’re not going to tell me who this ‘trustworthy’ person is, right?”

  “Right.”

  His breath stirred my hair. “Stubborn female. I hope you’re doing the right thing.”

  “Me, too.” Nobody hoped it more than I.

  Gratton whistled to Nimble, who came running. She had to stop once or twice to sniff her favorite spots, and Grat took the opportunity to turn me around and search out my lips. Not difficult. I wasn’t exactly hiding from him.

  The kiss lingered on even when Nimble pawed at my skirt. I was breathless when Grat broke contact. There. Hadn’t I known his kisses wouldn’t hurt my lip?

  “Umm,” he said against my mouth. His voice was a sort of low growl. “Nice. We should do this more often.”

  “Yes,” I breathed. Oh, yes, please.

  “But not right now.” He set me aside, and with a soft good night, held open the door for Nimble and me to go inside. “Lock the door.”

  He waited until the tumblers had clicked over before I heard him striding off at a swift pace.

  I don’t like waking up to a messy house, so before I went to bed, I spent a few minutes emptying ashtrays, washing up our supper things, and generally tidying the apartment. Monk’s snores already threatened to raise the roof. He’d freely admitted being on his feet all the long day wore him out, and I had no fear of waking him as I went about my chores. That would’ve taken an explosion.

  Which is, according to Porter Anderson, just about what it took to rouse me at five o’clock the next morning. If shooting off a gun beneath my bedroom window qualifies as an explosion, anyway.

  When the gunfire cracked—the report bouncing from building to building in the street below—I startled awake, half leaping, half falling from the bed, drawing the blanket with me. Nimble, caught in the blanket’s folds, dropped to the floor yipping as though being slaughtered.

  “China.” I heard my name called in a hoarse voice from outside. “China Bohannon. Dang it, wake up!”

  I’d grabbed my pistol from the nightstand beside my bed, ready to do battle, before I recognized the voice. Or thought I did. Very cautiously, I crept to the side of the window and peeked around the edge. A man wearing familiar logger duds jerked about impatiently in the road below. The sparkling white bandages swathing his head in an Arabian turban gleamed beneath the waning moon.

  Not a promising start to the day.

  I raised the window. “Porter?” Nimble jumped up, front paws on the sill, to look outside with me.

  Porter saw us and waved.

  “What are you doing here?” I called softly. I still hadn’t heard Monk stir and I hoped to keep it that way. He needed his sleep. “What’s happened?”

  “Neva O’Dell, the girl you saddled me with, that’s what happened. I need to talk to you. Come down and let me in.”

  I held up a finger indicating he should wait, although he probably couldn’t see it in the dark. Feet freezing, I shivered as frosty air seeped into my otherwise cozy room. “One moment,” I said.

  “Hurry it up.”

  I closed the window and threw on a ratty old robe, one my evil stepmother, Oleatha, had bought for me in better years. Or maybe not better. It was frilly and baby girl pink, a color she knew I detested. However, the robe refused to wear out, so there you are.

  Shoving my feet into a pair of rabbit-fur-lined moccasins with beaded toes (made specially for me by a Coeur d’Alene Indian lady), Nimble and I dashed downstairs to let Porter in. Preferably before his noise brought the police down on us.

  I threw the lock, opened the door far enough for Porter to slip inside, then locked it again.

  “Got any lights in this joint?” he asked crossly as he stumbled against a chair. Feeling around, he plopped gracelessly onto its seat.

  “I do, but I’m not turning it on. I don’t want to draw any more attention than you already have. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Shooting in the street and causing a ruckus. And what happened to your head?”

  Even so, I found the kerosene lamp we keep handy due to the regular occurrence of power outages, and held a match to the wick.

  “Aren’t you going to ask if I’m badly hurt?” he demanded as soon as the room brightened.

  “You’re too loud to be badly hurt.” I’m afraid a lack of sleep caused an equal lack of diplomacy. “Although I’m sorry for the bandages. What happened? And what in the world were you shooting at just now?”

  “Nothing. I was shooting at the ground, trying to wake you up. Throwing rocks at your window didn’t work. I was beginning to think you’d been kidnapped, too.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Are you saying someone else has been kidnapped?”

  “Yeah. Me and Neva O’Dell.”

  “You were kidnapped?” I repeated. Had I heard what I thought I’d heard? “And Neva, too? Oh, no.”

  “Well, maybe not me. Not exactly. I just got thumped on the head, but she was and still is kidnapped,” he said. “I think.” He grabbed at his head and groaned a little, muttering a string of words I couldn’t quite hear. Just as well, no doubt.

  Fumbling for support, I gripped the edge of the desk. “I’m sorry, so sorry I got you into this, Porter. I never thought—” I patted his bowed shoulder. Porter is a rough-and-tumble sort of man, unaccustomed to being on the losing end of things. And to have failed to protect a girl like Neva, well, he must be devastated right now.

  “Tell me,” I said, so he did.

  Neva sneaked out the first night, too, Porter started his tale. “I heard her tiptoe past my room just before daylight. By the time I got dressed and downstairs, she’d disappeared. An hour later, she came back. Didn’t hear a peep out of her the rest of the day except when I asked what she wanted to eat. I had room service bring her meals to my room and she ate there. I went out. None of the hotel staff ever got a look at her.”

  I brushed that aside. “Did she say where she’d been?”

  Porter shook his head. “I didn’t ask.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Didn’t figure she’d tell me. She’d already said you”—he put a particular emphasis on the word you—“told her not to tell anybody where Mercury was.”

  “I did. But what made you think she went to see about Mercury?”

  “On account of the raw carrots she said she likes to munch on when she feels peckish.” He huffed. “Thought she was fooling me, but I’m telling you nobody gets that peckish for that many carrots—unless it’s a horse.”

  “Ah.”

  His shoulders lifted in a shrug.

  “So, acting like a blind fool, I had room service bring some up,” he said. “The way she grinned when she got them showed she had a scheme of some sort planned. Anyways, I made sure to be awake when she snuck off this morning, and I followed her. Right on her heels.”

  “And?” I leaned forward to hurry his story along.

  “And, after a while we got close to the river, downstream from the mills and such. Bunch of people are camping there along the bank. Pretty rocky ground to sleep on, though, if you ask me.”

  I didn’t care about rocks.

  He put a hand to his forehead and felt around. Poor man. I bet he had a raging headache.

  “So I followed her into some trees. There was a tent pitched in a clear spot between them and she headed right for it, only she didn’t go in. She stood outside and whistled like a dove. Good at it, too. Couldn’t have told her from a bird if I hadn’t been watching.” He stopped.

  After a few moments, I said again, “And?”

  His answer came slowly. “And that’s the last I saw of her. Next thing I knew I was laying on the ground with a lady winding this bandage around my head. She said I must’ve lost my footing and thumped my ‘beaner’ when I fell.”

&nbs
p; It was still quite dark in the office, but even so, I was aware of the glare he directed toward me.

  “Hit my ‘beaner’ my left toe,” he said on a wealth of disgust. “Somebody sneaked up and coldcocked me from behind. And I never heard a thing.”

  Nimble took the opportunity to leap onto his lap and lick his face. He muttered something about a “dang dog, get off,” but he didn’t mean it. I could see his hand moving over her fur, holding her steady as he petted her wiggly little body.

  I made my way around the desk to my own chair and sagged onto it. As was becoming habitual, I rested my fingers on the keys of the typewriter sitting there in front of me. “You don’t think Neva did it, hit you, I mean, do you?”

  “A little bit of a girl like her? Not likely. Besides, she was in front of me when I went down.”

  I had news for him. For a little bit of a girl, Neva, in the short time I’d known her, had survived a remarkable amount of abuse. But the fact remained, Neva couldn’t be in two places at once. “How did the lady come to find you?”

  “Said she heard me cry out.” He snorted. “Me. Cry out.”

  “Did you? Although—” I stopped, thinking.

  “Although what?”

  “Oh, nothing I guess. Cry out just seems an odd way to put it. But,” I added hastily, “she wouldn’t know you’re not crying-out kind of man. Too delicate of a word, for one thing.”

  He made a “bleh” of disgust. “Accused me of being drunk is what she did.”

  “I don’t suppose you saw anybody come out of the tent. It would be helpful to know who Neva was meeting.”

  “Didn’t see a soul,” he reiterated. “Like I said, until the lady. But you ain’t heard the best part yet.”

  “Best? You mean there’s something good?”

  “Huh. I mean funny. Funny in that I woke up in a different place than when I got bushwhacked.”

  “What? They—or someone—moved you?” Would Neva do such a thing? Could she?

  I answered the question myself. She was the most determined girl I’d ever met. She’d do most anything.

  “Yep. I’m guessing it was Neva and her friends. Anyway, I woke to no tent, no trees, no Neva. I was outside a tidy little house with a doctor’s sign in the front. The doctor was the nice lady who bandaged my head.” He frowned. “Nice even if she did figure me for a drinkin’ man.”

  “A lady doctor?” I was delighted—and sidetracked.

  Porter got me back in line. “Cracky, woman, are you even listening to me? That’s what I said.”

  “Sorry. Sorry. Let me get dressed, Porter. We’ll go back to the river and find the tent. See who’s there. We can take Nimble to warn us and I can watch your back.”

  “Already went back,” he groused. “First thing. They’d cleared out. All that’s left is ashes from their fire and a tent-sized area with most of the rocks cleared.”

  “Oh. Then we should go back to your room. Maybe she’s returned.”

  Morning was coming. Dawn light showed his pained scowl. “Do I look stupid, China? I checked there before I came here. No Neva.”

  Reaching around Nimble, he fished in his pocket and drew out a paper. “This is what I found, shoved under my door.”

  I took the note and held it close to the lamp.

  “Return the horse and the book to the O’Dells immediately,” it said, “or at noon the girl will lose her eyes.”

  22

  Neva. Whoever had written the note warned us he had Neva. And said he ... they’d ... take the sight from her beautiful eyes.

  The note fluttered to the floor from my nerveless fingers. Nimble, abandoning Porter’s lap, jumped down and sniffed it.

  She sneezed. Then again, so hard she bumped her nose on the floor and squealed. I winced. For a small dog she has a mighty voice.

  “China?” My uncle called from above. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, Uncle Monk. It’s me,” I called back, my voice quavering. “And Nimble.”

  Overhead, his feet thumped on the floor as he pulled on his boots, a sound I’d heard nearly every morning since I’d been here. The light went on at the top of the stairs. They creaked as he started down.

  Neva. My mind raced like a mouse in a maze. How can we ... I ... save Neva?

  “What’s going on?” Monk had reached the bottom landing. “What are you doing up this early? Is that dog of yours sick?”

  “No, Nimble’s not sick.” I sounded faint to my own ears.

  There we were. Me in my pink robe, Porter with his bandaged head, and Nimble with a small trickle of blood coming from her nose. Monk, entering the office, blinked his surprise at the tableau.

  “Porter? What’re ... What’s the matter?”

  The note still lay on the floor.

  “You’d better read this.” I retrieved the bit of paper as if it were poisonous and handed it to him.

  His face changed as he read. “Where’d you get this?” he asked.

  “I didn’t. Porter did.”

  “Found it stuck under my hotel room door,” Porter said.

  Monk turned his attention to Porter. “Why you?” He glared. “What happened to your head? Been scalped?”

  “Just what I’d like to know,” Porter said with an expression like he’d been eating hot, raw onions.

  Monk’s mustache did a twitchy little lift. “You don’t know if you’ve been scalped?”

  I daresay the nice lady doctor had applied enough bandages for one to see Monk’s point.

  Porter’s mood didn’t lift at Monk’s small joke. “I was answering the only question that matters,” he said stiffly. “The one about the little girl.”

  “Yeah? I didn’t hear an answer, just another puzzle.” Monk looked us over. “Well, come on up to the kitchen. All of you. Porter, you’re gonna tell me how you got involved with Neva while China puts the coffeepot on. And you—meaning you, China, and you, Porter—can explain to me what this note means.” He turned to retrace his steps. “Besides a threat to a young girl. And no cock-and-bull stories saying you don’t know. I won’t stand for it.”

  Whew. In my experience, that’s about as fierce as Monk ever becomes. On the surface, at least. I’d seen a different side to him a time or two.

  We all traipsed up to the apartment, Nimble still snuffling as I lifted and carried her tucked under my arm. Book, I was thinking. What book? What had Neva kept from me?

  Outside, the sun peeked over the top of the new brick building to our left, welcome daylight shining through the windows. Porter had already had an adventure, if one wants to call having his head bashed adventurous, and my uncle and I were done with sleep. I bustled about, tripping over the hem of my hideous robe, gathering pans and eggs and bread for breakfast. Nimble apparently decided her nose wasn’t so bad after all and trailed under my feet in anticipation of fallen tidbits.

  I didn’t disappoint her.

  Monk declared he needed his strength fortified by eating before talking. We were about halfway through a meal I merely poked at, when Gratton announced his early arrival by knocking into the coat tree in the rear hallway—same as he did every time he entered by the back door.

  Dismayed, I jumped up and dashed to my room. What would he think if he saw me wearing this awful robe, my hair unbrushed, my face unwashed? I wanted, no, needed, the confidence of presentability while enduring our next confrontation.

  I had no doubt there’d be a confrontation.

  My uncle and Porter chuckled as I departed. I didn’t care. After last night, I hated to spoil Grat’s impression of me. I wanted him to think me ... desirable. The mere thought made my innards feel itchy. But it was a cinch a tatty pink robe would do nothing to enhance the impression.

  So I brushed, I washed, I dressed in my second-best skirt of dark-blue gaberdine with a pleated ruffle at the hem. I’d made it myself and it had taken me days, but it fit well and was the right length, sometimes difficult to find in a ready-made. I wore a blue-sprigged muslin blouse and a wide belt of
blue leather with it and felt much more able to face what came next.

  More able to rescue Neva? If I had to, I would. I’d promised she’d be safe and I meant, no matter what, to keep my promise.

  After all my effort, even though he winked at me, I don’t think Grat noticed my appearance. Too busy gobbling down my abandoned breakfast, I guess. I didn’t care. In my worry about Neva, I had no appetite anyway.

  But I still craved coffee. When only empty cups remained on the table, the note came out again for Grat to read. Porter had already filled him in on the circumstances of his head, since the bandages were the first thing Grat asked about.

  Grat tapped the note on his nose as he thought. Then, in a funny sort of sequence, his eyes narrowed, his nose wrinkled, and he sneezed. Explosively. And again. And yet again.

  I snorted. Nimble stared at him before curling up for a nap on my feet.

  Eyes watering, he scowled. “Are you laughing? What’s funny?”

  “Nothing.” But I couldn’t help adding, “At least you didn’t hit your nose on the floor.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” Composing myself, I saw Porter grinning, too. His grin faded when I said, “About Neva. What are we going to do?”

  “We? You’re gonna stay out of it, China. It’s getting too dangerous.” Monk shifted in his chair and brought out one of his wretched-smelling cigars, which, in consideration of my sensibilities, he rarely smoked inside our living quarters. “As for the horse, it’s an easy answer if you ask me.” His nod included Gratton and Porter. “Give the horse back to the O’Dells. Horse for the girl. No problem.”

  “What about the book? Horse and book the note says. Are you forgetting that? And I’d agree,” I said, “if only any of you knew where Neva hid Mercury. Do you, Porter? Do you Gratton? Uncle Monk?”

  Their silence was telling.

  “All I’ve got for sure is a theory.” Porter shook his head, wincing as he did so. “But then I wouldn’t know the horse if it walked up and bit me. Neva never said a word about him, other than he was safe. That’s why I followed her this morning. And because I didn’t like her sneaking out by herself.”